Author: Plemency

Foregone’s Continued War Finally Concludes

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05/12/116 ASU

The Second D’Sev War ended last year on the Imperium’s terms, but fighting has continued due to the surprising rebellion of the 22nd Legion on Foregone. That war has only just ended.

The 22nd and 23rd legions were stationed on Foregone to defend the titular city as well as our trade posts, but had been sidelined for most of the decade-long Second D’Sev War. When the war finally came to their world, they suffered several bitter setbacks and defeats, until the start of the Enpryys Campaign, fought on the western continent.

They finally began to win and inflict savage losses on the D’Sev Unholy Imperium and their tribal allies. The soldiers, heavily outnumbered and cut off from supplies, lived off the land and nevertheless dismantled the D’Sev influence network.

Then the soldiers were told to stop. The war was over. One term of the peace treaty was that the Protectorate was to retreat to Foregone City and the north-eastern continent, with the Imperium having dominion over the rest.

The Hetman of the 22nd legion, Veronika Antol, The Sentinel Of Foregone, rejected this and continued the Enpryys Campaign with the full support of her soldiers.

The Imperium was outraged, and the Lord Protector officially denounced her rebellion.

The Imperium reinstituted the planetary blockade and mobilized 300,000 mystics to crush the 50,000 rebels. Instead, the imperial force was destroyed over 17 decisive battles.

Quietly, the Imperium accepted the loss and negotiated a local peace. The Protectorate retains our six ports, and many of our nomadic allies, made refugees during the war, accepted transfer to Enpryys. The Chaccarn Network is down to 63 ports on the remaining three continents.

For their disobedience, the 32,000 surviving rebels were sentenced to 19 years of hard labor on Foregone.

The peace treaty ends in 20 years.

Wartime Roundup: Foregone’s Enpryys Campaign

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21/01/115 ASU

With the Second D’Sev War’s humiliating conclusion and the end of the Imperium’s seemingly invincible naval blockade, news is rushing in from across the Protectorate. This is a summary of the war on Foregone, notably the Enpryys (en-prr-eese) Campaign, named after the western continent, Enpryys.

06/12/113: The Imperium amassed their 200k-strong tribal army into 32 divisions, each tasked with taking out one of our trade ports.

06/13/113 – 09/13/113: Minor skirmishing within a dozen miles of each ports. The Firryans and D’Sev knew to fear the might of the peldaks and were hesitant to commit. Concurrently, our meager naval forces worked to reinforce our ports by slipping past Imperial armadas.

09/14/113: Tribal Army of 10,000 assaulted our southern port at Kachhack. They took an estimated 1,300 casualties, our alien allies escaped, and a company of peldaks died fighting.

09/15/113 – 04/01/114: Increased aggression by the tribal armies destroyed 14 out of 32 ports. The Imperial navy creates a pattern of preventing ships from leaving Foregone City, but allows refugees from our ports to enter the city.

04/02/114: Requiring decisive action, the two Hetmen announced that they’re abandoning the remaining ports, except the six on the western continent, Enpryys.

04/03/114 – 10/10/114: Peldak Forces mobilized 50,000 troops and thousands of vessels to ferry them to Enpryys under the leadership of the 22nd Legion’s Hetman, Veronika Antol. There were skirmishes, but no decisive naval battles.

11/01/114 – 18/15/115: Enpryys Campaign. On open, flat terrain, with consolidated troops, the legionnaires inflicted blow after blow to our enemies. 11 Imperial ports destroyed, six decisive battles won, tribal lands scorched, and allied tribes claimed dominion of new lands with the Protectorate blessing.

19/01/115: News of the war’s end reached Foregone. The soldiers were told to leave Enpryys, but initial reports suggest the 22nd Legion refused and are still fighting.

D’Sev Proxy Forces Demand Foregone Ports

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06/12/113 ASU

As the Second D’Sev War rages, the D’Sev’s Allied Tribal Army has launched an ambitious campaign against our trade ports, outposts, and allied tribes.

The D’Sev Holy Imperium has proved itself to be a shockingly efficient enemy. Despite having landed on Foregone less than 30 years ago, they’ve carved out wide swaths of land across the continents, dominated the nomadic firryans through mind control, negotiation, and trade ties, and have even amassed an army of 200,000 highly motivated firryan warriors, with at least 10,000 D’Sev.

