Lavenderist Academy

The Academy was founded by Lavender Star, who after a long career in politics and in organizing research expeditions around the continent from his home city of Manzig, decided to settle down east of the city in the old dry deserts and create a new library to contain all his collected research aswell as an institution that would teach the principles of his political ideology Lavenderism to it's prospective scholars. It would champion the Manzland Identity movement in the U.S.S.E., which would eventually coalesce into the Manzland independence movement. After that point, it would be the beacon of resistance to imperial Serronan governments that were trying to affect change in the new nation from both the east and the west.

Which Side Are You On
The Academy would originally start out as a library under the times of the U.S.S.E. that collected books from all corners of the world for readers to visit and enjoy. Lavender Star, who had founded the library, would hand-craft it's book cataloguing system that would become the standard for all other libraries throughout the rest of both Eldham and Rathnir. This system would noteably influence it's sister Aroforn library run by fellow Serronan scholar Akko Soleth, who had jumpstarted it from her mass-purchase of books from the Academy.

As listed in the Catalogue, the Academy had collected over 140 books.

Eventually, library director Lavender Star would become one of the main proponents and supporter of the Manzland Identity movement which fought against the national U.S.S.E. government's decision to reject the local government's rebrand of their Kolssonafell state as "Manzland State", a nomenclature which which more accurately fit it's current residents. With political troubles & the prospects of catastrophic foreign wars mounting in the nation, Lavender Star would come out in support of the even more radical Manzland independence movement and his library would become a center of resistance, printing and sending out propaganda pamphlets to all cities of Manzland where the issue would then find majority support by rest of the region's population.

Following Manzland's successful independence, Lavender's library would be given the new name of "The Lavenderist Academy" as he now had no fear of his ideology being politically repressed in the new state which he had helped to found.

The Lavenderists
Many scholars would pass under the Academy's amethyst-decorated gates. One of these would be the robotic engineer Maeve who developed for the academy a new computer A.I. known as S.M.A.R.T.I., or "The Semi Mechanical Automatic Redstone Tyrant Insulter". SMARTI would host a bi-weekly radio show known as "Free Serrona Radio" broadcasting it on all continental airwaves to inspire the masses to their natural ideals of freedom and democracy.

With the amount of people now residing in and studying in the Academy, Lavender Star would construct the institution's CO-OP to introduce and test to the nation the effectiveness of his democratic worker focused ideology. New department-led workshops in the central Craft Alley would create products to sell there to any travelers that happened to pass by.

On the second anniversary of Manzland's "Liberty Day", the Academy would host the Manzland Arts Festival which drew many different types of art and literary craft submissions from people across the lands of Eldham who would covet the winner's prize of $50,000.

On the third anniversary of Manzland's Liberty Day, a grand celebration would be held on the grounds of the Academy itself. After the festivities, the director of the academy, Lavender Star, would reveal to the stunned guests his intention to travel to the stars to seek out new life and new planets in a "rocket" ship built by his engineers. At 49 years of age, he was disillusioned and disappointed in the rising power of tyrants across his home lands of Serrona aswell as throughout the greater lands of Eldham.

The mission log of his trip can be found here.

Lavender Star would leave the Lavenderist Academy under the stewardship of the engineer Maeve and the librarian Akko Soleth.

Keep Your Hand on that Plow
With the steward Maeve's eventual retirement from mundane matters, she would power down her robotic body to be kept in stasis in the Academy's basement. Akko Soleth would be left as sole leader of the institution, and the Academy grounds would then fall into a long period of quiet afterwards as the new director, who had her home in the western empire of the Vulperium, kept it on life support, addressing the inquiries of any who visited it's vast halls.

Eventually, Akko would seek to instill new life within the institution by announcing reforms to the Academy's structure. The Academy was now to be led by a council board of directors rather than by a single "lord" as all other cities in Manzland were. To still be able to fill the Academy's one seat in Manzland's national assembly, the Board of Directors would hold local elections for the position.

The fortunes of the Academy would then later grow over the course of the summer from the eventual automatic reboot of Chief Engineer M.A.E.V3 aswell as a radio broadcast from Lavender Star's rocket signalling his imminent return after a long period of several months.

