Post by Administrator on Feb 1, 2011 19:45:25 GMT -5
A History of Fort Weyr from 2979 to 3119
Originally written and compiled by Requiem. Last years added and reformatted by Rei
Of the three weyrs remaining to Pern at the end of the Long Interval following the Ninth Pass, Fort Weyr remained the largest and most integrated with the holders. Perhaps this had much to do with its proximity to Fort Hold, arguably the center of Pern commerce and craftsmen. Fort Weyr had long since adopted the patriarchal mindset of the holdfolk of Pern, if only because conformity was one of the only ways they could possibly ensure their existence. There were few enough things dragons could be called on to perform. Transportation, deliveries, aerial shows and emergency response and relief teams were the most common jobs. Fort Weyr struggled with Benden Weyr to secure these duties in order to sustain itself, and developed a fierce sense of rivalry toward the other northern weyr because of this. Fort also created a strong sense of loyalty amongst its own riders, and what could only be described as paranoia toward outsiders. This paranoia was actually based on an instance in which a Benden transfer sabotaged…ah, but the event is now forgotten. Only the paranoia remains.
Turn 2979-2981 The Birth of a True Queen
In the turn 2979, a young woman of seventeen Impressed a gold hatchling on the Sands of Fort. This event became one of the most significant to Fort Weyr, as Grenostith was the only gold daughter produced by the then aging senior gold, Kimensth. Grenostith was a gold after the queens of legend. Strong and regal, powerful to the point that a single kind word would have males falling into line behind her in worship, she became a symbol of the matriarchy long-abandoned. This gold had no need to command; she was well-loved from the beginning. Her rider, Kamerai, appeared to be precisely the opposite, a quiet, mousey creature who followed the whims of men without question. It came to pass that someone at Fort felt that Grenostith and Kamerai would be better choices for the senior goldpair…or perhaps they simply didn’t want two golds, and it made more sense to keep the youngest. For whatever reason, Weyrwoman Illia was found dead under suspicious circumstances, Kamerai elevated to the position right before Grenostith rose in her maiden Flight in 2981.
2981-2997 Political Wars, Stolen Eggs
Over the next fifteen turns or so, Fort Weyr and Benden Weyr continued to struggle for control of the north, their battles purely political. A rather unfortunate incident involving an influential holder’s daughter and one of Fort’s bronzeriders gave Benden the upper hand toward the end of that time, but the true leader of Fort – the manipulative Weyrwoman who pretended at docility – had arrived at a solution. Unfortunately, before the meeting could take place, Fort’s only junior gold succumbed to a mysterious illness. Fort Weyr was thrown into an uproar. In these times, it was uncommon for a gold to clutch more than one queen, and many worried that this event would spell the end for Fort Weyr. Some riders, in desperation, stole the clutch on Benden sands rumored to contain a golden egg.
They were sorely mistaken.
Benden’s eggs hatched and Impressed to Fort candidates, the eggs cracking early due to the stress long before Fort Weyrleadership could return them. No gold hatched among them. That turn, 2996, marked the beginning of the Northern Dragon War. Also during that turn, a secret affair between Kamerai and a young Fort wingleader sparked up. D’loro was a man above politics, a bronzerider who remained in a place of power no matter who the new Weyrleader became. He might have been insignificant, but he was a brilliant man, and, from the very beginning, Fort won the victory in any battle in which Fort wingriders had D’loro at their head.
It was under Kamerai that the now notorious interrogation methods were first developed, and under her that the Dragonless Slave Trade first came into being. These former riders were already broken, demoralized. Why not use them for labor? It became common practice at Fort to gather all blueriders and greenriders – and any of the higher colors who would not serve in Fort wings – taken prisoner in the wars and execute their mindmates while they stood on helplessly. Benden, too, began using the dragonless as slaves, but without Fort’s superior techniques, their slaves paled in comparison. The tribute gained by the illegal sale of these slaves gave Fort a distinct advantage in the wars.
2998-3001 The Drums of War, A Break for Benden
D’loro’s Jrenth caught Grenostith in 2998. What followed was devastating for their Benden adversaries. For four turns, Fort dominated the skies, reducing Benden Weyr’s controlled territory to the immediate area beyond the Weyr itself. It seemed that the war was nearly over – and none too soon, in the opinion of many. But this changed when, in 3001, a rogue bronzerider defected to Benden, bringing with him enough inside information to save Benden from distinction – and prolong the war indefinitely. S’rei’s defection would not have been enough, though, had not Grenostith risen not long thereafter. It was not Jrenth who caught her this time, however. Yeahrwith won the Weyrleadership. Mian’he was competent enough, but he certainly was not the equal of D’loro in pure tactical genius, and the upset of a change in leadership in the middle of the war dealt Fort a staggering blow. One fortunate thing did come of it, however; Gold Tollith was hatched that turn, Impressing to Elaira.
