Extra Chapter: The White Man's Burden
[Warning: While Team Rai acknowledges the hate speech included in this extra chapter, we wish to clarify that every word, claim, reference and creative usage made in this chapter is done with the intent of adding realism and believability in the world of Promethea. If there is any instance that you, as the reader, feel unwell about the contents of this chapter, feel more than free to skip it and we guarantee that except for missing out on some background information for later events, there will be not that many downsides to it. Again, we do not personally believe or ascribe to a single line of words in this chapter. We simply made it to provide additional context.]
[Warning TL;DR: Violent references and words will follow. Reader discretion is adviced. ]
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
"Blessed by the ancient gods, untainted by the pacifism of the Lunarian goddesses' dovish gospel, holding the undisputed title of being the first human civilization to topple the Old Order of the Beastfolk, and once, almost becoming the masters of all Promethea, it is the fate of the Helenas race to triumph over all other human kin, and it is the fate of everyone else to breathe the dirt below our soles."
- Gregory Smith, Founder and First Grand Patriarch of the Helenas Brotherhood
An excerpt from the fraternity's handbook "The White Man's Burden".
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
The Helenas Brotherhood, starting off as a sworn fraternity of men who acted as the secret police of the ancient Helena empire, quickly devolved into a human-supremacist group who perpetrated countless genocides against the human subspecies in the ancient times such as elves, dwarves, beastfolk, demihumans and more. These genocides, that they have called with a myriad of names such as "purges", "cleansing", and at present day, "pest control", has back then been limited to the aforementioned human subspecies, but has now been applied to all other races in Promethea save for the people who originated from Yropa who they hold as the "chosen among all human seeds".
Unlike how it would've turned out if the persecution in Yropa had the innocent and righteous as its victims, the story of how the country of Atlanterra was formed is not one that that has a happy beginning and likely a happy ending as well.
Over 400 years ago, the long-lauded and supported fraternity who has its roots as far back as the age of the ancient Helena Empire, finally hit a point where its misdeeds and political interference with the numerous monarchies and empires in the central continent can no longer be tolerated by its kings and principalities.
Around that time, the news of the Western continent's discovery spread throughout Yropa where the kingdoms and empires saw newfound wealth and a chance to expand their influence throughout the world. However, because of a lack of interstate warfare and widespread poverty during those decades where King Oliver XVIII (or Oliver the Peacemaker) was reigning as the Erican monarch, there was a lack of people in Yropa who are in desperate enough straits to gamble their life in trying to establish a settlement in the newfound continent.
Fortunately for the company executives and monarchs who are frothing in the mouth to be the first ones to establish a presence in the Atla continent, a particular organization filled with troublemakers began to be publicly persecuted for their overtly racist and aggressive behaviors, and are now requesting for a place to be relocated, away from their "lynchers and oppressors".
At first, these leaders saw the members of the Helenas Brotherhood as nothing more than cannon fodder to be thrown to the wilderness of the Atla continent where no other Yropan colony has lasted for more than 7 months (mainly due to attacks by natives and the harsh endemic diseases of which they have no resistance to). However, they soon learned that not only were the settlements established by the Helenas Brotherhood lasting for more than a year, they have long since turned from focusing on survival, to having enough capability to thrive in the new land.
Three settlements, all established by the Brotherhood at the coastline of the continent, sent a notice to their sponsors by their first year in the continent that not only would they be cutting off the regular supply shipments, now opting to buy/trade whatever they want or need, they have also sent back "gifts" in the form of gold and silver bars, as well as exotic items such as tobacco cigars that quickly became both a status symbol among the powerful and wealthy, and a way to warm up during the wintertime.
Overjoyed with the settlements, they would send an inspector to all three colonies, wishing to learn and possibly replicate the formula that allowed them to not only survive but now thrive... Unfortunately, they sent an inspector whose stomach for horrendous things are very, very little... something that he should've had if he intended to know what the townsfolk have done to do all of this.
In his own words, the three settlements, although differing in their most abundant resource, and the ability to make use of it due to the knowledge and experiences of its inhabitants, are united in one thing that shook him to his very core... apparently, the reason why they all survived the attacks of the native Atnas people, and the horrible diseases that has ceased every prior colony in Atla, was the fact that after making shelter and securing a common village farmland to grow their crops, they would attack the camps and villages of natives around them, sparing no one, not even the women and children, from death.