His arrival would be met with great jubilation by the people of Manzland who considered him a cultural icon. Following his return, the Manzland national arts scene would flourish once again.

The many Lavenderists within the academy would apply themselves diligently to their work as M.A.E.V3 would advertise her skills in constructing magnificent feats of engineering to other nations and would actually obtain high-paying commissions in foreign laboratories. Akko Soleth would compile the Manzland Book of Songs, design a proper development plan for the Academy (along with other Vulperium officials making official atlases of the Manzland region) and she would also began work on a huge writing project known as the Manzland Codex, to be included in the series of her ethnographic works on the different nations of Serrona. Friedrich Redinia, long-standing member of the Academy, would write his "Lavenderist" essay aswell as host the Manzland Playwrights Festival in Aleria where Lavender Star would submit the winning play "The Empire of Sand", performed by the playwright's friends.

The Academy would also participate in the official worldwide "Eldham & Rathnir Writing competition" that held a $100,000 grand prize with Lavender Star serving as a judge.

At the time of Lavender Star's return however, Manzland had entered into a protectorate vassal agreement with the Vulperium as it's overlord, whose own Emperor he had held great distrust for.

Liberty Dies in Darkness


Lavender Star, seeing the great political danger Manzland had found itself in, threw himself into politics once again running for the position of 5th Manz of Manzland, and to the surprise of many, he for the first time in his life had won popular election to that position of national leadership.

He immediately set to work in reforming the constitution to fulfill his campaign promises of vast democratic reforms, which though were popular with many in the nation, were starting to unnerve the established city Lords that were leaders within it's assembly as it would give the rabble even more of a say in important matters of state and security in a nation that was struggling to keep itself safe from the intrigues of other nations as is.

Lavenderism, long a political movement restricted to the sidelines, would finally under the rule of Lavender Star become the official state-ideology of the Manzland government. The culmination of his politics led to the creation of the so-called "Most Democratic Constitution in Serronan History", granting every citizen a seat in the new People's Congress.

The Academy also would obtain new Directors of Brewing and of Music, with the Academy in time hosting an official "Manzland Rap-Battle".

Lavender Star chafed under the Vulperium's rule, unable to come to terms that his Free Manzland was still shackled to another empire, though his fellow leader Lord-Protector Wilson Cornaro remained quite amicable with them in contrast. Lavenderists in Manzland would take the greatest offense when the national Vulperium government, though it had promised to adapt the democratic principles of it's newly annexed nation of Azcoria, would not implement true democracy and would only adopt a new constitution with the legalistic aesthetics of Azcoria and none of the substance, such as the most important feature of that nation which was it's lauded democratic parliament system.

In time, Lavender Star would against the wishes of others in his government force through a bill on secession from the Vulperium. This bill managed to be defeated in committee, which led to his condemnation of the other lords in government. In response to their perceived betrayal, Lord would try in secret to burn the records of the debate and the vote results and remove the Vulperium-friendly lords from their positions of power. He declared in his capacity as leader the first Revolutionary State of Manz, with his headquarters being a dirt hut on the grounds infront of the Academy.

With a lack of popular support in the nation for the revolution he was trying to kickstart, his efforts would be defeated by the now-unified lords of all Manzland. Having lost all their good will, he was put on a grand trial for the crime of Treason.

Able to attend the trial in the company of the Vulperium's emperor, the librarian of the Academy, Akko Soleth, had hoped in some way to still be able to find a way to rehabilitate her old friend, to speak as advocate for the Lavenderist leader, but Lavender loudly pronounced that he would speak in his own defense, and following the deliverance of a guilty verdict, he would drink from a poison hidden within the pocket of his jacket, ending his life.

History Is Ours, It Is Made By The People
The following autumn would see the U.S.S.E. declaring a war of imperialism to conquer Manzland in revenge for it's successful declaration of independence from it almost a year prior. This had followed a long standing policy that had ramped up in the summer of diplomatic isolation, the most costly policy for the Academy being the revocation of dual citizenships for people who lived in both Manzland and the U.S.S.E.; this would lead to a reduction of the Academy's membership by half as people were forced to choose between one citizenship or the other, and much of the student and teacher body that had worked in the Academy had their homes in the eastern states of the U.S.S.E.

