STW

Save the World (STW) was an organization founded in the Thunder Empire by an immigrant named The Cold Sword in the autumn of 3915. They were famous for being very wealthy, seemingly perpetually turning poverty into riches wherever they were found. They owned restaurants and other stores, and openly charged customers far higher prices than the label price for the items they sold, but customers kept coming back. This was partly because STW had achieved monopolies on many of the items they sold, and partly because some customers hoped to reach the inner circle of STW's power structure at which the prices were actually lower than advertised. They took their power from the native Thunder people (Altottan citizens are called Thunderers, although this is the name of the primary political party, not an ethnic name.)

STW was notable for thriving on increasing immigration into Altotta, which had in 3886 been taken over by the Thunderers, a strongly racist political party that despised all outsiders. STW promised to despise outsiders just as strongly, but they had a different definition of who the outsiders were.

Name

STW got its name from its mission to save the world from the Dreamers and the bad habits STW claimed Dreamers had spread to the people of the Thunder Empire.

STW was also known derisively as First World Order by opponents who thought STW was taking a role it didn't deserve.

Business model

STW worked primarily in trade and the manufacture of furniture. Membership and employment were synonymous; all STW members worked for their local chief, and the chiefs worked for the president of STW.

Corporate hierarchy

Each establishment of STW was a "Base", which was governed by a chief. Each chief had absolute irreproachable power over their members, but no power over any of the other bases. The chief had the only vote in accepting or denying membership in STW, although in bases that were very large, they delegated their authority to trusted members. Below the chiefs and co-chiefs were captains, who were ordinary members, and thus had no power, but were being given jobs in which they exercise authority over other members in preparation for a future promotion. These were generally very few, as each STW base had only one chief.

Trade

STW's private army controlled the only trade route to Baeba, and therefore STW was the Thunder Empire's only distributor of tropical foods and many medicinal plants. They charged the Thunderers high prices for these items, but they also established strongholds in less profitable industries in order to gain the trust of the native population. For example, STW manufactured furniture, even though they knew there was no shortage of wood in the Thunder Empire and few customers would buy expensive furniture from an unfamiliar source.

illegal trade

STW's army also looted towns in Dreamland and in some rebellious areas of Baeba Swamp. Baeba opposed the looting, even of hostile areas, but they could not control STW.

Slavery

STW used slavery both directly and indirectly to achieve its otherwise unattainable gains. They preferred to enslave the people of Dreamland, but also acquired slaves from other nations and even from locals of the Thunder Empire. They invited slaves living in Subumpam and the Oyster Coast, which had once been the economic powerhouses of the planet, to flee their masters and yoke themselves to STW.

Direct slavery

Each STW base had its own assigned slave pool; some slaves would do plantation labor while others would work manufacturing furniture and other simple merchandise. None of the slaves were paid and none were ever set free.

The founder of STW had already owned many slaves when he built the first base in Lypelpyp, but rather than purchase slaves from the existing slaveholders in the Empire, STW sent its army to capture new slaves wherever they could find them. All adult STW members were allowed to keep any slaves they managed to capture on their own, but STW was not obligated to defend these people if their slaves revolted. Thus, there were slaves owned by STW and slaves owned by individuals within STW.

For safety reasons, STW preferred corporate-owned slaves to work in areas that were physically removed from STW's child population, but some trusted slaves were assigned to menial jobs in the orphanages and schools such as preparing the kids' meals and cleaning their bathrooms. Young children returning from their first day at STW would walk home and tell their parents they had been waited on hand and foot and felt for the first time in their life what it truly meant to be powerful.

Indirect slavery

STW also used slave labor indirectly by trading with slaveowners in Baeba Swamp. STW hoped to dominate the trade of merchandise produced by slave labor, thus forcing non-STW traders to buy products from free laborers which STW deemed less efficient.

Child labor

STW also employed many children of diverse origins. When STW opened a new base, the common people noticed that the membership consisted mostly of children. STW paid its child laborers with wages comparable to those earned by adults in the wider Empire, which was possible only because of STW's vast profit margin; STW had a monopoly on many of the products they sold, and could charge their customers high prices.

Much of STW's work was done in plain sight, and small children were openly seen counting and sorting items, loading wagons, and delivering meals for both the adult STW members and each other. The children worked long hours, and some showed signs of physical exhaustion, but when adults in the wider world asked the STW children why they worked so hard, the kids told the adults how much STW paid them each day, and many adults became interested in STW themselves.

Child laborers were sometimes sorted by mood; happy laborers were assigned to workplaces near the center of town or in otherwise highly visible areas, while unhappy laborers were placed near captured adult slaves. At the end of each day, STW would hand the grumpy child laborers a large sum of money and show them that the adults working alongside them had earned nothing. Thus, with each day, STW reminded the children that their lives could have been much worse had they not joined STW. Child laborers who still complained were punished severely, but no punishment ever deprived them of their money.

Illegal immigration

STW thrived on illegal immigration. They hated the Dreamers, but they invited immigrants from Thaoa to move into Altotta and join STW, even though Thaoa had generally been seen as a hostile and at best untrustworthy nation, little better than Dreamland in the eyes of some Thunderers. The least among the Thaoans was considered superior in STW to the greatest among the non-STW Thunderers. Also, Crystals were generally welcome in STW, and their businesses were not targeted. STW was using the same pluralistic strategy that Kava had been born from almost 1500 years earlier. Thus, STW violated the Thunder Empire's dislike of the typically dark-skinned Crystal tribes.

Currency

STW minted a private currency that only STW members could earn: the asala. Asala coins were made of iron and thus very cheap to acquire and mint. They were also easy to counterfeit, but STW had no problem with this because, since the asala coins could only be spent at STW, they kept a running tally of each member's balance and therefore could refuse a transaction from an STW member whom they recognized as having spent all their coins. Members were allowed to donate asala coins to non-members, and to trade them for goods or labor, but all such transactions had to be reported to STW, and for some members, STW demanded that the transactions be reported before they occurred.

Asala coins were awarded for good deeds, and had no limit. For students, graduating to a new grade also conferred an award in asala, with the amount almost doubling for each grade. Thus, although all child laborers had vastly inflated incomes respective to their labor, students in the 8th grade had much greater total wealth and many could buy their own houses. Some of these students were as young as 10 years old.

Although STW introduced the currency with a claimed exchange rate of 1:1 against the imperial indasi, in fact the asala was constantly getting weaker against the indasi because STW kept minting new asala coins and new indasi coins were printed only very slowly. STW refused to change its official exchange rate, and therefore the real exchange rate fluctuated wildly according to the needs of both parties. Some STWers convinced outsiders that the 1:1 exchange rate was real and thus obtained enormous sums of money. STW sometimes sent newly enrolled child laborers home to their apprehensive parents with indasi instead of asala, such that children would out-earn their parents and offer to buy their parents new furniture at STW. This was risky, however, because the children could not always be made to spend the money at STW.

The real value of the asala was centralized and therefore identical everywhere within STW. Within a few decades, the asala was worth less than one fifth of an indasi, and STW members could only fool the very most gullible of outsiders.

Adult salaries

Adults joining STW tended to graduate very quickly, and their first year in STW could earn them more money than they had ever made before, as they could potentially receive all eight graduation prizes within a single calendar year. But after graduation, their salaries stalled at levels scarcely higher than those of the child laborers. This was because STW expected adult members to proactively create wealth rather than merely trading their labor for wealth.

Furthermore, adults were required to provide an explanation whenever they chose to withdraw money or convert it to indasi. By contrast, STW encouraged child laborers to spend large sums of money frivolously, because child laborers mostly spent their money within STW, but adults made purchases that could affect the wider world.

Retail operations

STW's merchants built stores in which merchandise was placed in a stockroom and cashiers stood in a row to fetch items requested by each customer. This was the typical design for stores of the time; there was no customer-accessible merchandise area. Often, STW placed their stores near rival stores with lower prices but poor selection, and then claimed to be superior.

Stores were open to both members and non-members, with their respective prices listed next to each item. The price gap varied arbitrarily; a chair might cost twice as much for a non-member, but a matching table could cost five times as much. These price gaps were often due to supply issues, as members would know which items were in short supply while other customers would not. Sometimes, members' prices for low-demand items would actually be below cost, to encourage the members to buy up the product and make room for other items. Some STW members also bought items and resold them later outside STW. STW approved of this because there were some non-members who had friends in STW, and could buy from them at a price below STW's non-member price while still earning a profit for the member.

