[CHAR] Beneath our Two Suns

[Dinh AaronMk]

Nation: Ayiti

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History: The Haitian nation could not take the end of the old world well. The hard lashing waves that thrashed the shores of the island nation and much of the Caribbean from the tremendous tsunamis caused by the fall of one of many thousands of meteorites that struck the world washed the shores clean of the modern industrial world and sewed tumult in the already poor nation. As the dust of the apocalypse settled the Haitian people awoke to a greater world that had gone silent.

Those foreign aid organizations that had been on the island found themselves as stranded as the other Haitians with the boats and ships that would carry them to the mainland or other islands smashed against the shores and the airplanes lost to the rubble. Holding out, the Haitian government in Port-au-Prince tried to hold out on what little they had as they sought to re-establish communications with other communities. But no response came as the phones lay dead, internet connections destroyed, and little power to operate radios for long. As the last bits of oil reserve went dry the nation slipped away into the primitive dark.

As the moon overhead was engulfed by its alien cousin and the tides rose heavier and the chaos of the end times carried into the weather as clouds rolled in from both the north and south as well as the seasonal hurricane winds from he far-east the fragile nation finally collapsed.

With no international community to work with, or be helped by the poor workers of the nation found themselves poor and destitute with the factories silent and no more foreign aid coming into the country to feed them. Angry and desperate the people of Haiti turned to fighting. First among themselves as they battled the weak government forces and throwing the country into a period of civil war. Then over the borders into the Dominican Republic as raiding parties equipped with sharpened sticks and machetes attacked the scattered under-defended western towns and villages of the Eastern Hispaniola nation.

The situation was entirely one-way as the favor was returned with cross-border retaliation by this communities acting on their own, embroiling the island into chaos.

A generation of conflict bred from both nations societies of warriors spurned to seek glory in raiding and combat by the New World religious movements they followed. The priests, the houngan of the faiths of Haitian and Dominican Vodou relaying messages of further glorified warrior sacrifice and treasure taking.

In Haiti, the prominence of the hougan became more prominent. As a society, the hougans were revered as the local wise-man notable for their education in not only spiritual matters but secular matters such as governance, the economy, and some medicine. As the hougans seemingly encouraged fighting against the Dominicans they met among themselves to reconstruct Haiti. Ultimately, fifty years after the meteor storm pummeled Earth the elected the nation's first true president from their own ranks.

With the weight of the priest hood behind his appointment, Emmanuel LeCroix assumed the role of president at the age of 65. He brought together many of the Haitian communities through the influence and respect of the hougans. Those communities who spurned his authority were forced to kneel through military force.

LeCroix's first issues was to pacify the threat of Dominican raiders now emboldened to continue to seek revenge against the Haitians for blood spilled and the Haitians like-wise. With a rabble army armed with the same implements as they had been raiding with marched into the Dominican highlands. LeCroix's belief was a total destruction of the land along the borders would be such a show of violence and force it would turn away further raids. Occupying several towns along the border to expand Haitian territory LeCroix's army moved through the island and slaughtered many more, turning rural communities into graveyards.

Confident and appeased, LeCroix removed his forces and brought them home.

While using the limited resources of the nation LeCroix sought to turn the Haitians attention elsewhere. The first of which to re-open the port of the reborn capital of Port-au-Prince. While much of the lower city was regularly flooded by the new tides the rest of the city was nestled along higher altitudes and into the highlands that covered much of Haiti. Though LeCroix initiated the efforts to renew Port-au-Prince as a safe port for commerce and travel he passed away before he could see it happen at the age of eighty-eight.

His successors would see out the end of his legacy, though they were not always nearly as restful and inward as their first president.

Each one claiming the title President-for-life a history of presidential dynasties emerged from the elected class the priesthood had made, powerful aristocrat and powerful city and rural families, or simply influential priests themselves found themselves eligible to rule until their deaths.

Port-au-Prince was inevitably restored and turned into a thriving port of commerce and activity. Legitimate merchants plied their trade from the city helping to turn over the islands valuable sugar, tobacco, and chocolate crop in addition to the herbs plied for luxury perfumes or snake oils. But at the same time the port is used by adventurers who sail out from the relative safety of Port-au-Prince to the greater Caribbean in search of wealth and fame as effective pirates.

