Cynthia Gooblegins

## Early Life

Cynthia was born in Tiatua of Montroig to unknown parents, and she reports to have led a mostly uneventful life running around doing odd just to help her family. In her spare time she is said to have been very sociable and communal, often greeting new and younger citizens. She was also prone to reading, travelling up to the Terrojan library very frequently to find books and learn, which instilled a love of writing in her. As she grew older, she began to learn about the politics of Montroig, and soon became an avowed socialist and nationalist.

## Personal Life

Outside of her constant work, Cynthia is known to write, especially fiction, but has never published anything. She also spends time with her wife and family, the Gooblegins, and frequently goes to parties and other gatherings.

## Political Views

Cynthia considers herself a nationalist and a socialist, which are her two primary political axis. She also sees herself as a materialist that also values the ideals of Montroig such as democracy and equity. This has put her in contention with those who seek independence, because while she also seeks independence for Montroig, she also believes that an idealistic headrush towards that will destroy her nation.

Furthermore, she chooses to not join political parties, but is open to working with them. She is a self-described progressive, believing that Montroig needs to experiment and adapt in order to grow and thrive, which has put her in contention with even more of her contempories who seek to keep Montroig mostly as is.

## Бas

Cynthia is credited for being the first major figure to support Бas, the spiritual philosophy that originated in Montroig and pushes for notions of community service, syndicalism, and the responsiblity of the individual to the group.

## Career

### Cafe

Cynthia opened up two cafes, one in New Baldia and one in Tiatua. They are still in operation today.

### Political Career

As she entered adult hood, Cynthia decided to get involved in Montroigan politics directly. She ran against FaelYeey as the incumbent Minister of Resources in October 2021, and won. From there, she won two more terms in the following months before taking off in the January of 2022 to prepare for the Guardian elections.

Most of Cynthia's most notable contributions come from her second and third terms. In her second term she focused on angling resource production towards the civil war effort, and in her third term she opened up several farms in Terroja as well as a public storage and distribution center in the city. Beyond the context of her Ministership, she is also credited with writing most of the New Constitution of Montroig, held a short term as Justice where she oversaw the Caterina v Montroig case, and has moderated a Guardian debate. She also served a term as interim Minister of Infrastructure.

Alongside all these positions, Cynthia also served a term as Guardian, which is detailed below.

## Involvement in the Uldarash Civil War

Just one day after the coup of Caterina, Cynthia sat at a High Council meeting due to the current Guardian and Vice Guardian being occupied. It was there she de-escalated the situation and avoided an immediate war, while also learning that if Montroig declared independence they would be invaded by Uldarash. After this situation she prepared for her wedding, asking Empress Nikephoros to ordain it. It was at this wedding that an unknown assailant attacked Nikephoros. Believing this to be a Loyalist assination attempt, Nikephoros declared war on the Loyalist, and by proxy Montroig. From there, she worked as Minister of Resources to supply the Loyalists. During the Battle of Terroja, she went off the radar and robbed parts of Fornost, for which she was reprimanded. After the battles of Hapatmitas and Coolio City, though, she decided to enlist and train to fight. For this, she was placed under the tutelage of Renitsu\_M, who oversaw her training, but she was never able to see combat due to the war closing shortly after her enlistment.

## Guardianship

Cynthia served a term as the highest officer of Montroig, that being the Guardian. She had actually run a campaign for the office shortly after the Uldarashi Civil War, but failed to gain enough traction and came in second behind Argon Retter. After this, Cynthia fell into a deep coma, and after waking back up decided to run again not long after. She ran on a considerably authoritarian platform when put into contrast with the very liberal nation of Montroig. Her platform was one of advancement, playing on the continued dissatisfaction of the people with the current institutions as Montroig suffered from a years-long depression following the end of the Civil War. This platform only expanded as Cynthia continued to run, with anti-foreign, anti-religion, pro-national identity, pro-union, isolationist, and populist ideas being at the center of her campaign. Her popularity in polls only increased after an attempt on her life by a foreigner.

Cynthia managed to win the elections, taking home a considerable lead against Caterina, the candidate with the second-highest votes. Despite this, Cynthia brought on Caterina as her Vice Guardian after her previous one, Bucktootha, retired. Cynthia set about following up her promises and taking a lot of executive powers. With this, she first wrote in her more popular ideas, such as national workers unions, nationalist reforms to education, and infrastructural projects. She also led Montroig into the Union of Haven very shortly after she came into office.

Over time she passed more and more executive actions, gradually testing the acceptability of certain policies. Her radicalism created a stark divide between her diehard supporters and resistors, and with each new commandment she passed more of her supporters moved over to being resistors. This culminated in a larger resistance effort that left messages around Montroig and roped in smaller national leaders, including mayors of most towns in Montroig outside of Terroja. This conspiracy was busted by Arcadian Retter, who exposed it to Cynthia.

These resistant actions were countered by Cynthia's own further policing of activity in order to stop more groups like this from forming. This appeared to have the intended effect however, as Cynthia only drove more people away from her cause. As her term neared its end, Cynthia infamously altered the voting registration requirements in a way that made the votes for her the only eligible ones. Because of this, Cynthia became the only Guardian in history to win an election with 100% of the votes.

Not but a few weeks after, Cynthia was cornered on the streets of Terroja by Caterina sympathizers and thrown in the jail she had constructed. From this, Caterina inherited Guardianship after it was revealed that she was the true winner of the elections, ending Cynthia's time as Guardian.

## Post-Guardianship and Death

Following her expulsion from office Cynthia spent her time in prison. She was visited frequently, interviewed, sent mail, and even permitted to work on public works projects to which she volunteered. During this time, a sect of Barryism formed known as the Stronglads or Epictroig. This sect was a radicalistic one inspired by Cynthia's authoritarian policy. While Cynthia's anti-religion position did put them off, they recognized her as a useful pawn to getting into power, and so used the fact that Cynthia's alteration of the rules of the previous election were legal and that she was the rightful Guardian.

Several prison break attempts were made by the Stronglads, but none of them succeeded. Cynthia swiftly denounced the Stronglads and any association with them. With this, the Stronglads broke ties with Cynthia and changed course, trying to capture Tiatua by force and use it to bargain with the central Montroigan government. Cynthia, hearing word of this, was able to leave prison and travelled down to Tiatua, where she joined the advance regiment force. Their efforts repulsed the Stronglad attack, but Cynthia was killed during the fighting.

Months after her death, Cynthia's journal was passed along to an unknown individual, who decided to publish the journal as an autobiography in Cynthia's name. This book, *The Long Dream* has since gone on to become the most printed book in Montroig.