STW

Save the World (STW) was an organization founded in Altotta by a man 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.

Business model

See Kava for background information.

STW used slavery both directly and indirectly to achieve its otherwise unbelievable gains. They invited slaves living in Subumpam and Lobexon, which had not long ago been the economic powerhouses of the planet, to move to Altotta and work for STW.

They sold the items the slaves produced at high prices, and charged customers even higher prices than what they advertised. A pineapple sitting on a shelf might be labeled as costing 500 dét, but when the customer picked it out the cashier would tell her that it actually cost 1500 dét. Another customer behind her might get the same pineapple for 550 dét, depending on the cashier's whims; all of the power was in the hands of the cashiers. Some customers placed their orders and paid, then waited patiently only to be told that STW had decided to move on to the next customer and not fulfill their first customer's order. THen they would be forced to walk out empty handed or pay a second time and hope to get their food sometime before sunset.

Other things STW was notable for included raising the price in the middle of a transaction "It just went on sale for five times as much!" etc And having cashiers argue with each other over what the price of an item should be. One cashier was allowed to file a dispute with another for not overcharging a customer enough, in the middle of a transaction, and force that cashier to raise her prices.

As above, though, an inner circle of loyal customers were granted the coveted privilege of getting their products for prices that were actually lower than the shelf label 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. These people became very powerful in their society, since they could buy things for their friends at low prices, and STW allowed them to resell their merchandiese. In towns where STW approached monopoly status, the resellers with the discount privilege 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.

STW called its rival businesses "the Empire" and stated that Altottans 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. Often, STW placed their stores near rival stores with lower prices but poor selection, and then claimed to be superior.

STW store managers often robbed rival stores, but generally restricted these actions to stores run by immigrants, particulaly Dreamers, because they knew that the public opinion of STW would turn sharply negative if they were seen attacking their real enemy, the ruling class of the native Thunderers. Also, Crystals were generally welcome in STW, and their businesses were not targeted. STW was using the same plrralistic strategy that Kava had been born from almost 1500 years earlier. The original Kavans, called the Hinku, were openly racist against all of their enemies, but they themselves were diverse internally because they allowed all of the tribes of the Subumpamese Union, plus all of the Pabaps and all of the Andanese, to call themselves Hinku, and therefore claimed that "Hinku" people were being oppressed in nations where any of those people had become established. THis strategy had worked well, because even though the Subumpamese, the Pabaps, and the Andanese did not have a lot of things in common, there were never any major wars between any of those three groups, and even though they had not previously considered themselves allies, it was easy to do so since there were no old feuds to settle.

STW was not anti-immigrant in general, and in fact was inviting Thaoans to move into Altotta and join STW, even though Thaoa had generally been seen as a hostile and at best untrustworthy nation. The least among the Thaoans was considered superior in STW to the greatest among the non-STW Thunderers. But below even the Thunderers STW placed the already hated Dreamers, and celebrated each successful robbery, as if to demonstrate that STW was fighting for the interests of the many people in Altotta who hated all Dreamers, while the normally aggressive Thunder government did not seem to care that Dreamers were living in Altotta and making money off of its people at all. They 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. The reason why the government of Altotta did not concede to STW and start violently attacking Dreamers alongside STW is that Dreamland was still much richer than Altotta and the Dreamer immigrants provided Altotta a second link (the other was the Crystals) to the warm wet nations of the west coast.

Currency

STW had a second currency that only STW members could own: the asala. This was awarded for good deeds, and had no limit. The asala was constantly getting weaker against the dét because STW kept minting new asala coins and new dét coins were printed only very slowly. Graduating to a new grade also conferred an award in asala, with the amount almost doubling for each grade.