Though this isn’t a single army of 200,000, it’s split up into dozens of smaller, local regiments, all of whom heavily outnumber whatever garrisons we have for each port.

Foregone City is still a reliable Protectorate ally, and through them we dominate the north-eastern continent. For all the progress the Imperium has made, Foregone is simply too big a target to capture in the short term. We have two legions on the planet. The 22nd Legion is split around the northeastern continent and has some troops garrisoning the ports, while the 23rd Legion is stationed in Foregone City.

However, with the D’Sev’s interstellar blockade, these two legions are all the planet will get.

The Protectorate only has 32 ports on the wild continents compared to the D’Sev’s 76. Theirs are far more developed than ours, and the largest of our ports is only garrisoned by a single brigade of 1,000 peldak troops. Superior though our soldiers may be, there is a limit to how many numbers we can overcome.

If the Hetmen reinforce the outposts, they must contend with the D’Sev’s mighty seaborn navy. Foregone City’s ports are docked with fishing vessels, trade ships, and luxury liners, with only a handful of warships designed for patrol and coastguard duties. The D’Sev navy certainly outclasses ours.

Firryan Chaccarn Network Celebrates Unity Weeks

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08/04/105 ASU

All nomadic tribes who joined the new ‘Chaccarn Network’ arrived at their local D’Sev-run trade port this past month for the great signing of the Baollucia Accord. Baollucia is a beloved ancestor who lead a campaign of terror against relgi slavers. He was supposedly one of the main inspirations for developing the city of Foregone and handing off slave-capture duties to the cosmopolitan firryans.

As a thousand tribal leaders and their aids boarded ships to the isle Calloucha for the signing, their native tribes stayed in port, mingling, partying, and partaking in all the delights provided by their D’Sev guarantors.

I joined one of these multi-week parties, and if nothing else the D’Sev know how to awe their allies.

There were lines of firryans getting tattoos of 8-sided stars on their foreheads, representing membership in the new Chaccarn Network.

There were scantily clad or nude firryans walking around and dancing with part-time lovers. The horrific millennia of slavery taught the firryans that love is cheap since there’s no telling when a lover could be randomly stolen.

Music played through the nights; feverish melodies played from relatively simply wood and bone instruments. Flutes and drums played in small concerts dotted around the settlement, musicians passing songs from tribe to tribe.

Firryans were cuddling on nearly every shallow-slant rooftop in the settlement, peacefully stargazing.

Dozens of elders would cluster together to tell the young firryans stories of their ancestors, and occasionally it broke into arguments when their old stories didn’t align.

The D’Sev colonists were frequently on the sidelines, minding their own business and passively basking in the work they did to bring the tribes together, but frequently I saw them dragged into the middle of events and celebrations.

Overall, the feel of the festival was bright and hopeful for the future.

Firryan Nomads Ally With D’Sev Tyranny, Form Chaccarn Network

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08/01/105 ASU

The D’Sev Holy Imperium has shown a remarkable ability to influence and connect with people they see as racially inferior. On Foregone’s wild continents, the Imperium developed 76 trading ports that attracted firryan tribes, and from there the D’Sev learned of tribal cultures, ancestor worship, nomadic mythologies, techniques, and the world as the nomads understood it. In turn, the D’Sev taught them agriculture, advanced craftsmanship, codified their languages, and warped tribal philosophies to better fit D’Sev ambitions.

The Imperium is accomplishing this with raw diplomacy and skill, not psychic manipulation.

Their campaign reached its peak last month when tribal leaders came together to form the Chaccarn Network. Chaccarn is a widely-worshiped firryan ancestor who was said to have been born in slavery on Relgan, but smuggled himself back to Foregone and then went around the planet, teaching his fellow tribes how to make tattoos.

The Chaccarn Network describes the shape of firryan cooperation with the D’Sev. Each nomadic tribe will retain their migration routes, but will stop by a local D’Sev port to work, trade, and exchange ideas. Some members will stay in the port as their tribe leaves, and will often marry into another tribe. Exchanging members was common throughout history, it’s merely being formalized under the Imperium.

