Post by Jay Kitten on Aug 14, 2013 7:23:57 GMT -8
If only things were different...
Pern, circa 7th Pass. Thread is falling by the hundreds, and the dragons grow restless. Tension sparks between the southern and northern parts of the North, deriving from the North's inability to step outside their traditional norm when a joint Fort, Ista, and Igen team settles the far South. It isn't long before humans act out, and no matter if it's Earth or Pern, Human nature never changes.
The conflict begins when High Reaches started annexing the tithing Holds of Fort Weyr, the largest Weyr, claiming their tithes from the South unbalanced the flow of goods, severely dwindling Fort's supplies. Long story short, Fort got angry. And that was when all hell broke loose.
Not a sevenday later, the first militia-based army marched North to take back what was their's, and it wasn't long before the Riders joined them, fighting to reclaim their self-proclaimed "right" to the tithes, their egos expanding until blood was shed. Small Holds between Ruatha and Nabol were sacked, women raped, and innocents murdered. There could only be one response to such a sacking, and it wasn't pleasant in the least. The response was harsh, it was fast, and without warning dragons aplenty appeared in the skies over Fort, plumes of flame jetting from their mouths and torching everything they could find. And amid the chaos, the fires of war had begun, the forces of Fort rising up to defend their Weyr. Casualties were high, and the largest Weyr was crippled. Benden now held the numbers.
But to digress, War never changes.
It wasn't even a fortnight before armies were being raised in the Holds and skirmishes had broken out along the borders of two now-defined territories; High Reaches, Telgar, and Benden Weyrs and their surrounding Holds marched to war against Fort, Ista, and Igen. Their small trader's colonies in the South provided them with exotic supplies, and the war was at a stand-still, until both sides began to conscript, forcing a draft and making people who wanted no part of things to get involved. Family was pitted against relatives if they lived across borders, young men saw their lives ended before their prime.
But there were some who had had enough.
Brave Riders who had always stood by their Weyr, who's enemy was Thread and not one another, began to refuse to fight. There weren't that many who would stand up against the Weyrleaders, and those few whom did were quickly blamed as the reason this War was being fought. Politics became chaotic, the lines between right and wrong in the Weyrs blurred, and soon enough the Riders bound together, refusing to fight such a pointless War, and fled.
From all six of the great Weyrs they left, together, with one plan in mind and one destination: The West. Taking dragon eggs from the four corners of Pern, the assembled a ragtag clutch without one single mother, and brought them in secret to ships in the west, launching them away while a forward party scouted out a location for their new home. They knew it was crazy, they knew it was wrong, but brave men and women had set out with a goal and they expected to see it through.
Eventually the news got out, and that was when they had to take their leave. All at once, about 1% of the Riders on Pern left the great Weyrs, and together, they were to form Tigris.
Picking a location as far from the bloodshed as possible, a miserable outpost among an utterly dead continent, they settled down and took their land. A clutch on the Sands, a small supply of water, and barely a month's supply of food, it was here that they sought their revival, and it was here they dared defy tradition for the sake of morality. They knew it wouldn't be long before they were going to fight for what they believed, they merely hoped when that time came, Tigris would be ready to make a name for itself.
They would be ready, or they would die.
Long live Tigris!