Unlike the previous other colonies who preferred to have trading partners among the natives (which brings the dangers of misunderstandings that sometimes leads to war, as well as interactions that facilitates disease transmission), the Brotherhoods' colonies has no neighbors to potentially harm them.
Soon, this prominence among all other colonies and settlements made the Helenas Brotherhood well-known for surviving in the new land, and with it came the question of "how they were able to do it". However, once they got an answer, it became the catalyst for an explosive growth in their membership and the brutality that soon ensued in the Atla continent.
From the first three successful settlements, namely Chastetown (a reference to Queen Charlene, often nicknamed "Charlene the Chaste"), Avarima, and Reessadeena, in a matter of 7 years, five more settlements would become independent from their sponsor monarchs or companies, and whether they liked it or not, the presence of the Helenas Brotherhood is both indelible and undeniable. For of the five new settlements, three are populated by Brotherhood members who were exiled from their former nations, and had its populace further influenced by Brotherhood proselytizers who found the settlers' fear of their new environment as the perfect weakpoint to exploit in order to convince them to be aggressive towards the natives.
Two decades after it all began, there were now 10 colonies in the Atla continent and of this number, 6 were directly tied to the Brotherhood, while the remaining 4 has loose connections with the group mainly by trading and the military aid that was lent to them during conflicts with the locals. In a single generation, the "solution" that the monarchs, judges and company executives thought of when they sent the Brotherhood members to colonize Atla, now became a growing problem as they have essentially handed an entire continent for them to grow both in numbers and infamy.
While initially, the leaders of the Brotherhood had varying dispositions regarding their relationships with their Yropan sponsors, with most of them opting to recognize, respect and maintain an amicable connection with them, the new generation of Brotherhood members who were born in Atla and faced encouragement and praise, instead of persecution and disdain, for their fervor towards their racist beliefs, had nothing but malice towards them who they label as "the weak and misled sheep", and as time went on, these new generations of members only got more and more in both numbers and disdain towards the leaders in Yropa... but while they have less fondness for them than their forefathers, they largely kept these words and thoughts to themselves.
Soon however, this fragile peace would come to an end when during his last year as the reigning Erican monarch (prior to his dethronement by the Yropan Assembly of Eminences due to his declining physical health), King Oliver XVIII would sign a treaty backed by the King of Albion, King of Francois, Kaiser of Eisen, the Queen of Cattleya and the Dukes of House Nasburg, to finally cease the colonization in the Atla continent in order to salvage the economy of Yropa that had its various coinages deflated in value by the overabundance of gold and silver from Atla, as well as the rampant slave trade that has flooded the western continent with Umisian slaves who all face inhuman treatment at the hands of their Brotherhood-affiliated masters.
Among the 10 colonies in Atla, 8 would voice their complaint against the treaty which effectively ceased their expansion efforts, forced them to stop waging war and committing genocide against the natives, and starved them of the slaves that they require to man their mines, plantations and slave militias.
At first, it was only official letters of complaints and demonstrations that the Brotherhood members performed against the treaty, but it soon moved into more rebellious and dangerous actions such as firebombings, assassination attempts towards Yropan ambassadors, and most infamous of all, the so-called "Maston Wine Run", where Brotherhood members disguised as Atnas natives, broke into the storage deck of the Albion Cruiser: HMS George IX, stole all of the luxury wine meant for King Evan XXII, and planned to trade it with the native tribes while disguising themselves as fellow natives. The purpose of this plot was to set-up the natives and effectively shake-up the implementation of the treaty.
While the plot was a stroke of genius in paper, its performance was only half successful. While they did manage to steal the wines and had the authorities thinking that it was done by the natives, the second part of the plan where they disguised as native traders failed after the tribesmen noticed that they are not fluent with the tribal dialects, as well as the incorrect and inconsistent usage of their tribal clothing and accessories. In the end, the wines were simply stored at a barn or consumed by the members. While it is labeled as a "partial success", this plot did succeed in foiling the implementation of some parts of the treaty such as the ceasing of the establishment of new settlements and the continuation of the Umisian slave trade.
