(A/N: Here's some expository that was cut from C69 of TSW (Operation Excalibur), also serving to supplement my headcanon about the fall of Centra in Rebirth from Calamity. The description of the tapestry is the same, and there was a reference to Ramses in the previous chapter.)
The Three Great Powers
The last occasion the War Room of Lenown Castle had been used was just days before the Calamity, when Sorceress Adel had sought to extend her grey hand into the Kakashbald and harass the independent city-state of Karnak.
There was a tapestry on the east wall of the War Room, recently taken down to be thoroughly washed of dust for the second time in a century, showing the Planet as it had been a hundred years ago. Esthar was coloured a light blue, after its national flag, extending as far north into Trabia as it did today. The Holy Dollet Empire was shaded in off-white, highlighted with the Tower of Owen and a red crucible over Dollet City; Dollet had blanketed the entire western continent in addition to the Albatross. The Kakashbald was the colour of the dunes, a pyramid showing the location of Karnak. Winter Island was the same jade-green colour as a shumi's robes. Fisherman's Horizon did not yet exist.
The Kingdom of Centra had been the superpower of the south, it's light red colour on the fabric now faded to pink. Centra had been by far the most advanced out of necessity, due to the other superpowers being ruled by Descendants of Hyne. The Wicked Witches of the East and West, the common Centran people called them. Rightly believing Adel to be more malign than Jadis, there had been a centuries-old pact with the Holy Dollet Empire – from when House von Heiligeberg occupied Centra's throne – that one nation would defend the other if ever attacked by Adel's forces. This was the chief reason why Adel did not launch a serious gambit for world domination until the First Sorceress War.
The Kakashbald had never been conquered by the ancient Centran empire, who had believed that trade with its diverse tribes was more profitable than subjugating the swarthy-skinned peoples of that ocean of dunes. Emperor Hadrian had overseen a great wall constructed between the break in mountains separating the desert from the savannahs, both to give his domain a physical border and to keep the Kakashbaldi from encroaching on his territory. Large sections of this wall still stood, sturdily enough to serve its ancient purpose in reverse when the Calamity's crimson pall stopped miles shy of it.
When a young Adel had first succeeded her father's throne in ancient Centra, she had scrapped Hadrian's old policy and expanded her frontier to the edge of the dunes, seeing the Great Pyramid of Karnak and the fertile strips alongside the River Elin as her jewels in the desert. The Fracture had put a stop to this, and it was not for another two millennia, before her own Esthar was starting to outgrow the hospitable areas of the eastern continent, that she set her greedy eyes on Karnak again. Except by then, Adel had also wanted the vastness of the desert as a testing ground for her new aircrafts, what with an arms race between the three great nations.
And so, in the year 4921 AH, Adel's frigates plugged the River Elin from the south, her zeppelins and chocobo riders advancing on a swift bypass for Karnak itself. The sitting pharaoh, Ramses Seagill, was a valued friend of King Adelbert of Centra. Ramses sent his pet zuu straight for the king's chambers at Lenown Castle, and when the attached message was received, Centra prepared for all-out war. Consequently, when the Calamity struck, large numbers of advancing Centran forces were caught out in the open, hopelessly flanked on all sides. This also impacted defences of many settlements, not least Mysidia and Lenown City itself. When news of the cataclysm reached Ramses, the pharaoh surrendered to Adel's forces unconditionally, and the entire Kakashbald became Adel's province.
There was not a single Centran living today that did not believe Sorceress Adel orchestrated the Calamity. After all, she had known the whereabouts of the sunken Crystal Pillar and spent two decades trying to retrieve it. The annihilation of Centra – henceforth referred to as the Lost Kingdom – meant Adel could then concentrate on defeating the Holy Dollet Empire.
Until then, Adel had remained unwilling to risk open war with another superpower, and although it would not have been safe for her to retrieve the Crystal Pillar until the Lunarians thinned, she would spend the next three decades fermenting rebellion in the west. By the year 4960 AH, the Holy Dollet Empire had collapsed, starting with Balamb's breakaway. Jadis would be driven to within an inch of death by her own subjects, with her Successor unknown. Atop Mount Ordeals, which had seen not a single pilgrim since the Calamity, Alexander knew that the new Descendant of Hyne was a five-year-old girl called Edea, and he would depart for the western continent to watch over her.
Adel finally made an open move for the fragmented west, as the descendants of the Calamity's survivors started returning to Centra.