The D’Sev will be arbiters for disputes, the protectors of each tribe’s rights and privileges, and will be the go-between for inter-port trade and migration. The D’Sev language, O’Nemma, will be taught as a universal language.

For most firryans, the Chaccarn Network only extends to the tribes around their home port, but the growing class of D’Sev-taught intellectuals understands it’s a sprawling alliance composed of nearly a thousand tribes, representing half a million firryans. Their goal is to form a coherent national identity that can never again suffer wanton abuse.

D’Sev Send Slave Soldiers Against Foregone Port

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16/01/096 ASU

The D’Sev War rages across the stars and it’s finally reached Foregone. The conflict has taken the aspect of a bitter fight for influence over nomadic tribes across the continents.

Our initial efforts to contact the nomads had seen slow progress and stubborn resistance, but then we realized we can piggyback off the D’Sev’s efforts. Whenever they built a trade port they used their psychic powers to overcome nomadic skittishness. So we started building our own ports a dozen miles down the coast from them and initiated contact with the same emboldened tribes.

We, the heroes who destroyed the slave trade, finally started making deals, settling disputes, building infrastructure and stealing the Imperium’s allies.

In response, D’Sev mystics led a dozen armed tribes against our competing port on the Millarin Coast.

The D’Sev commanders compelled thousands of firryans to march in perfect formation. It was too professional to have been taught conventionally, the D’Sev must have been exerting intense mind control, risking the souls of their clients to oppose us.

Our port had no walls and only a few dozen peldaks within, so the defenders advanced in a scattered, skirmishing pattern.

But before a single shot could ring out, the enthralled firryans broke and ran. The officers barked orders to return, but nobody complied.

We don’t currently have an explanation for why this occurred. The dominant theory is that psychic powers have been a hoax.

Days later, the nomads returned to the D’Sev’s port, furious and armed with imperial weapons. We heard that a battle broke out, the D’Sev dropped any pretense of being a beneficial force and slaughtered their former allies. Their influence ruined, they left the region, allowing us to move in and care for the wounded.

The Imperium isn’t likely to try enthralling nomads into soldiers again.

D’Sev Imperium Promotes Growing Firryan Settlements

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14/02/091 ASU

The D’Sev Holy Imperium has spent six years racing across the wild continents of Foregone to set up trade ports and spheres of influence, building 77 before they halted expansion. The settlements surrounding these ports are small, featuring permanent, self-sufficient colonies of D’Sev settlers, with amenities to house tribes of nomads as they rest on their migration routes. When they arrive, the D’Sev teach them to work farms, workshops, and odd jobs.

The Imperium’s ambition is to hasten their transition from nomadic hunter-gatherers to agricultural settlement, on their terms.

The Protectorate, as a matter of morality and honor, has developed our own trade ports to match them. The last two years has only seen seven ports built, though it should be noted that we control the city of Foregone and its home continent.

The D’Sev’s psychic abilities allowed the nomads to overcome their fears, and their powers automatic translate languages. But there’s a limit to this persuasion, supposedly. The more they dominate a person’s mind, they less capable they become and it can eventually ‘burn out’ their souls. Most of the D’Sev’s practices are genuine acts of diplomacy and trust-building, albeit with ulterior motives.

We don’t have these psychic powers. Overcoming nomadic skittishness is the bottleneck. For the rare tribe that has been brave enough to approach, it’s easy to develop ties and convince them to return.

To attract these tribes, we hired a cirathan for subtle, conventional manipulation.

Curt of Tahekan: “We need like 80% women. It’s very common, women are seen as less dangerous, more inviting. There will be firryans from Foregone to have that visual similarity, but many other aliens too. The nomads should feel like they’re ‘one group among many’, not total outsiders. Also, no defenses. No walls, nothing, totally open and honest.”

D’Sev ‘Holy’ Imperium Constructs Foregone Trade Ports

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13/12/088 ASU

The Peldak Protectorate’s plan to be hidden benefactors to the nomadic firryans of Foregone had been progressing smoothly. The past decade saw us stealthily build over 11,000 wells, dams, canals, and reservoirs. We were well on tract to integrate the long-enslaved nomads within the next two centuries.

But the D’Sev Holy Imperium muscled in under our ears and started enacting their own plans.