The Vulperium in response to the U.S.S.E's aggression would come to the defense of it's protectorate vassal of Manzland in what would be known as the Great Serronan War, with the main battles being fought in Manzig as the U.S.S.E. had claim-couped St. Neilsburg.

Akko Soleth, who had taken up the charge once again of Steward of the Lavenderist Academy following her friend's death, was left with heavy doubts regarding her government but would remain supportive of the Vulperium throughout the war. She imagined that it would be her fallen friend's wish that the U.S.S.E. not be able to destroy what was left of the Manzland independence project and so she fought valiantly with the pen from the halls of the Academy to produce war propaganda in support of Manzland, writing many speeches during that time and coordinating behind the scenes to make sure the Vulperium government stayed intact against internal power struggles back home that would threaten the war effort. This unfortunately brought her into a conflict of interest as she would find herself on the opposing side of Lavender Star's old friend Gunk who was leading a new Azcorian revolution in the middle of Manzland's defensive war. Akko with her influence in the government was able to use the Vulperium's intelligence agencies to mobilize in time to figure out the day his uprising would happen and she would go on to confront him with representatives of people who had lived in Azcoria under Vulperium rule, though KK against her recommendation had also sent armed guards which made the situation tense until both sides eventually walked away. After coming to an understanding that the movement was grassroots and was not being co-opted by the Eldham Alliance to open up a new warfront against the Vulperium, Akko would lead in efforts to try to pressure both sides into a compromise so that the local reigning monarch KK would not have absolute control over the region and the Free Azcorians wouldn't gain full independence but would still be given pardons and to be allowed key positions in local government aswell as new elections and the ability to hold a new binding referendum on the matter pending the end of the war. KK's royalist government refused to compromise with the rebels however, and Free Azcoria would peacefully come into existence as a matter of fact as the Vulperium's armies were occupied elsewhere.Akko remained determined however and continued her work in the Academy which had now found itself on the frontlines. She decided to begin the move of the Academy's book collection to her own library in the city of Aroforn for safekeeping during the war incase the U.S.S.E. should establish control over the Academy and subject it's collection to mass-looting. (Her fears would be confirmed after seeing the looting of Manzig's old library during the war's subsequent battles.)

In her greatest speech of Manzland's propaganda campaign, Akko, with the engineering assistance of Maeve, would broadcast through the mechanism of the thoroughly lobotomized corpse of SMARTI (as it had lost the ants powering it from them being drafted into the war) a message of national resistance on the airwaves of Free Serrona Radio (which can be found in the sections below).

Unfortunately, despite Manzland holding firm in it's many battles for the defense of the city of Manzig, the war would result in Manzland's virtual defeat following the Vulperium government's withdrawal of military support in order to save it's government coffers from drying up, this decision becoming a later factor in Akko Soleth's threatened high ministerial resignation and then later full retirement from her duties in the Vulperium.

The surrounding lands would face desertification from U.S.S.E. river diversion megaprojects, and it was in the growing dunes that covered it that the fallen Academy would find itself as a battered landmark in the ever-shifting conflict borders between the surviving Plague City of Manzig and the U.S.S.E., it's torn banners of liberty from a bygone era left to be discovered by future archaeologists.

Free Serrona Radio


Broadcast #1: The Vulperium's Coup in Nova Azcoria and the introduction of S.M.A.R.T.I.

Broadcast #2: The Vulperium's war on Atlechia, Elections in Manzland and Nova Azcoria, the Nova Azcorian Riot, and Democracy in Eldham.

Broadcast #3: Vulperium Victory in Lazodi, the Creation of the Dandelion Empire, and the Manzland Arts Festival.

Broadcast #4: The Serronan Dark Age

Broadcast #5: Manzland's Great War of Resistance, the Final Broadcast.

Introduction
Res Publica. The public thing, the commonwealth of all mankind. Its ideal splatter the bloody banners of revolution, its image draws sneers from the traitors of humanity, its idea is forever invincible. It reigns as supreme commander over the hearts of all good peoples of the world.

There exists no greater good than the Res Publica, no greater honor than laying down your life so that the sweet crisp air of Freedom and peace may be known to more.