Haiti's history for raids began with the first adventurers sailing to the shores of Jamaica or Cuba. As these islands lost the luster and unique riches they went further, reaching Central America and then South and North America. Those who return from the north or south bring home stories and legends of a land whose smokey and mysterious interiors are graced with powerful and terrifying things.

[Vilageidiotx]

Nation: Moskito

Location:

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When everything came apart, Nicaragua experienced the same travails which plagued most third world countries. The government was not equipped to handle the disaster as refugees fled inland. A lack of facilities, not to mention food and water, was complicated by the large number of displaced persons the government found itself responsible for. A desperate measure was passed in order to handle these duel problems, and a mandatory work detail was forced on those who did not fit into the surviving communites. Those forced to work were those made homeless by the destruction of the coast, mixed in with the jobless and prison-bound populations. There was another smaller group included in the mandatory worker population; foreigners. Two Caribbean cruise ships had been forced to dock on the east coast just before the sea swept in. This left the mixed foreign crowd of local Caribbean visitors, and American Businessmen and agents, to be combined with a crowd of listless tourists. It was the later that would lend their name to the pejorative native Nicaraugans would eventually give to all the mandatory workers; Turistas.

The mandatory worker laws were originally meant to be temporary, but the government never managed to get a handle on the situation. The collapse of the world economy ruined the currency of the Nicaragua, and the resulting inflation caused the surviving government to grind to a halt. It couldn't pay employees and enforce laws. Sheer inertia kept it going for several years, but its acts grew increasingly desperate. It was in one of its final attempts to reach solvency that the Nicaraguan government inadvertently set up the early beginnings of what would become the state and civilization of Moskito. Desperate for income, the government "Rented" the indefinite contracts of the Mandatory Workers, the "Turistas", thus turning a legislated emergency measure into a form of commercial slavery.

It did no good, and the government soon disintegrated. Without the law, those wealthy landowners who could afford to buy the contracts of the Mandatory Workers were forced to defend their property. They converted some Turistas into paid guards, and also hired their poorer neighbors for similar duties. Food and basic manufactured goods shot up in value as the remnants of old civilization were consumed, prompting those with money to put their Turistas into the hard work of making the damaged land arable again.

When they realized their situations were to be permanent, the Mandatory Workers attempted to force their freedom. This event would become known as the First Turistan War. It was a brutal affair, fought mostly in the lowlands along the Moskito Coast, and it was this conflict that sharpened this new form of society by creating a strict dividing line between classes. The landowners, their lives threatened, constructed a middling class of soldiers and freemen to divide them from the Turistas, who were degraded to a permanent slave cast with fewer opportunities to crawl out of their predicament.

The following generations went by with few events. Civilization in the highlands disintegrated and grew sparse. Small-scale manufacturing replaced what scavenged material was lost over time. A reliance on steam-power and other antiquated forms of energy replaced the old fossil-fuel based economics. Worried about another Turistan War caused the free classes to relearn the military arts. Land was cleared, and harbors were slowly constructed to make up for the difficulties caused by violent tides. With the old government gone, a new form of defensive government was put in place under the office of Mariscal. The Mariscal, elected by the members of the landowning class (now being called the Sangre Azul), was given command of their combined military forces, and legal jurisdiction over anything considered necessary for the defense of their people.

Their worst fears were answered during the command of Mariscal Juan Vicente Duque. The Turistas rose again, armed by a rebellious Sangre Azul from the south named Palo Paz. Paz died in one of the first battles of the war, but his rebels saw no reason to surrender to punishment reenslavement, so the war continued. Mariscal Duque developed new military techniques during this war, including the return of field artillery in the form of mortars and small rifled cannons.

The final battle was fought along the Kama river. The Turista rebels had been pushed south and surrounded at the coast near the sunken ruins of Bluefields. In their attempt to break out of the attack, they made a fierce assault on the Moskitan positions near the river. In the worst of the fighting, when it looked like the battle could go either way, a sick Mariscal Duque got out of his sickbed to help push cannon across the river for the last advance. He fainted and died on the field, but despite his death the battle was won and the Turistas were forced back in enslavement.