Prices for members were displayed in STW's private currency, the asala, while non-members' prices were listed in the imperial indasi. Thus, although all customers knew that STW was charging higher prices to non-members, the ratio was not always clear because non-members could not own asala and most did not keep track of the exchange rate.

Abuse of customers

Arbitrary price increases

STW sold the items their slaves produced at high prices. Menus listing the prices of each item were posted in easily visible areas on the walls, but the cashiers paid little attention to them when selling to non-members. Where the price lists made clear that non-members would be made to pay higher prices than members did, in fact the cashiers routinely charged non-members even higher prices than what they advertised. A typical customer wanting a pineapple might see the sign listing its price as 500 indasi, but when the cashier retrieved it, she could deliberately misread the price as 1500 indasi and charge the customer accordingly. Another customer behind her might get the same pineapple for 550 indasi, depending on the cashier's whims; all of the power was in the hands of the cashiers.

Some cashiers raised the price in the middle of a transaction to see how much money they could extract from a customer before the customer would walk out empty-handed. Sometimes, a cashier would yell out a number, and the customer was required to pay the cashier an additional fee of that many indasi if they wanted to be allowed to continue the transaction.

Chores for non-members

Some STW stores forced non-members to do additional work while they were in the store. For example, if a member was purchasing a heavy table, a non-member might be asked to help lift it so that the employees could focus on other things. Non-members were thus only allowed to shop when the employees had no chores for them to do. In some stores there were separate lines for members and non-members, but members could always skip to the front of the non-members' line if they did not want to wait at the back of their own line.

Ḳăha

Customers who had paid for their orders were told to wait in a cordoned-off area of the store while the cashiers went into the stockroom to retrieve the requested merchandise. Some customers placed their orders, paid, and then waited patiently only to be told that the cashier was running behind schedule and had decided to move on to the next customer. The customer would not get their money back and could not complain. Then, the customer would be forced to walk out empty-handed or pay a second time and hope to get their merchandise sometime before sunset. This practice was called ḳăha, and was the most risky move a cashier could make in their battle against the customer, but STW allowed it, and customers usually submitted to it.

Competitions

Cashiers held competitions to see who could cheat their customers the most. Customers sometimes switched from one cashier to another to get a better price, but in many stores where this happened, the cashiers signed agreements stating that any customers who switched would be made to pay higher and higher prices every time they attempted to flee the abuse. Customers in this situation either submitted to the abuse or avoided STW altogether. However, as STW grew, it became harder for customers to avoid shopping there, and those who refused to publicly submit would thus need to send other people to shop for them.

Some cashiers disliked competitions, instead cooperating with each other to define what the price of an item should be. This meant generally more reliable prices for the customers, but even so, each cashier in such a group was allowed to file a dispute with another for not charging a customer enough, and force that cashier to raise her prices in the middle of the transaction.

Effects of abuse

STW allowed its cashiers to keep all of the money they had won by cheating their customers, which meant that the mostly-female cashiers were among the best-paid people in all of STW. Males' wages were typically lower than females, but also more reliable because each chief would pay the men for their work according to a set formula that depended only on their production. Even if an item was in low demand and could only be sold at a low price, the men would still receive their expected daily wages.

Most cashiers were female, though there were teenage boys involved in heavy lifting of furniture. Because of the hostile environment inside the stores, child laborers were generally not placed in jobs close to the customers.

Blessed customers

An inner circle of loyal customers were granted the coveted privilege of getting their products for prices that were actually lower than the advertised prices. None of the customers knew what they needed to do to get this privilege, nor were they told what the secret was once they had been granted it. Indeed, STW did not require a reason; the chiefs assigned the privilege at their pleasure. The chiefs of STW were the only people allowed to grant this power, and therefore the regular STW members did not understand it either. This was intentional, as STW wanted to make sure there were very few resellers in their society and that the ones they had would be forever grateful for their blessings.

Resellers became very powerful in their society, since they could buy things for their friends at low prices, and STW allowed them to resell their merchandise. Some STW stores even allowed these customers to resell their merchandise on STW's property, since they knew that STW could dispose of undesirable items more quickly if the customers could see them. Cashiers could not abuse the resellers by unexpectedly raising their prices.

Resellers thus occupied a middle tier in the hierarchy between the members who paid wholesale prices and the non-members who paid often high prices which could vary at the whim of the cashiers. Because they paid with indasi, their prices occasionally dropped lower than the STW members' own prices as exchange rates fluctuated faster than the stores could update their price lists. However, when this happened, STW members were allowed to also pay with indasi.

In towns where STW approached monopoly status, the resellers became very rich, and most chose to make power-shopping their career, collecting the royalties from their secondhand customers. STW allowed this because even the reduced prices were still usually profitable for STW, and the large purchases of the resellers guaranteed them high profits. STW reserved the right to revoke the discount privilege if a reseller attempted to open an actual physical store with preowned STW merchandise in it, or was seen buying goods at low prices for an immigrant from the hated empire of Dreamland or one of STW's individual enemies.

Customers' reactions

STW's stranglehold on trade allowed them to abuse their customers without fear of reproach. Their private army protected their trade route and ensured that STW kept full control of traffic in both directions, even for business unrelated to STW. No other store could sell merchandise comparable to STW's, nor could the government clamp down on STW without losing its trade with Baeba.

Most customers understood that they had no power and therefore did not try to rebel against STW. Those who did revolt were often attacked by other customers, who worried that the cashiers would assign higher prices to any customers who did not unite to push out the rebellious customers.

Some customers responded to STW's abuse by simply joining STW. However, STW had little interest in skilled labor; their wages for adults were the same regardless of whether the prospective member was a farm laborer or a doctor. Furthermore, they required all adult males to join STW's military, and adult females were often assigned to jobs along trade routes that were just as dangerous as the men's. Thus, customers who joined STW to gain access to low prices in STW's stores were required to make important sacrifices in other areas of their lives. Since the chief's approval was required to enroll a new member, STW generally enrolled adult members who were a good fit for their business model.

Advertisement

STW called its rival businesses "the Empire" and stated that citizens of the Thunder Empire should shop at STW because it was a political organization opposed to the monopoly on power held by the government of Altotta. STW claimed that governments should have rivals within their own nation in order to keep them from becoming too corrupt. STW claimed to be interested in expanding worldwide, but had bases only in Altotta.

STW appealed to citizens' obligation to care for children, because STW owned one orphanage for every store, and therefore they portrayed any attack against their stores as an attack against their orphanages.

Armed attacks on rival businesses

STW store managers often robbed rival stores, but generally restricted these actions to stores run by immigrants, particularly Dreamers, because they knew that the public opinion of STW would turn sharply negative if they were seen attacking the native Thunderers.

STW celebrated each successful robbery, claiming the common people supported the robberies, and put up signs outside their stores advertising that they were selling merchandise that had been stolen from the immigrants. The immigrants were unable to retaliate because all of STW's stores were heavily guarded. The national government was unable to help the immigrants for the same reason, along with the fact that if the national police were seen helping Dreamers even indirectly, they could put themselves at risk of losing their jobs or being attacked by a mob.

STW claimed the Thunder government supported the robberies as well, but had let the Dreamers stay in the Empire because the Thunderers were too weak economically to thrive on their own, and Dreamland provided them a link to a wealthy coastal nation. They noted that the government of Altotta did not punish non-STW storeowners who also stole merchandise from the Dreamers, but that this happened less often because these people did not have their own army whereas STW did.

Restaurants

STW also owned a chain of restaurants. They closely imitated the business model of the restaurants around them. Most restaurants in the Thunder Empire were owned by single families, and employed the entire family, including the children. Some families hired unskilled laborers, including children, if they could not run the restaurant alone or if they wanted to open a second location. Restaurants also sold uncooked food for customers to take home.

Relations with customers

STW's restaurants were much less abusive of their customers than their retail employees were, because there was no realistic way to achieve a monopoly on prepared food. Also, the markup on food was minimal in general, so non-members paid similar or slightly higher prices than those of members. Some STW restaurants tried to undersell their competitors by serving lower-quality food; this was the opposite of STW's retail model, where they admitted to high prices but claimed their merchandise was superior.

