I was still fairly new back then (in CE) and do not recall many specifics, but one of the major concerns was being able to get out of the federation in one piece.
Breaking the federation meant automatic war with each other.
There were hard feelings against each realm throughout most of the other realms of Atamara.
There was justified concern that the split would have seen at least one of the two realms destroyed.
Likely gang-banged by many realms depending on how diplomatic talks were handled.
A one sided battle in the other direction. I guess the other guys would have had fun erasing CE (or Tara) from the map.
