Philip Locke
Scavenger Hunt Information
The following is a story related to the Second Shireroth Scavenger Hunt. It is not to be confused with reality. Real information on Philip Locke is below the break. I'm posting this early so that it's not clearly the newest topic on the wiki when the hunt begins. If the second Shireroth Scavenger Hunt never happens, please ignore this message.
Philip Locke was a famous partisan, politician, and terrorist of the Tymarian and early post-Tymarian era.
Born in Shireroth-occupied Lothlaria, during his youth he became involved in radical activities with the Anti-Tymar Council. He later rose to leadership in the organization and became a wanted fugitive for the various bombings and other terrorist activities of the group. When Tymaria collapsed, the newly-independent Republic of Shireroth, no friend to Tymaria itself, reluctantly decided to grant him citizenship, and he took up residence in the Duchy of Hyperborea.
Locke abandoned his violent ways to work within the system as a politician. Handsome, charismatic, and intelligent, he soon developed a fanatical following among Shireroth's disenfranchised. This only increased when he converted to Soloralism following a "religious experience" that the cynical considered a clear ploy to get more votes from the large Soloralist minority.
Kaiser Wyltheow strongly disapproved of Locke's activities, and kept him under constant SHINE surveillance and, for some periods, house arrest. But this "persecution" only made him more popular with his anti-royalist constituency. Thus, Wyltheow's successor, Kaiser Los II, decided to work with Locke rather than against him, and granted him noble title as Duke of Hyperborea. Los II and Locke had a good working relationship, and during Los' reign, Locke was not only peaceful but a constructive member of government.
However, during Los' fading years, Locke began to get involved with certain fanatical sects of Soloralism, which viewed the apocalypse of the Microns as a symbol of an apocalypse to come, and advocated the wholesale genocide of enemies of Soloralism such as Attera and Babkha in order to avert it. He may have become neurotic or even psychotic at this point, believing himself to be a chosen Soloralist prophet.
After Los' death, his successor, Raynor XI, banned Locke's political party and Locke lost hold of reality completely. He disappeared into the woodwork, so to speak. The next anyone heard of him, the aged Philip Locke had returned to his old role as terrorist, having united the underground militant Soloralist factions into a terrorist organization known as HICKTOP SAILOR mainly dedicated to strikes against Attera. The Soloralist Patriarch had pronounced Atteran leader Diga Makonnen to be an "Incarnation of Fate", an avatar of the same malign power that had destroyed the Microns. Although this was probably a political reaction to Makonnen's persecution of Soloralists within his empire, Soloralists took the declaration to heart and hated Diga and his empire with an uncommon vigor.
Aside from certain communiques demonstrating a clear collapse into insanity, and reports from Atteran intelligence sources about his presumed activities, we have no knowledge of his exploits after this point. Some think he went undercover in Attera, in which case he would have died when their civilization was destroyed by a mysterious catastrophe whose causes are debated even to this day. Others think he retired to Menelmacar and lived out his time as a priest there. It is likely that more records of his later activities may exist in the old Atteran Shaagadan archives in the ruins of Kreutzberg, but none of these have been opened for study by Shirerithians.
Locke's Shirerithian followers, known as Lockeists, formed a major political force until the time of Kaiser Alejian I, and continue to exist as a small party today. Lockeists were implicated in the death of Kaiser Mors V, though others say his assassins were actually Aureists, a similar but distinct faction.
Locke's legacy also includes a division of the Hyperborean military named after him, a Soloralist litany against demons supposedly written by him, and a depiction of him on some of the murals decorating the Landsraad building. Oddly enough, some archaeologists studying the odd markings on the Atterrock that some interpret as writing have fancifully decoded one sentence as "Philip Locke Was Here" - but that seems impossible, as Locke was never in that Barony and the markings were supposedly already on the rock when it fell from the sky.
Real Information
A Hyperborean active in Shireroth approximately from 2002 to 2004, famous for his strong commitment to democracy in the summer of '04.
Locke first gained intermicronational notoriety when he and his friend William Jesmer launched a terrorist attack against their home nation at the time, Tymaria, and deleted its forum. At the time, Shireroth was a Tymarian state, and it banned William Jesmer from holding citizenship in the country ever again but gave Locke the lesser punishment of a three month suspension of citizenship.
At the end of three months, Locke returned to Shireroth, now an independent country, settling in the Duchy of Hyperborea. Although he got along well with most of the other Hyperboreans, he quickly made several enemies, most significantly Erik Metzler and Gryphon Avocatio. Although they originally were upset with his part in the Tymarian attacks, they continued to be incensed by his loud and vocal support for a more democratic system of government. He was told to leave the country several times and dropped out due to inactivity on other occasions, but always ended up returning.
In July 2004, Kaiser Los II promoted him to Duke of Hyperborea in gratitude for his support during the War of the Wylthean Succession. Locke used his position in the Landsraad to propose a number of bills, many of which directly related to his support for more freedom and democracy among the commoners. Most of these bills were voted down, despite the presence of a strong ally for his cause in Duke Rakesh of Brookshire. Also around this time, Locke founded the political interest group PAST to promote his ideals.
Opinion on Locke's actions were mixed. While few Shirerithians agreed with him, many noted how he raised activity, got Shirerithians to take a good look at their government, and encouraged a flourishing political culture at a time when many nations were sliding into inactivity. Others thought his ideas were un-Shirerithian, and that he himself was an annoyance at best and a traitor at worst.
When Kaiser Raynor XI took the throne, he banned political interest groups and dismissed Locke's chief ally, Rakesh, from his position as Duke of Brookshire. Unable to continue his reformist plans, Locke faded into inactivity, despite Raynor's conciliatory gesture of making him an Imperial Advisor. He has not been seen in Shireroth for nearly a year, although he still talks to Scott Alexander about poetry on rare occasions.
In real life, Locke was known to be seventeen years old and to attend a Catholic high school in Rhode Island at the time this article was originally written.
