Just going to get the contest results out of the way now as I work on the turn so I don't forget or have extra tabs on the screen I might accidentally close. So here it is!
First, the two "Why We Fight" entries!:
I marched through the snowy forest with my father, white flecks drifted on the breeze. The snow always made things so quiet, so peaceful. The only sound was the sounds of my father and I's footsteps crunching the soft white powder as we marched on. The tall evergreen trees that surrounded us had retained the snow in their needle-like leaves and had become white as well. When it rained or the wind howled my father liked to hum and sing to the tune the sounds of the forest around set. But when it was quiet he liked to be quiet as well and absorb the peace.
A quick sharp shrill whistle cut through the silence, it sounded like a bird screeching but I knew well it was unnatural. My father took a whistle hanging around his neck and whistled back. This was part of an old Abberan tradition my father liked to call "not getting shot by other hunters". In response, a set of figures appeared from the trees and waved to us. It was also traditional to greet and talk with other hunters you bump into that way you'd get a feel for who else was nearby and where they might be going. Though in truth it was usually an excuse to share some alcohol and fun stories. The people who approached now were well equipped for the cold but the one who seemed to be in front of them had particularly well-made hiking gear and it had even been intricately decorated by the manufacturer. He was certainly a Noble.
Since the colonisation of the island, an odd rift had formed in the Noble caste. There were Nobles whose families had owned land here since the first ships had arrived. They had experienced how hard life here could be, they understood the people of the island and almost every single one of them owned at least one hunting weapon. The Noble approaching them now probably was perfectly capable of field dressing a deer himself and was likely an accomplished hunter in his own right. Most Abberan's didn't take someone who wasn't too seriously. The other side of the divide was the Endicarian Nobles. Fresh off the boat nobles who held more favour in the courts of the Endicar Republic than the ever isolated and remote Abberan Nobles and were frequently awarded lands that once belonged to the long-standing Abberan Nobles. They understood little about the island, less about its people and nothing about the art of hunting on the mountainside. They held themselves above everyone while being infuriatingly ignorant about almost everything. They were a frequent topic in bars and hunting lodges but it was never positive.
The Abberan Noble greeted us warmly and in less than a minute my father was in a deep conversation about the movements and changes of all the game in the area with him. The thing about Abberan hunters was through conversations in hunting lodges and chance meetings in the forests they were remarkably good at turning a bunch of individual experiences into a clear picture of what was going on with the animals they were hunting through cooperation. If you want hints where to go to find some good prey you can ask any Abberan hunter and they'll know.
The Noble, his entourage and my father (I was still a little young) started passing around a flask as the conversation turned to politics. The Noble made no effort to hide his disdain for the Endicar nobles. They looked down on him for his willingness to have conversations with people like my father. In their view, nobles and peasants should be strictly separate and they were doing everything in their power to hamstring and rip power away from "improper nobles". He explained that he had found out about many looming problems with his holdings by talking to "ignorant peasants" and was firmly of the opinion that the stuffed up Endicar could go pound sand. My father for his part was angry at the higher taxes and tariffs being imposed on him and his friends by those same fools. The Endicar nobles were demanding more money from us while simultaneously insisting that we hunt fewer animals.
It was several hours later that we parted ways. We talked long enough we had deemed it worthwhile to set a fire and as we put out the fire I reflected on the noble we had met. He was the first I had ever encountered and was a friendly practical sort. I would meet him again many years later when I had become an adult and he had become King of Abbera.
Years would pass as I grew into a young man, one with an old rusted rifle of his own and many hard-won pelts to my name. I still travelled the slopes of the mountain with my father and together we sang to the forest's tune. The troubles of the world outside seemed a world away. Skirmishes between the League and the Alliance were being reported but it seemed so distant at the time. The measures and tariffs levied on the huntsmen of Abbera had only grown more excessive. Endicar was taking all we had as it geared up for global war.
The white and gold uniforms of Endicar troops had become a rarer sight as they pulled more and more of their forces away to face the Alliance's aggression. Those that remained were tired, overstretched and overzealous. The White Caps as they were nicknamed wore an ostentatious uniform of white and gold. It was said that efforts to change their standard uniform into something more practical and less like a parade uniform were stopped by the soldiers themselves. They saw their pristine and difficult to keep clean uniform as a symbol of their discipline and of Endicar's glory. They were fanatics, unmatched in their dedication. They saw any slight on Endicar as a slight on them.
