One Life One Nation

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This article is currently still being written. The author(s) apologise for the inconvenience.

The people working on this article are: Khalael
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Foreword[edit | edit source]

Joutsou's meteoric rise to power can be ascribed to three things: blood, bribes and bullets. Without the first, he would never have had the clout to successfully stage a coup d'etat against his own family. Without the second, he would not have been able to maintain leadership of his fractured nation nor the loyalty of the former royal court. Without the third, he would not have been able to cow his critics and seize the assets required to save his country from the brink.

As war looms, I can only imagine he plans to profit from the inevitable chaos. Through unscrupulous pragmatism I doubt there is anything he could not set his mind on to achieve.

- Sulejman Lukanov

Chapter 1 - National Identity[edit | edit source]

I would not have asked to have been born in Saeyri if I had a choice. I think I would have sought to have grown up in the rich republic of Xhequa or the sprawling empire of Atraeth. In either I could have undertaken the same illustrious career I did in my homeland, just without the mantle of responsibility for an entire nation that was thrust upon me. Of course, while I have spent many fond summers in these foreign lands I could never claim citizenship of either, for I am Seonmi, and I belong to Saeyri.

Naturally my own view is twisted. Most of my countrymen have not been afforded the privileges I have. They did not grow up within the fine halls of the Limestone Palace. They were not educated by the most learned scholars my family could afford me. They often have never ventured outside of the great realm of Saeyri, for its domain is vast and travel is a frivolous expenditure many cannot afford. I must admit I can only make such critique upon my homeland because I have experienced the lands beyond its borders and I have seen that it is possible to have a better way of life. When I see the wealthy citizens of Xhequa, is it not reasonable I wish the same for my own people? When I see the immaculate infrastructure of Atraeth, should I not aim to recreate it here?

Of course, I have also learned that things could be worse. In my travels I have visited Odokcraca and Variyako, two Neiran nations that share a border but that are whole worlds apart. The people of Odokraca rose up against an oppressive and regressive regime three decades ago. They built their own republic and cast aside the monarchy. It was not perfect, and it was clear it would take decades to rebuild, but they lived a life of luxury compared to their contemporaries across the border. The subjects of the very regime the Odokracians had broken free from. Variyako.

I feel it must be said that my own bloodline long held ties to the royal family of the Sublime Zanikoji of Variyako, and that it again offered me a unique perspective on the hermetic nation others would not be so fortunate as to experience. From their royal courts I saw the abject decadence they lived in and the mask of plenty they donned when they had visitors to entertain. The rich and the powerful stayed securely at the top and everyone else stayed at the bottom. I was gifted finely groomed servants to serve me during my visits and invited to attend lavish balls, all while kept firmly away from ever meeting the common man. It would only be when curiosity got the better of me and I was drawn to visit Odokraca, to see how the "Enemies of the State" lived, that I would realise the true horrors the citizenry of Variyako faced.

I remember my good friend Sulejman telling me the story of his childhood and I was lost for words. He told me how his sister was subject to barbaric breast ironing practices before being sold into concubinage at the age of thirteen. Then he dropped the punchline, that this had all been done by his father to pay for Sulejman's education. Here I was, an upstart royal prince in the garb of a peasant, faced with the true suffering these people had endured. A grown man was sobbing, weeping, over his sister's fate as he blamed himself for the crime. It made me wonder if Suljeman's own cruelty was a projection of his frustrations and the powerlessness he once felt, but that is for a later chapter. For now I just could not comprehend the alien nature of my comrade's struggle. But what shocked me more, was when his peers told me similar stories of their own and that this was a struggle shared by them all.