A year later, the new Erican monarch, King Harrison IX (also known as Harrison the Bloody), picked up where his predecessor left off in the issue regarding the colonies of Atla. Unlike former King Oliver XVIII, the new king was less diplomatic and more straightforward with his declarations, opting to directly order the colonies to immediately cease their genocidal wars and shipping in slaves by the boatloads into Atla. This didn't go well among the colonial governors who saw their burgeoning settlements as the product of their and their forefathers' efforts and sacrifices that cannot be infringed by the orders of some faraway leader.
Two weeks after receiving the order, all 10 colonial governors would convene in the city of Maston where under the proposal and continuous goading of Brotherhood members and leaders, they would form the first Continental Colonial Council (C.C.C) of Atlanterra, who in the same meeting session that declared the formation of their organization, would also vote to secede from all control of their Yropan sponsors. With a vote of 6 to 4, the Atlanterran Council would declare the birth of the Free Nation of Atlanterra, and issued a declaration to their Yropan counterparts that from henceforth, they are now their own sovereign nation and will not yield to their orders.
The United Kingdoms of Erica, alongside the Yropan nations who lost their colonial footholds in the western continent, gave one last chance for the colonies to rescind their declaration of independence and return to the purview of their respective countries. However, the colonial council did not comply with the order and at their official reply, would include the following words:
[As the people who have toiled and sacrificed for these domiciles, tilled its fields with our sweat and blood, defended it from those repugnant barbaric lot and have preserved the light of civilization and enlightenment in this corner of the world, it is our unique and irrevocable right to establish ourselves a rightful government for the people and by the people, bound by a social contract that denies an authority as the product of one's bloodline, but rather, the faith of the people.]
Twenty-five years after the establishment of the first successful colony in Atla, the Atlanterran War of Independence started with the arrival of the combined Royal Albion and Francois navies that beat the Atlanterran fleet at the Battle of New Elshire. Numerous other naval victories would be won during the first year of the conflict, but the same didn't happen in the land war where the Atlanterran Colonial Army and various militia groups who are veterans of many anti-Atnas genocidal wars would beat the Albion and Francois armies by using hit-and-run tactics as well as guerrilla warfare.
It was only after the arrival of the Eisen Reichdom's Imperial Army that the Yropan forces met the Colonial army in equal terms hugely due to the knowledge of the Reichdom forces in counter-guerilla warfare, as well as their famed artillery and howitzers that rendered the area-denial tactics of the Colonial army ineffective.
However, while the Yropan forces managed to match the power and tactics of the Colonial army, what would be their downfall is the deteriorating situation back in the central continent. At that time, King Harrison IX lost an election of confidence among the Assembly of Eminences due to his undoing of the peace-keeping policies of late King Oliver that resulted to a war against the slave trading kingdoms of Umis, declaring that the tithes, offerings and donations gained by churches are to be taxed similar to businesses, and the costly war against Atlanterra. This election of confidence, while it didn't mean that he has to let go of his throne and power, meant that the monarchs and leaders of Yropa is openly stating their distrust of his decisions and policies, and he has to rethink about what to do next.
The war of independence would last for two more years with more and more countries in Yropa being brought into the fray until the fateful day at the Battle of Remembrance bay where General Geoffrey Edison would beat the Albion and Eisen armies using a masterful envelopment attack, while Admiral Peter Eastinghouse would bait the Yropan forces into the gulf where the waters quickly rescinds during low tide, paralyzing the ships just in time for the hidden shore guns and primed naval mines to decimate them.
Shortly after the defeat in Remembrance bay, a coup d'etat was made to dethrone King Harrison which lasted for three days as his royal guard refused to let the Assembly of Eminences to convene to declare the end of his reign. It was only after the monarchs and leaders threatened him of being sent to the Gallows that he voluntarily deposed the throne, giving way to the reign of King Edward VII who declared that the war against Atlanterra be stopped.
At the 30th anniversary of Chastetown's founding which marked the beginning of Atlanterra's successful colonization, the Union of the Free States of Atlanterra was officially declared, sparking what would be the beginning of the prominence of democratic governments in the world... or at least, that should be it if not for a single misstep.
