Eldia

Erudia (エルディア) is the nation occupied by the Subjects of Ymir (ユミルの民), often referred to as Eldians. The people of Eldia are said to be the only humans capable of turning into Titans, a trait which was despised in them in later history. In ancient history they dominated the world, until a century ago when the Great Titan War isolated many of their people onto the island of Paradis within the Walls where the 145th Fritz King had fled.

History
Nearly 2,000 years before the battle of Trost District, a girl by the name of Ymir Fritz came across the "source of all organic material", and through it she gained the Power of the Titans. Her family, the Fritz family, came to rule over the Eldians as their royal family. After 13 years, Ymir Fritz died, and her power was split between nine inheritors, with the chief among them inheriting her role as the Founding Titan. With their Titan powers, the nine Titans waged war against Marley, an empire of the early world, and came to rule their continent.

After conquering the Marleyan people, the Subjects of Ymir established a new nation by the name of Eldia. Eventually, the eight Titans became a matter of conflict between the families subservient to the Fritz family, who began to fight amongst each other. However, the power of the Founding Titan always maintained order throughout the lands of Eldia.

After 1,700 years, the Founding Titan came into the possession of the 145th King of the Fritz family. The King chose to abandon the conflict on the mainland in favor of moving the capital of Eldia to the remote island of Paradis. At this time, the surviving people of Marley rose up against Eldia, beginning the Great Titan War in which Eldia lost its territory on the continental mainland. During this time, the Marleyans managed to steal seven of the nine Titans of Eldia, drastically turning the tide of their conflict. When Paradis had become Eldia's last remaining territory, the King gathered all the Eldians he could on the island. On the island of Paradis, the King used the Founding Titan to cause Colossus Titans to form three concentric Walls around their territory: Maria, Rose, and Sheena. Afterwards, the 145th Fritz King, now known as the First Reiss King, used the Founding Titan once more to erase the Eldians' memory of the Great Titan War and all of history before the raising of the Walls. For the next century, the Eldians of Paradis lived on in peace, unaware of their past conflicts or their history as the Subjects of Ymir.

The Eldians who did not flee overseas to Paradis were in the end conquered by the Marleyans, but were spared. These Eldians became low-class citizens, forced to reside within the Liberio Internment Zone separate from the Marleyan population. Marley used their new influence to spread slander of the Eldian Empire, claiming they had resorted to eugenics against the other races of the world for 1,700 years and that Ymir Fritz had gained her power from the "Earth Devil". Any Eldians accused of committing wrongdoing against the Marleyans were turned into mindless Titans, doomed to wander the lands of Paradis searching for human food. Some Eldians such as Grisha Yeager, however, met together in secret, plotting to venture to Paradis and retrieve the Founding Titan in order to bring back the nation of Eldia.

Ancient Eldia
In the 1,700 years between the death of Ymir Fritz and the start of the Great Titan War, the Eldian Empire was evidently divided into various houses, each possessing one or more inheritors of the Nine Titans which split from Ymir's "soul". These houses warred against each other within the Eldian Empire, though conflicts in the Empire were nonetheless maintained with the power of the Founding Titan held by the Fritz family, the royal house. Having essentially conquered the known world, the other nations of the world such as Marley held a hatred against the Subjects of Ymir and wished for their extermination.

Marley
After having lost the Great Titan War, the Eldians descended from those who remained on the continental mainland are regarded as low-class citizens by the nation of Marley, considered "filthy-blooded" and inhuman. Eldians are segregated from the main population into the designated areas such as the Liberio Internment Zone as a potential selection of Titan weapons in the event that the Marley government obtains the Founding Titan. Eldians in these internment zones evidently possess no system of currency. However, many who are aware of this contingency oppose it, believing that it would be better to exterminate the Eldians with or without the Founding Titan in order to rid the world of the Titans altogether.

