Oyster language

Both the Subumpamese peasants and the Crystals in Subumpam were friendly to the Islanders of Wapeblo Island (Ƥāli); they considered the Islanders a brave if foolish people for threatening to take over the entire world, but agreed that if they ever somehow managed to do it, their government would be far more benevolent than Nama or any of the governments proposed by the Lobexonian groups currently being oppressed by Nama. The Islander logo of a tall female soldier standing on top of a dying, helpless male was seen as unthreatening, even cute, by the strongly male-dominated societies of the rest of the world, and they yearned for the opportunity to bring Islander culture to the mainland. The Crystals in particular had become famous for "accepting" Feminism (meaning, in this context, the rule of men by women and in most cases a biological trait in which women are taller than men), which made them dangerous in the eyes of Lobexon for two reasons: firstly, the absolute upper class in Lobexon was itself Feminist, being descended from Macro-Repilians from the cold interior of Nama who carefully set themselves apart from all other races and had maintained a tall-female, short-male society for thousands of years; and secondly, all of the other people in Lobexon did not want to live in a society in which their male power structure was so weak and helpless that their oppression would become even easier: Feminism did not seem to make women any stronger, either physically or socially; it simply removed all of the power of men, essentially in the eyes of Feminism's enemies turning them back into little boys.

However, the Islanders as a rule did not feel safe moving into Subumpam or Lobexon or any other territory where they would be a tiny, easily eliminated minority. THey instead invited others to move in with them instead to various colonies they planned to create, some in the rainforests of the far southwest, others in the cold snowy uplands of Nama. They considered Nama to be a safe place because at least in the areas they were planning to go there was no established society nearby that was strong enough even to defeat the tiny, impoverished Islander colony. They invited Subumpamese, including the Crystals in hiding in Subumpam, to move to their new nation, which they called simply FILTER (the name of their political party), and even if they themselves were not Feminists they promised that within a few generations they would be.

Early growth

The Islanders early on developed several tiny nations: one was FILTER, also the name of their political party, and it was located in the highlands of Nama in land that was mostly empty even of aboriginals. But those aboriginals that did exist were generally friendly and the Islanders felt safe living in FILTER. Another nation was Učūt, which was their mirror nation that was granted to them by the government of Nama upon their early recognition as a distinct political group that deserved representation in Nama's government. This was possible even though the nation that FILTER considered its primary home was also part of Nama.

Early culture

The Islanders believed that women were more virtuous than men, and that women should be elected to lead their nation. They saw male leaders as a sign of evil, saying that men were perverse, stupid leaders who could only fight evil wars, whereas women could fight good wars. Thus, all their political and military leaders were female, and many of the people they sent to trade with other nations were female as well. Most Islanders had a biological trait of women being strongly taller than men, and although they did not mind tall-male people moving into FILTER, they said that they would be locked out of the upper class and bred into Feminists within a few generations. Male Islanders actually loved Feminism and did not mind being "oppressed", as they felt much safer and somehow stronger in a society dominated by women than in one dominated by other men.

The Thousand Year War

In 2175, police from Lobexon invaded Wapeblo Island, where many FILTER members were camping out, and triggered the Battle of Wapeblo Island. Most of the FILTER Islanders were killed in this battle, leaving only 11 girls and 3 boys, who were then put in jail in Lobexon. They soon were released, some illegally. They were so unaware of the outside world that they at first thought they could simply blend in to the society around them. But they were unaware that people could identify them as FILTER members on sight both because of their physical appearance and their distinctive language. They managed to flee back to Nama by claiming that they were merely Pabaps with taller than average girls (they had managed to learn some Pabappa because they were interested in finding allies in Paba). Here they informed FILTER that their campsite had been raided and FILTER responded by declaring war on the entire world but for anyone willing to submit to them.

As above, the Islanders had a problem being taken seriously by most of their neighbors. Even though people in this part of the world were aware that there existed races of people whose women were taller than their men (here called "Feminism" for succinctness), and that in fact the uppermost part of the ruling class in Lobexon was itself Feminist, few people, even other Feminists, associated Feminism with military power. Furthermore, FILTER was a tiny organization, and the Islanders were a tiny part even of that. So the government of Lobexon did nothing when FILTER announced at an international meeting that it was cutting ties with the Gold government of Lobexon and now considered Lobexon and the Gold party to be its primary political enemy.