Although STW's restaurants did not grossly mistreat their customers, there were some practices borrowed from their retail operations. For example, non-members were required to do chores before they could order food, and could be made to get up in the middle of their meal to clean up a mess made by a member seated in a different part of the restaurant. STW sometimes tightened the lids on the bottles they sold, knowing that diners would need to ask for help, and could then be charged a higher price. Thus, even in their restaurants, they reminded their customers that life was better for members of STW.

Child labor in restaurants

STW's restaurants employed many young children. Because non-STW restaurants also employed children, the public did not see this as child abuse or ask the children if they were being exploited. However, STW's practice was different because they employed children taken from their wider pool of orphans and other child laborers, and there were no family ties. Furthermore, most of the child laborers in restaurants were very young, because they expected the diners, even STW members, to do most of the work while the children concerned themselves mostly with delivering the food from the kitchen to the table.

Wages in restaurants

Wages in the restaurants were typically lower than in the retail stores, but STW adhered to a centralized pay schedule, ensuring that even a restaurant that was losing money each day would still receive enough money to pay its employees. This security was unattainable for the small family-owned restaurants they competed with, and STW's restaurants sometimes outlasted their competitors. The drawback of this model was that restaurant employees had no drive to exceed their customers' expectations.

Non-retail operations

Orphanages

STW built expansive orphanages in each town they did business in, showing they could solve a problem the government could not. The children in the orphanages were fed well and kept safe from danger, and although they were forced to work for a living, they were allowed to keep their entire salary, and did not have to pay for the room and board. STW knew that it was difficult to feed and shelter children for free, pay them for their labor, and yet turn a profit, but they were willing to lose money in order to sway public opinion in their favor.

Before building each new orphanage, STW's employees surveyed the town to find what basic need was most difficult to meet for the townspeople. Then, they ensured the missing good would be in ready supply within the orphanage, and also readily available for a price at STW's private stores. If they could not find an unmet basic need, they would try to create one. In one town, STW established a monopoly on scissors and glue, and even though most locals had never heard of either, they soon flocked to STW's stores to buy those items.

STW's orphans spent much of their time outdoors, and sometimes invited parented non-STW children to tour the building with them. Life in the orphanage was difficult and stressful, but many children had difficult lives at home as well, and saw the orphanage as an escape from their abusive parents. STW had expected this, and they announced that their orphanages were open to all children, regardless of their family status. STW further promised that any children who ran away from their parents to join STW would be kept safe, and that if their parents entered STW's property to get their kids back, STW's private army would arrest the parents and would reserve the right to inflict further punishments. STW promised no exceptions to this rule; even a toddler, barely able to walk and wholly unable to work, would be sheltered and kept safe inside the orphanage.

However, STW never sent its adult members out on the streets to attract children to join STW; the only members allowed to invite children to STW were STW's own children. Likewise, STW forbade its members from interfering in non-STW parents' lives in order to pull their children away; the children had to come on their own.

When the Thunder Empire learned what was happening, they sided with STW, saying that abusive parents deserved to lose their children, and that any parents whose children voluntarily ran away to work at STW must be very abusive indeed. Thus STW presented itself as the strongest ally of underprivileged children, and stated that their mere existence would help keep parents in line. Previously, the Thunder Empire's government had recused itself from familial affairs, and even severe child abuse had gone largely unpunished. Thus STW provided the government an excuse for its own inaction, and although the government was worried about STW's quickly growing power, they promised to let STW expand its orphanage operations without limit.

STW planned to become the only organized administrator of orphanages in the Empire so that any threat to STW as a whole would be seen by outsiders as a direct attack on the orphans. They wanted to ensure that even criticizing STW would lead to accusations of disregard for the orphans.

Schools

STW built schools in separate buildings from the orphanages and stores, though they were typically very close by since students needed to walk between the buildings on their own. Each school had the same structure: there were eight grades, and each grade had only one teacher. Teachers were ordinary STW members, with no special authority, and children could work at their own pace or skip school whenever they felt like it. This enabled STW students to spend leisure time in the town, going places other kids could not, despite their overall heavy workload. However, graduation was mandatory and STW withheld important privileges from students until they graduated.

Regardless of age, new students were always enrolled in the first grade, and since all new members were required to attend school, this rule applied even to adults. However, adults typically graduated through the grades very quickly, and spent much of their class time tutoring the children.

Although STW's students spent many hours in their classrooms, their education was typically inferior to the education in the imperial schools. STW could only teach skills its existing members had, and therefore, STW children learned the same things their parents and teachers knew. This frustrated STW members, but so long as STW maintained its control over trade, they ensured that manual laborers and retail workers would be among the best-paid people in the Empire.

Some students found the classwork too difficult, and never made it through the 8th grade. STW refused to waive the graduation requirements, and these people thus became perpetual students, and STW often assigned them the least desirable and most dangerous work, claiming that the safer jobs required a better education.

Ships

Early STW built many large trading ships, powered by rows of slaves rowing oars. Children aboard these ships sometimes also rowed.

As STW grew, the importance of shipping declined, so fewer new ships were built. Yet, when STW reached the north and south coasts, they again began building fleets of ships to travel far out to sea. In the north, they caught exotic fish to serve in their restaurants; even dolphin meat was available, though rarely requested. STW's restaurants would take orders ahead of time and deliver the meal at their earliest convenience. In the south, however, few people were interested in exotic seafood.

Traditional labor

STW assigned its most dangerous jobs to adults, so most adults in STW were married couples whose children were also in STW. STW's adult laborers' wages were only slightly higher than those of their children, although adults had powers the children did not. Adults' surprisingly low wages were in effect because STW expected adults to be able to make money on their own rather than only relying on their employer.

Adults could quit STW, but in doing so they would forfeit all their asala, pay higher prices at STW's stores, and lower the social status of their children. Few adults resigned, but some worked relatively little and thus became poorer as they got older.

Army

All STW adult males were in the army, but much of their duty was noncombative. Unlike most other armies, soldiers in STW could disobey their commanders so long as they did not attack other STW members. This is because STW viewed all soldiers as mercenaries, and each mercenary had the right to reject a mission.

Similarly, soldiers could start battles on their own, without asking STW for permission, and although STW would not pay them for these endeavors, STW promised that such people would always be sheltered if they needed to flee back to safety.

Theft and robbery

STW's adult male soldiers were allowed to break the laws of the Empire. For example, soldiers often stole merchandise or money from outside STW and converted it into STW's private currency so that it could not be recovered. However, whereas STW asked no questions when members brought money to deposit into STW's bank, each member was required to provide an explanation when they chose to withdraw money or convert it to indasi. This applied even to the chiefs.

Recruitment and growth

New members joined STW by invitation, and each new member had to be approved by the chief. A newly founded Base generally started with a small membership consisting of leaders who had moved in from another Base, bringing their children with them. These children would meet the other Thunder children in day to day life, and make friends with them even though they did not go to school together. Then they would invite their friends to join STW. Adults were recruited less often, despite their much greater economic value, because the economy of Altotta at this time was such that adults could not easily bring their jobs with them to STW. However, a non-STWer who had children in STW would be treated better by STW than Thunderers who refused to let their children join STW.

Early growth

STW got its first taste of power in the Thunder Empire city of Lypelpyp, in the state of Kavi, near the Thunder Empire's border with the Crystal Empire.

Immigration

In the very early years of STW's existence, it relied largely on immigration to grow. These immigrants were all illegal, because the Thunder government had shut down immigration entirely to protect itself from the threat of yet another coup leading to a new government dominated by foreigners. STW thus was embarrassing Altotta by proudly violating the laws, but Altotta couldn't stop the immigration because the STW members stuck firmly to each other, and STW was popular enough that even Thunderers who were outside STW did not call for the closure of STW bases simply because they were hosting illegal immigrants.

Only four years after STW's founding, the Thunderers overthrew their government yet again. This time, however, the group taking power also considered itself a Thunder organization, and merely wanted to reform the government rather than replacing it. They released the Crystal slaves (but not most Dreamers) and allowed immigration to return in limited numbers. They did not publicly admit that what they had privately known: that immigration was going to continue no matter what the law was, and that by legalizing immigration they could at least potentially limit the power of STW. However, they were still worried that immigrants would all favor STW, and that if STW became powerful enough they could find themselves living in a society with Thunderers at the very bottom and the Crystals and the other immigrant groups piled on top of them.

