The Barsina Problem

The Barsina Problem
WRR, John Tyfen Crestwalker
Dreiton, Sidon Square Publishing House
Estival Period, 12th dawn, 4852
INL
Since the bloody and hard-fought triumph over the Barsinian nation at the hands of the Mandate and its allies within the elite Councilguard, the private and industrial interests of the Free City of Dreiton and, indeed, the Dominion as a whole, have paid what can only be described as a high price for its continued reaping of the bountiful natural resources of the Andaluz region – that hoodoo-laden stretch of orange desert rife with cacti, coal mines, and expansive surface-level redstone deposits. Such a morsel, whose capture would spell only a decisive economic boon for the Dominion and its commercial interests, was too tempting for the Mandate too pass up, and thus, with the approval of the Council, their private army was summoned to begin putting pressure on the nation of Barsina, the foremost power of the Aphelian interior.
The largely uncivilized Barsinians were at first reluctant to enter talks, but quickly responded favorably to the prospect of trade negotiations. The natives, still largely reliant on simple, pre-Aetheric applications of redstone such as semi-autonomous raildrills and basic mechanized organic farming, had no idea what wealth they had presided over for so many years in the form of their barely tapped redstone deposits. While Barsina were laying myriad rails for long-distance subterranean cart travel, the Free City were devising plans for the first elevated inter-city speedrail and safe quantum nether-tunneling. Operating out of the newly constructed Dreitonian embassy within Barsina’s autofarm quarter, a task force led jointly by the “Barsina Three” – General Addison Mayfield of the Councilguard; Dvsr. Sutther Winslow, Master of Military Science; Director Wolfe of the DEM Board of Directors – were dispatched to survey the region for future mining prospects and make preparations for Barsina’s entrance into the Dominion’s sphere of influence. Deviser Winslow and his team of alchemists and redstone engineers traveled into the Andaluz interior for prospecting, while General Mayfield and Director Wolfe studied the Barsinian socioeconomic system for vulnerabilities.
The purple-bannered natives exhibited a unique economic system almost completely foreign to the surveyors. What government there was – if one even existed – was extremely minute and had no hand in affairs of military nor economic regulation and planning. Each man was free to essentially do as they pleased, coming and going to their places of occupation more or less as they pleased, devoting the rest of their days to reading, painting, debating philosophy, and etc. which, needless to say, did not exactly inspire any level of actual economic growth for the anarchist collective. Still, there existed some arcane form of a labor lottery intended to direct the efforts of the syndicated workers, though its effectiveness was tenuous at best according to Wolfe’s summations.
After two weeks of friendly operations from the Embassy, the Dreiton Three were ready to make their first move. They proposed that Dreiton would lend its mining technologies to the collective’s primary redstone mine in exchange for a mere 25% of the yield. Many within the syndicate were extremely hesitant to allow any tangible foreign influence in the pristine Barsinian economy, though the prospects of perhaps doubling their mining output was too tantalizing an offer to refuse. The Mandate assumed full operation over the Gallo redstone mine, and soon full control.
Meanwhile, in the Andaluz interior, Winslow and his eclectic team of researchers were bewildered and astounded by their findings. As expected, the ill-explored Aphelian heartland was rife with untapped mineral deposits, whose exploitation could fuel the Dreitonian economy for years. Yet more exciting was the realization that the “high desert” of deep Andaluz was practically teeming with occult temples and hideaways, bearing the marks of some archaic language completely unknown to the researchers. Deducing that the language did not derive from the northeastern Dashari family, Winslow realized that he had stumbled upon what was likely to be nothing less than a lost civilization whose culture was as foreign to them as they were foreign to the native Barsinians. With little in the way of excavation materials to properly mount a full investigation of the site, Winslow returned to the Dreitonian Embassy to petition assistance from the Mandate to begin exploring this alien land.
Upon hearing of these strange developments, reaction among the task force was divided. Director Wolfe was content to keep his focus on the anarchists, believing that all of the Mandate’s limited resources should be focused entirely on securing the precious redstone mines. General Mayfield, however, was entranced by this discovery. If Winslow’s reports were true, and they had stumbled upon what was essentially a lost city of powerful occultists, it stands to reason that the Barsinians, being in such close proximity to the find, were not only aware of its existence, but had studied these profane markings and thus introduced the Old Ways to their republic. This, Mayfield reasoned, would constitute an immediate threat to Dreiton, as the heretical arts have hitherto created nothing but death and chaos. The General made the trip back to Dreiton and returned a week later with a full cohort of Councilguard volunteers, given the blessing of the executives to eliminate any trace of the dark arts within the Andaluz region, now formally claimed by the Dominion.
>The syndicate met Mayfield’s accusations with disdain, refusing to accept any ultimatums or other terms of annexation. When the General threatened to take the city by force to search for any followers of the Old Ways, the Barsinian militias quickly mobilized, expelling the Dreiton miners from Gallo, killing two of them in the process. Before the General could give the order to retaliate, a massive crowd of Barsinian nationalists congregated at the doors of the Dreitonian Embassy. Accounts vary as to who fired the first bolt, but chaos quickly erupted, with the militias storming the building and capturing a dozen Mandate agents as well as Deviser Winslow himself. Within 15 minutes of hearing the report, Mayfield’s combined army of Council and Mandate volunteers advanced upon the city with orders to seize all mines and industrial machinery, as well as purge the micro-republic of any heretical anarchists. The event was known as the Longest Day, and estimates of the total death toll are still under dispute, but it is generally agreed that 10% of the volunteers were killed, and up to 25% of the Barsinian population were captured or killed.