A populace squeezed ever tighter by an authority that didn't care for them and representatives of that authority who were overstretched, undermanned, overzealous and increasingly desperate did not make for a nice combination. Every day we heard new instances of the White Caps going too far. Frequently we saw men with broken fingers because they had said the wrong thing in earshot of a White Cap. The skirmishes between the League and the Alliance were distant but the White Caps were hurting our friends and neighbours, they were outside in the streets and on our roads.
Long after the rebellion, I'd read many different detailed analyses of foreign scholars thinking they can explain why the rebellion happened by looking at the geopolitics of the League and the Alliance. "Of course there was a rebellion," they say "The Alliance needed a foothold on the central islands, so it was only rational that they should spark a rebellion," But that's not what happened. They sent men to stir up trouble of course but by the time they arrived the trouble they'd come to start was already at full steam and thundering ahead. I remember the start of the rebellion, the real start, not the start the league propagandists proclaim, not the start scholars profess.
It was spring and snow had given way to soil and grass. Game was plentiful as the creatures woke from their slumbers and raced through the forest and newly revealed greenery. The small mountain town where I lived and it's many hunting lodges was ugly by comparison, it's dirt streets stamped into a muddy pulp by incessant footfalls. My father and I were returning from a successful hunt, new furs hanging from our backs when we saw it. Three white caps were relentlessly beating a twelve-year-old child across the street from us. The child from the looks of things had been committing an act of vandalism and had been carving some anti-Endicar sentiments into the wooden panels of a building. The soldiers stepped back from the brutalised body of the child and methodically as if putting down a stray cat killed him with a single shot from a rifle. I remember my father looking at the dead child and then turning to look at me. I remember the look in his eyes. There is no way I'll ever be able to forget. He unslung his rifle, a trusted weapon older than I was, and took aim. The white caps had started yelling at people to disperse. One of them looked across at us and his eyes locked with my father's eyes and in them he saw the same thing I'd seen, he froze. My father's bullet hit him in his forehead. My bullet hit the temple of the white cap standing to his left.
I don't remember exactly what happened next, it all became a chaotic blur of rifle fire, smoke, screaming, overturned carts turned into barricades and the smell of blood. I remember the white caps holding out in the train station against almost the entire town. When things had gotten violent the people had needed little excuse to turn on the white caps and the white caps in town had taken that as justification to open fire on everything and everyone who wasn't dressed like they were. It had very quickly devolved into an all-out firefight. The white caps were skilled soldiers and proficient marksmen equipped with finely crafted weapons of war. We had a variety of variants of the standard Abberan hunting rifle. It was a single shot break action rifle, usually old beyond reason and almost certainly heavily modified by whichever hunter held it. The Abberan hunters were accurate too. Few white caps survived exposing themselves but our attempts to push them out of the train station failed repeatedly. They were heavily outnumbered and had no supplies but we needed to dislodge them before trains filled with Endicar reinforcements showed up to put an end to our little uprising. After what had happened if white caps occupied the town we knew they would show no mercy. Both sides grew increasingly desperate as time dragged on. Hours became days and as their ammo dwindled the white caps used their finely crafted rifles as crude clubs.
It was on day three of the train station siege that the train arrived. We readied ourselves to defend against the Endicar counter attack as the locomotive pulled into the station. We picked vantage points and spread out so we could reap a terrible price on any attempt to take back the town. Then the train pulled away. The sounds of its engine faded into nothing as it departed into the distance. The silence that followed was eerie. It took a while before we picked up the courage to mount an assault on the train station. We found it empty. The Endicar had pulled out. We soon found that our little incident had inspired violence in the surrounding towns. Like a spark to dry tinder, our clash with the white caps had ignited a raging conflagration that had engulfed the whole mountain. The white caps were regrouping to try and regain control of the situation and had thus pulled out of a number of places they couldn't afford to reinforce.
We couldn't allow them to regroup.