History and politics

Early history

Early STW supported the Zenith. From the very date of its founding, STW was at war with Dreamland, although this was because it had allied with the Scope party, which had declared war on Dreamland. STW even then consisted mostly of unarmed children, and they painted expensive murals on the city walls portraying diapered STW toddlers repulsing an invading Dreamer army. In reality, however, STW protected its members very dutifully, and STW's contribution to the war was mainly derived from providing food and supplies to the far more robust Scope army.

STW created the name Lindasi for iteslf in contexts where it wanted to be seen as a country. Names like "Lindasia" for their territory thus were created. The Zeniths wanted to wipe out all that was not from them, including Baeba Swamp and the Crystals. Some Zeniths were atheists, and others had different religions that didnt get along. This was unusual for this era since most political parties had only one religion. STW declared that it was not a political party, but merely a political and economic organization, and therefore STW also allowed multiple religions within its power structure.

Early STW strongly hated the enslaved Crystals living in Altotta, as did the Zenith. They also wanted to take over Baeba Swamp. Even though they happily imported Crystals into Altotta, and promoted them to positions of power within STW, this was only because all STW members had sowrn loyalty to STW above even their nationality. STW still disliked Crystals as a whole as much as the rest of the Thunderers did. STW also declared a symbolic war against Laba, a distant enemy that could neither harm nor be harmed by STW. This was because immigrants from Laba had founded their primary foreign antagonist, Dreamland, and the leaders of Laba wanted to expand into Thunder territory. However, although Laba was a very boat-heavy culture, there was only one route from Laba to Altotta that did not pass through many other smaller nations, and Laba realized that most of those other nations would likely side with the Thunderers. The one route from Laba to Altotta with only one intervening nation was through Dreamland, and the Dreamers were not interested in such a war as they knew it would hurt them far more than it would hurt Laba.

In 3919, the Thunder government was overthrown by dissenters from within who wanted an end to state-sponsored racism and newer, more liberal laws. STW had horrified the Thunder government by rapidly changing Lypelpyp into a Crystal-majority city, when the Thunderers prided themselves that they had thrown off the yoke of the Crystals. As STW grew richer, the Thunderers realized non-STW Thunderers were going to be at the bottom of society with STW and all its immigrants on top. Although the government was overthrown only four years after the founding of STW, and the borders re-opened, social attitudes did not quickly change, and many Thunderers assumed that anyone not a member of the Thunder "race" was an STW member.

The new government still called itself the Thunderers, because it had the same ideology as the old THunderers. The new Thunderers did have a few differences, however. They did not believe in judicial organizations, meaning that they were going to get rid of the entire court system and make law a private matter negotiated between individuals. The enslavement of Crystals was ended, although slavery of other groups continued.

By 3948, a woman named Ende became very powerful in STW. She was 3/4 crystal, but had converted to Thunder. She was the chief of STW Base 7, which was based in Lypelpyp, displacing a man named Endofi. She was very young, having barely graduated the eighth grade when she became chief. But Ende had grown powerful enough to gain the president's approval to act on behalf of (and against the will of) other Bases. The situation was very similar to Afunyū's authority over the president of Pipaippis in 1950s Subumpam, except that Enodab (also Ende, Entece, etc) was supplanting the president of her own organization rather than the government. Enodab spent much of her time promoting pacifism in Nama and Dreamland, hoping those two empires would become so pacified that Enodab herself could personally rule over them. She focused mostly on Nama, even though a lot of other empires were also focusing on Nama.

In August 3948, Nama decided its government was so pathetic that they stopped allowing Ende's missionaries to visit, since many desperately poor Namans seemed to believe the missionaries who claimed that Nama's ever-declining fortunes would finally improve if Nama became even more pacifistic and allowed Altotta's army to intrude even further inside them. Nearly all of Altotta's huge territory had been taken from Nama in a series of wars spanning more than 1400 years, and yet Altotta still insisted they needed more land. Soon the missionaries moved on from Nama to Paba, although by moving to Paba they escaped Ende's control and were no longer directly working for her interests.

Also in August 3948, the proto-Moonshine people (PMS) seceded from Lobexon and began marching t northward through Naman territory in search of a safe place to live. They refused to make any alliances with any outside powers, although they happily accepted help from allies such as Nama.

War with Paba

Ende then decided to invade Paba, bringing back slaves to work for her in STW. Many of the people who had been kicked out of STW had moved to Paba to find a place where they could again feel powerful, and many of these had created their own micro-nations in Paba, where Paba's government was too weak to enforce its laws. By this time, however, Paba was so foreign that many STWers had never even heard of it. Paba had abolished its military earlier and Pabap diplomats told STW that they would refuse to fight back against the invasion, preferring to focus on Paba's many internal problems instead. However, as STW was still very small at this time, Ende's army was abducting mere hundreds, not thousands, of Pabap civilians back to STW.

Altotta's own army also refused to participate in this war, but the shock of learning that a new war had been declared with no participation whatsoever from the government of Altotta, and the realization that any retaliation from the enemies would surely hit mainline Altotta instead of Lypelpyp, threw Altotta's leaders into a panic. Traditioanlly Paba had dealt with wars by sending their diplomats to cry on the shoulders of the leaders of foreign nations such as Thaoa since Paba had no army of its own any longer. The Thunderers knew that STW consisted mostly of children, and could not seriously expect to fight a war even against a pacifist nation by itself, and that their strategy would likely rely on forcing Altotta into the war by murdering innocent people in Paba and blaming Altotta.

War with Laba

The king of Laba, Adabawa, was attempting to build a coalition of nations on Rilola to fight back against Altotta and the rapidly growing STW. (Although Laba contained hundreds of nations, some hostile to their neighbors, there was a "king" in the sense that all contact between Laba and the rest of the world was controlled by the nation that dominated the northern coastline, and that nation identified itself simply as Laba when dealing with diplomats from the mainland. Lohi was the name of a coalition of dissenters in Laba, but they had no power because they had no navy.)

Rise of feminist parties

Two new political parties had challenged the Thunderers in recent years: Moonshine and the Fairies. The Moonshines were a branch of the Crystals that stressed pacifism and the supreme authority of women over men. The Fairies also placed women in control of men but said that with females in power, the military would only fight wars that were absolutely necessary, and that there was no need to additionally commit to pacifism.

Treaty with Lohi

Lohi signed a pact with Altotta promising to fight a humanitarian war against Laba, and renouncing all claims to the mainland. At this, some conservative-leaning politicians in Altotta called for war against Lohi, saying the treaty didn't go far enough, and that Lohi needed to send its soldiers to destroy all of Nama and then give it to Altotta so that Altotta would be able to use only Naman soldiers to fight the war.

Soon the Thunderers began to talk of a new war against the Sparks, a group of Thunder supporters based in rural Nama.

The Thunder military generals promoted their plans for conquest by explaining that , by attacking their own allies, they would have the element of surprise and would win an easy victory, particularly given that their allies were poorly equipped for war. Only once their allies had been vanquished, the Thunderers promised, would they pursue a war against their enemies. They wanted to destroy their allies so that, if they were able to win the wider war, the victory would be theirs alone.

Wars against the pacifists

Meanwhile the Thunderers also began talking of a new war against the various organizations of pacifists within their territory, as well as in foreign empires such as Moonshine. Moonshine was a feministic empire that had been founded only a few years earlier by refugees from the Crystals, and the Thunder leaders figured they could score victories against the women in Moonshine with one wing of their army while invading Laba, Lohi, and Nama with the other. Since Moonshine was pacifistic, the Thunderers figured the women would refuse to fight back against their army, and the Thunderers could build military bases in Moonshine if they lost the war against Laba.

Adabawa reacts

STW relied on Altotta for support, and so STW's and Altotta's foreign policies were the same. Thus Adabawa figured that the only way to destroy STW was to destroy Altotta. So STW's symbolic war against Laba became real, although it was being fought mostly in Baeba Swamp for the time being, with a second front opening in Paba. In both of these territories, Lenians were the ones fighting for Adabawa; Adabawa's own people did very little fighting because they lived on the islands of Laba. In fact, Adabawa was training his soldiers to launch a war against the Lenians in Baeba Swamp once the Lenians had eliminated Adabawa's other enemies.

