Eldia (Anime)

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	After defeating the great nation of Marley, they ruled over the continent. Thus began the Dark Ages...
— Mr. Jaeger teaching young Grisha Jaeger^[1]

Eldia (エルディア Erudia^?), formerly and occasionally still referred to as the Eldian Empire,^[2]^[3] is a nation that is created and chiefly populated by the Subjects of Ymir, a race of humans who can turn into Titans. Formerly in contol of the continental mainland now inhabited by its neighbour Marley, its modern day territory is comprised solely of Paradis Island.

In ancient times, the Eldians used Titans to build their empire, slaughtering countless peoples and taking their land. Eventually, the Eldian Empire grew unstable due to internal conflicts between the families with the Power of the Titans and collapsed during the Great Titan War a century ago. Eldia lost most of its land as well as seven of the Nine Titans to a newly reborn Marley, and many Eldians retreated to their last territory, Paradis Island off from the coast of the mainland. The 145th King Karl Fritz raised the Walls to protect Eldia from Marley and the other nations of the world, and erased the memories of Eldia from the Subjects of Ymir inside.^[1]

History

Two millennia ago, a girl named Ymir Fritz gained the Power of the Titans. Her clan, the Fritz family, came to rule over her people as the royal bloodline. After Ymir Fritz passed away, her spirit, with her power, was split into the Nine Titans. These were inherited by nine of her subjects, with one receiving her role as the Founder. With their Titan powers, the Subjects of Ymir waged war against Marley, a nation of the early world, and established the Eldian Empire.

The Eldians used the Titans as weapons of mass destruction to conquer other nations, wiping out countless cultures in the process. However, the historical validity of Eldian attacks against Marley are a matter of debate.^[1]

Eventually, the Eldians ran out of enemies and began fighting each other. The eight of the nine houses with the Nine Titans remained in a state of conflict, but the Fritz family maintained order with the Founding Titan.

After 1,700 years, the Founding Titan came into the possession of Karl Fritz, the 145th King. The King believed that Eldia's sins cannot be atoned for and that Eldians and Titans should not have existed in the first place. He pitied the Marleyans and devised a plan alongside the Tybur family, the keepers of the War Hammer Titan, to end the Eldian rule. The King abandoned the internal conflicts, and without the Founding Titan to keep order, the Eldian Empire collapsed. The Eldians fought and weakened themselves during the Great Titan War, while the King and the Tybur family presented the legend of Helos, a Marleyan hero who joined with the Tybur family to defeat the King. The Tybur family fought to restore Marley in the war; other noble families would evidently follow suit. They succeeded and Marley gained seven of the Nine Titans as a result. The King moved the capital to Paradis Island, Eldia's last remaining territory, and gathered as many Eldians he could on the island.^[1]

Karl Fritz used the Founding Titan to erase the memories of the Subjects of Ymir

On Paradis Island, the King used the Founding Titan to cause Colossal Titans to form three concentric Walls around their territory: Maria, Rose, and Sina. Afterwards, Karl Fritz used the Founding Titan once more to erase the Subjects of Ymir's memory of the Great Titan War and all of history before the raising of the Walls. For the next century, the Subjects of Ymir in Paradis Island lived on in peace, unaware of their past conflicts, their history as the Eldians, and the world outside the Walls.^[4]^[1]

On the mainland, the Eldians who did not flee to Paradis Island were conquered by Marley. Marley spared these Eldians, who became second-class citizens. They were forced to reside within internment zones, such as Liberio's, 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 "Devil of All Earth." Any Eldians accused of committing wrongdoing against the Marleyans were sent to "Paradise" and turned into Pure Titans, doomed to wander for eternity and devour other Eldians.^[1]

However, some Eldians attempted to resist and restore Eldia. The remaining members of the Fritz family still on the mainland led a revolutionary army against Marley, but the army was crushed and its members were executed. Others, such as Grisha Jaeger, met together in secret, plotting to venture to Paradis Island and retrieve the Founding Titan in order to restore the Eldian nation.^[1]

Society

Ancient Eldia

In the 1,700 years between Ymir Fritz's death and the Great Titan War, the Eldian Empire divided into various noble 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.^[1]

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 in Liberio, with Subjects of Ymir as a potential selection of Titan weapons. However, many who are aware of this contingency oppose it, believing that it would be better to exterminate the Eldians in order to rid the world of the Titans altogether.^[1]

On occasion, Eldians can be given permission to exit the internment zone with special permits distributed by the Marley Public Security. Furthermore, all Eldians both within the internment zone and beyond in Marley territory are required to wear armbands denoting them as Eldian when appearing in public.^[5]^[1]^[6] Even the Warriors are required by law to wear their armbands at all times, though those who receive the power of the Titans are granted special red armbands to denote their status, as honorary Marleyans.^[7] Families of these Warriors also receive red bands.^[7] In comparison to the Warriors and their families who wear red armbands, normal Eldian civillians wear the standard brownish gray armband, and Eldian soldiers and Warrior Candidates wear gray and yellow armbands respectively.^[8] 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.

A Subject of Ymir's devotion towards Ymir shows even in Titan form

Besides resistance movements, other secret Eldian organizations included a cult dedicated to the worship of Ymir Fritz, the first Titan 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 Marley Public Security, in which the cult's leader turned against Ymir without hesitation, and all were exiled to the borderline of Paradis Island as Pure 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.^[9]

Because they are treated as second-class citizens, many young Eldians strive to join the Warrior program in order become Honorary Marleyans. These Eldians also serve as potential candidates to inherit the Power of the Titans under Marley's control.^[1]

Paradis Island

When the Eldian Empire was isolated to the Walls on Paradis Island off the east coast of the continental mainland, Karl Fritz made use of the Founding Titan to force his subjects to believe they were the last remnants of the human race in a world overrun by Titans. The Fritz monarchy remained as the royal family over Eldia, however they went into hiding as the Reiss family while a pretender bloodline was placed upon the throne under the Fritz name.^[10]

Members of the Ackermann family inside the Walls

Other Eldian races unrelated to the Subjects of Ymir also lived within their new territory, such as the Oriental clan. Due to the nature of the Founding Titan, these bloodlines interfered with King Fritz's plan for a perfect peace. Most of these bloodlines complied with King Fritz's orders keeping silent concerning the history of the world beyond the Walls, becoming the nobility within the interior of Eldia's new territory, however the Ackermann family along with the mysterious Oriental clan objected to the King's ideology and rebelled. Both 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.^[11]

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 Interior Police, the elite force within Eldia's Military Police Regiment, who received orders directly from the monarch of Eldia. Due to this restriction of progress, Eldian technologically would fall behind the rest of the world as the decades passed.^[10]

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 Scout Regiment, 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.^[12]

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.^{[citation needed]}

Paradis Island Technology

The firearms used by the military of Paradis Island 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.^{[citation needed]} Part of the reason was due to the restrictions on technological progress which the Interior Police secretly enforced, including advancements in firearms, with two of the advancements that were suppressed being the development of revolvers and metallic bullet cartridges. The Scout Regiment 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. Later, Thunder Spears became standard issue equipment for anti-Titan warfare.

One of the most sophisticated pieces of technology the Walls use is the omni-directional mobility gear. 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.^[13]

Transportation within the Walls is derived primarily from horses. Furthermore, sail-less boats guided by pulleys and rails connect some districts by river, such as the boats providing transport between Shiganshina District and Trost District.^[14]

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 initially know about, as Eren Jaeger, Mikasa Ackermann, Hange Zoë and Levi Ackermann are not able to identify what a photograph is without Grisha's note written on the backside.^[5]