Schools

STW also owned its own school system, and those schools specifically competed with the government-run schools of the empire of Altotta. The schools ran from first grade through eighth grade, but these were not strictly delineated by age. Everyone joined as a first-grader, regardless of their age. Some students (particularly those who had had some education in a government school) rose through the ranks quickly, graduating in less than a year. Other students never made it out of the eighth grade at all. Like Kava, STW encouraged its students to "outparent their parents" and come home from school each day having learned a new skill they could teach their parents and increase their parents' dependency on their children's rapidly growing power.

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.

Immigration

In 3884, the government of Altotta had been overthrown by a group of Thunderers who wanted to restore their nation's original intolerance of immigrants. The government that they overthrew had been run almost entirely by immigrants from Dreamland who had impoverished Altotta and gave the money to Dreamland. The government before that had been run largely by the Crystals, who were also mostly outsiders. They said that Altotta was a nation for Thunderers only and any other groups found living in Altotta would be subject to slavery or exile. Thus, most Crystals living in Altotta became slaves. These new Thunderers also went further and endorsed racism, meaning that Crystals could not simply convert to Thunderism to achieve equal status. The Thunderers were quite diverse, because they had grown over a large area and married many aboriginals, but they had grown almost entirely over Repilian territory, and the few areas of their Empire that were not Repilian had seceded anyway. Thus, like their Kavan ancestors in 2371 AD, the Thunderers in 3884 AD were all light-skinned people, usually with blonde or light brown hair. The Crystals, on the other hand, were also very diverse, but they had spread mostly over areas whose aboriginal populations were very dark-skinned, just like the original Crystals in the 1500s. To the Thunderers, all of the Crystals looked alike. There were dark-skinned Thunderers and light-skinned Crystals, but almost all of these were the offspring of Crystals who had moved into Altotta and married into a Thunder family. Only a tiny number of true religious converts existed. Since Altotta had been run by the Crystals for sixty years, most of these families were several generations deep. There had been similar contacts further back in history; even as far back as the 2370s, when Kava was only four years old, a troop of Crystals had invaded Kava and set up plantations. These people were welcomed because at the time, Kava was so weak that its government was forced to pretend that the invasion was an invitation. These settlers were mostly adult males, so the Crystal settlers and the Kavan women had had many children. This was terribly embarrassing for Kava because Kava had been founded on the same principle of being a nation for Kavans only, but a foreign army had just invaded their territory and taken their women. But now the Thunderers banned all people known to have any Crystal ancestry from identifying as Thunderers, and put all but the upper class of the Crystals into slavery.

The Thunderers hated the Dreamers much more than they hated the Crystals. Unlike the Crystals, the Dreamers could in fact sometimes blend in physically with Thunderers. This was because the Dreamers were descended from a mix of Thunderers with immigrants from Laba.

The Thunderers also endorsed atheism, even though the government they had overthrown was also atheist, but they considered religion to be of little importance in their society and did not prevent the Crystal slaves from practicing their religion. They even managed to remain formally an ally of the Crystals' home empire of Baeba, despite being openly racist against Crystals. This was because they both hated the empire of Dreamland even more than Altotta hated the Crystals. Moreover, Altotta offered to repatriate Crystals to Baeba using trade routes and to ensure that the slave labor the Crystals worked was much more lenient than that assigned to the descendants of the immigrants from Dreamland.

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.

Lypelpyp seeks power

STW was strong mostly in the western edge of the Thunder Empire, in cities such as Lypelpyp. Lypelpyp was part of the Thunder nation of Kava, which had been named after the original Kava. Since the original Kava had been cut off from the Thunder Empire by one of Nama's few military victories, there was generally no confusion between the two nations. However, in diplomacy, people in Lypelpyp's Kava renamed their nation Kavi ("from Kava"). Lypelpyp's people were of a different ethnic group than most Thunderers, but still considered themselves Thunderers and did not distinguish between them and the others. Lypels who moved to other areas in the Thunder Empire were treated as equals. Lypels had not undergone the repentance of 3915 when the Thunder government had repudiated racism and liberalized its court system; they preferred the old, hyper-aggressive Thunder philosophy. This was pasrtly because, being of pure Hinku descent, they were physically intimidated by all of the taller, stronger people around them, and partly because Lypelpyp didn't see a need to apologize for enslaving Crystals when it was well known to them that Crystals were still abusing (but not enslaving) Lypels.

