Lanterner

The **Lanterners** were a rebellious client state in the heptarchate. They are described in Ninefox Gambit and Raven Stratagem, and appear in the short story The Battle of Candle Arc.

## Geography

The Lanterners were located on the outskirts of the Glover Marches, near the annexed Outspecker Colonies and on the heptarchate side of the border with the Haussen system.

## Technology

The formants of the Lanterners' warmoths were distorted enough to delay recognition by Kel scans, allowing the Lanterners the element of surprise. However, the Lanterners' scans were unable to discern the different types of Kel warmoths from a distance, leading them to attack lesser targets before distinguishing them from more tactically valuable ones, and their invariant drives were inferior to those used by the heptarchate.

## History

Historically a client state of the heptarchate, the Lanterners rebelled around 852 and waged war against the realm for regional representation. Some other groups, notably the Gheffeu, fell in with the Lanterners over unresolved issues of Doctrine.

The rebellion sent over sixty warmoths under General Bremis kai Meghuet, a relative of one of their leaders, into battle against General Kel Najhera, and decimated her swarm when she relied too fully on exotics. After their victory, the Lanterners broadcast a list of grievances against the heptarchate. Around the same time, a Lanterner assassin's attempt to spike the high calendar by killing General Shuos Jedao on the Feast of the Falcon's Eye failed when Jedao survived.

As the Lanterners pursued the remnants of Najhera's swarm, the heptarchate assigned its eleven remaining fangmoths to Jedao, pulling him off medical leave with instructions to protect the Glover Marches by any means possible. Using the Lanterners' reliance on the calendrical terrain their victory had changed, Jedao famously defeated kai Meghuet's swarm at Candle Arc, facing eleven-to-one odds and reverting the area to the high calendar.

The rebellion lasted for four subsequent battles, with odds more even and devastating results for the Lanterners. Before the second clash, the Lanterners placed children and invalids in their defensive outposts, broadcasting their presence there with the intent of using them as human shields and leaving only skeleton crews to operate their weapons. Upon orders from Kel Command and High General Kel Garit, Jedao destroyed the outposts,  demonstrating that such tactics would not deter the heptarchate. Propaganda by Heptarch Shuos Khiaz managed the heptarchate's image during these atrocities. Also of note was Jedao's devastating use of the grand formation Skyfall in the Battle of Severed Hands.

Later on in the war, the Lanterners split up ethnic groups among new recruits and sent less trusted troops out to die first, relying on Lanterner officers to keep questionable troops in line.

Finally, in what the heptarchate perceived as a doomed retreat, the Lanterners' leader took refuge in Hellspin Fortress. Jedao, despite instructions to capture the fortress so that survivors could be converted and the damaged calendrical terrain repaired, used the first threshold winnowers to massacre Lanterners, Kel, and civilians alike, with casualties totaling over one million.

Jedao's victories against the Lanterners, especially the spectacular action at Candle Arc, were later taught in Kel textbooks. His reason for the treasonous massacre at Hellspin Fortress remained unknown for centuries.

## Trivia

* Jedao's decision to prevent the torture of General Bremis kai Meghuet for a remembrance during the Battle of Candle Arc was recalled several centuries later by High Magistrate Rahal Zaniin.
* While Jedao considered involving the Lanterners in his plans to destroy the heptarchate, their use of children as human shields demonstrated their unsuitability to his cause. Nonetheless, his privately growing growing conviction that a Lanterner's life had the same worth as that of a heptarchate soldier's led to his treasonous massacre at Hellspin Fortress.
* Subsequent historians tend to mistakenly refer to the Lanterners as heretics, when they were actually a client state and had not been integrated into the heptarchate.
* Jedao's revenant referred to lanterns while provoking Brevet General Kel Cheris, evoking his campaign against the Lanterners.
* Heptarch Nirai Kujen later used paper lanterns to subtlely torment Jedao's revenant at Tefos Base.
* Lantern imagery appeared in Jedao's "penitence" propaganda near the end of the Hafn invasion.

## References

1. ↑ Hexarchate Map
2. ↑ The Battle of Candle Arc
3. ↑ The Battle of Candle Arc
4. ↑ Hexarchate Stories: Hexarchate (And Heptarchate) Calendar
5. ↑ The Battle of Candle Arc
6. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 12
7. ↑ The Battle of Candle Arc
8. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 3
9. ↑ The Battle of Candle Arc
10. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 12
11. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 21
12. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 12
13. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 10
14. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 12
15. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 12
16. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 3
17. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 12
18. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 3
19. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 12
20. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 19
21. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 22
22. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 24
23. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 24
24. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 9
25. ↑ Revenant Gun, Chapter 20
26. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 17