Because although all 10 colonies fought against the Yropan forces during the war, only 6 colonies voted for it, leaving the 4 other colonies who are either against the idea from the very start, or was not willing to go to war over the initial issue, to reluctantly join in the bloody cavalcade. These 4 colonies, with their minimal losses in contrast to the 6 colonies who threw their men and resources willy-nilly during the war, came out as the more militarily strong and populous colonies, letting them beat the 6 colonies with Brotherhood-majority populations in the election for the first presidency through the victory of the popular vote.
The first Atlanterran Union president, Roger E. Swanson, would create a bill that outlaws individuals affiliated with "private organizations" to take government office under the rationale that it would defeat the purpose of being a "democratic" nation if a small group of individuals sharing the same agendas would be the ones to lead the nation, similar to the royal courts and the nobility of Yropa.
While he worded it as such, it was clear that he meant to use it against the Brotherhood who has been waiting for a chance to take full control of the new government and fully enact an ethnic cleansing in Atla. While they did their best to have their representatives in the Continental Council vote either "against" or "abstain" regarding the bill, it ultimately passed and severely hampered the takeover of the Brotherhood.
Although they were outlawed to have governmental presence and power, the Brotherhood managed to control the nation in their own ways. While political power are out of their reach, that didn't mean that they can't have military, economic and diplomatic powers. In several generations, they infiltrated the Union Armed Forces, established reputable and most importantly, profitable businesses, and set-up international organizations that aided in the spread of their teachings. It was said that as the states expanded westward, with it came the beliefs of the Brotherhood that upheld the existence of the Helena race and its triumph over all other races.
Shortly after the end of the Huho-Rugoga genocide, whose slaughtered tribe is the last of the Atnas natives to wage war against Atlanterra, the pervasive presence of the Brotherhood among the populace became a point of contention as the public saw the law put in place to keep the Brotherhood out of government to be "unconstitutional" and "undemocratic". At the 12th election cycle, a temporary restraining order against that law was set as a test of whether or not the public wants the Helenas Brotherhood in power. Unsurprisingly, their candidate, Jimmy Palmero, won in a landslide victory by holding 72% of the votes.
Shortly before he was to be declared as the president, Jimmy was shot in nearly point-blank range by a gunman that was later identified to be against the Brotherhood. While the shot broke several of his ribs and nearly collapsed his lung, he managed to survive and take power as the president of the Union.
A week after the transition of power, the states that would later be called Chi-Kohe Coalition of states declared that if Jimmy Palmero would not resign from his position, they would secede from the Union and declare themselves as the rightful nation of Atlanterra. Thus, the First Atlanterran civil war was declared which split the nation in half between those who stands behind the Brotherhood and those who are against them. Ultimately, Chi-Kohe would win and Palmero's presidency would be cut from its standard 7 years to a mere 3 years. The civil war took at most 200,000 lives from both sides, including civilian casualties.
Three more civil wars would happen after this, the second one would be similar to the first in regards to the reason behind it, which is the presence of Brotherhood members in government, while the third is regarding the dissolution of the union altogether in favor of a system similar to the revised systems of the United Kingdoms of Erica where the president has no power over the nation, simply being relegated as the public face of Atlanterra in the international stage.
The prelude for the fourth one would be the most pivotal for Atlanterra, where during the tenure of President Elaine Wright (who is known as the first and likely last female president of Atlanterra), the Helenas Brotherhood had its teachings rightfully labeled as "unfit for a civilized and peaceful state" and was being forced to disband under threat of imprisonment and capital punishment. It faced the greatest existential crisis when its members began to desert and its support among both the populace and its international connections became nearly non-existent.
While this is the main reason for the weakening of the Brotherhood's influence and stability, another factor in play was the fact that over the century, the teachings and do's and don'ts of the group has come to vary a lot between each enclave, spawning denominations who can't decide things such as: "do half-breeds belong to the Helenas race if their father is one", "Do people from the Romulus populace belong to the Helenas race", "Do the people from the Boreas Dukedom belong to the Helenas race when they are geographically in the Ost continent" and many other such ridiculous points of contention.