Yet around the world the Emperors squeal, hear, hear you them not?

Your King calls for conquest and obliteration, hear, hear you him not?

Hence the bloody battle is waged. Henceforth Res Publica is on the attack!

Hereafter, eternal joy will be smitten forth from the jaws of foul creatures at the point of bayonet and axe. Res Publica is inevitable, it is the natural order of the heart of man.

Do not be fooled. Tyrants die. They always do.

It is up to you, up to me, up to us; to pick up the pieces, to mold transcendent Res Publica into the universal brotherhood of man.

For humanity, us thralls of passion must march on to the brighter tomorrow, so that Political, Social and Economic Democracy may reign victorious.

The Failure of the Tyrant and Tyranny
As hard as tyrants try, the ultimate power of a country rests not in him or his toadies but in their subjects. Millions of human beings have labored to create the Empires on which they pride themselves today. Other millions, scattered throughout the continent, labor to maintain it. Without them nothing would be left in fifty years but ruins.

By what right then can any one whatsoever appropriate the least morsel of this immense whole and declare themselves supreme master over it? To elevate any one person, any small cliche of people, as a supreme ruler of a people who do not need them is therefore as worthy of ridicule as it is worthy of sneering contempt.

Far more disheartening is the eventual fate of those at the bottom rungs of the illogical pyramid of Monarchy or Autocracy. Day in day out, these masters of civilization are put to work as tools, being paid only with the false hope of one day, only by the good graces of their ever noble and ever caring Tyrant of course, to be able to work hard enough to no longer be treated like a tool, but like a fellow human being.

Yet a tool who’s been made a Baron or a Duke or a Prince is still a tool. With every great triumph, with every great failure, they are under the thumb of someone who only views them as useful tools.

Yes, perhaps your particular cabal of toadies may make a show of caring about the well being of their subjects, such a show is either a part of Tyranny’s continual struggle to legitimize tyrannical rule through a phony show of compassion or is a sign that this particular Tyranny is not long for this world.

Individual Tyrants may perhaps be good people. Most are not but that is besides the point. Even if one is both a good person and a Tyrant, in order to be a good Tyrant, one cannot be overly affected by one's compassion. Absolute and total rule over a subservient people simply cannot co-exist with simple human decency.

Bad Tyrants aren’t examples of flawed or evil individuals taking the reins of power, they’re examples of a predictable outcome when a country embraces an insane ideology of total reverence built upon one person’s ego being institutionally inflated. Bad Tyrants in fact do not exist because there has never in human history been a “Good” Tyrant. Tyranny is an unnatural Evil. It stands against human welfare and humanity.

The Failure of Capital and Capitalism
As the natural passive rights of mankind are asserted through incremental or violent political reform, despotism inevitably gives way to a government if not entirely representative of the people, then at the very least far more receptive to it. Such a government doesn’t necessarily have to be thoroughly republican or even democratic, it is merely a government which out of a practical need to cling onto power, has enshrined certain liberties upon its people. The rule of law, property rights, protections on freedom of speech and assembly and the rights of a free press, are all things which make up the essential freedoms valued by any free people.

Yet with the achievement of all of these freedoms and even with the declaration of a democratic political system with a healthy Republican tradition, there exists yet not a free country, nor free people. Just as fundamental to a free society as a democratic political system is the mass democratization of Labor and of one's work. With the exception of those few idle career politicians, much of the day to day work done by the common toiler is done not in the halls of government but within the workplace; be it farm, fishery or factory.

Labor more than any other activity dominates our day to day lives. It keeps us fed, it runs our society and for many, it can become a great source of joy. Unfortunately, for many more Labor has become a terribly grinding and horrible thing. The acts of slaving away down a mine, cutting oneself harvesting cactus or toiling away by the blast furnace are all as back-breaking as they are tedious.

What turns these systems of toil from disheartening to soul crushing is the context in which they take place. More often than not, large scale production is done under the supervision of great authoritarian institutions with the ultimate aim of producing some sort of selfish good for themselves. Be this a government enforcing state mandated death marches into the mines for war or be it a cabal of private interests pressuring those more vulnerable souls into sacrificing their time so that another man may become rich.

