Setting Notes: The Grand Republic of Whardon

One of the things I initially created this blog for was as a place where I could put my notes and ideas and concepts out there, in part to "get them down on paper" (in a manner of speaking) and thus out of my head, so that other ideas might start growing.

So, a few years ago, I got to thinking about a setting with your typical "tyrannical overlord" type, but specifically about the "faceless minions" that defend said overlord. Like, the minions were brainwashed or whatever to serve him loyally, but then the overlord is defeated, and the minions now find themselves cleared of the brainwashing. Issue becomes the defeated state of the now-executed overlord finds itself conflicted with the fact they were used, lied to, etc. I was thinking of exploring the concept in a story, and while I've not managed to get that idea to congeal into a proper story, I do still have my notes from when I was sketching things out.

While the initial concept was for a fantasy setting, as I sat and thought it over, I instead took it into a near-future modern-type setting. I spent a good week or so reading up on subjects like Hitler's rise to power, so I could try to properly construct the background of the setting. I retooled the "brainwashed minions" idea into a "super soldier" type instead, and that factored into the development of everything. Because I knew that the overlord would look askance at super soldiers that might not obey him or try to overthrow him ("superior ability breeds superior ambition"), he would need to come up with a way to ensure their loyalty.

What follows below the break are my notes on the "Grand Republic of Whardon."

PART ONE - The Fall and Rise of the Grand Republic

The Whardoni had a history of suffering from the militaristic expansions and incursions from its neighbors in Northern Keldark. Over the ages, the Whardoni people had been conquered and annexed by various adjacent rulers or imperalistic expansion.

The Roppon-Yalleni Wars were the tipping point, as Whardon was caught between the two warring nations, resulting in hundreds of thousands of Whardoni deaths. This resulted in the rise of the Neveri Party to the Parliament. The Neveri Party's main platform, and all of their policies were deliberately constructed to support this, was about Whardoni Ascendancy, nationalistic pride, and a zealous drive to never see their nation subjugated again. Shaken and furious at the recent devastation to their country, the Neveri Party won a number of important seats in the Republic's government, allowing them to begin pushing for a larger military budget to better defend their country and countrymen against external aggression. Recruitment drives became more prevalent, and before long more than 10 percent of the Whardoni people were employed by the military.

When the nation of Roppon tried to expand again, the Republic of Whardon defended itself. Roppon, still recovering from the costly war with Yallen, had not been expecting Whardon's response, and was ill-prepared for the counter-invasion that followed. Whardon, after all, needed to pay for its new expenditures and needed the Roppon mining industry in the Province of Hamilcar to fund it. The Roppons in Hamilcar, grown tired of their government's regime, welcomed the occupation, and the Whardoni found themselves with a new protectorate. Their occupation was benevolent at the time, and so when a referendum came up in the Hamilcar Council a couple of years later, they unilaterally voted to secede from Roppon to officially join the Republic of Whardon.

Years went by, as the Neveri Party gained more and more power in Whardon, and as more and more of Roppon's provinces rolled over and joined the growing Republic, until Roppon was entirely subsumed and absorbed into the Republic. The extra territory and population and infrastructure meant that Whardon's budgetary needs expanded, and so their eyes turned to their other historical oppressors, the Yallen Hegemony. Emboldened by their successes, the Neveri Party pushed for, and got, a motion pushed through to begin preparations for invading Yalleni territory, referred to as the Mountview Plan.

It took twelve more years of military incursions into Yellan before the Grand Republic of Whardon slowed its expansion, having claimed more than half of Yellani territory. Anderson Mountview, the head of the Neveri Party, was selected to become the First Councillor, and again showed his savviness. Whardon's military expansiveness had not gone unnoticed by the rest of the Keldark continent. Other militaries had mobilized, as if to defend their borders or to try to put a stop to Whardon's aggression, and so Mountview kicked the next stage of his plan into motion.

PART TWO - Blue Fog, Red Thunder, and Black Quartz

The remnants of the Yellan Hegemony joined a coalition with the nations of Juras and Essel and launched a counter-attack. Decidedly victorious, it succeeded in reclaiming territory previously belonging to the Hegemony, and marked Whardon's first major defeat since the Neveri Party came to power. It was by design, however. The Whardoni defense force was comprised of raw recruits and poorly-performing soldiers, and thus were easily slaughtered by the coalition's forces. Mountview used the ease with which Whardoni forces had been defeated as an excuse to push for stricter training regimes and new approaches to instilling discipline.

The military, under secret orders from Mountview, had already been experimenting with various methods. A new chemical, code-named 'Blue Fog,' was added to the standard vaccination procedure, in which 90 percent of patients had emotions suppressed and became more susceptible to forms of mental suggestion.  This, combined with a rigid form of indoctrination, made the soldiers more effective in combat, not feeling a fear response and having a numbed reaction to pain and fatigue.

In addition to Blue Fog, a second chemical drug, code-named 'Red Thunder,' was developed. It heightened muscle development, giving increased strength and speed, as well as increasing skin and muscle density, making patients slightly more resistant to injury. It also gave some soldiers the ability to consciously trigger the endocrinal 'fight or flight' response, to further enhance their strength, endurance, and speed for short periods.

Completing the program was the development of a new aramid composite armor. Lightweight and more resistant to damage than most others that had come before, it was also installed with exo-frame supports to further augment a soldier's strength and endurance, albeit for short periods. Coupled with a new sensor array fitted into a helmet, the armor, code-named 'Black Quartz,' proved effective in testing, and was moved into production and put into front-line use against the coalition.