3001- 3006 Hard Times and an Unexpected Reprieve
The next four turns proved to be some of the hardest for Fort Weyr. Already a deeply internalized and strictly militaristic Weyr under D’loro, they became still more closed to outsiders than ever before. Transfers were almost unheard of, and only allowed from Selenitas. No Selenitas bronzerider or brownrider would ever be considered. The one notable exception to this was R’anatar of bronze Wereth, accepted for reasons known only to Kamerai. Fort preferred its candidates to be weyrbred, although it would occasionally go on searches of those Holds proven to be loyal when it needed to pad the candidate ranks for a Hatching – usually only taking holdbred females. Although strict, violence between Fort riders was forbidden, on pain of death. They had enough enemies outside the Weyr without having to worry about such foolishness from within.
3006 marked another major turning point. Threadfall caught all the Weyrs by surprise, and sparked a short hiatus in the fighting. In that turn, Jrenth again caught Grenostith, and Fort Weyr began to gain strength almost immediately. It grew more cohesive, the training more intensive, and many of the riders were relieved…particularly when D’loro’s swift reaction to the reappearance of Thread left them the least devastated of the three Weyrs left on Pern. Fort Weyr reemerged as a dominant force in the war almost immediately, and began sending spies to both Benden and Selenitas. Ka’rys of Bronze Ciceroth, Kamerai’s little-known brother, was one of these, and he reported to the Fort Weyrleaders the Impression of Shmee to Aslath – an unprecedented break in the line of Selenitas.
3008-3010 Stalemate with Benden, The Ending of an Era
By the time Grenostith rose again in 3008, Fort Weyr and Benden Weyr were at a near stalemate. For the first time since Grenostith’s hatching, the same bronze caught her twice in a row. Jrenth’s success also resulted in another gold egg, this queen Impressing to young Liosa. Doryith cemented Fort Weyr’s future, as the Weyr’s major disadvantage at this point was the undeniable truth that Benden had more golds and larger clutches. Even the elevation of Selenitas’s Shmee to the position of senior Weyrwoman seemed quite fortuitous. With Sera and her ‘noble line’ out of the picture, an alliance with the southern Weyr became a viable option.
This option then all but disappeared when Fort’s betrayer, S’rei of bronze Salenth, then proceeded to win Aslath’s flight despite Morsrath’s involvement. Fort Weyr chose to wait it out, allowing Benden Weyr to expend resources trying to subjugate Selenitas Weyr while Fort remained solely concerned with the north. Ka’rys’s job became all the more important, as he was the one the Fort Weyrleaders had to depend on to keep Selenitas from falling into Benden hands completely if things got out of hand.
Such concerns became unimportant in the face of the single greatest tragedy of Fort’s long history. Grenostith rose again. Jrenth won again. But, on that day in 3010, an unknown traitor admitted C’leon into Fort right before the conclusion of the Flight. Many thought Morsrath emerged from the air to chase, but this was merely a misconception. Morsrath had only one purpose – to slay Jrenth and Grenostith if C’leon was, by some strange chance, unable to reach their human counterparts. Jrenth and Grenostith were too preoccupied to notice his presence, as were the riders when C’leon descended upon them while the other chasers were too overcome with lust to fully understand what was going on.
Thus, the deaths of Kamerai and D’loro, and the end of a chapter in Fort history.
C’leon did not succeed in taking over Fort, which rallied around their dead leaders and repulsed the Benden attack wings that swooped in soon after. Weyrsecond R’anatar stepped into the role of Weyrleader, and the new senior goldrider Elaira fled with her lover, Z’mast, to the abandoned Weyr of High Reaches, too cowardly to face the war after the slaying of the former Weyrleaders. This left Liosa, still a weyrling, as the senior and only goldrider, and R’anatar’s supremacy was assured.
