User:Soap/Mallard Wars

An apparent gap in the timeline between 4179 and 4182, possibly extending to 4184 or 4186, shows the Swamp Kids invading Player territory, although it seems that the Players were provoked into launching the first attack.

Timeline

In 4179, Xema provoked the Play party into declaring war against the Swamp Kids.

It is possible that this is an error, and that it is a duplicate of a war that was fought in 4192 (sic; not 4182).

The red notebook has the Players admitting defeat also within 4179, but another source suggests they held on until 4184 or possibly longer.

In 4192, the Players invaded Nama, even though according to the red notebook they were already at war with Nama. The Swamp Kids who had remained in Anzan probably renamed, possibly reverting to Cold Men. They experienced a baby boom immediately, making their population much like the Players.

In 4206, the Players admitted defeat, surrendering to both Nama and the Swamp Kids/Cold Men, but kept invading Nama anyway, knowing that Nama could not stop them alone and that the Cold Men were unlikely to continue fighting once the war had entered a stage where only the Namans were being targeted.

Ideological separation

The Cold Men and the Players were the last armies standing among more than a dozen powers who had been competing for the forests of the east and interior. They had more things in common with each other than arguments to fight over, but nevertheless drew ideological boundaries between their tribes.

For example, the Cold Men represented masculine power, whereas the Players represented feminine power.

The Cold Men represented cold weather and artificial creations, whereas the Players represented warm weather and nature. Nevertheless, it was the Players who were known for living in cities.

School systems

School systems arose that followed the model of STW. A new school for militantly anti-Play children called Yamanep ("Stand, See, and Feel") was formed. It may have also had a name like "Cold Sword School", meaning that this was the *real* Cold Sword (not STW). Yamanep was not a rival, but fully an enemy of the Players' Tee Vauva school, even though the children in the two schools admired each other and disliked war. This shows that the adult population was provoking the war, but that both the Cold Men and the Players had populations dominated by large numbers of children. Thus, the fertility rate was not declining, and may have been accelerating.

Advantage of Nama

Although Nama sided with the Cold Men, in fact by this time the war had evolved to a two-sided conflict: the Players and the Cold Men were fighting over which of them would control Nama, with neither side caring much about the Namans. The Cold Men and the Players still differed ideologically, but their ideologies were in a sense bound to their habitats, making it a disguised tribal conflict.

It is likely that the fertility rates of both the Cold Men and the Players were very high at this time, though the Players most likely still had the advantage. They both felt they needed Nama because their populations were growing so quickly.

Dawn of Cosmopolitan Age

In 4221,^?? Nama reasserted itself as a world power, but with the Iron party in charge, and the focus of all world politics in Baeba Swamp. The ruling Iron party did nothing to stop the ongoing conflict in upland Nama between the Players and the Cold Men, which continued until 4268. Even this was voluntary, likely because the conflict had been slowing down and the rate of civilian casualties was not enough to relieve the two nations' overpopulation problems; they realized that the only solution to their overpopulation problems would be to kill each others' female populations, which they were unwilling to do.