All labor done under authoritarian rule is exploitative and must give way for co-operative and democratic associations with the express interest of providing for the common good of all those toiling under it. If one accepts the light of Democracy into one’s heart, one cannot simply limit it to the rigidly defined political systems of government. Authoritarianism anywhere is a threat to Democracy everywhere.

Democracy at work must entail just that; Democracy at work. Anything less is Tyranny disguised.

The Failure of the Communist and Communism
Among those factions fighting against the strength of Capital, none are as vocal or as prominent as the elite Vanguard of Xeroist organizations and states, self declared triumvirates of the “Revolution”.

Whence comes the revolution, and how will it announce its coming? None can answer these questions. The future is hidden. But those who watch and think do not misinterpret the signs: workers and exploiters, Revolutionists and Conservatives, thinkers and men of action, all feel that the revolution is at our door.

Well! What are we to do when the thunderbolt has fallen? They have all been studying the dramatic side of revolution so much, and the practical work of revolution so little, that we are apt to see only the stage effects, so to speak, of these great movements; the fight of the first days, the glorious overthrow and the triumph of “The People” which follows.

Wrangling, calling each other reactionaries, authoritarians, and rascals, incapable of coming to an understanding on any serious measure, dragged into discussions about trifles, producing nothing better than bombastic proclamations, yet taking themselves seriously, unwitting that the real strength of the movement is in the streets. All this may please those who like the theater, but it is not revolution. Nothing yet has been accomplished meanwhile the people suffer.

The factories are idle, the workshops closed; industry is at a standstill. The worker does not even earn the meager wage which was his before. Food goes up in price. With that heroic devotion which has always characterized them, and which in great crises reaches the sublime, the people wait patiently for the day when the revolution can end so that the breadline may once again open. But don’t you see? Their Revolution is eternal.

This obsession with theatrics over a genuine interest in the common good is as tragic as it is painfully predictable in a movement which values the appearance of Liberty far more than its practical application. Their struggle for revolution has been great no doubt, but in its process these men and women of letters have dropped the ball. So obsessed are they over the economic rights of the common toiler that they neglect the just as fundamental Democratic right of mankind.

What few Communist governments touch upon political democracy almost always leaves these apparatuses neglected and forgotten in the wake of a new set of professional Revolutionaries (toadies) to neatly take the place of the displaced Tyrannous order. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. A tyrant is a tyrant, even if he masquerades under the veil of Historical Materialism.

Having neglected political and economic Democracy, the Communists have quite usefully found a new form of Democracy to likewise neglect; Social Democracy. Though in principle the supposedly Egalitarian Revolution having swept aside all and any class distinctions between a people leaves behind only perfectly equal social distinctions to draw upon in everyday life, the truth is far less pretty.

While social ostracization in Tyrannous and Capitalistic countries lay in class distinctions, the pecking order in much of the Communist world comes from a toxic blend of paranoia and terror. Social cooperation and solidarity is by and large neglected except as a method to advance the interests of the state and its masters. Any disagreements with the way things are not viewed as genuine and natural disagreements but as treasonous plots against the glory of the Revolution.

Brutal ridicule, malicious mockery and biting sarcasm act as far more powerful forms of political control than any mere police state. All hail the power of the clown emoji.

Failures no more
But for us; there is no lamenting for all winters will in time be past! So what is to be done? Friend! What is not to be done?

Build, create and discover like never before! Let love and kindness follow in your wake! With your every action, be a titan of democracy, a titan of freedom, a titan of the have nots, heard nots and loved nots.

My own personal struggle is found inside Manzland and Serrona. With the support of my friends and allies, in time I hope to create the most Democratic state on Serronan soil. But this isn't just about me, or you, but us.

We all must, together, united in our humanity, work together to create a more democratic, more loving, more accepting world. A world where any political distinctions only exist based on the common good as decided and elected by the people who these distinctions serve to help, not hurt.

A world where all labor is done not out of pressure, fear or primal need, but out of the joy of creation, where grand cooperations work together to tame the land and rule the seas as the undisputed masters of industry!

A world where we embrace and love those who think and act differently than ourselves, united in true solidarity and an understanding that we all ultimately want the best for all.

A world of Democracy. Political, Economic and Social. In a word?