Fort Weyr itself, however, remained too shaken up to play much of a role in any but its own affairs. While Benden busied itself with the assassination of Z’mast and Elaira and the attempted execution of Selenitas’s Weyrwomen, R’anatar began systematically removing those most loyal to D’loro and Kamerai from the ranks of Fort. Bronzeriders with a particularly good Flight record mysteriously began to meet their deaths – after turns of surviving the wars – during infrequent skirmishes with Benden. One notable exception was J’lorin. He and Illumiath more or less vanished from the stage at Fort. Rumor had it that the bronzerider had some affection for Kamerai since his brief stint as Weyrleader over a decade before, and that he’d fallen into a black despair at her death.
3011-3014 Weyrleader R’anatar, J’lorin Escapes, Fort Experiments
3011 was ushered in with Doryith’s maiden Flight. Wereth pursued and won her, injuring no small number of other chasers in the process and thereby making R’anatar’s position as head of Fort official. The strict militaristic weyr fell under his thumb with little protest, though some whispered of the odd circumstances that put Wereth in a position of supremacy in that Flight – and of all D’loro’s supporters who had perished over the last turn. Those few loyalists remaining began a quiet exodus from Fort as R’anatar’s fist tightened. He didn’t have the power of C’leon just yet, but those who opposed him tended to meet an unfortunate end somewhere out of sight.
Seeing that Doryith and Liosa were overwhelmed by the strength and experience of their male counterparts, J’lorin was finally galvanized into action, enraged by the change coming over Fort under their new Weyrleader. At this rate, Fort would be no better than Benden! He began working behind the scenes. Overcoming his great hatred for all things Benden, he contacted Baith through Illumiath, and thus began the alliance that would change the whole face of the war.
Illumiath and a small cell of what few loyalists remained split off from Fort and came to occupy Benden while the other northern weyr conducted the momentous siege against Selenitas in 3012. R’anatar was not at all pleased to learn of this new development, but it served his purposes well enough for the time being. While Benden struggled to pull itself back together under a man they’d been trained to hate, he had time to remake Fort into exactly what he wanted it to be. After all, C’leon had the right idea; men were made to lead, and if you can ensure that your dragon catches the queen every time she rises, why not?
In secret, the healers of Fort began to explore the possibility of organ transplants, but as the research continued and they grew closer and closer to a successful surgery, they found themselves running out of recently dead and near-dead riders - as well as prisoners - to experiment on. This shortage was answered by 'harvesting' subjects from the druggies of High Reaches, until it was determined that their organs simply weren't up to par as far as quality was concerned. Must be all that substance abuse. Instead, they turned to reaching into the jungles of Selenitas and waylaying lone riders and weyrfolk there. From this source they eventually procured the first successful organ transfer where both the donator and the patient survived. The donator, Sel'n of Kaaoloth, managed to make his way back to Selenitas. Or some faction saw fit to restore him to the southern weyr. The truth remains shaded.
One defected Fort rider to High Reaches later, Fort Weyr took the opportunity to sweep in and eradicate the entire weyr to prevent news of their experimentation from reaching the wrong ears. Seven escaped, however, fleeing to Selenitas Weyr. Fort Weyr pursued them, and when the High Reaches riders and Sel'n were not handed over peacefully by the Selenitas Weyrleader, the two Fort wings attacked. And were repulsed quite soundly, as well.
3015-3019 R’anatar’s Plan, The Death of Fort
Fort remained rather quiet through the turns of 3015 to 3017 while Wasteland flourished in the occupied Selenitas. The reason? The Wasteland takeover was actually orchestrated and put into action by Fort Weyrleader R’anatar himself. It was he who pulled the strings behind the civil war in Benden. The reason for his deceit was simple. If he could weaken Benden with infighting to the point where they could finally be overtaken he could win the war once and for all. Benden simply did not have enough power to wage and win a war against both Fort and a combined Selenitas/Wasteland weyr. And so R’anatar waited and amassed his forces for the final strike against a long time enemy. However fate it seemed was not on the Fortian’s side.
Before Wasteland could gear up to make it’s strike on Benden a massive earthquake rocked Selenitas weyr. And literally destroyed it. By the time Fort sweeps learned of the disaster and set themselves to scouting the area Selenitas had literally disappeared. As the search for the hidden Selenitas wore on into the year of 3018 R’anatar reluctantly turned his full attention mostly back towards Benden again. This would prove to be his greatest mistake.
In turn 3019 Fort was blindsided in a massive attack by the combined forces of Benden and the reemerged Selenitas. Fort rallied in a massive counterattack but in the end it was not enough. R’anatar was finally assassinated by a small group of black op infiltrators and with him went Fort’s last hope of victory. Fort had finally completely crumbled.