The Duque family has since received an almost religious devotion from the people following the death of their great relative nineteen years ago. In the same way the first conflict created their form of society, the second one had created a renaissance of construction and societal advancement. Juan Vicente Duque's brother, Antonio Duque, served as Mariscal for eleven years after his elder brothers death, until his own death of heart disease. The last eight years has saw Juan Vicente's son Juan Aureliano Duque serve in the higher office. Aureliano is an uncompromising man, known for his strong mind and personality just as much as he is for his strong temper. Under his command, long-distance trade has began to flourish, and his interest in architecture has brought several large building projects into the works. Steel-sided steamboats patrol the sea, while military reorganization brought on by his father seems to guarantee the Turistas will never revolt again.

[RisenDead]

Nation: Cuba

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Cuba, once isolated from the world by a US Embargo, and then thrust into the claws of capitalism in the year 2016. It looked as though the great trials and tribulations that the Cuban people had suffered for so many years might be coming to an end. The fates laughed.

Americans and their money poured into Cuba and at once the traditional way of life that had made Cuba so appealing to tourists in the first place began to vanish. American cars, big houses, and wifi for the wealthy who took advantage of the American arrival. The Cuba the world we knew and loved to read about was dying.

Cuba is one of the few nations that can truly say it was saved by the shattering of the world. The economic collapse and subsequent departure of much American money caused hardship to those who had become wealthy since 2016 but for the vast majority of Cubans, nothing changed in their status quo. They had always been a nation of have-nots and that barely changed for most of them during the Age of Americanization.

As the world began to burn and the moon shattered Cuba braced itself for the storm. Anyone with an ounce of sense had read the science on how bad such an apocalypse could be and the Government moved to prepare. Then came the boat people.

Cuba suddenly found itself flooded with tens, maybe hundreds, of thousands of refugees from all across the Americas. Critics who had once accused the Castro's of spending to much money on the military and its mandatory service policy suddenly found themselves begging for protection and ferocious battles raged all along the islands shores. Thousands would die in the surf, cut down by machine gun fire, eaten by sharks, drowned in Tsunamis, and more. Tens of thousands of Cubans would die to, their cities violently wiped from the face of the earth as the oceans heaved and surged against the Island.

Havana somehow escaped the worst of it and would remain the capital of Cuba, a rallying point for the people as they sought to protect their homeland from the invaders. They would be united by a woman, the only remaining Castro alive, Maria Ann Castro, a fiery Spanish beauty who had returned home from studying abroad just before everything collapsed.

Tens of thousands more would die as the fighting tore the island apart, entire sections falling under control of the invaders from across the world, pockets of Cuban Loyalists fighting savagely to repel them. The West of the Island was saved by a Tsunami that smashed a Mexican invasion fleet and Castro was able to turn her attentions East. It would take five years of bitter fighting but at last all of Cuba would lie beneath her sacred banner once more. Those of the invaders who survived were forced into work camps.

A century or more would pass as Cuba sought to rebuild. Like many Third World nations the sudden lose of technology was not as devastating as it could have been. Life is not easy however, the Castro family still rules, the great granddaughter of Maria Castro, Ann Castro, now rules the island and a strange hierarchy of female dominance has taken over. Many things are scarce and you won't find a bottle of coke anywhere.

The children of the invaders have become second class citizens. Allowed to function within Cuban society but not able to hold land, nor vote, only to work as their Masters direct. Much of the islands coasts are still dangerous and, while still beautiful, are barren of settlements or people most of the time. Much of the population lives on high ground towards the centre of the island and disease is often a problem in the jungle. Only a few cities like Havana are still linked to the sea.

Havana is perhaps the greatest city left in the "New World". Much of its infrastructure remained intact and was not, was repaired. Its central location brings visitors from all over the Caribbean, a safe place from the pirates that plague the seas. The Cuban Navy, once virtually non-existent, is growing in size in order to fight this new menace of Piracy.

It is a new age, and some would suggest it is Cuba's Age.