A WORLD ON THE EDGE OF WAR.
A WAR ON THE EDGE OF THE WORLD.
Gertie has a passion for kids and dreams of adventure in a foreign land. She's given an offer to teach at a new school in the backwater country of Jian and jumps at the chance. But just as she reaches the small town "near the edge of the world", war erupts. Caslet soldiers and wolf drones march on Jian, killing and destroying savagely. Our heroine saves a handsome Jian soldier from sure disassembly, and together they must fight the invaders and rescue the students from a fate worse than death.
(From the article “Behind the Wall of Jian,” by Ekhowart Vestus-44, Professor of Historical Studies at Wheel University No. 12, published in Journals Robotica Politik, [abridged])
Following the Second Civil War, widespread destruction of villages and cities throughout the Upper Plane had left many without homes or livelihoods. The entirety of the Upper Plane was in disarray. Although the war had ended by mutual consent of all parties – Caslet, Ralstan, Birmham, and Jian – it was Caslet that came away from the conflict in a superior position. Historically, Caslet’s imperial government was ironfisted, and its citizens had been toughened by living under the oppressive regime.
Whether measured by size or population, Caslet had always been the largest Upper Plane nation. At the war’s end, it remained so. The hastily drafted treaty had not redrawn any border lines, but inside Caslet there was pressure to expand, driven largely by the imperialistic notions that had been beaten into the Caslet population. When Caslet settlers started pushing beyond the country’s boundaries, isolated and weakened citizens of Birmham and Ralston living along the Caslet border were in no position to defend themselves against the encroachers; they either begrudgingly accepted the sovereignty of Caslet, or they picked up what scrap metal remained of their lives and moved further towards the interior of their respective countries.
After ten cycles of Caslet’s heavy-handed expansionism threatening their borders and their citizens, Birmham, Ralston, and Jian drew up a mutual aid treaty among themselves, called the Declaration of Free and Sovereign Robots of the Upper Plane. This Declaration outlined the independence of the three nations and asserted their intent to support one another should an aggressor challenge any of them.
Soon after, the Declaration was counter-signed and recognized by all the nations of the Wheel… except for Caslet.
There was no doubt that the Declaration was an accusatory finger which pointed at Caslet, even though the country was not mentioned by name. Ambak-1, the then-governor of Caslet and future first president of the Caslet Hegemony, claimed the document was a political stunt, a memorial designed to ensure Caslet would always be remembered in a negative light. There were many who blamed Ambak personally for the ruinous outcome of the previous war, but there were also those who sided with Caslet and were sympathetic to Ambak even as he tried to portray himself as the victim.
As Caslet’s governor, Ambak was shrewd. He realized the best way to increase his power now was on the battlefield of politics. Within the Caslet government, he lobbied to end the Imperial Council, arguing it was a holdover from the nation’s past. In very short order, Ambak reimagined the Caslet government, using Teslac’s democratic republic as his template. The key difference was that Ambak, being the first president of the new Hegemony, would be allowed to rule indefinitely – “to ensure the successful transition to this new form of governance.” Ambak retained his autocratic role and continued to expound the necessity of a single government which would unify the whole Wheel. His thesis was that nations should willingly join the Hegemony, and that trying to take over other countries by force was illogical and a waste of resources.
But what of the continued incursions by Caslet settlers into Birmham and Ralston? If Caslet had truly given up its imperialistic past, why were the poor robots living on the outside edge of the Caslet border constantly being pushed out of their homes and forced to relocate? Ambak was put into a difficult spot. Even as he was trying to show the Wheel the new face of the Caslet Hegemony, fragments of the Caslet Empire continued to irritate Birmham and Ralston and were a definite concern for Jian.
Ambak blamed his own citizens. He claimed that local groups of Caslets who lived along the Ralstan and Birmham borders were responsible for the incursions into non-Caslet lands; they did not have the support of the Caslet government. Whether that was true or not, did not really matter. The press condemned Caslet for failing to abide by the original treaty and to rein in its own citizens. Merely renaming the ruling body did not change the nature of the “imperial beast”. This was a thorn in Ambak’s side since he was obsessed with maintaining a virtuous image for Caslet and, more importantly, for himself.
