Lore
ATTENTION Everything here, although canon to Limarusian lore, did NOT occur in real life as Minecraft was created in 2009. So please do not sue the server for anything here!
Before 1761
Lipan (then called Ila'ila) was a small fishing village on the northeastern coast of Borneo, and Emmaru is still a jungle. The Lipanese mainly spoke the Lipanese language, a now-extinct language that was driven out by English and other languages that influenced the area later.
1761
The British came and reestablished Lipan as a trading port to facilitate trade. Lipan was seen as an extremely strategic location as it was near most colonies in the area. At that time, countries would only trade with themselves, so most ships calling at Lipan were from British India.
1777
An ethnic Lipanese economist, Ikala, saw the potential in Lipan's trading industry as a way to become rich. He established an underground trading company to trade with the Spanish Philippines and the Dutch East Indies. Soon, his company became the number one company to source items from other countries.
Ikala was also great at hiding. Since his company participated in illegal trade, there were many times he had to go into hiding. This hiding-and-trading strategy later became the most widely used military strategy of the Limarusian Armed Forces.
1819
Sir Stamford Raffles founded Singapore, which made Lipan less significant in terms of location. Soon, almost full autonomy was given to the region, giving rise to many criminal organisations. However, it also spread a wave of new politics. Soon, the British allowed a coalition of five local political parties to rule the now semi-autonomous region, which helped to regain law and order in the region. However, Lipan was already very westernised by this point, with most people speaking mainly English instead of Lipanese. The new coalition decided that the British were superior, thus killing the traditional culture even further. By the 1830s, the few remnants of Lipanese culture had completely disappeared, giving Lipan the nickname, "Little London". Many Lipanese people adopted English names. Soon, the line between the British and Lipanese had been blurred so much that there was no longer much of a difference. It was around this time when the port-town was renamed "Lipan" in the Lipanese language, which means "Eastern coast".
c. 1870s
The westernisation of Japan brought in a wave of Japanese people who started to settle in the United States and Lipan. This saw the expansion of Lipan southwards and westwards, into Eighthshire (now Yachiyo), Archway (now Sakae) and Middleton (now Nakano). New towns also sprung up in Tsurumai and Tennoji (now Shortwood). Unlike the previous gridlike pattern of Lipan, these new towns were planned by the Lipanese government, who planned the towns according to needs, thus there was no longer a gridlike pattern in these new towns. However, tensions rose between the Lipanese and the Japanese, resulting in the Japanese building a new town centre down south. This was also largely due to another wave of migration, this time from the Philippines.
1897
1897 saw another wave of migration, this time from the United States. At this time, Lipan was largely free from the control of the British. The people from the United States also settled in the south, giving places names as they expanded. The island (now Enshima) that they settled on was named New Manhattan, the main road (now Emmachi Boulevard/Nihombashi) Broadway, and the city centre's living quarters (now Emmachi) Washington. New Manhattan had its own government and had a separate identity from Lipan. New Manhattan's driving side was also formally fixed to the right, previously having varied from town to town.
1900
At this time, the only railway company operating in both colonies was Lipan Railways, owned by a British businessman. Opened in 1869, it ran a single line from Norden to Lipan's West End (East End on the Minecraft server). It soon expanded to serve Lipan Port and many other places.
New Manhattan and its surrounding areas, however, had two competing railway companies, Koigawa Railways and Washington Railways (now Emmaru Railways). Koigawa Railways (KGR) was operated by an American businessman and it was right-hand traffic. It operated two lines, one from Kamihama, a mining town, to Third Avenue (later Sanjo, now defunct) railway station and another from Second Avenue (now Nijo) railway station up Mount Estlong (now Higashiyama). Washington Railways (WR, then ER, then ET) was operated by a Japanese businessman and it was left-hand traffic (and also ran on 1067mm gauge!). It operated a single line between Mount Estlong and Portland Street, turning around at Washington Grand Central (now Emmaru Central) station.
c. 1920s
While the KGR focused on accessibility, the WR focused on speed. WR's tunnel through present-day Higashiyama made it the preferred railway when touring the mountain. WR had planned to extend the railway southwards from present-day Higashiyama station, but soon realised it lacked the funds to do so. Meanwhile, the KGR's Kamihama-Sanjo railway business was booming. As a result, KGR decided to expand to WR's Washington Grand Central station (and close Sanjo station). This suddenly made WR more popular for those living in Fukuno and Portland Street, having previously relied on the faster trams (also run by KGR to this day) to get to Sanjo station. This, in turn, saved WR from collapsing.
1929
Due to the Great Depression, both Lipan's and New Manhattan's economy, which mainly relied on trade, fell into ruins.
Despite the bad economy, a new airline, Lipan and Washington Airways, opened this year.
1940
As New Manhattan saw Japan as an emerging threat, they decided to plan for possible conflict and try to avoid armed conflict as much as possible. Meanwhile, Lipan went the opposite way and trained up its military in preparation for conflict with Germany. A politician from Fukuno, Morita Takahashi, suggested that New Manhattan and the surrounding areas of Kingsway (now Yokohama) and New Brooklyn (now Tennoji) should be annexed by Japan. On 23 June 1940, New Manhattan was renamed Enshima, and its surrounding territories Tennoji and Yokohama, signalling the start of Japanese rule. All towns, with the exception of Portland Street and Washington, were renamed to what they are today. However, right-hand traffic prevailed.