But they actually favored Crystal immigration into Lypelpyp for several reasons:

• Lypelpyp was at the western edge of the Thunder Empire and until the Crystals had met them there, they had been surrounded by hostile enemy tribes. Now they were instead surrounded mostly by Crystals, who looked down on Lypel people but remained generally nonviolent. The Crystal nation nearest Lypelpyp was Yīspʷilinâ, which had earlier been part of the Thunder Empire but was handed over to the Crystals fairly early on. The Thunderers that had been living there had mostly remained, and were treated well even if they did not convert or marry into a Crystal family. Thunderers were no longer allowed to move to Yīspʷilinâ, but this policy was being dictated to them by Baeba, and Yīspʷilinâdid not strictly enforce it. STW actually helped Thunderers leave Altotta just as much as they helped Crystals get in. So they favored Crystal immigration into Lypelpyp because they knew that Crystals would likely not attack a nation with a sizable Crystal minority, and that if they did, they would have to deal with a revolt in their own nation since there were many Thunderers there and those Thunderers were not preventing from owning weapons. (Crystals sometimes punished criminals by banning them from using sharp objects, meaning that they had difficulty even obtaining food.)
• Although at first, the hard-working Lypels seeing Crystals who had lived in Lypelpyp for only a few years getting rich merely by joining STW were violently jealous, the fact that STW opened its arms to Lypels just as much as to Crystals made them realize it was better to be on the same side. They thus threw aside their ethnic and even their religious identity in favor of merely belonging to STW. Then the few pro-immigrant organizations in the rest of Altotta came to see Lypelpyp as a model to follow, even though Lypelpyp was draining the economy of the rest of Altotta simply because STW had not yet expanded far outside of Lypelpyp.

Debate

STW was firmly on the side of the immigrants now, especially the Crystals, and even though the immigrants were legal, most Thunderers' attitudes had not changed since before 3919. Most immigrants into Altotta were Crystals, the same people who had driven Altotta into poverty just 80 years earlier. Altotta already had a sizable Crystal minority, which had just been released from slavery, and the Thunder leaders figured that the Crystals would be even more hostile towards Altotta than they had been in the past. Some Thunderers wanted to move to the Crystal Empire, figuring that they could at least prevent a Crystal takeover of Altotta by threatening to cause problems in the Crystal Empire itself, but the Crystals wouldn't let them in. They realized that the Crystals' nonchalant attitude towards Altotta's slavery program had been due to the fact that the Crystals treated Thunderers quite badly as well. Frustrated at their people's sudden helplessness after being the most powerful empire in the world for hundreds of years, the Thunderers considered formally outlawing immigration once again since they figured at best it would fill them with a second hostile underclass and at worst lead to yet another government led by foreigners.

In a formal debate, the Crystals defended their right to send their people to colonize Altotta while not allowing Thunderers to move to Crystalland by saying that Altotta owed the Crystals a lot of territory for doing nothing when invaders from Laba had invaded Crystal territory in the mid-3700s and deprived the Crystals of their entire north coast, calling it Dreamland, while sparing Thunder nations that were immediately adjacent. The Thunderers reminded the Crystals that Dreamland had in fact invaded Altotta, and had run the entire government of Altotta for 40 years before getting thrown out of power, and still had its people living in Altotta, albeit now as slaves. They also reminded the Crystals that Altotta had previously been conquered by the Crystals and run by them for eighty years, for which the Crystals had never apologized.

