Serpentians

The **Serpentians** were the Maeranoi who did not serve the Church of Q or the Tyrskans during the Wannaenid rule over Bujan. Driven by fear, the Serpentians also waged war against the native peoples of Bujan, but like the other Terrans and the Wannaenid rulers, they were defeated by the independence movement and its allies.

The biggest faction among the Serpentians was their namesake, the **Serpents**. They were a communist armed force that attempted to create a Soviet-style government on Bujan as their utopia.

## History

The Serpentians were formed from a revolt against the Church of Q, angered over its members forcing them to convert and abandon their atheism. They formed their own government, with a communist faction becoming the predominant rulers of their proposed republic. Many non-Qyuvians, though not necessarily communist, supported the Serpentian government as their only benefactor, as they disliked the Wannaenids' abusive attitude and the Salvation Party's arrogance.

They started waging war on the native peoples of Bujan, the Slavs and the Wonaos, especially to force them to convert and support them. They thought that the same repressive methods in Soviet times would also work in Bujan, fuelled by anger at the death gangs in the central part of the island.

One of the Serpentians' leaders was General Roxanna, whose experience being threatened with death by the death gangs led to her calling for the extermination of all Bujanski Slavs and Wonaos. Roxanna Garcia was the ruler of the southeastern branch, which was the strongest of all Serpentian factions. She was defeated by the Wannaenids when her army fought against them.

At one point, their obsession with Sovietising themselves became so excessive, they followed pop culture depictions of Russia, one of the countries in their world. This led to the Tyrskans declaring war on the Serpentians, going as far as killing any Serpentian on sight who did not surrender or defect; accusing the Serpentians of blaspheming their Motherland.

Like the Qyuvians and other powers, the Serpentians were finally defeated by the revolutionaries. Many of them were executed for online crimes, or incitement of war against the native peoples, while the survivors were imprisoned to witness their own sins done back to them in horrific visions. Those same survivors were ordered to undergo penance, forced to apologise and do work until their victims were able to forgive each of them.

## Government

The Serpentians were initially several warbands and chiefdoms, but they later united under a loose communist-themed government, as the People's Republic of Balennaria. While the biggest Serpentian authority was at the southeast of the country, they were all disunited states who refused to recognise most of the rest.

* People's Republic of Balennaria
* Homanitas Union
* Red Purge
* Total Change
* Legion of Reform
* Better Future State
* Novostranic Worker's State
* People's Republic of Buyannia

## Economy

In spite of their communist appearance, private businesses and cooperatives were allowed during the Serpentians' reign. However, some districts banned any form of private businesses.

Compared to the Tyrskans and the Q Theocracy, they were the poorest. Without the advanced digital systems used by the other Terrans, Serpentian technology was more similar to 21st century America or Eastern Europe, except it was powered by rytoryntar crystals and solar power.

## Society

See also: Qyuvian glossary, Russian glossary

The Serpentians used three languages: "American", "Espanjol", and "Russki". Their usage of the Russian language was because they and their rulers wanted to imitate the Soviet Union. Unfortunately, even while they managed to carry Soviet architecture to Bujan, the Tyrskans were very angry that their version of "Soviet culture" was nothing more than stereotypes of their ancestral homeland of Russia.

Compared to the Qyuvians' spelling of English, the Serpentians' spelling was closer to the English used in the 21st century. Both Maeranoi cultures regarded each other's standards of English to be distorted and offensively broken.

Because of the death gangs of Bujan and the widespread rejection of Soviet communism among the native Wonaos, the Serpentians hated the native peoples of Bujan and waged wars to destroy them. Some noticed that this would violate one of their principles, opposition to racism, so they unsuccessfully tried to recruit the wary locals.

### Fannish culture

As Americans from the 21st century and later, the Serpentians never lost their love of pop culture or their "fannish" attitudes. Those attitudes consisted of extreme obsession with their favourite characters, all the way to fights, quarrels, harrassment, and blocks over even the smallest error.

On the other hand, many Serpentians left behind beautiful or cute artworks. Some were simple paintings of animals, people, plants, and fantastic abstract shapes. Others were improvised visions of their favourite characters. Still more were the usual propaganda influenced by Soviet artwork, embellished with American influences.

As in almost everywhere else during colonial Bujan, mob violence was a common practice over a number of offences, ranging from any alleged plot to overthrow the government to even being banned from an online server for upsetting the members by mistake. Many Serpentians regarded it as "cancel culture, but done better", mainly because to them, it is a sport.

It, along with simple frustration over Terran oppression and Denlotian laws, may have influenced Bujanski to do the same things against all Terrans and online offenders, believing that it will force a benefitial change to society to begin sooner, such as punishing online fans over what they did to someone for a mistake.

### "Moving on", as a Maeranoi attitude

Bujanski believed that "moving on" is not simply focusing on your goals after mourning for a loss. To them, these English words were associated with a stereotypical Serpentian attitude, where mistakes are not forgiven, friends can be easily abandoned for the sake of comfort, and forgiveness is almost impossible for life. Serpentians still did it even after their friends left and blocked them, always expecting endless new "friends" to make use of, causing the tormented Bujanski to see this as dishonourable.

