The Szkauliai Rally
July 7th, 2016
Szkauliai, the Semi-Autonomous Region of Szkaulias, Transoxthraxia
It had been two days since Klyuatra Asergoniz had formally withdrawn her party, the DvSk, from the VTVoA. It was a radical move, but then again, she was a radical reformer in control of a radical party. Ever since its inception, the VTVoA had intentionally misrepresented the size and popularity of the DvSK through administrative and bureaucratic means, practically forcing the radical right-wing party into a minority status in the VTVoA Coalition and the Council of Five Hundred. The truth was, at least as far as Asergoniz was concerned, The moderates were scared of them. Unlike her predecessor as the leader of the party, Klyuatra was both ideologically driven and ambitious. And what's more, again unlike her predecessor, she realized how important about a third of the party's support was. Unlike the neutered centrists and the insufferable libertarians, the main support base that the DvSK had was the military. Not the high command, of course, but the soldiers and the junior officers who saw themselves as more Transoxthraxian than Skirivilnas himself. And as Asergoniz was lithe to admit, revolutions rarely happened top-to-bottom. Speaking of the old bag, Asergoniz had to admit as she sat in her Governor's Palace in the capital of her Home District, he had done his unintentional job quite well. In successfully rearming the army with the latest in weapons and armour, he had placed an immense amount of power in the hands of the DvSK; the army was more loyal only to Skirivilnas, and with him out of the picture, Asergoniz was free to wield the army's newfound power for herself.
She had dreamed, ever since her inception as leader of the party, for an opportunity such as this one. She truly believed that what she was doing was not only the right thing for her nation, but the necessary thing for her nation. And that was why, two days back, she had formally withdrawn the DvSK from the VTVoA, calling it an "illegal and unfair" organization and denouncing its democratic and compromissary tendencies. But Asergoniz also knew that the party had no chance in democratic elections, not that she even believed in them. They had significant power in the state, but little-to-none of it was democratic or even sustainable in the long-run in a democratic society. She knew that she had to act quick, and she had. She, along with the core of her supporters, had left the capital of the nation as quick as possible and returned to her seat of power, where her party was the most popular outside of the military. She had called, for the date of July 7th, "an important political announcement that concerned all Transoxthraxians", to be announced right outside of the Governor's Palace in Szkauliai. News outlets, military men, and common people had been pouring into the city all day long, and now, as the clock on her wall nearly read half-past one in the afternoon, a strong knock was heard on the oaken doors of the entrance to the Governor's Office. Asergoniz, still sitting in her chair, absent-mindedly spoke "come in..." as she reviewed her speech on a number of queue cards.
The doors opened and revealed a towering, thin man. Contrary to Asergoniz, he was extraordinarily tall, reaching nearly six feet and five inches, but equally slender, weighing no more than one hundred and eighty pounds. His thin, wiry frame dominated the room and provided a vast contrast to Klyuatra Asergoniz's tiny stature. This man that had entered was no other than Antemas Ivoalas. Ivoalas was instantly recognizable, even without his remarkable physical stature. He was completely bald, his dark brown, nearly black hair had gone grey after his fiftieth birthday; he had taken it all off. His crooked, aquiline nose, thin lips, circle-rimmed glasses and wide-set eyes led to Ivoalas to be quite the looker. What was more significant about Ivaolas than his appearance, however, were his achievements. Ivaolas had been a major proponent in the downfall of the State of Transoxthraxia, better known as the Old Regime, as well as the First Transoxthraxian Republic. He had been a member of the DvSK since its inception as a party, and had written, since then, perhaps his most famous book, "Riding the Ox"; Riding the Ox was a novel about the degeneration of modern society, not only in Transoxthraxia, but across the world, mostly due to the "reckless abandonment of traditional values and governmental systems brought upon by the rise of the bourgeois and the first industrial revolution". He wrote that the collapse of the modern society wrought by the transformative values of the dominant bourgeois would eventually lead to the rule, once more, by tradition; the tradition ushered in by strong characters who "rode the ox". He was firm in his belief that Asergoniz was one to "ride the ox"; he had been selected by Asergoniz as the vice-chairman of the soon-to-be Revisionist Party. Being a great admirer of the woman, he accepted without question. What's more was that Ivaolas commanded an immense amount of respect among the Transoxthraxian intelligentsia.