The Thunderers who opposed immigration generally opposed STW, since STW to them was a tool to make even the native Thunderers tools of the immigrants, since STW was so wealthy and powerful that even anti-STW Thunderers in Lypelpyp were shopping at STW, and promising to oppose any attempt by the national government of Altotta to shut down STW. Even though STW allowed native Thunderers to join, they realized that most of the members were Crystal immigrants, who seemed to be favored by STW for promotions. And thus even the anti-STW, anti-immigrant Thunderers in Lypel were forced to hide behind the Crystals when the topic of immigration came up because they relied on the Crystals for most of their economic well-being. STW meanwhile embarrassed the national government of Altotta by leading violent robberies of businesses owned by Dreamers, then blaming Altotta for not caring about the problem of immigration. (STW still refused Dreamers the ability to join STW.)

Hierarchy

Each establishment of STW was a "Base", which was governed by a chief. Like a corporation, 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.

All new STW members were required to attend the local STW school, even if they were adults. Adults however tended to graduate very quickly. STW's membership tended to consist entirely of children when a new Base first arrived in a city, except for the authority figures. Even in cities where STW had been around for hundreds of years, however, the membership still consisted mostly of children, as adults could be expelled for minor misdeeds, and were generally not let back in. Even the worst of these expelled people were treated as superior to people who had never been members of STW at all, in the hopes that they might decide to put down their weapons and allow STW to rescue them from their evil ways.

Most people kicked out of STW were males, which meant that STW's leadership was primarily women, and the husbands of these leaders worked under the close management of their wives. Often, a hisband was given a second-in-command role, but other chiefs preferred to give their husband a job with only "soft power" where he did not see his wife very often and was treated as an extension of her authority. Note that STW had many jobs for adults, but most of them carried no official power because the hierarchy of power in STW was very flat. However, STW did reward its hardest working members with large paychecks, and money was necessary to advance in power anyway.

While STW's leaders were mostly women, their worst enemies were almost all adult males. STW did not consider itself feministic, but their teachers taught that the primary difference between women and men is that women enjoy helping people, and men enjoy hurting people. Sometimes the motto was strengthed to "Women create life, men create death". Although the rest of Altotta respected STW, they had little sympathy for STW chiefs who were murdered by people they had kicked out of STW.

There were many internal conflicts between the different STW bases that were as important and dangerous as their conflicts with the expelled leaders they had kicked out. Only the president of STW could demote a chief; there was no intermediate level of power even when STW grew to several hundred Bases. The most powerful Bases historically were Base 7, Base 34, Base 44, and Base 91.

STW kept its secrets very well, and non-members were not allowed to even enter the schools.

Below the normal members were the slaves. Slaves were not considered members of STW, but STW distinguished between ordinary Thunderers and their slaves. Because STW consisted largely of women and children, they preferred slaves to work in areas that were physically separated from the STW schools and other central buildings, but some slaves worked directly for STW and therefore interacted with STW members other than their masters every day. These tended to be the ones involved in heavy manual labor that most STW members were physically incapable of. These slaves tended to be males. Note that many STWers did not have the tall-female gene, and thus men were much stronger than women, but they still tended to be small in comparison to many foreigners. Small children were given control of some of the slave laborers, typically those consisting of slaves that did menial jobs for the children such as preparing their 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.

History and politics

Early history

Early STW supported the Zenith. The Zenith originated from a tribe of people living on the south slopes of the Sučithasi mountains who were famous for their aggressive hands-on promotion of violence against women. Unusually for an ethnic group, they were more than 50% males, and constantly were looking for more women to add to their tribe. Over time, the Zeniths broadened their appeal somewhat, and began also promoting violence against children, young animals, the elderly, and wounded soldiers. They gained the respect of the feministic cultures around them when some of those feminists, such as FILTER, became even more violent than 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.

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.

For 400 yrs, the dark skinned Crystals and the pale skinned Thunderers had traded places as to who was abusing whom. STW fixed the problem by putting themselves on top of both of them. Anyone who joined STW ceased to a member of either of the other groups.

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.