Lavenderism.

Empire of Sand play, written by Lavender Star
Cast: Lepidus the Cactus Farmer Arnold the Cactus Farmer King Gustav Kin Gustav's Soldier(s)

In fair Caldaria we thus begin this tale. Arisen from ash, the whole world was set aflame in bloody conquest and in bloody strife. Made into Empire by King Gustav’s hand. Hear ye Hear ye; How it fell; the Empire of Sand.

Enter Lepidus, Arnold

Arnold: Sweet Lepidus, fair thee well? Thy have barely made any progress in the days work. Devilry in idlery after all.

Lepidus: Oh Sweet Arnold, that does not suit me well to continue this wicked toil day after day, grinding o'enchanting to keep the alderman dissuaid. All this while the harvest rots, Years of my life, wasted away; On miserable struggle, on miserable war. Tell me dear friend; how does this help us at all?

Arnold: Hush now insolent fool! Our place is not to think, ours is lives as tools, we’re pawns in a greater man's game, fair or not, we cannot break the chains. Now calm thy humors, steady your soul; Behold! King Gustav comes victorious from Campaign.

Enter Gustav and Soldier(s)

Soldier(s): (Singing) Hey! Hey! Ho! Ho! Here's the bold adulterous Bore! We've pissed away your gold on tour An' come to borrow more. Hey!

Gustav: Victory! Oh Victory! Smell it in the air! Naught a thing could be more fair!

Now hear ye poor folks! Hear ye scum beneath my heels! I gift you thus! Though the road has been harsh, your struggles great, years lent, nights lost, days spent. It was worth it all and so much more.

For you have granted me the harbinger of ruin, the destroyer of our enemies, the object of my most intense fanatical desire. There exists no greater thing, nor nothing else I would have you give more to than it. Empire.

Lepidus chuckles

Gustav: Who? Who dares laugh at my glory?

Lepidus: He who knows better than to take the great swindler at his word. He who has seen through the grand charade of pompous words and phony speeches. He who tires of the tyrant and trusts not his toadies. No more Gustav! No more!

Gustav: Ah! A peasant! This clears it all up. You have no understanding of the intricacies of war nor the nuances of statecraft. What use is your word? What use are you? What can you do against the force of Empire? Shut it and shut up.

Lepidus: Rude I may be in my speech, and yet unrefined in the subtle delicacy of state am I; but it was us, it was I, who made your empire. Your coffers of gold, who gathered it? You built castles, did you lay the brickwork alone? You wept for your dead, were you the only one who wept?

Gustav: You may have filled my coffers, built my fortresses and filled my graveyard, yet who was it who toiled and gave up most of all? Mining, masonry, soldiering; these are all trivial and simple tasks. The real struggle, the direction, the toil came from me! I made my Empire! Not you! Not Him! Not Her! Not any other miserable sod who whines and complains! Me! Me! Me! Me alone!

Lepidus: Amidst the glow of warm mansions, and the roar of whirling parties, you had us working like chattel slaves of old. So much time wasted for your cursed empire. So many kinship destroyed. All for the pride and the ego of some miserable weakling not worth the spittle to degrade. A monarch cannot be further degraded beyond his natural state.

Gustav: You say all this with such confidence and pride; yet look upon my works! The splattering of our noble colors now adorns a vast section of the map! Does it not fill your heart with pride?

Lepidus: What use is land when it is gotten through thievery? You have driven away peoples from their homes and have been left with nothing. All invasions are inevitably pointless. Heed my words tyrant; all you have done is carved out a bloody Desert and called it “Empire".

Gustav: Alas! Alas! Is this all I truly have done? No! Oh no! Surely I am done!

Recognition! Respect! With that; I am redeemed! It does not matter from whom. Gained through propaganda or through solemn fact.

A chad react! A chad react! My Empire for a chad react!

No! Oh no! It is far too late. My legacy cannot just be bloody brotherly strife. I bid my peasants farewell, my toadies; goodbye. In light of this light I thus take my life.

Gustav drinks a bottle of poison and lies dead.

Everyone: Huzzah! Hooray! We're all now free! We'll create and prosper like never before; no more Tyrant to make us poor!

Exeunt Everybody End