Ambak hastened to make the necessary “corrections”. Within two cycles, Caslet settlers started to pull back from the disputed Birmham and Ralstan areas of encroachment. At first, Ambak took credit for the get-well operation, personally and publicly overseeing the disassembly of many so-called “renegade” and “lawless” Caslet settlers. The gruesome “justice” he meted out did not surprise anyone, but soon enough even Ambak was able to realize the oily demise of his own citizens at the government’s hand was not good press. The settlers were brought under control, while Ambak remained at arm’s length.
But then Ambak did something that shocked and surprised everyone – even his own generals and staff. He announced that Caslet would fully recognize the sovereignty of Birmham, Ralstan and Jian, and that he would sign the Declaration.
Ambak hosted a huge public celebration at the Caslet capitol, Columbiana. Dignitaries were invited from all over to witness what many were calling “the beginning of a terasecond of peace”.
After applying his official encrypted identifier to the Declaration in a grand ceremony, Ambak stood before the Wheel-wide press, officials, and other invited guests, and gave his famous “One Robot” speech.
In this moving and controversial monologue, the charismatic Caslet leader argued that the poor, agrarian nation state of Jian should be “tended to” and “isolated from” the rest of Robot civilization “for their own good”. He suggested that the low-technology robots which lived “out there, along the edge of the world” would be better off if they were kept apart from the rest of the Wheel’s population, until the Jians advanced significantly to match current robot technology. Ambak went so far as stating the Jians were such “technological children”, that they should be identified as a separate species: “machines that are more than drones but less than robots”. He said that Caslet, Tesla and the other nations had a duty to “conserve and protect” their “young sibling”. Then, standing before hundreds of guests on the Columbiana Government Hall's rotunda, Ambak proposed his “solution” to the “Jian problem”: He called for the construction of a “Great Wall to surround and protect the children of Jian”.
Although the speech itself received a great round of applause, afterward in the media and governments around the Wheel, there was an uproar. The idea of imprisoning an entire nation was unthinkable. And yet, there were many who agreed to Ambak's “solution” and felt that the Wall would benefit Jians and non-Jians alike. To say Ambak’s speech stirred ferocious controversy is an understatement.
Surprisingly, even within the freedom-loving Tesla there was a sizable population of liberal citizens who showed a naïve sympathy for Ambak’s hegemonic ideals. These same robots – men and women both poor and rich, young and old – became staunch supporters of building the Wall. Tesla’s leadership recognized the political fallout they would encounter if they chose to contradict Ambak’s plan in an unambiguous manner. Instead, the independent Lower Plane nations, led by Tesla, did what politicians often do when they cannot fashion a response to please everybody – they remained silent. Ambak’s wildly progressive and divisive proposal had no official condemnation from any of the large countries.
Ambak considered the collective silence as acceptance. He proceeded to disseminate his plans for the Wall and sought to recruit organizations and countries to lend their assistance. He made personal overtures to the leaders of Birmham and Ralston and public appeals to the citizens of the two countries which separated Caslet from Jian. And it worked. Eventually, both nations offered to help “contain” the Jians by building the Great Wall, effectively tossing their neighbor, Jian, into the recycler.
Once construction of the Wall was underway, it was Ambak who suggested that Birmham and Ralston should seek to increase their stature within the Wheel and “emphasize their independent status”. He encouraged the two neighboring countries to change their names in accordance with their greater significance. Thus, the Free State of Birmham and the Robot Republic of Ralstanica were formed.
Even now the Declaration stands as a template, one of the finest examples of boot-level unity and cooperation among separate robot nations. But the document's greatness is overshadowed by the irony that two of the three original signatories chose to advance themselves by maliciously sacrificing the weaker third.
Robot Civilization
Copyright © 2020-2023 Barry Holsinger - All Rights Reserved.
Powered by GoDaddy
We use cookies to analyze website traffic and optimize your website experience. By accepting our use of cookies, your data will be aggregated with all other user data.