The sight of Whardoni troops moving faster, displaying superior strength, resistance to injury, lack of reaction to fear response stimuli, showing a heightened awareness of their surroundings, and clad in matte black armor with a faceless helmet-mask, was severely demoralizing to the coalition's forces, and they were driven out of the territory they had reclaimed. First Councillor Mountview declared his 'new soldiers' a success, and soon the entire military was primed with Blue Fog and Red Thunder and clad in Black Quartz. A renewed push into Yellani territory followed, and occupation of all of Yellan came shortly there after.

PART THREE - Clear Skies Over Whardon

For twenty-five years, the Grand Republic of Whardon was unassailable. Its soldiers were near-impossible to defeat in combat. They were fanatically loyal to the Grand Republic, and to its First Councillor. It didn't take much for Mountview to continue to hold power far in excess of the usual limitations on his rulership. An entire generation grew up under the regime of Mountview and the Neveri Party, exposed to frequent propaganda and even minor mental conditioning. Laws were passed granting full citizenship privileges only to those who had served in the military, driving up recruitment.

Periodic expansions took place so that Whardon could acquire more resources to feed its population and continue its growth. These expansions, however, continued to push the coalition to the brink. Aware that the coalition was starting to look outside the Keldark continent for aid in stopping the seemingly inexorable drive of the Grand Republic, Mountview declared that any nation that leant support to the coalition would find itself the target of ballistic missile strikes.  When the Kingdom of Lankea defied this declaration by sending elite military units to Essel and Yallen, Whardon followed through on the threat.  The missiles devastated Lankea's countryside and came within inches of decapitating the Lankean command structure.

This kept the coalition and any of its supporters at bay for quite some time, but it was only a matter of time before they could muster up the forces for a desperate, all-out final assault. Despite further threats, and even another cluster of missile strikes, the coalition made their move. However, the made their move in a way that Mountview did not anticipate. They launched their attack covertly, insidiously, striking at the iron morale of the Whardoni people.

Subversives in occupied Yallen discovered that a diluted form of Blue Fog had been introduced into the water supply of Whardon, numbing the people and making them more receptive to the regime's propaganda and mental conditioning.  By hijacking the propaganda broadcasts and planting their own messages, the subversives undermined Whardoni resolve, stole samples of Blue Fog and Red Thunder, and then found ways to limit the effectiveness of Black Quartz sensors.  This information was fed to the coalition, who began searching for ways to counteract the drugs and finally find a weakness in the regime's soldiers.

Exploiting a previously unknown adverse reaction between Blue Fog and Red Thunder, the coalition began using a synthetic gas, code-named 'Clear Skies,' which, combined with the Whardoni drugs, caused a debilitating attack of nausea. By shelling the Whardoni defenses with Clear Skies canisters, the coalition was able to overwhelm the Grand Republic's borders. This, along with the subversives' hacking of the Whardoni propaganda machine, was a devastating blow to the Republic's morale.

PART FOUR - The Demise of the Mountview Regime

The coalition kept up their advance, not daring to let the regime have the time to devise a way to re-fortify their soldiers against Clear Skies. It still took several weeks for the coalition to fight all the way through to the capital of Whardon City, and then another three to find and capture Anderson Mountview. He was ensconced in the Council's Emergency Operations Center, the Bolt-Hole, protected by his most loyal elite soldiers. The soldiers, protected from Clear Skies by gas-masks, were able to withstand the coalition's assault for three days before their defenses broke and the leader of the Neveri Party was finally apprehended.

This left a bit of an issue for the coalition, however. While it was true that he had invaded other sovereign nations and occupied them, he had taken power completely legally, and he had not broken any international laws.  This made for difficulties about what to do. They couldn't leave Mountview in power, but they didn't have the grounds to imprison him or execute him. While some of the other Neveri Party leadership had indulged in their respective vices to such an extent that they could be thrown in prison or put to death, there was no evidence that Mountview had done the same.

Two days before the tribunal was due to release Mountview, evidence was finally discovered. Audio logs of the Council's meetings, featuring the First Councillor, that gave the proof needed that the ruler of the regime had spearheaded the advancement of the military's capabilities, and had actually devised the project that led to the creation of Blue Fog. Furthermore, when he'd learned of Blue Fog's effects with regards to mental suggestion, Mountview had pushed for it to be perfected and then used on the general population, to make them more susceptible to propaganda and conditioning.

When this evidence was presented in front of the tribunal, when the voices in question were confirmed by the Neveri Party leadership to be their own, when this was all broadcast to the Grand Republic, it shattered the Whardoni people's faith in their government. Civilians howled for blood, while the soldiers, many of whom had grown up under the regime, were left stunned and broken. Three months after the audio logs were discovered, Anderson Mountview and the Neveri Party leadership were executed.

PART FIVE - Time That Followed

Whardon was forcibly demilitarized while scientists within the Grand Republic, and aided by coalition experts, tried to find a way to negate the effects of Blue Fog and Red Thunder on the soldiers. Some tried to reassimilate into civilian society, to mixed success. Years of exposure to Blue Fog had left many of them emotionally stunted or even crippled, unable to relate to the very people they'd been defending and protecting.  Many had also lost any sense of their identity. The mental conditioning under the effects of Blue Fog had eroded away memories and deadened many aspects of their personality. Many did not recover, still only capable of identifying themselves by number.

The political situation in the Grand Republic is grim. It has lost the territory it claimed form Yallen and Roppon, and its economy is crippled. Angry resentment lingers in the Whardoni. In some cases, this resentment is toward the deposed regime, for the deception they showed and for not strengthening their economy. In many others, however, the resentment is toward the coalition for destroying the country they'd come to love.