Gold Empire

The new Star Empire was sharply divided into two groups of people: native Stars and everyone else. The conquering Namans introduced the Stars to the imapa (also imepo, imapala, i mappa, imupu, imaqpag, etc.) system of government, a political philosophy that had been created by the World Utopians, who had shaped their philosophy to make it appealing to the frightened Stars so that they would let the Namans abuse and control them. The World Utopians had found success with imapa in other nations, too, and had come to dominate the Gold Union well before the induction of Lobexon. Once Loexon was opened up, imapa became a reality, as it was to the Stars a welcome alternative from the many violent factions that had fought for control of Lobexon for all of their lives. Besides imapa, the conquering Namans also forced the Stars to register themselves in the universal census, in order that the government know exactly how many Stars there still were. The Stars were allowed to have some representation in the government, though slavery continued.

Even though the Stars were no longer in power, Lobexon was still relatively wealthy because much of the Stars' technology had survived the war so far. This was imapa's version of utopia: instant gratification and avoidance of pain, even at greater future loss of pleasure. Imapa often upset Star-stytle gov'ts, which were now protected by the Star army and thus prevalent even in Lobexon.

Some Laban nations came looking for a truce with Nama, hoping the two ruthless military powers could learn to make amends. But the problem of Lobexon was so great that no solution could be reached. In 2057, the coast was opened, and Nama sent billions of Lenians down to Lobexon to take over the government. The Lenians introduced the Stars to a form of government known as Lapiwa, which was a special version of imapa that applied only to Lobexon.

However, life in Lobexon after its induction into the Gold Union was nothing like what had existed before2057 because of the exclusive dominance of Lapiwa. Lapiwa had through Lobexon's advanced technology become a symbol of affluence, satisfaction, and hedonism. Lobexon's laws grew more liberal every year.

Before 2057, the Popopilapis had been so few in number in Lobexon that they were completely forgotten by many. But after 2057, the power of the Popopilapis surged wildly as disappointed Stars who had fought in the war for the purpose of improving the quality of life in Lobexon listened to the angry words of the Popopilapis. The Popopilapis were Lobexon who had not been quite so suicidally submissive as most people there and had also managed to escape abduction by the Lenians. As the Popopilapis regained power, their enemies in Sulasali felt increasingly threatened. Most Crystals now moved away from Sulasali, and those who remained were physically abused by visiting groups of non-Crystals, who were not punished by the imapa government.

Over the next few decades, the scenario changed somewhat. First, a secret army commanded by the Comet (an ex-Crystal turned Popopilapi) focused on attacking Crystals at every opportunity. This army was frequently attacked by the Gold government or, occasionally, by the Crystals themselves, but it survived these frequent attacks and when it declined, it was due largely to a shift in military power towards another secret army, commanded by Old Faithful, another anti-Crystal.

Another major change was the fact that the Popopilapi, too, had become the target of an army. Here, however, it was the regular Gold army that did the lion's share of battling the Popopilapi. The Popopilapi were denied government power by the other groups, who through the Gold system were given extra power to oppose the Popopilapi (that was one of the main tenets of the Gold philosophy).

A third change was the fact that Crystals from FILTER (a feminist group) now openly helped the Crystals on Sulasali, despite increasing violence from other groups. As FILTER helped the Crystals, Lobexonians' sentiment shifted even more against the Crystals. At the same time, the Popopilapi had their secret army which attacked the Crystals whenever the Gold army couldn't stop them. Thus, a "triangle war" had emerged -- the Crystals, the Popopilapi, and the majority of the Lobexonians were all against each other.

Some Crystals asked the Popopilapi for an alliance, but the Popopilapi refused, despite the fact that they were now being as badly abused by the imepists as were the Crystals. The Popopilapi refused to humiliate themselves by giving in to the much more peaceful Crystals. Thus, although some Popopilapi were now secretly defecting to the Crystals, the two groups remained separate, and both groups remained victims of the oppressive Kwipipupûan government which they all had earlier fought to put in place! This was one reason the Popopilapi didn't trust the Crystals. Another was the fact that the Crystals were openly corrupt; for example, they stole money and offered it to anyone who would vote Crystal. They justified this by saying that it is still better than gaining power by force, and therefore was more ethical than what the Popopilapi supported. Finally, the Popopilapi didn't trust the Crystals simply because Crystalism was a very "worldly" movement, which meant it would not be valid in the future. Since Crystalism would not work in the future, they said, any Crystal who would try to stay in power would really be obstructing progress, which is what the Crystals were accusing pro-sko people of.

On the other hand, the Crystals didn't trust the Popopilapi for other reasons. They said that the Popopilapi were nationalists, whose allegiance was to an authority no greater than the Star subset of the Gold Union. The Crystals, on the other hand, belonged to no particular country; they were everywhere. Also, the Crystals accused the Popopilapi of ethnocentrism and other "-centrisms" which the Crystals hated (such as their complaints about the problems of blonde people). Also, the Crystals accused the Popopilapi of being ruthless and overly violent. Coming from a group who for years had unsuccessfully tried to gain political power through violence, this signaled a surprising shift in policy -- it seemed the Crystals had given up trying to be violent and had adopted a more covert method of gaining power.