When the smoke cleared, the proud flag of the Dominion flew triumphantly over the “city of heathens” with any remaining anarchist militants fleeing into the desert wastes towards Dashari. With the city taken, Winslow was at last given the green light to bring a team of skilled excavators from across Aphelion to chart the interior and uncover the secrets of this mysterious civilization. Once digging began in earnest, it became clear that there was an entire city buried under the sand, preserving a culture of a people lost in time. There was work to be done.
Things were peaceful for a time in Barsina, and within months the mines were regularly exporting redstone and other precious commodities back to the Free City. Still, the city was practically razed to the ground, and the natives were effectively left with two choices: Work in the Mandate’s mines for subsistence wages, or leave their home in search of fairer prospects. Unpredictably, a sizable portion of the population began a mass exodus southward in the direction of Dreiton. The refugees were in a peculiar situation; they were certainly not citizens of Dreiton, but their ancestral home was now within the sphere of Dominion, ostensibly guaranteeing them the same rights and protections of any denizen of the young empire. The Council agreed that no Barsinian would be given full citizenship, but in turn set aside a fairly respectable swath of land in the outskirts of Dreiton, just north of the Grotto, for the migrants to develop basically as they pleased. The project of New Barsina had been initiated. What began as a humble assortment of tents and hovels grew into a burgeoning city that rivaled Old Barsina in size, retaining much of their old culture but “modernizing” it with Dreitonian influences. Their close proximity to Dreiton proper allowed them to rapidly develop their own means of production; New Barsina arguably grew into what amounted to the breadbasket of the Dominion, producing around 40% of the Free City’s beef and grain with its own humble iron mines to boot. Business was good.
As expected, however, the dissidents eventually reared their ugly heads. Whispers of insurrection sprung up in the darkened cellars of New Barsina, and within the year the signs of rebellion were all too clear. Before a preemptive counter-insurgent force could be mustered, a spate of deadly acts of industrial sabotage gripped the city; mines abruptly collapsed, government buildings caught fire, and colonies of the infamous Barsinan sand rabbit were introduced to the massive crop fields, poisoning the fertile land and crippling agricultural output. For the first time in decades, many Dreitonians went hungry due to their increasing reliance on Barsinian foodstuffs. The Councilguard were mobilized as quickly as possible to root out the rebels, but without retired General Mayfield’s impeccable strategery, their efforts were disorganized and ineffective. Reports came in from the northern outposts that the purple banner flew over Old Barsina once more, and a new terrorist group called the Barsina People’s Front claimed responsibility for the city’s retaking as well as all insurgent activities elsewhere. A cohort to conquer the city once again was hastily scrambled, and due to the interference of saboteur cells in New Barsina, only a fraction of them actually arrived in the wartorn city overrun with vengeful rebels. That battered cohort remains in the old city to this day, locked in a state of frozen conflict with the nationalists there with no side showing signs of gaining the upper hand and reinforcements scarce to none due to the anarchists.
Insurgent activities in New Barsina ramped up, and there were even signs of active terrorist cells within Dreiton itself; the new speedrails occasionally veered off course and violently crashed into buildings, tunnels into the underbelly of Castle Dreiton were discovered, Dreitonian flags were regularly defaced with the BPF coat of arms, and the torches outside the Capitol were constantly being extinguished in the night. The populace were outraged and demanded swift justice for these insurgents. The President finally issued a decree stating that any and all citizens suspected of aiding or being a member of the BPF were to be arrested and tried for conspiracy. Eventually, Mayfield himself was released from Mandate service to lead the counter-revolutionary movement in New Barsina, which quickly led to a decrease in their activities.
Even to this day in 4852, the presence of the anarchists is constantly felt, and their terrorist activities have exacted a heavy toll upon the Dominion. Most notably, in the past year the Beckett Redstone Fuel Refinery was sabotaged with overloaded comparators, killing dozens of workers and halting fuel production for weeks, and the headquarters of the Mandate was raided, concluding in the assassination of Director Wolfe. In all cases, surviving Barsinian operators all attempted suicide to evade capture, making useful prisoners extremely scarce. Still, the legacy of Mayfield’s counter-insurgent tactics has slowly decreased the frequency of deadly attacks, allowing more Dreitonians to sleep soundly at night. Many speculate, however, that these recent months of relative peace are merely the precursor to a much more devastating series of attacks.
What, then, is the solution to this quandary which has claimed so many innocent lives? With the imperial interests of the Dominion rapidly expanding, this is perhaps one of the greatest questions of the day. Many begin to wonder if the continued “occupation” of Barsina is worth such turmoil, while the majority posit that the annexation was a net positive for both the natives and the Dreitonians and the attacks will eventually boil over if their sinister orchestrations can be lured out. The answer is unclear, and though the Mandate has regularly expressed the need to take firmer action against the Barsinians, the Council has not indicated any change of policy in the near future, prompting many citizens to call for new elections.
Category:Invidere