On occasion, Eldians can be given permission to exit the internment zone with special permits distributed by the Public Security Authorities. Furthermore, all Eldians both within the internment zone and beyond in Marley territory are required to wear special armbands denoting them as Eldian when appearing in public. Even the Titan Warriors, whose family are promoted to be a Marleyean, still live in the Interment Zone, and the Warriors themselves are not above the armband law. Most Eldians seem content with this existence, though on numerous occasions resistance forces had been organized in order to restore the Eldian Empire, though all known attempts have failed. Besides resistance movements, other secret Eldian organizations included a cult dedicated to the worship of Ymir Fritz, the matriarch of Eldia and a goddess in the eyes of several of her subjects. The followers of this cult were fanatic in nature to the point of resorting to worshiping a homeless girl by the name of "Ymir", though the leader of said cult seemed to lead the group only for profit. Eventually, the cult was discovered and captured by the Public Security Authorities, in which the cult's leader turned against Ymir without hesitation, and all were exiled to the borderline of Paradis as mindless Titans. However, their devotion to their goddess was strong enough to cause one follower to display great reverence even in Titan form to a soldier who resembled Ymir.

Beside being treated as second-class citizen and cheap labor, many young Eldians who have joined the warrior program are being used as expandable soldiers for Marley's wars. As the result, most these young Eldian are hugely devoted to the cause of Marley, despite the majority of the Eldian population facing heavy oppression. These warriors also serve as potential candidates for inheriting the powers of the Titans.

Paradis
When the Eldian Empire was isolated to the Walls on the island of Paradis off the east coast of the continental mainland, King Fritz made use of the Founding Titan in order to lead his subjects to believe they were the last remnants of the human race in a world overrun by the Titans. The Fritz monarchy remained as the royal family over Eldia, however for the security of the Founding Titan the royal family went into hiding as the Reiss family while a pretender bloodline was placed upon the throne under the Fritz name. Early on in Eldia's history within the Walls, other races evidently arrived within their new territory such as the Ackerman family and the Asian clan, peoples of non-Eldian descent. Due to the nature of the Founding Titan, these bloodlines interfered with King Fritz's plan for perfect peace. Some of these bloodlines complied with King Fritz's orders to keep silent concerning the history of the world beyond the Walls, becoming the nobility within the interior of Eldia's new territory, however others such as the Ackerman family and Asian clan objected to the King's ideology and rebelled. These bloodlines were subjected to extermination, and those who survived fled into hiding in places such as the Underground beneath Eldia's capital of Mitras or in the isolated wildernesses beyond the towns.

As an additional measure to ensure the Eldians within the Walls would never be able to venture beyond them without authorization, the Royal Government placed firm restrictions on the technological progress that could be achieved by the craftsmen and engineers of Eldia. Those who broke this regulation would be secretly targeted by the First Interior Squad, the elite force within Eldia's Military Police Brigade who received orders directly from the monarch of Eldia. Due to this restriction of progress, Eldia would fall behind technologically with Marley over the decades.

A majority of the Eldians within the Walls are content with their isolated existence under the King's rule. Those who desired to see humanity's territory reclaimed would join the Survey Corps, the military branch authorized to exit the Walls periodically, though many civilians considered the act of leaving the Walls to be a foolish and wasteful gesture. Cuisine within the Walls appears to consist of basic meals such as bread, smoked meats, grilled fish, alcohol, soups, stews, and apparently canned food, though meats have been designated as a rarity after the fall of Wall Maria.

Information is spread throughout the territory within the Walls through various newspapers such as the Berg Newspapers. However, until the coup d'état which overthrew the old system of government, the newspaper industry was heavily influenced by government interference, disallowing the publication of any information which conflicted with the motives of the government. Information is at times also spread through the merchants' association, which as its name implies gathers information solely from civilian merchant groups such as the Reeves Company. Before the overthrowing of the government, it was at a civilian's discretion whether to trust the official word of the government or the hear-say of the merchants.

Paradis Technology
The firearms used by the military of Paradis are based on the flintlock mechanism, where a piece of flint ignites the gunpowder and fires the gun, which must be reloaded after every shot. These come in the form of muskets, pistols, buckshot rifles, hand cannons, and flintlock sniper rifles. The firearm technology has not progressed much as guns were proved ineffective against the Titans. The Survey Corps and the Garrison also use flare guns to communicate over long distances. Furthermore, cannons line the top of the Walls. While each one originally had its own track so it could be pushed to the outer edge or the inner edge, tracks were later laid along the entire Wall to connect them all and enabled them to be pushed to different positions.

