Sirideain's History of Sosaria

Xorinia       One can hardly complain for lack of sources on the history of our land - Britannia, or Sosaria.  I do believe, however, that the time calls for a unified and concise account to attempt a reconciliation of often conflicting theories, as well as allay the daunting prospect of reviewing each detailed encounter for those who wish only a bird's-eye view.  Many equally credible sources are, in their key points, wholly irreconcilable though purporting to explain the same events.  I cannot tell which sources are more to be believed, but what I have attempted is to create from the facts and stories at hand a cohesive narrative thread consistent with as many of my sources as can be accomplished.  To this end, I offer the following.  Please bear in mind that I pretend no authority greater than that derived from my long study of these matters.
- Sirideain               


Table of Contents
  1.    Ancient History to the Shattering of the Gem
  2.    Ilshenar
  3.    Rise of the Britannian Kingdom
  4.    Shattered Legacy
  5.    Revenge of the Enchantress (work in progress)
  6.    Downfall to Power (work in progress)

An OOC Foreword

    There have been many histories written about the Ultima setting, but few have been completely satisfactory.  First of all, I do not know of any compilation that spans the entire history from pre-Zog to the Age of Shadows.  Most begin with the release of UO, or at best the shattering of the Gem.  The sheer weight of text in the BNN archive is difficult to manage and doesn't often consider the big picture.  More importantly, it begins in medias res.  For the timeframe before the start of UO, the history of the Ultima Online shards is very different in many respects from the single player Ultimas.  While there is a lot of crossover, histories from a single-player perspective don't fill in all the blanks.  I have written this history in order to bring everything into one place.  The sources I've used range from the unquestionably canon BNN articles, through NPC conversation text, eyewitness accounts of quests, analogies to the single player games, and when needed, my own speculation.

    The period between Armageddon and the start of UO was the most problematic because of the lack of canon sources.  For that section I have relied a great deal on Former Seer Ironwolf's "Esidin Project."  Writing pre-shattering history was off-limits to the seers, but the existence of a culture like Esidin is pretty much required by the U3 documentation, which says the Ancient Liturgy of Truth was passed down for thousands of years (setting its origin before the shattering.)  Although the Esidin history never became official canon, it was the most complete vision of pre-shattering history that meshed with canon.  For the most part, Esidin's post-shattering history is corroborated by analogous events in the single-player timeline (e.g., Lord Robere's rebellion, civil war in Moon, etc.) 

    In certain cases I have diverged from Esidin's account post-shattering.  In some cases, this was to remain compatible with canon events that happened after Esidin was written.  In other cases, I bypassed events that were, in my opinion, improbable or overly complicated (casting a spell to create Dagger Isle, Magincia embargoing the world.)

    The other problematic sections occurred where canon contradicted itself.  A big example of this is the introduction of the Juka and Meer, whose art had to be adapted into UO against all consideration of fictional consistency.  First of all, it contradicted the cardinal rule of UO fiction, which was that the shards had no independent history before the shattering.  Secondly, it pre-empted any exploration of the original Ilshenar fiction, and to top it all off it was incompatible with UO2's version of the Juka and Meer.  It's for just that sort of situation that a history like this is needed to put the pieces back together, and I'm quite pleased with the level of internal consistency that was possible.

    Although I have not shied away from filling in some missing pieces myself, some blank spaces are just too large to neatly fill.  Two of these are the histories of the Lost Lands and of Malas.  There's really too little to go on with Malas, but I have some ideas for the Lost Lands to revisit sometime in the future.  Regardless, it could only be wholesale invention of new material.

    I'm open to alternate interpretations of anything I've presented here, and I invite anyone to e-mail me your thoughts.  My address is sirideain at myrealbox.com