War with Paba

Ende then decided to invade Paba, brigning back slaves to work for her in STW. Since STW was an organization within Altotta, and Altotta was descended from Kava, she had finally broken the promise of the year 2371 in which the founders of Kava had promised never to attack or enslave Pabaps. 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 STW hated Altotta, their foreign policies were the same, and Adabawa figured that the only way to destroy STW was to destroy Altotta. Thus 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.

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 rejected Adabawa and shut its foreign diplomacy program with Laba entirely. THey had held a debate in central Nama between Adabawa and a Naman pacifist, and the pacifist 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 the Pabap cities of Bespe, Mwama, Pepplapom, Pemplaevap, Pispiža, Pumpumae, Brili, Soppamap, Wabbap, Puvem, Tape, Bleppe, Wamu, Papfa, Pifappam, Pemplaepap, Pipambam, Papsa Pamba, Pompymem, Swupi, Pampi, Weppwaba, Pempape, Piso, Wasa, Pumpubap, Mipaeba, Papiare, Lombob, Atte, Safampas, Pipop, Pruplap, Plipum, Nulpanebba, Pussapim, Uba, Embypep, Saleste, Anamba, Lapep, Munampa, Uppa, Pepplap, Puppup, Uppa, Pumia, Wampfampe, Ufpa, Ambama, Pisti, Puppel, Ippra, Puspla, Wepplem, Wappambwa, Pospy, Pappep, Sempe, Napam, Žušap, Isempa, Savbam, Ipla, Ampwap, Pfupu, Pambami, Popta, Samne, Punnap, Pufpa, Masoppa, Plippep, Blumpu, Wabbap, Pulta, Panampa, Op, Bep, Umplap, Poppumba, Pampla, Pambup, Bempsap, Rumpel, Empem, Tampe, Pampappe, Lespape, Sampe, Tensare, Wipep, Pipi, Tem, Wampam, Marlema, Pambap, Sopsap, Pappfas, Mura, Wabe, Waba, Pupfa, Žabo, Puva, Wabaepefa, Pampyppwospe, Masop, Lumam, Bworpam, Balambam, Usfap, Puppapapa, Pibžabbam, Puspospi, Eppe, Pottem, Noppra, Pattelbup, Plipsop, Pafpi, Sipsa, Lasap, Tamma, Pistipwa, Plubia, Pisa, Supfe, Ipreppwe, Soppom, Pampaspa, Mam, Paffampi, Napel, Ippwem, Pampo, Pepplana, Pap, Obbe, Wapom, Eppfam, Pabae, Pempam, Attaspap, Mipoba, Pyppeta, Pubi, Pippapa, Arpara, Prossem, Wempy, Wappam, Papplapa, Pupwapa, Pempy, Pumpubup, Peppsa, Obba, Popuspa, Nompo, Proppla, Pamprappy, Wepplem, Pufpe, Apesta, Papob, Pambami, Nirespop, Wappla, Plupes, Impiva, Pentam, Ampype, Saprapep, Wibi, Ufpe, Moppa, Mammy, Apa, Palom, Teman, Nupa, Namensa, Pamptu, Rop, Paffap, and Prompob 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 Loporomo party, thus creating the First Loporomo Empire, often called Loporomo I.

Loporomo rule

In 3977, Laba underwent a civil war which took all of Laba's power out of Altotta. This civil war lasted a very long time, and spread to Rilola, and did not end until 4107 when the Gold people took power once again. Gold people actually settled Laba now, the first major back migration in all of history.

Relations with AlphaLeap

In 4108, with Laba gone for good, AlphaLeap settled in Sulasali and Loporomo and combined the two empires into the new empire of Halasala. In 4108, Paba had decided to allow itself to be invaded and controlled by a breakaway faction from AlphaLeap known as Zakap. Thus Paba and Subumpam also become part of Halasala.

Later history

In Halasala, STW became much larger and more powerful than it had been when it was confined to Altotta. In 4188, STW began admitting adults in large numbers, seating them right alongside their children in the first grade. These adults were giving up their jobs in the mainline world of Halasala to essentially become children again in the hopes of gaining more power. The adults soon misbehaved and disrupted their classrooms to the point of making learning impossible for the children. At first STW teachers did not know what to do, but eventually they hired more teachers and set aside separate rooms within the school for adults.