This is what Bujanski consider as "moving on": betrayal, abandonment, all for the sake of newness, making Serpentians even less reliable as friends. The causes of this attitude included poverty, abuse, fear, and a desire to preserve what little comforts they had, especially when thrown into another realm at war. Causes for undesirable attitudes are often shown in moral studies and galleries, to help people in Bujan avoid the "moving on" attitude and its causes: so they made sure people lived in comfort, away from poverty, and with every opportunity they can have around them, to support them and help their every need as long-lasting friends.

As for the "move on-ers", the blockers and traitors who simply threw friends aside for the sake of comfort, they were avoided. Even after penance, some people avoided those whom they accused of being "blockers", claiming that they would simply cheat their friends, making them extremely suspicious. It even went as far as certain businesses refusing to hire anyone seen as a "blocker", and coworkers avoiding such people to make them sit alone. But eventually, even the most resentful Bujanski might abandon their avoidance after a few years, out of a refusal to allow any grudges to exist.

#### Accountability and excess

Since one of the reasons why friends were easily abandoned and banned for life was "accountability", the Bujanski system of penance punished many Serpentians, forcing them to answer for every harmful deed they had done, including online behaviour. It was seen as extended accountability to real life, making it more effective enough to forcibly change a person's attitude. Even Bujanski were also subjected to this same punishment, and there were hundreds who underwent penance and had to form associations in order to survive being outcasts.

That also meant that they would have to reconcile with the people they hurt, or wrongfully blocked or banned for absurd or trivial reasons, to ensure that they would truly move on by eliminating their grudges. Forcing them to answer for the people they hurt, even though it was just "fee-fees", was considered an appropriate measure for an excessive action towards a mistake (such as blocking instead of warning), all the way to society punishing them for how they treated their friends a decade ago.

And at the end of their tunnel of penance, they will have recompensated their victims, earning the forgiveness of those they hurt and Bujanski society in general. Ensuring that any lesser offender can still be forgiven was an act of defiance against the Serpentian habit of betrayal. But such offenders may still end up being disliked for their actions for a few years, until they can truly be trusted again.

### Militarism and fanaticism

For all of their creativity and humour, much of it was drowned by their hatred. Serpentian society was as militarised as the other Terran factions, indoctrinated to war and brutality in the name of their "revolution".

Anything was "fair game" (acceptable) to them, even massacres and bigotry, so long as they won in the end. Yet it also led to racist incidents, which some Serpentians found to be abhorrently hypocritical. Among the arguments they often used to justify their cruelty included, "All revolutions are always brutal: we must be brutal so everyone will respect us", "The victims should have stayed out,", or "Too bad, you lost, now die!"

They also liked to laugh at anyone who mourned losing their loved ones to such attacks, even if they were fellow Serpentians from the same warband; resulting in vendettas and grudges becoming common enough to escalate a simple online block into a deadly gang war.

To the natives, these views caused them to fear and hate the Serpentians as genocidal warmongers, who only cared about power and dominance like the other Terrans. It was another reason why their hatred was extended to Maeranoi like them in general, cursing all Maeranoi to suffer like their victims.

## Religion

See also: Serpentian folklore

Most Serpentians were atheists; in fact, their independence from the Church of Q was driven by their need to practice atheism without harrassment or forced conversion.

Some Qyuvians practiced cults that venerated pop culture icons and cartoons. They were a recognised minority in Serpentian society, but their worship of cartoons and pop culture was discouraged as wasteful superstition. Still, many of those worshippers tended to be artists who were very obsessed with making artwork of their favourite characters. On the other hand, it also made them more fanatical and violently obsessed with their favourite characters.

## Notable Serpentians

### Independence-era Bujan

* "Phone Boy" - killed for angering traumatised travellers.
* Sophie Goodwill
* Helia Wilbur
* Cicony Kovalenko
* Neptunia Garcia
* Laura Tyler
* Alexander Leon - arrested and put under penance for blocking people over trivial mistakes, condemned to a life of shame as he and his blocking habit were blamed for the July massacres.
	+ To cope with his overwhelming guilt and ostracism for his online crimes, he began writing books. Eventually he became one of the most famous authors in modern Bujan, because his books were meant to help people survive getting blocked, excluded, and banned from somewhere they liked so much.

## Trivia

* The Serpentians were inspired by online American far-left extremists, especially those who were obsessed with communism, Marx, Mao, and the Soviet Union. They became communists out of hatred and anger against various social ills in American society, such as racism, abuse of LGBT people, and poverty.
	+ They were ultimately inspired by a few fans of Camp Camp who blocked the author over pointless reasons and mistakes; especially one user who was upset that the author asked them about Ukraine. The question that led to the block was about that user's views of the country, as the author was upset that they reblogged a fanatical communist who kept claiming that "Ukrainians were Nazis" to support the 2022 Russian invasion.
	+ The author based them on a mixture of American social media and fandom, and far-left extremists (as many of them were also avid fans of pop culture works) and supporters of the Russian invasion of Ukraine; hence their Soviet theme and twisted obsession with Russian culture.
	+ Notoriously, the extremists' calls for brutality and historical Soviet persecutions became the basis for the Serpentians using repressive and warlike methods to attempt a takeover of the island.
* They replaced the Archaniki, a faction in earlier drafts that consisted of a mixture of American, Russian, Chinese, and Arab militants, forming "a-r-ch-a" as their acronym.

## See also

* Tyrskans, the Russian Terrans of Bujan
* Salvationist Party
* Four Powers