It was during these dire times when their ultimatum was drawing near, that a call for reformation was made by a man whose name would be immortalized in both reverence and infamy... a man named Gregory Smith. Hailing from the heartlands of old Chastetown, he would author and self-publish a manifesto that was said to be so scathingly racist and brutally inhuman towards other nationalities and races that nearly every one of these printed declarations (save for those that were hidden away), alongside the printing heads used for its publication, would be gathered and burned along with having its author imprisoned for "disturbing the peace" (no laws has been set during this time regarding hate speech and racial discrimination, making his arrest and incarceration greatly unwarranted and illegal).
Gregory Smith's arrest would spark a massive backlash for the Wright government wherein even those who are uncomfortable with the words and actions of the Brotherhood saw Smith's imprisonment for stating his opinions (regardless of its extremely racist content) as unconstitutional and illegal. Hearing of the turn in public opinion, Smith would once again write a manifesto while in prison where he stated that much of the problems in Atlanterra during that time (which are famine, lack of public funds, several losses against the Mako Huna island kingdom and suppression of free speech) can be distinctly traced back to the Blue Eagles party's (Wright's political party and an anti-Brotherhood group) policies of lessening the trade and use of slaves in plantations, giving massive tax breaks to the wealthy elite, slashing even the vital funds of the armed forces and criminalizing any public statement that: "it is hard to live in Atlanterra nowadays".
This manifesto, aptly titled as: "Behind the Bars of Injustice", would proliferate among the populace who would begin to see Smith as a living proof that the anti-Brotherhood movement is not only against the group, but against the very essence that makes Atlanterra what it is. Soon, new members would begin to flock to join the Brotherhood and "fight for what makes Atlanterra our home".
Once this news arrived at the Quadrangle, President Wright would order for the immediate public execution of Gregory Smith, something that took everyone, even her own peers and political allies, by surprise. As he was being walked towards the gallows, the silent and indifferent crowd began to chant a mumble that quickly grew into a unified shout:
"""Atlanterra Above All!"""
In a single moment, gunshots would ring out, blood and flesh would stain both the soil and the onlookers, and instead of the man who has convicted and sent to his death, the one whose lifeless body fell down to its death was Freddy O'Brien, the minister of justice who was said to have goaded the president into giving Gregory his capital punishment.
At the day when he should've been killed, Gregory Smith would take control, further incense the gathered people with rousing speeches, and lead the public who has gathered to fight not just for him but for the essence of his existence as the hope of toppling their corrupt and unfair government, to the capital where they stormed the Executive Palace and upon either defeating the palace guards in shoot-outs or convincing them to join their cause, they would find President Wright and much of his cabinet ministers, and perform on them the punishment that they almost gave to Smith.
It is said that it was only after hanging for three days and four nights that the corpses of the late government leaders was brought down from the hanging platform and tossed to the sea, never to be given earthly peace.
With the sudden collapse of the central government of Atlanterra, the whole nation entered a week-long state of anarchy until Gregory Smith, through his wide-range of connections through the Brotherhood, as well as his newfound popularity among the public, reined in the authority over all of the states into his hands and after labeling the states within the Chi-Kohe coalition as their enemies, became the first among the long line of political dynasty presidents that came from a dyed-to-the-wool Helenas Brotherhood lineage.
At year 11,070, a mere 90 years since their victory against Yropa and their inauguration as their own sovereign nation, the Union of the Free States of Atlanterra earned a new name: The Militant Confederation of Atlanterra... and it does not end there just yet. Under his leadership, the whole of Atlanterra took on a massive transformation in all of its facets.
If back then, the right to vote is given to anyone who carries Atlanterran citizenship, a change was made wherein only those who is serving or have served in the military, those that are employed in a significant industry, and those who follow the new "National Dogmatic Code" has the right to vote.
If back then, the right to citizenship is given to everyone who immigrates, marries a citizen or is born inside Atlanterran territory, a change was made wherein only those who have served in the military or is contributing in a vital industry can have citizenship. Those who have not completed these prerequisites are instead labeled as "civilians" where they are not eligible to much of public services as well as paying a 90% tax on everything they own and earn.
Lastly, and most horrible of all, if back then, Atlanterra limited its expansionism inside its own continent and surrounding waters, Smith's rise to power made them adopt an expansionist policy that would soon make them one of the most infamous colonizers in Promethea's history.