Most of the adults joining STW were of the Vaska party (known in Paba as Raspara) which had often been accused of kidnapping children in the past. Since the Vaska adults seemed to have no hope of ever attaining power in STW, many people assumed the Vaska, particularly young childless adult males, were joining STW solely to get their hands on the children. But STW protected its people well, and Vaska people continued to sign up even when it was clear that they were being treated only as equals of the children, not as superiors, and would not attain power over the children.

In reality the Vaska who joined STW were trying to turn STW into a pro-Vaska organization, and had stopped trying to conquer them militarily. Meanwhile, the mainline Vaska party was still interested in an all-out war against STW.

War in Tata

In 4190, an STW chief named Joja sent members (adults and children alike) into the Matrix nation, Tata, to help cure some of the diseases that STW had recently spread through Tata. THey promised the Matrixes superpower status, and pushed Anzan to revive the war against the Matrixes. They demanded money for their efforts even though Tata was much poorer than Anzan now. Anzan did actually obey Joja, and invaded Tata with a small army whose intention was to follow and protect the STW members as they worked. Tata, however, immediately captured the Andanese (with the help of some firebirds) and made them prisoners of war. Anzan demanded large amounts of money from Tata as comepnsation. Anzan invaded Tata with a full army in response, and demanded an even larger compensation for that.

Most independent nations declared war on Anzan now, saying Tata had the moral high ground. Thaoa sided with Anzan, but was little help because Anzan was invading towards the west, and Thaoa was thus perpetually at the rear of Anzan's rapid invasion and could only help replenish supplies for the civilians who had remained in Anzan. Anzan almost forsook Thaoa. Raspara joined the war as well, turning it into a civil war. They did damage far more severe than any of the outside nations because they were already living in Anzan and had direct access to the weakest memebers of its population. They focused their attacks mostly on elementary schools and hospitals, taking advantage of the fact that the Raspara were largely women who worked in healthcare, or adult males who still attended school and thus spent most of their time surrounded by friendly preteens. STW was terrified when it realized that the Raspara people it had put much trust in hade made achieved their quest for fame by massacring STW children, and increased security at its schools mightily even though it meant STW now had fewer troops abroad. Nevertheless, STW and Anzan both signed a pact with Raspara saying that when the war was over, since Anzan seemed likely to lose, 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.

The Andanese people made a pact: they would unite and stop demanding monetary compensation for everything they did. When the Raspara people heard this, they immediately switched sides and began an invasion of Tata. Raspara's ally, Babum, also agreed to invade. Quickly the Andanese 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. The Andanese did not demand compensation for the damage to Anzan and its allies.

Finally Aboa (except Thaoa) surrendered, and its territory was divided up between various dictators appointed mostly by STW. STW decided to enslave the Rasparas after all, saying that because they had started the war as an enemy of STW, STW would classify them as an enemy even though they had helped STW win the war. They also enslaved all of the countries to the east of them except Thaoa, and all of the countries to the west of them including all of Lobexon, Subumpam, and southern Nama. For the most part each of these were governed by one STW base. The nation of Pybwanwum was given to STW Base 44.

Anzan forgave its enemies for losing the war, but some Andanese wanted all their money back: they demanded complete restitution for all the suffering that they had endured. But Anzan realized that it had to repent and realize that war is a sacrifice for both sides, with Anzan's only consolation being the complete enslavement of everyone who had not helped them win the war and most of those who had.

War of 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 considered Pipatia the most important of all other republics, and focused their initial attacks on Pipatia. 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 (Pipatia consisted mostly of a mix between Slopes and Dolls). They also had their own armies of slaves, which they donated to STW for free. Baeba outnumbered STW by about 20 to 1, but STW hoped they could pull in allies from outside the conflict.