One of the most sophisticated pieces of technology the Walls use is the vertical maneuvering equipment. The advances needed for the system to work include steel wire, compressing gas under pressure derived from iceburst stone, and blades made of ultrahard steel, a substance which can only be manufactured in the blast furnaces of the factory city. Transportation within the Walls is derived primarily from horses. Furthermore, sailless boats guided by pulleys and rails connect some districts by river, such as the boats providing transport between Shiganshina District and Trost District.

Other forms of basic technology have been shown to exist within the Walls, such as pocket watches, pulley-based lifts, metallic water pumps, and the printing press. Photography is not something that the people inside the Walls know about, as Eren Yeager, Mikasa Ackerman, Hange Zoë and Levi Ackerman are not able to identify the photo of Grisha, Dina, and Zeke Yeager without Grisha's note written on the backside.

After 4 years of raiding, sinking and salvaging scout ships and destroyers sent by the Marley, the technology level within the Wall is considered to be on pair with the Marley from their effort in reverse-engineering captured Marley weapons.

Titans and the Paths
For reasons unknown, the Subjects of Ymir are the only humans capable of transforming into Titans. Those of half-Eldian descent such as Reiner Braun also inherit this unique attribute, though it is unknown how much Eldian heritage is required for a partially Eldian individual to acquire such Eldian traits. In ancient times, Eldians turned into Titans were used as unstoppable weapons, though after the Great Titan War all Titans seem to exist only on the island of Paradis, excluding the seven intelligent Titans taken by Marley in the war, and the Attack Titan, which does not fall in Marley's hands.

The Power of the Titans stems from an abstract phenomena referred to only as "paths invisible to the eyes". Through these unseen paths transcending both time and space, the organic material which makes up the body of a Titan is sent to its user. Since Ymir Fritz was the first of all Titans, it is likely that the paths from which the organic matter originates may be the "source of all organic material" which she found 2,000 years ago.

The paths also act as a fail-safe for the "Curse of Ymir", which prevents holders of Titan power from keeping their power for longer than the 13 years Ymir Fritz held her Titan power. If the holder of an intelligent Titan dies before their Titan can be inherited, the power of that Titan follows the unseen paths and is reborn into an Eldian child, with distance and blood relation playing no factor into which child is born with the power. Furthermore, the paths are capable of sending memories or willpower from one individual to another across time and space, even backwards in time. In this region beyond physical space, all paths linked to the Eldians coordinate at the Founding Titan, the Titan which has full power over the memories and willpower of the Eldians.

Ancient Eldia
Presumably since the days of Ymir Fritz, Eldia has run on a monarchy with the Fritz family acting as the royal bloodline over the Subjects of Ymir. However, due to the nature of the "Curse of Ymir", no monarchs could rule over Eldia for longer than the 13 years allowed for holders of the Power of the Titans. Based on the succession rituals of the later Reiss family, it is likely that in ancient times successors were chosen around every 13 years, and succession could occur in a non-linear fashion, as was the case with Uri Reiss and his niece Frieda in later years.

Outside of the Fritz bloodline, the remaining eight Titans were kept within various families subservient to the monarchy. Conflict frequently arose between the houses, though the exact influences each had over Eldia as a whole is unknown.

Marley
While under the authority of Marley, the people of Eldia held no political influence in the nation, being segregated into internment zones separate from the population. The only government information received by the Eldians of Marley came through public announcements or secret information sent from spies such as "the Owl".

Paradis
When the last remnants of Eldia after the Great Titan War were isolated within the Walls, the Royal Government served as the head of power throughout the land. The main body of the Royal Government consisted of the monarch of the Walls as well as an assembly of noblemen subservient to the monarch. However, soon after the founding of the Walls, the 145th King of the Fritz family took his family into hiding under the new name of the "Reiss family", playing the role of a house of nobles in Wall Sheena. While in hiding, the Reiss family would still communicate with the assembly while a false monarch held the public throne.

Politics and Diplomacy
Little can be said of the diplomacy of the Eldian Empire in ancient times, due to slander spread by the Marley government after the war. After the Empire's downfall at the hands of Marley, the Eldians of the continental mainland held no political positions of power, with the exception of "the Owl", an Eldian spy within the Marleyan Public Security Authorities.

As King Fritz had wanted, the Eldians of Paradis who lived within the Walls made no interactions with any nation of the outside world, believing themselves to be the last surviving remnants of humanity in a world conquered by the Titans.