We tore up the rail lines, cut the telegram lines and took to the slopes of our mountain to track down and stop any Endicar forces moving on foot. They were confused and disorganised. We turned our skills at cooperating and coordinating our search for game against a new prey. They wore white and gold on a mountain of greens and browns. We wore the skins of animals that could vanish into the undergrowth. It wasn't just my neighbours fighting alongside me in that forest. They were my friends, they were my family. In those cold early spring days, I fought for them. I killed and killed again. White uniforms marred with red, abandoned on the slopes, left for the forest to eat. We were ghosts to them that appeared from nowhere slaughtered them and vanished without a trace. It didn't take us long to establish lines of communication with the other groups of hunters on the mountain. Our numbers grew, soon it felt like we had every settler on the mountain with us. Our scouts learned that the Endicar were pulling considerable forces from the city of Abbera to try and crush our uprising. It would be a considerable force, perhaps one large enough to tie us down until reinforcements arrived from Endicar or its League allies. We were confident we could hold out against any number of opponents by using the mountain terrain against them. However, our ammunition was not unlimited. If we were going to turn this uprising into a real war we knew we needed the city's ports and factories. If we were to last we needed to take and hold the city. And so the mountain folk marched down to visit the city. We took routes few knew of, we marched silently during long cloudy nights and we made excellent time.
We arrived in the smallest hours of the mourning and we found signs of bloody clashes between white caps and the city's residents everywhere we looked. A man had been hung from a street lamp with the word "TRAITOR" carved into his forehead with a knife. Barricades had been erected and from the looks of things violently torn down. Blood had collected and coagulated in many spots on the pavement forming unpleasant sticky pools. Rapidly we made our way through the city seeing considerable evidence of some form of a riot that had been ended mercilessly with violence. We seized as many choke points and key positions around the city as we could. Some held small, understaffed and easily taken white cap checkpoints but others had angry but bloodied, Abberan, anti-Endicar dissidents who were contesting Endicar's control of the city. They were delighted to encounter a small horde of rifle-wielding Abberan hunters.
They informed us that following news of our uprising the white caps had taken to the city streets and dragged from their homes anyone they viewed as a rebel. That had spiralled into a riot and things had only gone downhill from there. The city folk weren't as well armed as we were. Many were proper Abberan's and had their own hunting weapon but in the city they were used less often. They weren't nearly as skilled with them as we were, they all had much less in the way of ammunition on hand and they hadn't been able to organise before they were facing the full force of the city's garrison. Against the trained soldiers of Endicar they had done admirably with very little. But they had been pushed back and the white caps believed perhaps correctly that it wouldn't take too much to mop them up and had left a token force to the task before departing to try and put down the mountain uprising in great numbers.
They also told us something else; the city's Endicar nobles were being held hostage in one of the city's manors. The Endicar nobles had thrown an extravagant ball even as the island was engulfed in open rebellion. They in the strange ways of Endicar nobles invited everyone they viewed as allies and everyone they viewed as enemies to flaunt their power and their prestige. I realise now the reason that nobles frolicking with us commoners is so frowned upon by the Endicar; if they spend time with us they start to see us as people, sometimes even as friends. When you see friends hanging from lamp posts with words carved into their faces you would get angry too. The Abberan nobles attended that ball in the city. They were invited after all. And as always the key difference between them and the Endicar nobles was that the Abberan nobles had hunting rifles and the Endicar nobles did not.
This hostage situation involving a significant number of nobles had drawn off the token force that had been left behind and the remaining white caps were split between surrounding the manor and holding the city. The city folk were wondering what to do about it when we showed up. They were battered and exhausted but our numbers changed things considerably.
We swept through checkpoint after checkpoint taking the city. As we gained control of the city more and more civilians came out to join us. When we hit the forces surrounding the manor where the hostages had been taken we were a tidal wave of armed angry people. We came in behind them and barely slowed down as we trampled the fabulous garden around the manor and the white caps lurking in it into the ground. It wasn't even a fight, they weren't prepared and they were overrun in moments.
