NationStates

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Under the Snow and Into the Tunnels: The People who Refused to Burn

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Tobias Rami | 21/09/26



Ever since the northern continent of Rusina incinerated itself in a limited exchange of nuclear fire, the state of affairs in that burned and blighted land - beyond those beacons of civilisation on the coast - has been a mystery to many of us. Whisperings and stirrings of news drift south, speaking of those things we have come to expect as watchwords of that blasted continent - violence, barbarity, and stranger besides.

In this exclusive opportunity, however, I - along with a handful of other investigators from other outlets - was contacted by several individuals, who presented themselves as representatives of the legitimate succession government of the Myraxian Union; one of those warmongering states whose missiles destroyed the north, and - to the best of the knowledge I have been able to gather in my research - with whom contact was lost shortly after the Incineration of Rusina.
Needless to say - I was sceptical, but journalistic integrity compelled me to hear them out.

That conversation led me north, at their invitation, and - together with my fellows - I am now able to write about the things I saw on that remarkable journey; including a unique interview with the man at the center of it all - the one the Myraxians call "The Marshal".

In the company of our escort, we travelled north, following the eastern coast of the continent. Several times, we passed the bones of towns and cities - I'm told that many of them are still inhabited in some capacity, communities of scavengers and survivors largely devoid of central authority. More telling was our guide's insistence on giving several of these conurbations a wide berth - I can only conclude that the Marshal's 'Provisional Government' does not control the countryside entire. Equally intriguing was our final destination: the city of Entepri - or Yntepri, as they seem to call it there. I had to look up the alternate spelling when I returned, and the closest I could find was a Narenian - one of the defunct Allied States - dialect from before the Union. Needless to say, it's reemergence after the collapse of Alcrutr's central authority suggests that this 'Provisional Government' is unable to exert the same degree of demographic control as the old Union was - or, perhaps more intriguingly, is unwilling to.

Large swathes of the city are in ruins - though I'm assured that there is no lingering radiation threat - but once we passed into the suburbs, our guides led us below ground - first descending into and through a metro station, where I was shocked to find a subway in working order. We rode the train deeper into the city, and there found the truth of this new Union we were being shown.
The extent of the underground systems and workings in what was once the Myraxian Union's third city should, perhaps, not come as a surprise - especially given those accounts that were borne from the Battle of Rygan in the First Rusinan War - but it is hard to reconcile above with below. The Myraxians were - my older readers will no doubt recall - never a soft people, but the existence we saw from the windows of the train car was a hard one. It brought to mind a refugee camp, but one decades in the making. Temporary structures made permanent, amongst and against the infrastructure that supported the city above. I learned later that they have begun to reclaim the city above them - large areas of it, in fact - but it is those hard-scrabble survivors that remain my pervading memory of the people there. What there is not, however - nowhere to be seen in Yntepri - is any sense of despondency or despair. These people have very little, but their pride - their certainty that simply by surviving they have scored some point against an uncaring universe - is ironclad.

That brings us back to the Marshal.

The first thing one learns about the Marshal is the reverence these people hold for him. From the first community we passed through on our travel north, growing as we travelled - and especially amongst those dwellers in the Yntepri Metro - we began to hear them talk about him. Talk of the way he came back north after the bombs fell - came back to save them. Talk of the way he put down the raiders and worse that had risen from those elements of the Myraxian military that had splintered and shattered after the Incineration - that had turned bandit when the food ran out.
It is easy, hearing those whispers, to picture him as something more than a man. Many of the survivors do. It is equally easy to presume such a man must - in the old fashion of Rusina - have turned autocrat, that he plays the part of the dictator. In neither case does the truth resemble these assumptions. He is, in fact, just a man - a gifted man, but an aging one.

He is Marshal Narael Fyrev.

Once the presumed-successor to High Marshal Nykona, Fyrev has become a living legend to those who still believe in the Myraxian Union. My own prejudices regarding Myraxians not-withstanding, one only has to see the way his people look at him to know - they would war on the gods for this man, if he ordered them to do so.

The opportunity to interview this man was not one I took lightly - not least for fear his acolytes (regardless of whether he would be comfortable with the term, it seems apt) would not suffer me to leave if they thought me liable to slander the man. However, once our bona fides and safe conduct were established, I sat for what is - without exaggeration - the most remarkable interview of my career.

The full recording is available here.

The most remarkable thing was his insistence on his plans for the future. This man, to whom these people give such loyalty and reverence, wishes for nothing more than to give up his power. To dissolve and devolve his authority to the organs of his - and it is his, in the minds of the Myraxian people - 'Provisional Government'. It seems that Marshal Fyrev wishes to see a new Union rise, phoenix-like, from the ashes of the old - a Union that is more than the military state that so many of us in the Charter recall. He commits himself - vehemently - to a transfer of power to a "representative civilian authority" (a phrase that would have been unthinkable twenty years ago to hear from the mouth of a senior uniformed Myraxian officer).

What is clear is that this man - and those who march to his cause - have made great strides in reunifying their country. Fighting continues - speaking with other survivors in Yntepri, it is clear that there has been nothing more than anarchy, brutal and bloody, one of the largest military forces in the Charter turned against itself - outside their zone of immediate control, but they clearly feel confident enough to announce themselves to the world once more. Will Fyrev's vision of a new Union come to fruition? And, perhaps more importantly, will it survive him?

The Union survives, is the whisper in the tunnels and beneath the snow. And survival, as the Myraxians say, is victory.

For them, that may be enough.



Tobias Rami is an independent investigative journalist, writing for Chartered Eye. He was awarded the Delgado Award for Investigative Journalism in 2025.

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Comments:

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By SaltyFrenchman - 30 Seconds Ago

Chilling, but fascinating. Sign of things to come?

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87 Likes | 12 Dislikes

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By DistantMariner - 1 Min Ago

Hate this. They already blew up one continent.

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By HenryF - 2 Mins Ago

kinda badass tho

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31 Likes | 27 Dislikes

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By 57459862578 - 3 Mins Ago

WIN!! A Lifetime Supply of GENUINE Farian Brandy! Click HERE!!

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