With nearly infinite political power after being named as the Helenas Brotherhood's First Grand Patriarch and the unconditional love and obedience of the Atlanterran public due to the massive public reforms and constant victories in wars that he gave them, Gregory Smith's reign of blood and terror would spread from the western deserts of Umis to the eastern valleys of Ost.
Unwilling to perform slave trade with the slave trading kingdoms of the slave traders triumvirate whom he has always remarked to be "ripping us off" and "giving us their worst and sickly", he ordered for the establishment the colonial territory of Aiver in Umis whose sole reason for existence is to become a "slave farm". From its establishment to its collapse 60 years later due to an invasion of the Kemetian (an Umisian-supremacist group similar in its racist tenets to the Helenas Brotherhood) nations of Tapun and Kemet, it is said that over 3 million slaves were sourced from its "farms" where Umisian women are forcefully impregnated over and over, and in order to ensure that they would not be able to have a child once they arrive in Atlanterra, the men are forcefully castrated.
While not as monstrously bloody and inhumane as their actions in Umis, the colonial attempts in Ost was just as, if not more brutal. In the Kingdom of Qima, Atlanterran merchant fleets would regularly perform false flag operations where after flying the flags of either Yropan or Ostadonian nations, they would attack harbors and ships, ransacking belongings and taking slaves wherever they go while placing the blame on the nation they pretended to be. In the Kingdom of Marl Kah, they would exploit the then unsteady government of the Salonga royal family, backing up separatist-forces who began to regularly commit bombings and massacres in the nation, and even secretly helping the destabilization plot against the government that led to the monarchy's handing over of power to a parliament that lopsidedly sided with Atlanterra, something that persists to this day.
However, the greatest victim of the greatest crime of Gregory Smith was not a foreign nation and people, but instead, his own... At his last days, he would sign into law an act that to this day, locked the fate of Atlanterra and its people into a path which can only end either in death or defeat.
This law, nicknamed as: "The White Man's Burden" which is similar to the name of the Brotherhood's handbook, made it Atlanterra's national focus to "ensure the existence of the Helenas people and a future for our superior race" by all means necessary. This law contains 88 articles that include each and every single belief that he has held in his life as the Grand Patriarch of the Helenas Brotherhood, and as expected, all of them pertains to a certain task of the Helenas race to both guarantee the longevity of their race and stifle the other races that it deems to not only be below them but wholly "subhuman".
For the next 300 years (and counting) of its existence, "The White Man's Burden" would become the national dogma of Atlanterra. Taught as early as a child understands language and as late as it enters a school, save for the bloody regime that he started and still exists today, this is the greatest legacy left by Gregory Smith who is worshiped by his followers as a nearly-messianic figure and cursed by his myriad of enemies as both a brutal slaughterer and a bigoted racial supremacist.
At current times, while outwardly antagonistic and sometimes even hostile to each other, the Blue Eagles and Red Bears parties are both controlled by a secretive cavalcade of Brotherhood members who all manipulate public perception in order to ensure that if the public softens up their outlook against other races and cultures, some "terrorist attack" or "national emergency" would happen and they will have to do every "necessary action" to ensure the security of the nation.
At present, President Abraham Yesver of the Blue Eagles party leads the Military Confederation of Atlanterra. An avid believer and follower of the Helenas Brotherhood's tenets despite belonging to the historically anti-Brotherhood party, he enjoys enormous favor from both his deep state peers and the public who believed his words about reclaiming the slave farming state of Aiver, and bringing down the wretched Ostadonians who once stifled their attempt to world domination.
While Promethea is no stranger to people who believes that their race is superior to others, the Brotherhood and the Kemetians are the greatest examples who not only declared their claims openly but has put them into real and bloodstained actions. In this respect, many experts claim that there will come a time when both sides would eventually enter a phase where non-interference in no longer possible and they have to fight it out through the nations they have infiltrated and not lead.
As for how this would affect the future and the story of a certain young nobleman in Ostadonia, that remains to be yet unsure and unproven... but one thing is for certain:
Eventually, he will enter the fray and either deal with it as a conspirator... or an eradicator.