When the Abberan nobles inside the manor emerged and asked for the leader of our little rebellion and somehow I ended being the one to talk to the Abberan nobles. The man my father and I had met on the mountain was with them. He was still friendly and practical though it was clear by the way he talked and acted there was a great weight on his mind. He made it clear that if we were to secure the governor we could be able to force the Endicar to accept our terms. But we'd need to move fast to capture him.
The remaining Endicar forces in the city had rallied around the governor's manor and unlike our earlier battles in the city where the white caps believed we were unlead, disorganised and still in the mountains they were ready for us. They had cannons and had dug in with sandbags and machine gun emplacements. I saw a hundred people die in ten seconds. I saw my father ripped apart by cannon fire. I saw good people be cut down like grass. I saw all of that I pushed on anyway. I had to, I needed to. The things I'd seen the Endicar do, I couldn't let them win. I remember the weight of my old rusted rifle in my hands. It kicked like an angry mule whenever you pulled the trigger. Pull, kick, kill, reload, pull, kick, kill, reload. Like the tune of the forest, combat has its own rhythm to it, its own odd, cacophonous and terrible music. As I charged down that street towards the manor's defences my need to beat them, to stop their killing, overtook my other senses. I found myself dancing to that terrible rhythm. I dodged through bullets and shrapnel. I was barely even aware of what I was doing. Pull, kick, kill, reload. I silenced the machine gun by killing the gunner. Pull, kick, kill, reload. I killed the man who tried to replace him. All of a sudden the tempo of that terrible music was being set by me as I charged over their wall of sandbags and into their midst. For one terrible moment, I was there before the governor's manor drenched in the blood of my family, my friends, everyone I had cared the most about. All around me were the people responsible. I stopped merely dancing to the tune of combat and became its conductor. With rifle, knife and club I fought. With hands, feet and teeth I killed. And then the terrible sounds ended, a hush like a soft snowy day descended in its place. It was a soothing relief. We had won, the last Endicar forces in the city had been defeated but no one cheered.
We had lost many good people and as we cleared the governor's manor I wondered if it was worth it. Offices were filled with ashes from countless important documents that had been burnt and there was no sign of the governor. It seems had slipped away and made for the docks. I...was angry at this revelation. I raced to the docks in the vain hopes of cutting him off. I moved as swiftly as my legs could carry me. Rationally I had known even before I started running that it was too late but my emotions told me I needed to try.
I arrived in time to see the governor's boat sailing out to sea and with it, my last hopes to end this without any more bloodshed were sailing out of reach. There was still a chance though the docks were filled ships, surely one was fast enough to catch him? No sooner had I had that thought when a bright flash of light in the distance caught my attention. A few seconds later explosions ripped through the docked ships. There was another bright flash and another set of explosions tearing apart the docks. It was an Endicar warship shelling the city docks. It was well out of reach of anything we had, it could and probably would shell the entire city into submission. There was nothing I could do about it so instead, I focused on what I could do. I tried to get as many people as far from the docks as I could. It was a disorderly evacuation but when a man soaked in blood comes up to someone and yells at them to leave they have a tendency to obey. The docks, the shipyards, even the warehouses to handle incoming and outgoing goods were turned to splinters by that ship.
As people fled the docks suddenly a triumphant cheer went up and the shelling abruptly ceased. Looking back I saw a new warship on the horizon this one was burning hard and moving fast directly towards the ship that had been shelling us. As it grew closer we could see it's flag more clearly. "It's the Selicate!" people started yelling. The Endicar warship lingered just long enough for the governor's ship to reach it before sailing away at full speed away from the Selicate warship. As it fled the battle for the city of Abbera officially ended. It was entirely in our hands.
