Skerries Fluster Cluck

Otherwise known as the War of the Orchids,or the First Treesian War. It is said to be the first Recwar of the sector.

Below is a biased account that the editor has scavenged from the either-

Gentlemen I present an entirely biased account of the first recwar!

The Treesian War (War of the Orchids) 5th August – 10th August 2001

The five-day conflict that raged in the Barony of Treesia and Fabon was never heralded by a declaration of war or ended by the conclusion of a general peace. Babkha’s ceasefire and withdrawal is generally regarded as the weekend the war ended. Began as a recreational war it threatened the destruction of the entire Apollo Sector under a deluge of Spam. Luckily the enlightened reason of the Babkhans and the exhaustion and despair of her enemies saw to it that mutually assured destruction never came to pass. The Zjandarian Satrap and Vizier of Defence Ataxerxes who had been wrongly imprisoned by the Baron of Treesia, the one they called Eoin, initiated the War of the Orchids. Certain that the travesty of justice that was occurring before him in the Baronial courts would result in incarceration; Ataxerxes ordered his Imperial Regiments into Treesia to secure his freedom. Perhaps like the Great War of 1914-18 this small incident was the pressure valve that allowed a whole series of antagonists let of steam in a mutual (and fictional) blood letting. Certainly Babkha responded with enthusiasm to the call to war. Babak Shah annexed the Barony as the Babkhan Satrapy of Fabon while the swiftly organised Babkhan Occupation Council was established to administer the rebellious territory. They remembered the words of Babak IV ‘where the flag of Kapav is raised it can never be lowered.’ In the wake of the Imperial Regiments came volunteer formations from the provinces, from Dehvaz came guardsmen and Islamic militias, from Razjania also came guardsmen steeped in a historical reputation for blood lust and sadism, and many more besides also came to the foreign shores of Treesia to learn something of the art of war on the soft skulls of their enemies. To their aid in Treesia itself came dissident Canine Liberation Front, before the Baron they had ruled Treesia, they would accept the aid of anyone who would further their hopes of a restoration. Finally was the war escalated a whole host of foreign powers came into Treesia, each hoping to settle in its blood stained forums their own disputes. Others came purely out of the prospect of loot and their fatal attraction to spam. The Soviets of the Rodina along with the Free Citizens and the Paladins came for the former reason. Istvanistanis came for the later. Soviet intervention had brought Babkha tantalisingly close to victory. That victory was however to prove elusive as even with the withering effect of Soviet firepower and Babkhan cold-steel upon the fanatics and Mages of Treesia and the decisive defeat of the Barons Horde over the course of three successive battles for the Knightship of Breigh there were too many partisan bands still in the field, aside from strategic landmarks ruled by the Babkhan Occupation Council and the NKVD, the countryside remained in the hands of the chaotic resistance movements and communication was only possible along newly laid railway lines held open by Babkhan Imperial siege trains and the airpower of the Rodina.

The Free Citizens, political dissidents and refugees of Soviet reforms in the Rodina attempted to halt the Red Army and NKVD incursion, the Babkhan satrap Nouradin dispatched them with a perfect sense of irony by catapulting a giant statue of Stalin into their ranks, little was heard of them after that.

Babkha and its allies used terror tactics in a despairing attempt to break the stalemate, massacres, bombings, and assassinations to list but a few of the atrocities undertaken. The Treesians were however unmoved and showed a cavalier disregard for the lives of the peasantry abandoned to the Occupation Council. The war could have continued interminably.

It was not to be. The conflict only really ground to a halt when the fickleness of the Istvanistani was revealed. From the earliest moment in the war the fighting had spread into the diplomatic community, the fossilised Treesian satellite state of New Bruges found its embassy occupied by a Razjanian terrorist splinter group. Inspired by this the Istvanistani stormed all the remaining embassy compounds. Encouraged by the lack of resistance or interest in their antics the Istvanistanis swept through the collapsing nation, overrunning the guilds and the Coffee House – a sturdy structure which had previously survived a bungled Babkhan plot to destroy the economy when it transpired the leader of the terror cell, one Magistrate Arben, had detonated a munitions wagon against a coffee shop which no-one had ever heard of until it blew up. Under their villainous leader Stjepan, whose gender or sexuality Army Intelligence did not ever properly determine, the Istvanistani turned on all belligerents and were caught trying to drown the land in a wave of Spam. Repelled by this atrocity even in a war marked by a diabolical proliferation of nonsense the Babkhan Shah and the Baron reached an accommodation to end the war. The Baron thanked the Babkhans for their efforts, pardoned Ataxerxes and delivered him a honeyed ham especially for his contribution towards laying waste to the bulk of the territory. In return the Babkhans called off their punitive occupation and quietly forgot that there had ever been such things as the Occupation Council or the Satrapy of Fabon. The Babkhan army returned to their ships and sailed unheralded or celebrated under the cover of darkness. Yet still this was a famous Babkhan victory for in the days after the 10th of August cease-fire organised society had been smashed so completely observers did not note activity in the Barony until the 21st of that month. It is debateable whether Treesia will ever recover or becomes nothing but a dumping ground for that most insidious of micronational by-products; Spam!

Off those other foreign powers that had jumped into the fray for whatever reason little of note is worth recording. The Paladin Knights stormed off in a huff after being caught out in the spaming cross fire. The Soviets, departed hastily after their leader back in Kraznograd/Bristol faked his own death in an effort to revamp their ‘political simulation’ with a messianic resurrection and a clean break with micronationalism. The Free Citizens giddily accepted the yoke of Rasinate slavery, while no one showed the slightest bit of interest in what happened to Stjepan and co. The Canine rebels disappeared into ‘house-arrest’; Treesian authorities have gone to great lengths to deny the existence of special ‘shower chambers’ built underneath the series of Concentration Kennels that have sprouted up in recent months.

Thus ended the War of the Orchids, an epic that will be remembered by nobody for not very long. By Ardashir Khan, Friday, September 21, 2001