However, this was a time of terrible vexation for the Crystals. The Crystals blamed themselves for their failure to take over the SS Union, saying they should have foreseen the war and built up a military before the other groups did. But it really was not their fault; there simply weren't enough Crystals in the world to have made much difference in the outcome of the war.

In Sulasali the Crystals taught that their task was to peacefully spread Crystalism to the rest of the world, and at the same time ensure its noncorruption (although this stance was taken only because they were so weak militarily that it was their only hope). The Sulasalians by now had split away from the outworld Crystal parties completely as part of their anti-corruption effort. They wanted to attract people to their party who were looking for God's army, so they worked hard to clean up their image.

In fact this cleansing rebirth did attract the attention of the outworld, but it was in a fashion the Crystals had hoped to prevent - their new image now shone in the universe as a stark contrast to imapa, and Nama, the leader of the imepist council, vowed to destroy the Crystals. As a result, the Crystals were forced to shield their islands from the outworld as virtually all countries, even Lobexon, began to boycott their philosophy.

The Crystals' worst enemy was perhaps Loporomo Leap, which was also deeply involved with the Lobexonians' unique imapa doctrine, called Lapiwa. Lapiwa allowed the Stars to cling to the freedom won by imapa without renouncing national sovereignty, as mainstream imapa demanded. Loporomo Leap had no ethical reason for their habitual abuse of the Crystals; they did it because it was fun. Yet some could not help observing that it seemed the Crystals had stumbled upon the path to real world peace that the rest of the world had blindly been trying to find for all of history.

Loporomo Leap in fact was an atheist nation, and their real quarrel with Sulasali was the obvious fundamentalism of the Crystals. What troubled the Loporomans most was the fact that the Crystals now had a "clean" fundamentalism; that is, it was somehow aligned with all religions at once, excluding none. This was because the Crystals had carefully purged their religion of all tenets that alienated them from the outside world; they believed only in God. They thus had a very simple religion, explaining little, but their only enemies now were atheists. Unfortunately, atheists ruled the universe.

Although the Crystals taught that anyone who was faithful to their "heart religion" - meaning what they honestly believed, rather than what they preached - would be saved, they encouraged people to join their group and convert to their religion as they felt in their hearts that it was the only right thing to do. Meanwhile, they began to transform their own people into an army.

The Crystals soon began to teach that the Crystal party had suffered assault after assault in their history not only because they were fundamentalist, but even more because they were virtuous, and now they predicted even tougher times ahead as they now would have to turn against the atheist, unethical universe. Thus they encouraged their people now to think nothing of risking their lives for the sake of their country. Still, as they were to others essentially harmless, they encouraged peace whenever possible, but began rapid development of a secret military.

The Crystals thus presented to the world a peaceful face, intended to win over the outworld by compassion, but in reality were preparing for what they felt was a necessary evil - a cataclysmic war against the atheist monsters that filled up the rest of the world and were to blame for the Stars' defection from the Crystals during the Six-Boat War.

The population of Lobexon in 2095 was approximately 50 schools (plus 50x). In 2095, a group of about 6 million (5949327) Stars attempted to establish a settlement of Baeba Swamp. The sailors hoped that the swampland creatures would provide them a source of food and shelter so that they could live there, and hopefully eventually spread out.

The Pabap ship that they used had immediately crashed. The sailors had landed near their destination, which they now called Baeba Swamp, but they soon discovered that the animals living in this swamp were very dangerous to humans, as the first person to step out onto the land was attacked and killed by a snakelike animal within the first minute.

As huge as Lobexon's population was, Nama's population of about 5 schools was much stronger, and their powers made them too strong for the Stars to ignore. Even the small percentage of MacroRepilians that traveled to Lobexon was enough to hold down the now-united Stars' desperate attempts at rebellion. The Stars never surrendered but they were soon subdued by the much more powerful Macro-Repilians. Although this action caused almost all of the Repilians' allies to declare war on them, for the meantime these other Naman countries, whose populations totalled around 320 schools, were to weak to save the Stars from their coming doom.

However, the protective shield around Lobexon was not nearly as strong as it had used to be. Humanitarian missions took people from Nama, people who were hoping to absorb the Stars into their own societies, to Lobexon to adopt the otherwise doomed Stars and bring them back to their own countries. The Namans could not attack these ships because they couldn't see them.

Although many of these missions failed, enough succeeded that Nama had adopted a sizable minority of Stars (including the Polotta) within a few months.

Northern ("Uphill") SUbumpam at this time was dominated by fundamentalists of the religion called Sisnasi. Nobody in the Susubmpamese government took seriously nyone who did not back up all their political opinions with Sisnasi scripture and philosophy. In southern SUbumpam (Bipabum), a scandal involving the Sisnasi priesthood, combined with the liberality that came with its greater affluence, had caused the population to question Sisnasi and move toward a very secular government, with atheists competing for power at the highest level. They also practiced Emon, a sun-worshipping religion that had been imported from Lobexon.