"Are you ready, chairwoman?" He said in his distinctive, slightly nasally voice. Asergoniz looked up from her cards, failing to stifle her smile. "Ah, Antemas, I'm glad that you're here. But of course I'm ready. We're about to change the course of our nation's history, are we not?" Ivaolas, leaning against the open door, nodded sternly. "Of course we are. I'm fully confident in your abilities. But I do worry about your inferiors. Not, of course, our cabinet, which at this point, we've deliberated upon enough, but of the cogs in your incredibly delicate machine. As with any well-oiled monstrosity, if one cog is taken out, the rest cease to function." Asergoniz failed to stop smiling. She enjoyed her talks with her soon-to-be head of government; she could talk as a scholar to the highly intelligent man. "My well-versed compatriot," she said, not looking up from her queue cards, which she was no longer studying. "I know this country and those within it as if they were my own soul. The machinations that the death of Skirivilnas put into effect have now provided our opportunity an inevitability." She looked up toward Antemas again. "Like rats from a sinking ship, the majority of the VTVoA are interested only in their own survival. Easy to manipulate, easier to fear-monger. But they've misled our nation and my people long enough. It's time that someone stood up for our national interests. Our nation prides itself in strong rulership. Anqhirrai, Iohn I, Aliz I, Skirivilnas. Transoxthraxians have always rallied around the strongest, the most charismatic..." Asergoniz was interruped by Antemas. "The best?" Asergoniz stood up and nodded. "And of course, the best. But I'd assume that that would go without saying. The VTVoA now has no one like that." Ivaolas gave the party's chairwoman a tight-lipped smile, before speaking once more. "You know, it's almost one thirty. We wouldn't want to keep your loyal supporters waiting." Asergoniz nodded. "Of course, you're right."
The day was about as hot as it ever got in the capital of the semi-autonomous region; the entire region was covered in a temperate rainforest, meaning that it never went above twenty five degrees Celsius. Luckily for Asergoniz and her rally, the clouds in the sky held no rain for the group of some-forty thousand people that awaited her speech. Many of those there were military men; troops that had just finished fighting for the nation and for their values in Vioska. Others were adamant supporters of Asergoniz and the DvSK. Some of the rest were simply curious about what the announcement could have been.
The governmental palace was a beautiful building, as were most that were built in the traditional Transoxthraxian style. While it was the newest of the Palaces, some of the other provincial palaces being some centuries old and the sA.R's having been build in 1988, it somehow managed to appear even more traditional than the oldest of the Palaces. It was built of stone and carved marble, and designed rather impractically for a structure of the day and age that it was built. But it was built during the Period of Revitalization in the State of Transoxthraxia, meaning that it was built during the time in which the State of Transoxthraxia had tried to make itself look respectable and not on the verge of collapse. It was three storeys tall, and on the third storey it had a balcony that looked out of the Palace's compound and onto a massive plaza at the center of the city. Here, among a fountain and a statue of Anqhirrai on a reared horse, stood hundreds of people; even more were crammed onto the streets leading to the plaza. It was not known at the time, but nearly forty thousand people attended the rally. To each side of the balcony, which could have comfortably held about a dozen people, were two massive banners, done up completely in black, in the center of them the Anqhirraic Star: The official party banner of the Revisionists. The massive, faux-oaken doors that opened up onto the balcony slowly parted, and onto it proceeded Klyuatra Asergoniz, Antemas Ivaolas, eight other members of the DvSK, and two armed guards dressed in all-black. The crowd silenced itself as Klyuatra, immensely popular in the province, stood at a podium, placed in the middle of the balcony. She had not brought her cards out with her; it's not like she really needed them.
"There comes a time in every person's life where change is necessary. Just like when one needs to make a decision to take a job, to quit a job, to marry someone that they love, a nation undergoes these very same changes. When a person has a mental illness; when they're addicted to a drug, or to alcohol, they make a conscious decision to either cut the disease out of their system or let it consume them entirely. Today, I stand here to tell you, and our entire nation, that we are diseased. That we have fallen into decadence. That it is time to make that decision; the decision to disallow our nation to fall quietly into the dark, to stand up to the societal degradation that permeates every level of our society today. It is our corrupt, so-called 'leaders' in our capital of Vounomethea that are forcing this degradation upon our nation, and upon our fine citizenry; all of you. But it is not enough for a woman like myself to stand up here and speak. It is not enough for a hundred men and women like myself to stand up and speak. As the saying goes, 'actions speak louder than words', and it is now time to take action. The action that I have taken is the reformation of the party that I lead. From this day forth, it will not be the DvSK that I administer. It will be the Party of the Revisionists; it is time to revise and fix our society. To recognize what is wrong, and to fix what is wrong..." Asergoniz's speech went on for another half hour. After her, she introduced Ivaolas as her vice-chairman, who then spoke, and then introduced the other eight people who would make up the administration of the Revisionist Party. They each spoke brilliantly, before Asergoniz took the stage again to outline the party's values. She was met with cheering from the plaza.
While the news was not received well in Vounomethea, the founding of the Revisionists gave new life to the far-right movement. Soon the Young Officers of Transoxthraxia were formed in the Transoxthraxian Expeditionary Force corps; circles of soldiers read and shared "Ride the Ox". The founding of the Revisionists and the lack of reaction from the rest of the VTVoA made conflict between the two now all but inevitable.