They used explicit symbolism in their war, saying it literally was going to be a relentless war of all female-dominated societies against all male-dominated ones, which they symbolized as a war of women against men. Men in FILTER were happy to be dominated by women because it made them feel safer and actually stronger than they were in Lobexon or any other male-dominated society. (Note that despite the upper crust of Lobexon being Feminist, they had lost control over their people and essentially ruled from fortresses on mountaintops.)

Moreover, FILTER made it clear that any Feminist society that called itself an ally of FILTER but did not submit to FILTER's new government would be considered twice as much an enemy of FILTER as the male-led societies. They would not stop until they had conquered the entire planet and also had eliminated all potential dissenters within their nation. They refused to use schools, preferring instead mandatory military service from the moment of birth until the day of death for both genders.

Diplomacy

Other governments questioned the sanity of the FILTER leaders. While they sympathized with their helplessness to prevent the tragic deaths of 100 FILTER members during a government raid on Wapeblo Island, they believed that responding to the attack by planning a thousand year war to destroy the world was unreasonable. Nevertheless, Nama's Mirror government was an excellent place for a radical minority like FILTER to look for an ally, and the FILTER diplomats put down their swords and went peacefully to one embaassy after another looking for someone who was desperate enough to take them on as an ally.

They were refused at door after door, but of all the many leagues they approached, the Crystals had rejected them the most politely, and FILTER took this as proof of a possible future partnership between the two struggling organizations. They did not have much in common, other than that they both considered themselves transnational, and both fought only for themselves, considering it morally acceptable even to fight their own families if they stood in the path of power. Thus some FILTER members gave up their dialect of Subumpamese for the Crystal language, known as Khulls. They considered it a waste of time to learn two languages, however.

In 2183, FILTER decided to declare war against all of the world's oceans and lakes, since few humans lived in the ocean full time and they expected to face little resistance. They still had a few ships of their own but no seacoast other than a few ports in Nama which had decided to allow them in so they would not be trapped in their home nation of FILTER.

They also invaded the polar ice cap, renaming it "Snow Mound" and promising to build a capital city on the very highest point of the icecap from which they would rule the world below.

In 2332, FILTER won a major battle on the coast of SW Subumpam and declared that it had conquered all of the territory it needed to build its empire and had in effect conquered the world. In reality, although they had expanded very quickly in just 160 years, all they had accomplished so far was to build settlements on uninhabited islands and reinforce these settlements to prevent outsiders from attacking them. They thus claimed that they were living in freedom and had settlements all over the world, even though they knew that if they were to venture outside they could be killed on sight. As a minority within Subumpam, they claimed that they despised all Subumpamese people including the other minorities, and refused to cooperate with any of them. However they also claimed that because they were now building a new city for FILTER people only in the very core of Subumpam, they had conquered Subumpam.

Although FILTER still refused to send its children to anything resembling a school, Paba had manmaged to convince the FILTER leaders that global warming existed and that it would be foolish for them to attempt to build settlements on islands or low-lying areas as these would soon be flooded by rising waters. Paba itself did not have a problem settling islands and low-lying areas because they generally did not live in large stone buildings.

Later history

FILTER supported Kava in its desperate war against the Swamp; they lost, but whereas Kava was completely destroyed, FILTER survived and even managed to take over some of Kava's old territory as the Kavans retreated. By 3332 AD FILTER was calling itself Mamma and they had decided to build their homeland in a desert instead of an icecap. FILTER also called its people "Hapoto" and the Namans "Atopa". FILTER's religion was called Neimam. FILTER soldiers continued massacring Namans in isolated areas even after they had surrendered to Nama. Even some FILTER groups were telling them to slow down now. One FILTER leader, named Mapappee-Pumapap, broadcast a plea to other nations to help Nama fight off FILTER even though she herself was part of FILTER.