There was a certain friendly and practical nobleman who was raised up and declared as Abbera's governor since the Endicarian one had fled. The streets which had been so empty during the fighting filled up with people to him declare our independence. Not one person in that city would accept any less after what the Endicar had done. We would be free of Endicarian greed, our children would grow up without fear of Endicarian reprisals. That was what he promised us. It would be more years of bloodshed left before it was over. But as I stood in the spot where my father had fallen I swore a silent oath to myself; I would not allow this again. No more Endicar cruelty, no more brutality on Abbera's streets. I would protect these people that had lost so much and I would protect the people that had yet to lose anything. As I stood there and mourned, a man who had spent a few hours speaking with my father approached and stood in silence with for a few moments. Eventually, he spoke, he spoke about my father and about the complaints they had shared about the Endicar on those winter slopes. He spoke about the friends I had lost. Finally, he spoke of how my ideas and input had shaped the rebellion while it was in the mountains and how I had broken the defences around the governor's manor. He asked that I help him form Abbera's military. I agreed, I had to agree. I couldn't stand there where my father had fallen, remembering the look in his eyes when it had all began and say no. So I took my oaths and imbued them into our new armed forces. We would protect the Abberan people from all comers if necessary. If the Alliance demanded our downfall we would fight them. If the people of Salvios side with Endicar against us we will stop at nothing to remove Endicar's influence from these islands.
It wasn't long until Alliance ambassadors made landfall. They carried with them offers of recognition and promises to keep the Endicar from landing any more forces if we joined their alliance. This would cut the Endicar remnants on Abbera off from supplies. In taking the governor's manor and the other government buildings in the city we had taken out the Endicar military headquarters. The remaining forces were lost, confused and undersupplied but that did not render them toothless.
By the end of that first week, the Abberan propensity for weapon modification was being turned to the task of making a new more capable firearm. Industry was already being set up to make guns and ammunition. We would drive the Endicar from the island. We would crush the Endicar remanants and defeat the Salvosi who had joined the league. Instead of embracing us as a new nation they decided to act as the Endicar's hand and promised to strike down our "rebellion" It had ceased being a rebellion a while ago and they would find us hard to place back under Endicar rule. Many said the Salviosi were ill-fitted to be part of the league but their money hungry nature matched Endicar avarice perfectly. In retrospect, it shouldn't have been a surprise that the Salviosi sought to sell us back to our old masters.
It was decided that in order to be more harmonious with our new allies and to distance ourselves from the Endicar Republic that instead of a governor we should have a king. I remember marching in the parade that followed, my new recruits marching in step behind me adorned in their new uniforms. No longer a rebellion or a militia we were an army! A nation! It was with swelling pride we marched surrounded by cheering crowds of Abberan people looking happier than I had seen them look in years. All the while I recalled the look in my father's eyes at the beginning of it all. It wasn't hate or anger, it was the look of someone who would sacrifice anything to protect something. As I looked over the crowds still able to smile and cheer after all that had happened and I had the same look in my eyes.
“Hurry up, it’s starting!” the news reporter said to his assistants, hastily setting up an N-Ceramah radio. It was a hot day, but the glowing gavrillium engine of the truck they had arrived in kept the crew as cool as they could be. Several such engines were set up around the market square, to keep the people cool as they shopped. Or, today, to keep people cool as they listened to the upcoming speech. It was a recruitment drive, meant to encourage citizens to support the armed forces, and there would be a guest speaker from the Merchant’s Guild of Governors. The market stalls had been pushed to the sides, and it was closed for the next several hours. Normally, this kind of event would mean military guards and armored vehicles. But not this season, not with the fighting set to begin in earnest in the North. Instead, it was only well-armed police.
As young men and women mill around the square, a portly man in extravagant clothing takes the stage. “Excuse me, pardon…” he mutters into a microphone, “Please quiet down.” The crowd’s chatter does not die, but the man continues. “Please… please welcome, our speaker today, mister…”
Another man, tall and well built, comes onto the stage and pulls the man aside. Unlike the first man, this one was dressed simply, in a charcoal-colored suit. A few members of high society in the crowd get to gossiping about the look… until the man speaks, loud and clear and strong. “Citizens, silence if you please.” The voices die off swiftly. The reporter looks about, seeing more police presence than there had been moments ago. The speaker had arrived. A quick word from the technicians said that the radio was live.
“My name is Raul Gaspar. As many of you may know, I am one of the governors of our nation, and I thank you for your presence and attention.”
“These are trying times. It is a time of great technological advancement. Even here, we see Salviosi innovation. The gavrillium engines powering your cars and homes. The radio broadcasting my words across the nation. The lifting suits that built this very stage in an hour. Never before have we progressed at such a pace. Never ever before has any nation brought such change so fast. This is only possible because of the spirit of Salviosi people...” There was a polite applause for a few moments, but it was only that. So far, it seemed to be the standard ‘everything is fine, we’re doing great’ nonsense that the guild spokesmen said daily to try to calm discontent. The reporter was disappointed. But Gaspar was not done.