STW felt that they were strong enough to conquer the planet if they would just not make too many mistakes. They 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 Pipatia would be to cause the Dolls, who were a severely abused minority group, to come to support the overthrow of their abusers 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 Pipatia that would after about fifteen years come to outnumber the adults and overthrow them. Then they would adopt Pipatia into Pipatali, and then STW's army would kill off all of the teenage Dolls who had fought so hard to let STW in.

Doll people and others in STW went on missions preaching pro-STW politics to the Dolls, and Baeba Swamp promised to defend STW in a war. Rapala's governors realized their only hope lay in allying themselves with the Swamp Kids. The Swamp Kids demanded that Rapala release all their slaves and abstain from abusing the Swamp Kids, or they would not stop attacking Rapala. But the Swamp Kids themselves were desperately seeking strength, so they agreed to the alliance even though they suspected that the Rapalans were lying about agreeing to the Swamp Kids' demands. The new anti-STW coalition government that replaced Rapala called itself Panu, which is a translation of "Rapala" into Xap (done to honor the Swamp Kids).

Now that the Swamp Kids had occupied Pipatia, they were able to plan an attack on STW. STW, however, had already planned for this situation, and they immediately began attacking Pipatia using STW civilians as soldiers. Now, Pipatians and Swamp Kids couldn't tell the difference between Lindasian soldiers and Swamp Kids because they looked identical. Thus they could not attack any of the soldiers they saw without fearing that they might be attacking their allies. There were really no differences at all between the two groups that could be used to identify them in a war. Thus an extremely violent war resulted, and the entire population of Pipatia was killed in this war, along with all of the invading Swamp Kids and some of the (far larger) army that STW had used to invade. The Swamp Kids had not given up, but for the time being they could not re-invade Pipatia because all of their access routes had been destroyed by the STW guerrillas. Also, Pipatia was now a worthless land because all the Dolls and Slopes that had lived there had been killed. 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 decided to attack with much the same strategy they had used to kill the Pipatian Dolls. Rapala had advanced weapon technology, however, and if all of Rapala were to unite against STW a very destructive war could result.

Pappisia had brought with them from their old habitat many kinds of animals and plants which they tried to establish in Pipalita. Pappisians set up their habitats in the more dangerous parts of the Swamp, parts that the Slopes would not live in. They did this both because they didn't want to fight the Slopes (ZUZ), who were relatively well-armed and had good reasons to hate the Pappisians (PMS), and because they saw the deeper parts of the Swamp as 'richer' because of the greater abundance of animal life there, even though many of the animals were predatory and were actually doing their best to hunt the Pappisians as much as the Pappisians were hunting down the animals. Pimpapu 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 Pappisians were at this time a very poor people, they had few clothes and fewer weapons, and could barely survive in the Swamp alongside creatures that were so obviously better evolved physically than they were. So they had to prey on weak animals. And they had to respect the territory of the stronger animals that would otherwise prey on the Pappisians. Thus the Pappisians were able to survive in Pipalita and to become the Slopes' worst enemy. Soon, however, the Slopes began to gain the upper hand. They began sending troops of heavily armed Slopes out to capture unarmed Pappisians, especially children, and warned the Pappisians that they would not stop until the Pappisians promised to obey the laws of Pipalita. The Pappisians 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 left all their habitats and attempted to create a new town in Baeba, far away from where they had been living before. Since Baeba was more than 1,000 miles across, the Pappisians figured, there should be plenty of room for everybody. But they soon found that Baeba was not all one uniform swampy habitat. If they headed eastward, for example, they would find themselves getting deeper and deeper into the Swamp, and they would be up against increasingly hungry and increasingly powerful animals. Also, the temperature increased dramatically as they moved in towards the center. If they went north, on the other hand, they would find themselves climbing hills into colder, less populated territory, and they would run short of food. The Pappisians gathered into a huge party and began wandering around the Swamp, starting out by heading slightly west and then north. The leaders of the Pappisian 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 the Pappisians had been using against the Slopes.

