The OOC thread: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=169552&p=8724072#p8724072
Post-war Imperial City from afar.
OOC:This was an actual RP, about a year ago.
20 years ago, on D.292/34 A.E.V, a state of war was declared between The Holy Imperial Territories of Vorradia and the Coalition of Ponynist States, and several of its allies such as the Imperial superpower Imeriata and Allanea.
It all started on the night of D.291/34 A.E.V, when pro-ponynist groups in Vorradia bombed one of its primary manufactorums.
There was a time when this place had been so beautiful. Watching the sunset over the dreary expanse of the flatlands, from the fawn granite walls. Now the sight brought with it a dull ache, a weight in the pit of his stomach that ground at his entrails. A wavering nausea.
An anarchic howl drifted across the red sands, quivering in the air. An uneasy aura that hung thick, and palpable. Even the faceless Ordos Militant officers, under their deaths head masks shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot.
Sometimes it was more subtle than the ban on gambling, or alcohol, or cigarettes, or euthanasia, or drugs, but it was there. The steady erosion. Of everything people held dear. It was a cord being pulled tighter and tighter, the tension tugging at the corners of your thought. A nagging, parasitic presence that refused to go away.
How long had it been like this? It was D.291\34 A.E.V.
34 years. He could hardly remember anything about what it was like before this.
He let out a bitter exhalation. The Ordos Anima had done well.
Another gust of freezing wind dragged itself over the fortifications. Desperately trying to claw into the warmth of the city. Worming through his coat. Glacial spikes running across his skin. He shivered.
“Free movement ends in an hour sir, I suggest you make way for your home.” Comes the muffled drone from an officer of the Ordos Militant.
Coron Avren Kortovich turned to the steps, and left, giving a nod of thanks to the officer as he made his way down. He stepped again back onto the shifting steel surface of Imperial City, steam issuing from openings that crisscrossed the streets in brutal, straight edged patterns.. He felt metaphorical prison walls come down around his soul. He walked down the path, the air heated only by the ceaseless toil of a thousand slaves, uneducated workers and criminals underfoot, in underground manufactories.
Heating strips ran across the length of the road, glowing a violent orange.
It was the season of ice, and it was now that production began. The great manufactorums that sprawled across the city, on the surface and down below created immense heat. This heat was vital, it kept the city habitable. Coron imagined the nomads in the flatlands. Barbarians. Freezing to death. Maybe that was better than this.
A column of Ordos Militant Air carriers rode across the angry red sky, towing Arbus-Class battle tanks to border outposts. The Ordos Militant had been readying hundreds of battle tanks, and columns of soldiers marching through the street had become a common sight. The imminent threat of war against all pony life had every citizen on edge. How many wars could this country cope with?
Tanks of sloshing degramine hang on every wall. In the season of fire, they released it in a gaseous form that kept the city cool. It was in the season of fire that problems arose for the war effort, and for manufacture. The manufactories had to run at a very low production rate, to prevent the city roasting to death.
Coron watched the Air carriers drift through the towering gothic arches.
The Vorradian Ordos Militant, fighting arm of the Church generally favoured missile carrying drones and jet aircraft. The terrain in the wastelands surrounding Imperial City was treacherous and the climate always extreme, and transporting anything via land out of Vorradia was nigh impossible, even without the roving bands of angry nomads in possession of large quantities of looted weaponry.
Vorradia’s tanks were relatively lightweight to allow them to be carried by aircraft to foreign war-zones. They were fast and sported powerful new technology and lethal armaments, but were lightly armoured and had various weak points in their hulls that could be exploited by an experienced, knowledgable or lucky enemy. Sacrifices had to be made.
The ominous screech of an Ordos Vox-Populi PA broadcast shook Coron out of his reverie. He had always had a fascination with vehicles and machines, even those that were being sent to fight pointless bloody wars in the name of god.
“Every moment, of every day, a true believer dedicates to furthering the work of god. Our city is his masterpiece. It is your duty to god to work hard for this city. Ponies threaten the security and sanctity of our holy city. Listen not to their message of friendship, for their ways are heretical, their souls are unclean-"
Nothing important. He edged carefully around a gaping fissure in the road. Rolling clouds of steam rose from the crevice. Coron thought for a moment he could here the moans of the workers.
Posters and banners hung on every wall and flew from every arch. All bearing the crest of the Holy Church of Vorradia, the Ordos Vox-populi, and some religious propaganda nonsense. The Ordos Vox-Populi controlled all media in Vorradia, they worked closely with the Ordos Anima, which worked to understand and control the human psyche.
Coron felt like he was in a city of zombies. Was he the only one who could see that the church had told them nothing but lies and crap?
He knew that was not true. The problem here was, that half the citizens believed, and the other half didn’t. But they were silent, burying their despair under layers of fanaticism. They knew deep down that they were lying to themselves that they were happy serving in the name of god, but they would not speak up.
Sometimes they appeared more fanatical than the true zealots.
