Rise of Yazdean Nationalism
Ardeshīr Savārāni's coup of 3572 put an end to the 500-year-old Third Republic of Aldegar, replacing it with an authoritarian nationalist monarchy, bent on restoring an idealized past based on the traditions of the ancient Kemokian Empire. The fact that the seemingly stable and enduring Aldegarian republic was so quickly and easily overthrown should not, however improbable it may appear, come as a surprise to anyone. The cooperation of the military and clergy in installing the House of Savārāni on the Aldegarian throne and introducing Yazdism as a state religion is the culmination of a long trend of resurgence of Yazdean belief during the past centuries, and of the rise of a religious nationalist self-identification of Aldegarians. Indeed, if one were to closely examine the national character of Aldegar, one would find two competing and mutually exclusive cultural and national tendencies, both equally part of the nation's identity. The traditionalist, archaizing, and religious nationalist impulses associated with the majority Ahadi denomination and which gave birth to the current regime are in conflict with the opposite, universalist and pacifist tendency, the core of which is found within the Zamāni heresy, and which served as the cultural and religious basis for the democratic and secular republicanism that dominated Aldegar's political life for five centuries. The Savārāni coup, then, is the result of the traditionalistic and nationalistic impulses of Aldegarian identity gaining the upper hand, subduing the Third Republic's universalism after a long struggle that included the rise of such political movements as Kurosh Salehi's Yazdean Alliance, the Imperial Assembly of Aldegar, or the recent but short-lived Hirinid regime.
Now that the Ahadi nationalist trend emerged victorious, we are likely to witness a more aggressive and imperialist Aldegarian foreign policy, one dedicated to the restoration and revival of the glorious Aldegarian empires of old, and equally motivated by national and religious considerations. For in the eyes of the Yazdean nationalist ideology that serves as the young Shahdom's political orthodoxy, all lands outside Aldegar are under the reign of dorugh, meaning the chaos, falsity, and disorder that are the creation of the evil divinity Duzakh, and it is the duty of all Aldegarians, who are considered Yazdeans by definition, to restore asha, i.e. truth and order, to the entire world. This is the goal of the throne and altar alliance governing Aldegar, and now that this new national focus has the support of the armed forces, we may see significant changes in the balance of powers in Seleya.