Event: The First and Second Bombing of the Badlands
Hai kanakAngi ratnAngi gAnamUrti vanaspati mAnavati tAnarUpi senAvati hanumatODi dhenukA nAtakapriya kOkilapriya rUpAvati gAyakapriya vakuLAbharaNaM mAyAmALavagowLa chakravAkaM sUryakAmTaM hATakAmbari jhaMkAradhvani naThabhairavi klravANi. KaraharapriyA, gowrinmanOhari varuNapriya mAraranjani chArukEsi harikAMbhoji sarasAMgi dhlraSaMkarAbharaNaM nAgAnandini yAgapriya rAgavardini gaMgEyabhUSaNi vAgadlShvari. SUlini chalanATa sAlagam jalArNavam jhAlavarALi navanltaM pAvani raghupriyA. ShaDvidamArgiNi, SubhapantuvarALi gavAmbOdhi suvarNAMgi divyamaNi bhavapriyA dhavaLAmbari nAmanArAyaNi kAmavardini rAmpriya gamanAShrama viShvaMbhari SAmaLAngi ShanmuKapriyA, sumhEndramadhyamaM, hEmavati dharmavati nlitimati kAntAmaNi, riShabhapriya latAmgi, vAchaspati mEchakalyANi chitrAMbari sucharitra iyOtisvarUpiNi dhAtuvardhini kOsalaM nAsikabhUShani rasikapriya!!!All races of Heimland have knowledge of the bombing of the Badlands via the bombs known as Big-Kahuna and Big-Bahama.-The Song of Lamentations, sung by the Old Folk during funerals.
Summary
During The Age-of-Heroes when the building of Patrick-the-Engine was complete, the Old Folk were faced with much retaliation from the Indagarians who wanted the "colonizers" and their "demon technology" out of Heimland for good. What would result next would change the history of Heimland forever.
Historical Basis
Many ancient historical documents recount the story, with variations of the original document carrying their own added elements to the event. Some events in one account are nonexistent in another, leading some to wonder whether any of these accounts hold any truth to them.
The Indagarians were slaughtering Yea'haa'weh and Old Folk alike at rapid rates, invading their villages and stealing their women. They were organizing guerilla-warfare and were driving Folk out of their strongholds. Through ultra-violence and a message of twisted "patriotism" the Indagarians were trying to take back "their land" from the "invaders" despite the fact that the so-called invaders were developing their island into a more prosperous state.
Finally, after much discussion, this prompted the Folk to use their first atomic-weapon, Big-Kahuna, on the city of Indagar in 799,050 DE. The account of the event is told by Mawe the Mad as such:
The iron-thunderbolt. Yes. That's what I would call it. A deadly weapon, larger than six mountains. Charged with the power of a billion suns and a trillion large stars. When it struck, there was a sound as like the gods themselves weeping and screaming in agony. A wave, a cloud of dust, stretched out for miles on end, engulfing the city. And whatever the cloud touched was annihilated. Sand turned to glass, metal turned to lava and rock turned to magma. And people....some were turned to dust. A few shattered into fine powder. A few unlucky ones, those caught as they about to escape the blast, were even fused to each other. Their flesh melted and mixed like steel, fusing them with their loved ones. It was horrible. Two-headed creatures and abominations with many arms were crawling about, screaming so hard their throats were ripped hoarse and blood streame4d from their ears, nostrils and mouths. They died from inhaling the fumes a few hours later. I thought I would never see such a horror again in my life, until I saw another a few centuries later.Big-Kahuna was brought in from the Harbor and dropped onto the center of the city via a S.W.A.Ve. It caused the death of around 1.5 billion people in a matter of 18 hours. Those who survived the bombing were mutated beyond recognition and some became the Surakh after centuries of crossbreeding in the mountains. The new race, the Surakh, formed the city of Surakhnit and left for the Raginwald after a few generations. In the Raginwald mountains they established army-bases and after patiently waiting, they proceeded to attack the Cities of Thetmis and Disra in 798,550 DE. This bloody slaughter led to the massacre of many citizens and innocent civilians. This enraged the Folk who, after another discussion, set to building a second more powerful bomb. They built it and dropped it at the northern end of the Raginwald, annihilating the Surakh forces. Mawe the Mad, who had relocated to the Raginwald after the incidents of the first bombing, witnessed the second bombing as well. Although surviving the blast, he described the incident as such:
What was once a beautiful grassy range became a smoldering pit like the depths of Niraya. The grass vanished, swept off by the powerful cloud of heated smoke. The force of the bomb was so great I could only describe the sound in one word: godblast. I feel like this explosion would be enough to annihilate a thousands gods and goddesses. The blast consumed half the mountain range, covering it with a black cloud so dark and dense one could feel the lack of light as if being drowned in a lake of hot and blazing sulfur. The Spider-Folk and their forces were swept by the force, their hard shells and carapaces protecting them but letting them suffer still. Their screams were like those of a thousand widows, if their throats had been stuffed with razor-blades and molten iron. It was...it was unholy. What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy name of liberty or democracy??? Only those who die will ever see the end of war.Thousands of Surakh lost their lives, other were severely wounded. This attack would cause them to retreat into the shadows until the folk vanished in 1 AE. This attack also resulted in the creation of the Drekkin, a race of mutant reptilian humanoids born from the nuclear waste. Mawe the Mad had survived two severe bombings, which ultimately took a toll on his sanity and made him a raving maniac. Before his insanity, he told his full account to a local Og. His testimony was written into a codex and kept in a library. His final words were:
All war is a symptom of man's failure as a thinking animal. There has never been a true war that wasn't fought between two sets of people who were certain they were in the right. The really dangerous people believe they are doing whatever they are doing solely and only because it is without question the right thing to do. And that is what makes them dangerous. There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people. Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is our humanity that is hanging on the cross of iron.
Spread
The knowledge of the event spread rapidly within a period of two days. Soon the event became common knowledge to those on the outside, and even made its way to the Tagaloa.
Variations & Mutation
Variations of the story include the date and time of the vent, as well as the amount of casualties and resulting consequences from the bombing.
Due to various regional interpretations of the original event, the only truly trusted account would be the narration of Mawe the Mad, a survivor of the bombing. At the moment of the bombings, the Dalcassian-Stone trembled and shuddered for hours, and then glowed a dark obsidian-purple glow for a few seconds before going back to normal. Some say this is because the Stone was absorbing the souls of those lost in war, the machines say this was the Stone "adding the names of those lost to its digital-interface." It is also said that the Stone manifested a code at its base for a brief moment. A machine watching the stone kept record of the code: "RA9-1OI9-8W0G-312N-K2P462HI-AQPV-7ZW9-X51X-NQJZ-DX18O8H4-LUOK-RMQG-H1HH-SLHI-2LYE-U84Q-DT0G-X1BM-0TG1C". When asked what the code meant, the machine simply answered; "Bad times ahead."
Cultural Reception
Many races take the story in different ways. The machines prefer to stay neutral in such debates whilst the Yea'haa'weh do their best to justify the bombing and the Indaarians stand strongly against such justification. The Vedda and commoners also choose to stay out of such quarrels, with only a few politically or racially passionate individuals willing to start a fight about the incident.
In Literature
An account of the event, the Tale of Bethelguese, is told from the perspective of a victim of the bombing, and was supposedly written by Tashtai-the-Deathless.
In Art
A painting, The Great Abyss, shows the flying S.W.A.Ves dropping the bombs onto the city and the mountains.
Date of First Recording
597,949 DE
Date of Setting
799,050 DE
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