But nevertheless, the unarmed Pappisian soldiers were caught and enslaved by the Slopes. 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 Pappisians to STW as well. The Slopes agreed. With the aid of Pappisian 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. A slave revolt in 4206 was mostly unsuccessful, but STW decided to invade a different nation, Issia, as a safeguard against the possibility of losing Pappisia. A coalition army consisting of STW, the Soap Bubbles, the Slopes, and the Swamp Kids crushed Issia and enslaved its entire population.

Rapala passed a law severely restricting activities deemed to be abusive of the Dolls or any other oppressed minorities. The Rapalan government recognized that they were in severe danger, surrounded by enemies, and that they needed to have the Dolls on their side. They planned to merge the Dolls and the Slopes into one army wherein all of them would be as strong as the Slopes. They called this future Slope/Doll league the Clouds. The female Clouds were renamed Dolls, and the male Clouds were named Slopes. The Clouds wanted to ensure that STW was the only league that still practiced slavery, in the hopes that they could unify all non-slaveowners against STW, which they now felt was their greatest enemy. They signed a treaty with the Swamp Kids which merged the two leagues into a league called the Key to Destroying STW.

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.

Joja had concentrated power in her hands by offering money and other services to non-STW members who pledged allegiance to her authority. What she did was not illegal, as she could technically do anything that was not forbidden by her superiors, but it was draining away the power of the local government to the point where it pleaded to the national government for laws banning such enterprise.

The local representatives in the national government agreed to pass certain lenient laws forbidding STW to take any actions that might "weaken the ability of the local bureaus to carry out their duties", but when the leaders of STW heard of this, they were outraged. One person in particular, "Spicy Lips", balked at what she saw as the corrupt local government trying to weed out competition by blaming STW for disorder that was really no fault but their own. Joja became an instant hero as she kept quiet while other chiefs fumed about how the government was trying to siphon money and power away from the hard-working members of STW 44 Sala. And Piplap's "father" Behabe screamed that the government was hurting his company by forcing cutbacks on the level of industry in the base (a separate action).

And so, STW's local council refused to follow the new law, and the government asked for a meeting with one of Base 44's representatives to try to talk things out. In the end, the government representatives caved in, saying that as STW was entirely legal under the Rapalan constitution, any actions taken by it are thus legal, and it is the government's responsibility to adapt to STW, not the other way around. Other parts of the government were appalled by this decision, and many governors either ordered government takeovers of any STW bases that existed or might spring up in their local areas or passed legislation banning it entirely.

The people's response, however, was not what the governors had come to expect from their citizenry. All over the country, people protested that they were being denied the right to join STW, something they were supposed to enjoy. Most departments still held to their governors' decisions, but a few caved in and allowed an independent STW base to open in their territory. Those departments that did not allow STW or allowed it only under government supervision were discriminated against by STW's rapidly growing economic sectors. With this encouragement, people left the departments in large numbers, and STW's membership swelled. Joja was promoted twice during this turmoil, and was no longer associated with just one base, but she still kept a watchful eye on Piplap and others at Base 44 Sala.

Relations with Janila

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 6809, 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 Cosmopoliton Age' when they tried to present Nama as just another nation among many on the planet.

Religion

Yiibam was the official religion of STW, atlohugh people of other religs were allowerd to join.

Beliefs

Mottos:

• Technology and intelligence give work power.
• From women springs forth life, from men springs forth death.

Some of the commandments for STW members were:

• Accept that you may have to forfeit things you love to help.
• Neither cling to your life nor be afraid to take others.
• Keep power in competent, honest hands.
• Treat others as kindly as possible but do not love or hate them.
• Be totally and eternally hostile to the outside world.
• Do not help other workers unless a medical emergency arises.
• Be prepared to back up your threats.
• Never buy anything expensive unless it is absolutely necessary.