Adabawa had kidnapped a woman named Maninapa from the infant nation of Moonshine. Moonshine's political philosophy was pacifism, and they often sent their people into battle zones without any weapons or armor in the hopes that they could help heal the wounds of soldiers on both sides of the war. Adabawa kept Maninapa as a political prisoner for a short time, but then explained to Maninapa that her new job was to go back to her homeland and pretend to have converted to a pro-Adabawa orientation, and to repudiate pacifism. He warned that if Maninapa was not successful in convincing Moonshine to support Adabawa, Adabawa would simply invade Moonshine and force them to surrender.

However, Paba still held to its 2000 year old doctrine of pacifism, and promised not to fight back against either side if attacked. This angered Adabawa, who saw Pabaps as useful and easy prey. He was still unwilling to risk Laban troops to fight a war in Paba, however, and looked for ways to starve their economy until they submitted.

Adabawa captured most of the fake pacifists that Ende had sent to Nama and had moved to Paba. From them he learned military secrets, and vowed to make an alliance with Altotta, and then invade and crush Paba before Altotta could. (He was willing to offer them much of Nama however.)

However, in 3952, Altotta's feminist coalition rejected Adabawa and shut its foreign diplomacy program with Laba entirely. THey had held a debate in central Nama between Adabawa and Maninapa, and Maninapa won the debate. Thus Altotta became more pacifistic, because the only alternative presented to them was to make an alliance with Laba. Other nations respected Altotta now and stopped their wars. Thus it was now Laba that was isolated.

However, Adabawa still had the comfort of knowing that if Ende attacked Nama or Paba, they would submit to Laba instead of Ende. Altotta decided to launch an all-out war against Dreamland, Baeba Swamp, Nama, Lobexon, Subumpam, Paba, Thaoa, Repilia, Taryte, Ihhai, and Katō. They planned to occupy Paba so they could use the Pabaps as pawns to propel them to power.

In 3953, Adabawa defeated Altotta, the first time in over 2000 years a Laban army had won a war in Rilola. However, Adabawa did not have the manpower to actually occupy Altotta, so instead the Thunderers abdicated power in favor of the Anchor (Loporomo) party, thus creating the First Anchor Empire, often called Loporomo I. They maintained their native languages, chiefly Meromo.

Anchor rule

Baywatch era

STW's leaders panicked when they realized they had lost a major against a power who had chosen to make STW their prime target.

In 3977, Dreamland's Dolphin Riders declared war on Adabawa and his reigning Wild party, and claimed the war was ideological even though their parties' ideologies were very similar. Adabawa quickly abandoned his occupation of the Anchor Empire in order to hold Dreamland, and handed full control of the Anchor Empire to the rival Baywatch party.

Growth despite hostility

The Baywatchers opposed STW. However, life under the Baywatchers drove STW and the Empire to mend their ties, and STW's schools actually expanded as the imperial schools began to shut down. STW's army prioritized the protection of the children in their schools and orphanages, and stopped their quest for ever more slaves. As major Thunder cities depopulated, small towns with STW bases grew. For example, Lypelpyp, home to the world's first STW base, became the largest city in the western half of the Empire.

In some towns, STW enrolled a majority of the town's population and began to swallow up independent high-skilled workers such as doctors who had traditionally resisted incorporation when the Empire had been free. Because STW's stores punished non-members with higher prices, even a rich man could become poor if he refused to join STW. However, STW's chiefs typically rejected criminals and other people they felt too unreliable to award full membership to; these people instead became slaves.

STW was no longer able to lead raids of stores owned by Dreamer immigrants because the Baywatch army now protected these stores. However, few subjects of the Empire were interested in buying Dreamers' merchandise any longer; only the most desperate customers were ever seen shopping there. Soon, most Dreamer stores rebranded themselves as military supply stores and sold mostly to other Dreamers. But they looked for ways to portray themselves as superior to STW, and focused on customer service since STW had long been notorious for their abusive employees.

Decline in profits

As STW enrolled greater and greater shares of the Anchor Empire's population, their profits began to decline. Their traditional business model had maximized profit by relying on slave labor for production and forcing non-members to pay high prices in stores, but in towns where STW enrolled a majority of the population, there were few customers left to cheat.

Likewise, the hostile Baywatch occupiers made trade difficult, and even as acquisition costs rose, STW had to lower the prices of many profitable goods because most customers could no longer afford luxury items since the Empire's economy had degenerated. However, this problem also affected non-STW stores, and many independent stores simply shut down. Thus, STW's share of the Empire's retail market increased even as its profits fell.

STW's currency, the asala, had been rapidly depreciating even when STW had been making ever-increasing profits because they minted new coins with little regard for the interests of current holders. Since STW was its own bank, they knew the total amount of circulating currency at each time, and increased their laborers' wages to keep pace. Inflation had averaged about 3.8% per year between STW's first day of business in 3915 and the Anchor Treaty in 3958. By 3977, the value of each coin had fallen to 1/7th its original value because the total circulating currency had increased sevenfold. Thus STW offered to exchange currency at a 7:1 ratio.

Interest in education declined under Baywatch occupation, as citizens believed that there was little chance for average citizens to acquire a high-paying job regardless of their education level. Thus, imperial schools began to degrade. But STW maintained its insistence that all STW members must first complete eight grades of school, and therefore in many towns, STW became the only school still open.

Leaper era

In 4107, the Dolphin Riders won control of most of Dreamland and renamed themselves to the Gold party. The Dolphin Riders were too weak to control the Anchor Empire in addition, so the Baywatchers continued to rule there as well as retaining the northeast corner of Dreamland. However, the Baywatchers' occupation force had been greatly weakened by their loss in the war against the Riders.

In 4108, AlphaLeap declared the Baywatchers absent and moved the capital of the empire to Paba. AlphaLeap's economic model closely imitated STW's, and STW's currency's value began to decline. But AlphaLeap was not politically hostile, and therefore STW continued to thrive in areas where they maintained control of trade and skilled labor.

Play era

Players seize power

In 4127, the extremist Play party overthrew AlphaLeap. They opposed child labor and all luxury products, and quickly closed all STW trade routes in areas they controlled. They banned their members from joining STW, which meant that STW members could not participate in the Play government or receive benefits that the Players distributed to their members. Secret STW membership was not feasible because STW required its members to perform military and governmental duties that could not be done without violating the Play party's own membership requirements. Furthermore, many STWers still spoke only Khulls, and many showed traits of their original Baeban ancestry, as they had only been founded 200 years earlier.

Both STW and the Players stood for children's rights, reserved political power for women, and forced men to dedicate their lives to the military. Like STW, the Players typically had large families and upheld childbirth as the best gift a woman could give. However, unlike STW, the Players completely prohibited child labor, and said that any economic misfortunes which came to pass would be well worth it in order to preserve a happy childhood for their members.

The Players' capital was the southern city of Săla, where STW had earlier been weakened by AlphaLeap's rule, but once the Play army had conquered Dreamland, townspeople in areas where STW was strong began to support the Players as well.

The Play party believed that child labor was cruel even if the children were paid for it. They told STW that their children's work would be futile because the Play party would ensure that Player children who did no work would always live in better conditions than STW children who worked hard every day. They promised that they would not close STW, but they blocked all trade routes by land and sea, and therefore restricted STW members to buying goods only from each other. Furthermore, Players considered most of STW's merchandise to be luxury items, and therefore prohibited Players from buying those items at all. The Players allowed their members to destroy such illegal items.

Without its customer base, STW's currency became worthless. Early generations of child laborers in STW had been richer than typical non-STW adults, but when the Players shut off their access to the wider economy, children in STW realized that they were little more than slaves. Play children sometimes spent their day gathered outside STW's workplaces, mocking the STW children who slaved away for hours every day to earn the right to sleep in the crowded orphanage buildings that now housed both children and adults. STW's soldiers remained close by each base now, worried that if they ever left, the Player children would get tired of teasing STW and start throwing rocks at the children.

STWers defect

Some STW members began to desert STW in order to join the Play party, saying that STW could not thrive on its own. However, the Players soon ran into severe economic problems of their own. They believed that they could run an economy in which all children would be free to play all day, all men would be bound to the military, and all women would live in cities working mostly in child care. The men were required to procure their own food, and much of the Empire's farmland was turned over to military control. But civilian agriculture was outlawed, and all other industries were shut down. The Players expected that they could feed themselves by fishing the sea and collecting berries and other fruits in the open; they did not consider collection of ready-to-eat foods to be work, and indeed, the Players soon burned their farms to ensure that non-members could not make use of them either.