Ancient Eldia
Very little can be said of the military possessed by the Eldian Empire in the days before the building of the Walls. Evidently, the Nine Titans under Eldia's control played a great part in the nation's conquering of the known world centuries ago. These Titans may have served as leaders or commanders for ground infantry in ancient times, as portrayed in the history books in Marley. Furthermore, the Founding Titan was able to command armies of "pure Titans" on the battlefield, with great destructive potential. While nothing is known exactly of the Eldian military at the time of the Great Titan War, it is highly likely that its technology would be comparable or equal to that of the military of the Eldians who would live within the Walls by the end of the war, since technological advancement was suppressed by the Royal Government after the raising of the Walls.

Marley
After the downfall of the Eldian Empire and the rise of Marley on the continental mainland, the Eldians under Marleyan rule ceased to have a standing military, but they did make organized attempts to fight off their new rulers. At some point in Eren Krueger's childhood, an Eldian revolutionary army was raised by the remnants of the Fritz royal family remaining on the mainland. However, it was unable to withstand the Marleyan onslaught and was utterly crushed. All its members, including Krueger's parents, were executed by being burnt alive.

In Grisha Yeager's youth, open rebellion had become a thing of the past. Militant-minded Eldians largely went underground or chose to continue the fight by infiltrating the ranks of Marley's government and military force. Most of the Eldians of Marley, as low-class citizens, would have no possession of serious military power until the time of the warrior program, where Eldian children were given the opportunity to inherit the seven Titans in possession of the Marley government.

Paradis
After the raising of the Walls, the Eldians of Paradis possessed a three-branch military with each branch serving specific functions: the Garrison, which safeguards and reinforces the three Walls; the Survey Corps, who venture beyond the Walls into Titan territory as a means of researching the Titans; and the Military Police Brigade, which exercises control and order over the citizens of the Walls. The latter-most branch is a position of privilege available only to the top ten graduates of each yearly Training Corps.

Ilse's Notebook
In the year 848, Ilse Langnar of the Survey Corps became the last surviving soldier of the left flank of the 2nd brigade during the 34th Expedition, lost in Titan territory within Wall Maria. With her vertical maneuvering equipment broken and horse missing, she chose to record her experiences as she made her way north toward Wall Rose. During her journey, she is caught by a Titan who forces her back against a tree but refrains from eating her. The Titan speaks to her, first believing her to be "a subject of Ymir" before mistaking her for "Lady Ymir" herself. Ilse attempts to communicate with the Titan while taking notes, asking what it is, where it comes from, and, after losing her composure, furiously asks why they eat humans. The Titan only responds with pained moaning and later starts ripping off its cheeks when Ilse screams at it. When she attempts to flee, the Titan catches her and crushes her head between its jaws, but does not consume her body. Her notebook and remains were discovered a year later by Hange Zoë and Levi Ackerman.

Return to Shiganshina arc
Upon finally reaching the basement in the Yeager family household in Shiganshina, the Survey Corps discovers three of Grisha Yeager's books, describing all his knowledge of the history of Eldia and his own experiences in joining the Eldian resistance in Marley. These findings are later discussed in a meeting between the surviving members of the Survey Corps as well as the highest military leaders, where the nation of the Walls is acknowledged by its people as Eldia for the first time in over a century.

Trivia

 * The history of Marleyans and Eldians is comparable with that of the populations of  and . By 1700, the Rwandan populace coalesced into around eight kingdoms, of which the Tutsi Kingdom of Rwanda became dominant and oppressed the Hutu, fueling a hard relationship between the two races that lasted for centuries. In 1994, during the, the then Hutu majority government perpetrated a  which resulted in the extermination of around 70% of the Tutsi population.
 * Rwanda was also a territory from 1884 until.
 * The technology of the Eldians within the Walls appears to roughly correspond with the technology of pre- or early Industrial civilization in the Western world.
 * If turned upside-down and mirrored, the territories of ancient Eldia and Paradis are very similar to the real life continental territory of and the island of, respectively.
 * Marley's placement in an alternate Africa also coincides with the Rwanda parallelism, as Rwanda is a country within the mainland of Africa some distance northwest of Madagascar. When turned upside-down and mirrored, Rwanda is at the southwest, and it is said that Titans primarily target the southern regions of the Walls.

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