The Church deprived them of everything. It tended to their basic needs of food, water and shelter as long as they worked until they dropped to the floor every day. Splayed, limp over the ground, exhaustion etched into the solid structure of their bones.
But the church denied everything else. Every pleasure, every comfort. Even everyday human interaction in the street was monitored, for any signs of unorthodoxy. Genders were segregated in every aspect of life. This inevitably led to rising rates of homosexuality that got punished far worse than sinful behavior towards a woman. Ordos Vox-Populi officials in the street proudly announced every day, the lists of the heretics executed.
All in the name of purity for god.
Coron knew he was a dead man. He could only go on for so long thinking like this. The Ordos Anima knew how to find out what a man thought. He would then be either shot outright, or taken to them.
The Ordos Anima had refined the art of indoctrination and radicalization for decades. He mind would be molded into a murderous zealot, a fanatical madman and sent into military service where he would die in some futile charge towards the enemy with the name of god on his lips. Perhaps trampled underfoot by a pony.
He boarded the Male Tram going back to residential. “Half an hour until free movement ends” The PA reminds him. Coron looks up at the people in the carriage. They are silent, hunched, their heads bowed facing into their laps, giving a vacant stare. A young man, his face gaunt and clammy, dirt streaked across it, sits a few seats away.
The other tram is being boarded. The young man steals a furtive glance at it through the window. His gaze wanders a few seconds too long. He is torn from it by a worried nudge from the older citizen sitting next to him. The young man turns, and emits an involuntary squeal. A camera flexes it’s lenses menacingly above him in warning.
As darkness grows across the city like a dark stain, the tram doors open. Coron sets off to his block of flats. He arrives, punches in his code and swings open the heavy iron door. He turns. The young man is there. He opens a door on the floor below. He is moving into this building. No. he cant be. The idiot, he’ll ruin everything. After 3 years of hanging low, Ordos Anima attention had finally moved on from this area. They had not had an execution is this neighborhood for 6 months. The Ordos Militant armed patrols were coming round less and less.
And now this guy shows up.
My phone will be tapped, Coron thinks, the entire place will be bugged, that guy will get himself killed, the Ordos Anima will come back. Coron’s inevitable fate seemed to be drawing closer.
An shockwave rocked the building. Coron looked out of a window and saw plumes of smoke rising from the east wing manufactorum.
Coron slumped down onto his bed and turned on the radio. There would be some news about the explosion. And sure enough there was.
"The bombing was an act of terrorism by pony supporting heretics. It is now clear that there are ponynists right here in our midst. Citizens are urged to report any suspicious behaviour to-"
Coron frowned. There was no way of telling if this was the truth or just an excuse to start a war against a race the church found undesirable. That was likely. There were better things to fight for than pony rights. Like freedom. The freedom to look at a woman in a tram and not be dragged from your bed in the dead of night in the name of decency.’
The next morning, the Vorradian theocracy demanded a payment of 800 ponies for the 800 Vorradians lost in the pro-pony uprisings that followed:
"Yesterday the first uprising against the Holy Church of Vorradia since it's founding took place." The broadcast went. "This heinous, and terrible blasphemy will be met, with untold and merciless vengeance!" the voice was screaming in an furious rage.
Over 800 citizens of Imperial City were involved! For this unholy desecration of the law, they are all sentenced to death!
And, my fellow believers, we do know by who this blasphemous uprising was instigated, do we not!"
A roar of approval echoed around the city.
"The greater pony herd!"
Another great cry of faith.
"And so my brothers, we give these vile heretics an ultimatum. They will ship 800 ponies to Vorradia where the Church shall do with them as it pleases! Blood for blood! A pony for every Vorradian life ended by their treachery!
And woe betide them if they fail to meet our demands.
It will be war!"’‘
In their anger, the clergy of Vorradia did not think their plans through. That day war was declared, and though Vorradia was mighty it could not stand a prolonged war against many massive superpowers.
After weeks of bloody warfare that claimed thousands of lives on both sides, the surface of Imperial City, the one huge city of Vorradia, was flattened almost completely.
But even then the war was far from over. For many more weeks the Vorradians held out in the sprawling underground labyrinths of Imperial City.
After launching its terrifying psychological WMD, named OBSCURITY, the Coalition of Ponynist States resorted to nuclear weapons.
Vast swathes of the city were obliterated entirely.
Eventually, unwilling to keep on fighting the determined guerilla resistance remained in the city, the Coalition left.
Vorradia was left, dying. For 10 years it was consumed by anarchy as the clergy lost control and rebellion and revolution tore across the remnants of the once glorious city.
Now, on this historic day, D.144/54 A.E.V, order has been restored, and the clergy has come back into power over a re-unified Vorradia.
Though the mineral wealth of the country is incredible, there is not enough money left, even to fund any more underground exploration.
Vorradia has turned to the international community, seeking nations opposed to Ponynism to give financial aid.
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