Players' economic problems

To the surprise of their enemies, the Players indeed managed to feed themselves, but only because their child population was doing all of the work. Since the government required adults to confine themselves to specific jobs, and had refused to respond to the emergent famine, the burden of acquiring food fell mostly on the child population. Player children spent their days at sea, struggling to row boats built for adults, catching fish with spears so that they could go home each night and feed the parents who gave nothing back except a place to sleep. After a hard day's work, the children were often robbed by adults as they walked up the beach to the fish stores where they sold their food. Inside the stores, angry customers spit on them and occasionally even hit the children whenever they felt they weren't getting their fair share of fish. Unlike STW's restaurants, these stores had no adult employees at all, so the children had to rely on customers to protect them from other customers.

Many children ran away from their parents and lived in crevices exposed to the elements. Soon, vengeful pirates from AlphaLeap appeared offshore and shot children trying to fish, forcing them to dodge arrows even as they struggled to steer their oversized boats.

When STW realized how unfair life was for the Player children, they yearned for the past era of cooperation when they had run orphanages in Paba, but the Play army was too powerful, and the Players in general were extremely stubborn people who trusted only each other. Some STW members connected with the women in charge of the Play government and showed them how, despite their promise to abolish child labor, Player children were now the worst off in the entire world, and worked harder than STW children ever had. The Player women agreed with STW's diplomats about this, but the Play government was so rigid that they could not force through a reform to alleviate the children's burdens.

Player rebellions

The Play party soon suffered rebellions. The Flower Bees were an army consisting of 50,000 runaways who seized farmland and ruled out all non-Bees and all adults from their territory. They ruled for two years but met their end when they attempted to invade the territory of a traditional adult male army, the Raspara. At its peak, the Bees' territory, called the Hive, spanned four counties.

The Laaatalalatataaa took power just east of the Bees, and like the Bees, they consisted mostly of children. However, they had some adults, and these adults were the ones in charge. Even so, the Raspara attacked them almost immediately and won quickly. Conquering the Laaatalalatataaa put the Raspara within striking distance of the Players' capital city of Săla.

Around 4140, the Raspara overthrew the Players.

Decline

STW's rise to power had depended on its presence in a sympathetic host empire.

In 4149, the Tinks overthrew the Raspara. A few months later, the Crystals overthrew the Tinks, but the Tinks soon took power back again. The Tinks disliked STW but supported its right to exist.

However, the Tinks soon realized that they only had control of their capital city and the roads leading into it, and had no feasible claim to the wider Empire. For STW, this meant that trade was no longer safe, and that their private military would need to protect STW's schools and stores. This made trade unprofitable, and STW's private currency collapsed to the point that its laborers could only afford to buy things from within STW. Their child laborers had once been richer than typical non-STW adults, but now they were little more than slaves.

Children in combat

For more than 200 years, STW had been known around the world as a school where children of any age could earn wages fit for adults by working hard and studying hard, served by a private army to protect their interests at home and abroad. But as hostile armies closed in, their child laborers could no longer sell merchandise or perform unskilled labor for the common people around them, and STW began to draft young children into their army to help fight the war. STW promised to always protect child soldiers by surrounding them with adult soldiers, and tried to keep families together so that fathers would be protecting their own children as they fought. However, this soon became untenable and STW fielded armies consisting entirely of children as they lost more and more battles against their enemies. These child soldiers fared even worse than previous armies such as the Flower Bees had; although they were able to slow the progress of advancing armies, none of STW's child armies ever won a battle, even with immense numerical superiority.

Nontraditional warfare

Knowing their child soldiers could never achieve any significant victories, STW began work in chemical warfare and the spread of plagues.

STW's plagues

In 4190, an STW chief named Joja sent a troop of small children into the Matrix nation, Tata, to help cure some of the diseases that STW had recently spread through Tata. She was hoping the kids would help soften the hearts of the Matrixes so they would agree to rejoin Anzan. She promised the Matrixes superpower status if they surrendered, and pushed the Swamp Kids to launch a second war against the Matrixes even though the Matrixes had just slaughtered over 30,000 Swamp Kids in a war where the Swamp Kids had killed only a few dozen Matrixes.

STW was facing severe financial stress, so they demanded that the Matrixes pay the kids money for their efforts at curing plagues. The Swampies were also facing severe stress, but they still sent a small army into Tata to follow and protect the STW children. The Matrixes, with the help of trained firebirds, immediately captured both armies and added them to their hundreds of thousands of slaves. STW offered to let the Matrixes keep the kids as slaves but demanded large amounts of money from the Matrixes as compensation. When the Matrixes refused, they sent more children into Tata to free the first troop, and demanded an even larger compensation for that.

Most independent nations declared war on STW now, saying the Matrixes had the moral high ground. The Raspara led organized attacks on STW's schools, killing the children they saw as the cause of the war. STW was thus forced to station security guards at its schools even though it meant fewer adults would be free to run the plantations. Expecting to lose the war, STW signed a pact with the Raspara saying that when STW finally ran out of child soldiers, the Raspara people could take all their weapons and enslave them, as they still preferred the Raspara people to the Matrixes even after the attacks on their schools and hospitals.

Contact with ZDE

Just as STW had turned to child soldiers when they ran out of adult soldiers, they also turned to smaller children when they ran out of bigger ones. As the war in Tata was progressing, a troop of very young STW children assigned to hold Paba found themselves trapped between a front of slave-seeking Raspara soldiers marching from the north and the small army of ZDE invading from the south. The children obeyed their orders to fight both armies simultaneously, but were quickly overwhelmed as the two armies met up and split the spoils between them.

ZDE was delighted when they discovered who they were fighting, as ZDE was one of the weakest sovereign nations in the world and their home territory was an icecap more than a thousand miles north of the war's epicenter. ZDE decided to focus entirely on child abduction and avoid traditional combat, and they promised the kids that although they would all be slaves, they would be safe from harm and thus better off than they had been in STW. By contrast, the Raspara considered STW's child soldiers no different than their traditional enemies, and killed anyone they felt too delicate to enslave.

By turning child soldiers into slaves, ZDE now also claimed the moral high ground, and began releasing pro-ZDE propaganda intending to get STW kids to desert their positions and join ZDE. None ever came, but some other armies in the area became sympathetic to ZDE, and ZDE had a clear path to abduct children whenever they could find them. STW responded by sending even more armies of children against ZDE, and then encouraged the children by telling them that it was a fair fight.

Raspara secession

Amidst all this, an alliance of adult male STW soldiers rebelled against STW and declared themselves to be Raspara. They thus joined the Raspara's war against STW and focused their attacks on the children who were serving beside them in STW's army.

Formation of TCT

When news of such incidents spread to STW's remaining students, a group of about 500 orphans at Base 7 revolted and declared themselves an independent nation with no army, land, or adult leadership. They took the name TCT, and soon absorbed another group of children called STS.

Although STW allowed its chiefs to expel children, they had long prided themselves on not doing so, and the children still retained the right to spend money since STW's currency was still valuable within STW. The chief of Base 7 obeyed the children's request to forsake their obligations, move to a tropical paradise at 15°N, and order their slaves to build them a resort called Šāaā ("Comfort City") to live in, even though the labor spent in doing so weakened STW even further. This resort was in Kxesh.

After the orphans voted to forsake their duties by defecting from STW, the leaders held a conference to find a new role for STW in their changing world. STW admitted that they could no longer be a child-focused organization, and although they retained the formal structure of schools and stores that they had created upon their founding in 3915, they freed their remaining children, discouraged parents from enrolling new children, and apologized to lifelong STW members who were eager to raise their children to positions similar to their own. They shut down their orphanage operations; although they still offered to protect orphans, they warned them that the life of an orphan in STW would be no better than the life of a slave, and STW encouraged childless families of all political parties to adopt their orphans.

By expelling its child population, STW shrank from about 36000 members to just 6000, most of whom were adult men. Most women left STW when the children did, as the men in STW's army preferred to control their own affairs.