“But not all is well. We are at war. These innovations have only come because of the work our military engineers are doing around the clock. We have driven the Selicate agents back at every turn through will and steel, but that is not enough. We’ve pushed into Harren, but that is not enough.”
“I am aware of the discontent in our people. Many people question why we pushed to Harren, instead of fortifying the crossing and keeping to ourselves. Many question why we will push into Abberan lands and fight. Up until now, our battles have made perfect sense. But will they do the same as we continue? Why have we thrown our lot in with the League, when it is only concerned with its battles on the continents? Why will we bleed, and fight? To answer this is my purpose here.”
“We joined this war for the League, after hearing of what the Selicate Empire did to us to manipulate us to their side. We had hoped to stay out of the war until our lands were attacked and we were lied to by the perpetrators. But that is not the only reason to fight - if that was all, then we could have provided economic aid instead. The other, is what the League represents. The League represents the march of progress. It is true, we do not believe in the same things as many of it’s members, especially none of this ‘communism’ drivel. But that’s the thing: It doesn’t matter. The League will not push it’s ideals on it’s members, will not try to force us to their way of thinking or revert us to the past. The Central Alliance, on the other hand, has that as it’s stated goal. If we allow them, represented by Abbera, to push unopposed, it will be a matter of time before they attempt to tear down our nation’s way of life. The march of progress cannot be stopped, and we can either march with it, or be trampled as it passes. We will not be forced to become a monarchy, a dictatorship. We will not be forced to erase decades of innovation and progress, to erase our ideals!”
“But, it is poor argument to point at the other man, and say ‘he is evil, and must be destroyed’. I know the Salviosi people will not be placated with such simple rhetoric that one would use to argue with a child. The people must know why we fight against Abbera, yes, but they must also know why we fight for Salvios!”
“We are a merchant nation, built on the coin. Money, here, is power. I will admit, not everyone has the same situation. I live a stately lifestyle compared to my employees. We are not perfect. But, what makes Salvios different, my friends and comrades, is that fact, our basis on economics. We do not have positions dictated by birth. One may be born with advantage or disadvantage, true. But one’s blood does not influence, to any degree, the station they may rise to. A man or woman born a pauper may become a governor. The wealthiest man in salvios can lose his fortune and status. If one works hard, they can rise above their beginnings. If one is lazy or wicked, they may fall from grace. It is not so in the nations of the Central Alliance. In such nations, one’s birth is their life and death, and that of their children. It is a rare occurence for one to rise on merit of competence instead of merit of birth in such states. The king is only whoever was fortunate enough to be born to the highest position regardless of whether they have earned their position. And they have the force of arms given to them to maintain such. In Salvios, there is no such guarantees of power, nor guarantees of poverty.”
“Abbera, to the North, will push against us. They will fight us for every inch of our land. If we do not fight, do the people think they will let us be? No! If we do not fight, then they will try to take our lands, our resources, for themselves and their allies. We will never be safe so long as they throw themselves in with the Central Alliance and want for land. If we allow them this, if we do not battle them now, then by the time we realize that we have no choice it will be too late. We cannot allow this. If to ensure our safety, we must conquer them? Then we will do it. If to ensure our independence we must claim this island for ourselves? Then we must!”
A cheer rose in the crowd, spreading from the front to the back. The reporter himself found himself cheering as well, as Gaspar exited the stage and recruiters started passing around enlistment papers to anyone who desired one.
These entries have earned their teams each a Research Credit to be used at any point. This will be restated in the Combat Reports.
As for our Recruitment entry, Nuke9.13's entry entitled
"""Art""" has been added to the first post of all three threads (I still like to keep surprises) and earned the Salviosi an Espionage Credit. An Espionage Credit can be used in a variety of ways, but in order to keep plans secret you can ask about or propose potential uses or desired effects in the team threads or discord channels.
Let's get my hype train running again!
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Topic: Industrialized Warfare: An Arms Race / Core Thread (COMPLETE) (Read 11760 times)