The Imperium is a slave-state and confrontation will be inevitable once we ready our forces for a multi-planetary invasion, but from what we can tell the D’Sev aren’t capturing firryan slaves. They’re bypassing the grand resort city of Foregone and building large ports and trade markets in the bays and coves across the wild continents. We thought the D’Sev were delusional for thinking the tribes would willingly approach foreigners so soon after the end of the slave trade, but it’s already working. The tribes are bringing pelts, exotic fruits, and trinkets and selling them for weapons, tools, and advanced medical procedures.

We’ve identified 17 trade ports developed these past three years. I visited one to talk with their Outpost-Master (Q’elin’Dron in their language).

“The savages were skittish, but a quick application of psychic persuasion alleviated their fears. Accepting their worthless junk a few times made them realize how beneficial it would be to align with us. These tribes have no real national consciousness; they only identify with half a dozen fellow tribes they sometimes interact with on migratory patterns, so we’re going to build their national identity from scratch and align it with the Imperium’s goals. You elf-things aren’t the only ones capable of formulating multi-millennia plans.”

The willingness to admit this is shocking, the D’Sev must think we can’t match their ambitions in the region. We need to them how eager we are to face them.

Infrastructure Spotlight: Building Wells On Foregone

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10/02/079 ASU

I joined a company of peldak warriors in the 23rd legion. Our goal was to land on the red beach of a continent on southern Foregone. The company then split into two teams of 50, one moving 32 miles inland and the other going 45 miles so we could build wells in optimal locations.

I accompanied the 32-mile team because I’m out of shape and two hours of sustained 16mph jogging is nearly my limit.

We each carried two shovels, a pickaxe, and bags full of piping and the metal pieces for hand pumps and faucets. Each of us also brought two meals and large bottles of water.

Traversing the Foregone wilderness as the sun went down was tiring work, but the leaders of this expedition were excellent scouts with centuries of experience. They steered us clear of firryan camps and put a wide berth around firryan hunters.

Reaching the site of their new well, we got to work digging a ramp, 30feet deep with a 10-degree decline, piling the red dirt and rocks on the sides so it will be easier to kick back into the hole to cover the ramp. At 30 feet, the ground was hard and wet, and water leaked out and accumulated at the bottom of the main shaft. At that point we installed the bladder – a metal ‘chamber’ with small holes so water can filter in but not rocks or sediment. On the top of the bladder, we screwed metal pipes into place. As the pipes rose, we returned the dirt into the hole until we reached the surface, then attached the metal hand pump.

We each filled our canteens to prove the water’s safety.

Both teams returned to the ship shortly before the sun rose and the company set sail at first light.

Foregone’s Well Construction Campaign Commences

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04/05/079 ASU

The world of Foregone has, for millennia, but subjected to the whims and desires of slave traders from the nearby world Relgan.

The relgi originally landed on the world in advanced, ancient starships and captured the local firryans themselves from tribes, small settlements, and petty kingdoms. Eventually the relgi set up the city of Foregone and taught the ruthless city-dwelling firryans to go out and capture their neighbors for profit. The city eventually grew to a sprawling eight million residents, with several million more firryans inhabiting the outlying farms, ranches, and fisheries, but the firryans across the rest of the planet were reduced to nomadic, subsistence lifestyles, constantly on the run from slave hunter operations.

40 years have passed since the destruction of the enslavement operations, the city of Foregone has been rebuilt following our conquest, and hundreds of thousands of slaves have been returned to their ancestral tribes. The Peldak Senate has declared it’s time to redirect our focus towards an ambitious infrastructure project. The goal is to improve the lives of the long-neglected nomads.

The project is expected to last 180 years, roughly the lifespan of two firryans. They are, understandably, warry of outsiders, so the plan is to slowly acclimatize the nomads to accept the beneficial presence of peldaks.

The first step will be the creation of wells, pumps, dams, and freshwater reservoirs across the planet, ensuring the nomads have access to clean water. Historically, slave hunters patrolled rivers, springs, oases, and the constant threat of slave teams forced nomadic tribes into less hospitable regions of the planet.

They might warry of the new infrastructure at first, but on a long enough timescale eventually a few courageous firryans will realize that they pose no danger. After word spreads to neighboring tribes, we’ll move on to step two.