Finally, STW told their remaining members that their organization had become an army. They stated that the only difference between STW and any other nation was that STW did not have a contiguous territory to rule over. However, like many other armies, they planned to remedy this by seizing control of Baeba Swamp. Thus , they began closing bases far from Baeba.

Soon after their apology, STW leaders around Baeba began collecting orphans and sending them to plantations in STW-held territory. The Baebans soon learned that STW had not changed their philosophy; they had merely resolved to limit their slave operations to children from hostile tribes.

Developments in Tata

Meanwhile, the war in Tata continued, but STW stopped demanding monetary compensation for everything they did. When the Raspara people heard this, they immediately switched sides and began an invasion of Tata. Quickly STW advanced into Tata with their allies at their side and began winning battles. They began to close in on Xema, the world's coldest nation, which was preparing for a massive southward invasion of the entire rest of the world after the other countries were weakened by war.

Creamland did not switch sides, however, so in December 4190 the STW-Raspara coalition conquered Tata and then began to invade Creamland. They defeated Creamland within weeks. After the resistance died down, STW decided to enslave the Rasparas even though they had helped STW win the war. Then, STW promised that it would soon enslave the rest of the world, except for the Creamlandic state of Thaoa. Anzan's Matrixes were assigned to the Swamp Kids, however, and STW did not expect to control the other slaves directly. Some STW members now also revived their demand for monetary compensation, saying that STW had lost many children fighting the war and thus deserved to finish the war in a better financial state than it had had when it began.

In the Treaty of Mosēsē, the Raspara commanders surrendered to STW and promised to pay the reparations that STW had been demanding at the beginning of the war. Because the Raspara army had only attacked children, they repaid their debt by consigning their soldiers to work as slaves for the remaining STW children. The Raspara soldiers then fled with these children to slave camps in the forests of Rasparia.

Rule from Baeba

Conquest of Tahifoka

In June 4206, the Slopes took over Tahifoka.

NOTE, THEY OVERTHREW THE SWAMP KIDS.... SEE STRAWB.DOC BECAUSE MUCH IF THIS IS OUT OF ORDER

Wars against the Dolls

In 4206, STW seceded from Altotta (which had renamed itself Rapala) and declared war on all people, even Zeniths, except for the Raspara. They refused to recognize the existence of Rapala and Baeba, saying that they both were just loose alliances of slavemasters who really each had their own countries. They still used the acronym STW, but began to increasingly refer to themselves as Lindasia as they sought to acquire a contiguous territory.

Most Raspara people were STW members now, which meant that their attempt to infiltrate STW had succeeded, and STW no longer consisted mostly of children ruled over by women. They helped STW improve its military by giving them leaked Slope military plans and weapons. They also had their own armies of slaves, which they donated to STW for free. STW's army was still smaller than most of their opponents', but they hoped they could make allies of neutral parties and new arrivals to the Swamp.

By this time, the Swamp Kids had moved their army to Baeba Swamp, surrendering all of their claims to the vast eastern empire. Though the Swamp Kids had had an embarrassing military history, they were strong enough to reach Baeba and hold their own against the armies they met there. But the Raspara army soon pounced on them, and after the Raspara came several other armies. Thus Baeba Swamp became the epicenter of the world's deadliest war.

Parcels of land within Baeba Swamp were given to coalitions in the hopes that an army with land of its own would not seek to invade neighboring lands. Three republics were founded in poor natural environments, called Tahifòka,Tahalmana, and Sahahămi. These were given exclusively to the Doll tribes, who were mostly slaves, and who had previously never had a nation of their own. The various Doll groups were divided by political ideology, not tribal identity, but Baeba's ruling Rock party referred to the groups as tribes in order to justify the creation of three nations rather than a single nation with three competing political parties.

Baeba expected that the newly free Dolls would immediately submit to their enemies, as they were poor soldiers and had in the past put up little resistance to capture by hostile armies, but they considered this preferable to having the Dolls scattered around other nations as a slave class.

War in Tahalmana

When STW learned of the three new Doll-led republics, they drew up plans to invade Tahalmana, which had been assigned to a league of Dolls who called themselves the Cupbearers. Some Cupbearers were still bound to slavemasters of the Slope party and therefore some Slopes moved into Tahalmana shortly after its founding. The Rocks had been expecting this, but still believed that this was preferable to seeing different leagues fight over the slaves.

STW considered the Swamp Kids and other armies unimportant and did not care whether the Swamp Kids were for or against them in their new war. They decided that the best way to conquer Tahalmana would be to convince the Cupbearers to support the overthrow of their Slope masters and the replacement of the standard Rapalan philosophy with STW's powerful version of Rasparism. They planned to raise a vast underclass of children in Tahalmana that would after about fifteen years come to outnumber the non-Doll adults and overthrow them. Then STW would occupy Tahalmana and kill off all of the teenage Cupbearers who had fought so hard to let them in.

STW members and slaves went on missions preaching pro-STW politics to the Dolls, and Baeba Swamp promised to defend STW in a war. However, STW's plan called for a delay of fifteen years before mobilizing their army, whereas the Swamp Kids swept into Tahalmana within months and quickly won the Cupbearers' surrender. STW realized that strategies that had served them well in the distant past were no longer valid.

The Cupbearers had surrendered to the Swamp Kids in the hopes that the Swamp Kids would enslave them but also protect them from the other armies. Instead, the Swamp Kids expelled the Cupbearers and declared Tahalmana to be a new republic for Swamp Kids only. After they built forts, they charged through Tahalmana towards STW's conventional army.

Most of STW's soldiers were from tribes physically similar to the Swamp Kids, and many STW members spoke Bābākiam, so both sides planted spies behind enemy lines. In the Battle of Tahalmana, STW's army defeated the Swamp Kids, blocked all roads leading to Tahalmana, and announced that they had realized their plan fifteen years early. However, the land they won had been entirely depopulated because the Swamp Kids had pushed out the Cupbearers, and therefore STW gained very few slaves. Moreover, though they had won the battle, they had lost many soldiers, and the survivors realized that conquering the other three Doll republics would likely be out of their reach. Thus they had no reaction when the Matrixes invaded Tahifòka and set up a coalition government whose other half was an alliance between the Slopes and a new wing of the Raspara calling itself LTU.

War in Tahifòka

Baeba's Rock party had assigned Tahifòka to a Doll party calling itself the Bottom, but the Bottoms quickly surrendered their nation to the Slopes. The Slopes had emerged from the Zenith, who had occupied much mountain territory. Thus, the Bottoms chose their name as a pun intending to show that the Slopes would help them connect with the Zenith. The new Slope-Bottom coalition aligned itself with STW and supported STW's new war against the Swamp Kids.

However, the Bottoms were unprepared for the abuse that the Slopes soon dealt to them. The Slopes had acquired many plagues from their previous battles, and they passed these plagues onto their slaves without providing them proper medical care. The Slopes told the Bottoms to replenish their population by having many children. But some Bottoms rebelled against their masters and fled into a cluster of Matrix plantations in the core of Baeba Swamp. They promised to work hard for the Matrixes so long as the Matrixes spared them from plagues. The Matrixes abducted the Bottoms and soon realized that, since the Bottoms were able to flee their Slope masters, the Slope army must have become weaker recently, and thus launched an invasion of Tahifòka.

The Matrixes and the Slopes were both legal parties in Baeba Swamp, and they both shared power in Baeba's coalition government, but since Tahifòka had been granted independence, the Matrix invasion was legal, and the Slopes could not order them to pull back. Nevertheless, they quickly signed a treaty with the Slopes to stop their war, and annexed the territory of Tahifòka back into Baeba Swamp proper. The Matrixes had a strong majority in Baeba's central government, so this new treaty decreased the power of the Slopes. However, the Slopes still had de facto control of much territory in the upper mountain regions from which they had derived their name. This territory was called Gatohăna.

The Slopes launched an illegal war against the Bottoms now, claiming that the perpetrators were renegades from Gatohăna that the mainline Slopes could not control. The Bottoms, still officially allied to the Slopes, then fled uphill into Gatohăna, meeting their enemies' swords with their open arms. The Matrixes then launched an illegal war against the Slopes, promising to hurt the Slopes as much as the Slopes were hurting the Bottoms. The Matrixes had no sympathy for the Bottoms; they merely could not stand to see their potential slaves go to waste. However, Baeba's ruling Rock party had retained the power to overrule their parliament, and so even though the Matrixes had a clear majority in Baeba's central government, their new war triggered the Rocks to eject the Matrixes from Baeba's government and reassign their seats to other parties, chiefly the Slopes. Thus, the Slopes were the new majority in Baeba, and their illegal war against the Bottoms became legal.