Soon, it was found out that Washington had a strong connection to the United States and a meeting was set up to decide the new name of the city. However, the meeting ended with no result. Emmaru Shimbun, the leading newspaper at that time, jokingly placed two circles in place of the city's name, giving rise to the name "Marumaru", which was later adopted, albeit with a different pronunciation ("Emmaru"). (In the English version of Emmaru Shimbun, two squares were placed instead, giving rise to the name "Squareton", which later fell out of use.)
1941
Japanese rule quickly fell out of favour with the Emmarusians. Slowly, two underground factions, the communists and the unitarists, opposing Japanese rule rose. The unitarists made it a point to unite with Lipan to form a united entity once Japanese rule ended. However, since the Japanese placed the Lipanese in Emmaru as second-in-charge, the unitarists were not popular. The communists, on the other hand, promised to put Emmaru into a better future where oppression became a thing of the past. Although not popular with half of the population, especially Americans, the communists were still relatively more popular than the unitarists.
1942
Japan decided to use Emmaru as a base to invade Lipan. This, however, was met with strong opposition from everyone, including the soldiers themselves. In the end, only Eighthshire, later renamed to Yachiyo, was invaded. However, this still did not sit well with anyone, thus the Communists, Unitarists and the Lipanese government sought to overthrow the current government in Emmaru. This was easily completed by January 1943, with a new united government formed from a coalition of communists, unitarists and the original Lipanese government. Morita Takahashi was fired from his job as a minister of parliament, although he came back to politics in 1953. The country, now called the "Federation of the Union of the States of Lipan and the Union of the States of Emmaru", had been born.
Days after 1942
The communist-unitarist government sided with the Allied powers and helped to prevent more invasions from other countries using brutal war tactics that stopped many invasions, albeit losing many men and women in the meantime (The newly formed Limaru did not have enough men to stop many invasions, thus women were also drafted into the war effort). However, the government did not last for long. From 1943 to 1945, Limaru lost over 60% of its population but never got annexed. In the end, Limaru had a victory in the war, but since the costs of the war were too much, victory day became a taboo topic in everyday conversations.
1948
Limaru had its first election in 1948 as a way to divert the population's thoughts away from the war. Strangely enough, all parties in the government before 1948 decided that they should not run for a second term, thus all of them dissolved. In this election, all candidates were youth parties, consisting of mainly youths. This time, none of the candidates had a majority, thus resulting in a very split government as all parties only had one or two seats. Due to the turnout, the parties decided to merge, resulting in two large big tent parties.
1969
Nothing significant happened until 1969. This was the year where Washington Railways, now Emmaru Railways, decided to try a new form of train, a fully automatic train. This new train line ran from Emmaru Central to Sakurami Town, and then looped back to Emmaru Central facing the other direction. Dubbed the "Automatic Line", this line became very popular with residents living in Hanemiya and Minami, who previously had to take a bus to their workplaces in Emmaru Central. The opening of the Automatic Line did not sit well with KGR officials, claiming that it would be too dangerous for anyone to commute on.
The mayor of Fukuno then decided to request that the Automatic Line be extended to Fukuno, which was granted by Emmaru Railways. This move made Emmaru Railways more ambitious as they made the Higashiyama tunnel automatic as well. The automatic Higashiyama tunnel made KGR officials even angrier as the tunnel slowly killed KGR's business in their more scenic route. However, KGR still held on to their most valuable asset, the line that ran from Kamihama to Emmaru Central, or the Tokaido Line.
Lipan and Washington Airways decided to change their name to Limaru Airlines to reflect the country's name change.
c. 1970s
Soon, Lipan Railways caught up with the automatic train business by converting their Lipan Loop Line into an automatic railway line in 1975. As the rest of the railway was still manually operated, this arrangement became a challenge for Lipan to control as trains shared tracks. The solution for the problem was to have all older rolling stock be replaced with new automatic ones. This became a challenge for funding, however. Thus, Lipan Railways decided to, instead, have Emmaru Railways build an automatic line between Lipan and Emmaru. The new Namboku Line, which opened in 1986, would connect Emmaru to Lipan, thus benefitting both Lipan Railways and Emmaru Railways and allow Lipan Railways to replace their rolling stock.
With their increased funds, both companies decided to work on the East-West Corridor, which was a freight line that mainly serves international customers. To make the line as profitable as possible, passenger trains would be automatically controlled. This new line, dubbed the Tozai Line, made a new prefecture in Limaru, called Little Britain.
The investments in automatic trains made KGR desperate. Their Tokaido Line could not be upgraded as they had decided to focus on high-speed trains instead, which turned out to be a failure. In a desperate move, KGR went with making a new line.
1989
The new Tennoji Line, operated by Koigawa Railways, was an attempt to get the company back on its feet. By connecting Pelle, Kamihama and Otaki, the Tokaido Line's new terminus, it was faster than any other line. However, due to the lack of funds, the tunnels and stations were scantily built. This caused even more losses.
On 21 December 1989, KGR sold the Tokaido and Tennoji Lines to Emmaru Railways, now officially nicknamed Entetsu. The Tokaido Line was then extended to Bwlch Llywelyn station, a hub station for both Lipan and Entetsu trains. This left Koigawa Railways with the trams and the Higashiyama route.
c. 2000s
Emmaru Railways resumed testing of high speed trains on the Tokaido Line, increasing its already fast speed limit of 130 km/h to 160 km/h.