Settlement of Ḳēḳ

The Matrixes consolidated their army into the district of Ḳēḳ. They brought with them many slaves belonging to the United Pacifist League (UPL), and claimed that they were a fourth Doll republic with the Pacifists as their willing servants. (They had abducted the Pacifists from the republic of Sahahămi, but were unable to conquer Sahahămi.) The Matrixes had also abducted Cupbearers who had earlier attempted to submit to the Swamp Kids, and when the Cupbearers realized that they were now outnumbered by Matrixes, they attempted to escape Kēk and locate the Swamp Kids again. Some UPL members defected to the Cupbearers, and soon most of the Dolls in Kēk considered themselves Cupbearers.

Even though Baeba Swamp had just ejected the Matrixes from its parliament, they decided to recognize Ḳēḳ as a new nation and not seek a new war. The Matrixes were still supportive of the Slopes' war against the Swamp Kids, and the Slopes did not want to see them move to the other side.

Settlement of Vutagû

The Cupbearers (HLP) fled to dangerous habitats in the center of the swamp, where predatory animals kept people out. They declared themselves to be yet another new republic, called Vutagû, but Baeba's ruling Slope party refused to recognize them. Despite their dire situation, the Cupbearers had brought many animals and plants which they hoped to establish in Vutagû. The Cupbearers had very few weapons with which to defend themselves; they didn't even have spears like the Slopes did. Thus, they could not kill most animals, and they had to settle for a very restricted diet.

Since the Cupbearers were at this time a very poor people, they had few clothes and fewer weapons, and had to be ever alert for their predators. Soon, however, the Slopes decided to invade Vutagû and take their chances with the animals. They sent heavily armed Slopes out to capture young Cupbearers, and warned that they would not stop until HLP promised to obey the laws of Baeba Swamp.

The Cupbearers refused, but they realized that they were unarmed and would not stand much of a chance in a battle because they derived most of their strength from their animals. So they fled yet again and attempted to create another new town in Baeba, far away from where they had been living before. Since Baeba was a large nation, the Cupbearers figured, there would be plenty of room for everybody. The Cupbearer troop headed slightly west and then north. The leaders of the expedition were deeply worried about the possibility that their people might revolt and kill them, and worried that they would end up being led back to their homeland, which was now being taken over by Slopes who were attempting to kill all of the animals that had afforded the Cupbearers protection from the Slopes.

But nevertheless, the Slopes caught and abducted the unarmed Cupbearers. STW offered to help the Slopes oversee their newfound slave population, so long as the Slopes agreed to let STW members take back some of the Cupbearers to STW as well. The Slopes agreed. With the aid of HLP slave labor, Slope society grew rapidly. The STWers in Baeba, who quickly came to call themselves Slopes, provided the society with valuable technology and quickly accomplished in a few months what the Slopes had been trying to do for 70 years: kill the most dangerous animals in the Swamp, and replace them with more harmless ones.

Birth of the Clouds

Rapala's governors now considered STW their primary enemy, and were interested in making STW their only enemy by forging alliances with all non-STW parties. They renamed their empire Panu in honor of the Swamp Kids, and created a new league called the Clouds, open to anyone who opposed STW. They realized that they would need the Swamp Kids on their side if they were to conquer STW. Many Swamp Kids were still enslaved by other leagues, and the Swamp Kids had refused to enslave the willing Cupbearers who had surrendered to them in Baeba Swamp, so the governors of Panu promised to put the Swamp Kids at the head of the anti-slavery coalition if they were to join.

The Key

The Swamp Kids at first refused to join the alliance. They demanded that Panu's anti-slavery activists release all their slaves — Swamp Kids and others — or else face simultaneous attacks from the Swamp Kids and STW. But the Swamp Kids' leaders were desperately seeking allies, so they agreed to the new treaty even though they suspected that Panu would never give up their slaves. The merger of the Swamp Kids and the Clouds produced yet another new league called the Key. They wanted to unite all of the slaves and all of the people who opposed slavery into a single army, leaving only STW on the opposite side. They claimed to have won the support of the Slopes, and began referring to their adult male members as Slopes, but in fact most Slopes had refused the alliance because they did not want to give up their slaves.

The Key leaders released all their slaves as promised, but maintained the right to conscript supporters into the military. The Swamp Kids were not impressed, and predicted that the Key's "military" would consist primarily of slaves doing plantation labor to produce food for their leaders. They remained a part of the Key alliance, but tried to occupy territory in which mostly ex-Swamp Kids would live so that they would not be quickly captured by slave drivers.

Interactions with Panu

None of Rapala's towns had any powerful anti-STW resistance movements anymore ... even the Slopes had begun to support STW because Rasparism appealed to them. Slopes were very open-minded people whose political allegiance was never for certain, however, so STW realized that they needed to be able to kill all of the Slopes should the Slopes later become powerful and then turn against STW.

They figured that the Slopes were really not much stronger, per capita, than the Dolls had been, so they planned to attack with much the same strategy they had used against Dolls. Rapala had advanced weapon technology, however, and if all of Rapala were to unite against STW a very destructive war could result.

Clouds attempt to adapt

Meanwhile, STW itself was beginning to break apart over the issue of slavery. The slaveowners were not the richest ones, because they spent so much time abusing their slaves that they got less work done than did those who used free labor.

Lizard war

By this time, STW had established trade with a female Creamer military leader named Yanila.

Joja had now just begun to recognize the problem Janila was presenting. Like a parasite, Janila took power from STW and gave nothing back. She promised war against non-Rasparas, but had done nothing yet that was not selfishly motivated. Also, many STW members were being dragged into Janila's effective slavery by lopsided agreements with Janila. Many STW leaders, sympathetic to Janila, had signed away much of their power to Janila, getting nothing in return. Joja became the most vocal of the anti-Janila group, as she had the most power (Joja had more or less merged STW with the national government by this time). She threatened to shut down many of the nation's services if trade with Janila did not stop.

But in July 4209, Janila gave Piplap all of her military secrets, and signed an alliance with Piplap because she believed Piplap was going to do his best to conquer Enasisimi and force its people to work for the benefit of Janila's empire. In 4209, Piplap enlisted some Laban soldiers into his army, and fled with them to a new location with a ship he had just had built for him. He changed his name back to Iplabe. He invaded many parts of Enasisina and managed to steal over a million slaves by using Janila's stealthy kidnappers. Janila also let Iplabe use some of her soldiers, but these soldiers, called the Rappes, were not yet strong enough to actually invade Enasisina, and could only attack with chemicals.

Nama's last war

Due to the war with Taboo (the Key), Janila fell from power in 4221, but Elasisima fled away. However, a new enemy for Elasisi had emerged in the form of Asala, a union of people who had immigrated from Anzan to Nama. Previously, Anzan had invaded Nama and abused its people many times. Now Nama was looking for assurance that the two empires could still be friends even though Anzan had always abused them in the past. Asala decided that this cry for help meant that Nama was incredibly weak. Anzan asked for permission to simply take over all of Nama, and Nama agreed, although money was paid to the previous leaders to help them find a new way of life. Thus Nama became part of Anzan. However, the Andanese chose to let an independent state named Nama continue to exist, because its unique form of government appealed to its many people, even if it meant its military was prone to rot and wither away a little bit more every century.

Then Asala, acting as Nama, entered the war by attacking both sides simultaneously, sparing only those few people still alive that pledged allegiance to Nama.

Nama's old leaders then then attacked Asala, saying that the Asalans had gotten out of control. They responded by declaring war on the old leaders too, meaning that they were at war with the entire world. But these people were now powerless, as they only had the allegiance of certain parts of the civilian population of Nama, whereas the entire military had signed on with Anzan purely on the rationale that they figured they might occasionally win a battle with Anzan backing them up whereas as Nama they were guaranteed to lose even in their own homeland.

With STW and all its slaves gone, the Asalans decided to explore the outside world some more. They had had some exposure in previous years, such as when they invaded Lobexon, but now they began 'the Cosmopolitan Age' when they tried to present Nama as just another nation among many on the planet.