Wat Tyler's Revolt

The state of TIAH

June 13th, 2006

in 684, The Beast walks into an encampment of soldiers sent after him and walks up to the commander's tent. The pair of soldiers guarding it challenge him for a moment, but shrink back when he brandishes his own triple-6 tattoos at them. Inside the tent, he makes an offer to the commander – if he joins the Beast's side, he and his men will live and gain power. If he remains opposed to the prophet, he will be destroyed. The commander tells the Beast that he needs to consider this; the Beast draws his own standard from within his cloak, a banner with the triple-6 on it. “Fly this standard above your camp, and I will know that you are mine.” Shuddering, the commander takes the standard and the Beast slips away into the night.

in 1381, angered at being denied a meeting with King Richard II, Wat Tyler and his army of peasants took London, burning it to the ground. Richard was seized as he attempted to flee the city, and was killed by the peasants when he told them that he would never negotiate with rabble such as them. Wat Tyler sent Richard's head to the surviving members of the nobility and told them that a similar fate awaited them if they did not bow to the demands of the peasant army. Since these demands included a drastic reduction in the power of the nobility, they refused and prepared to fight. Tyler's army was growing invincible, though – like Spartacus before him, he drew support from the oppressed throughout the kingdom. The nobles who could still raise an army gathered one to meet him at Nottingham and sent him challenge. With almost a thousand knights and 5000 men-at-arms, they thought they would easily wipe out the peasantry; then they saw Tyler and his forces, nearly a hundred thousand strong, surround and crush them. Every noble who had dared to resist the peasantry was put to death, along with any male heirs. Tyler and his peasant council then ruled England as a democracy in the old Greek style. In spite of French, Scottish and Spanish efforts to place nobility back into power in England, the new Peasant's Kingdom resisted any who tried to take their freedom.

in 2017, as the Quorato approaches Amandara 14, Commander Eileen Patterson and her human crew from the Eagle meet the ship's Emeriosan crewman, who seems to be some kind of bookkeeper. The humans are stunned at how different the Emeriosan is from the Quarai - the alien is quadrupedal, with burnt-orange skin and no discernible head. Instead, it had a small sensory stump on its back, a taller, thick sensory stalk above that, with a couple of trunk-like appendages snaking off of it, and a stalk on its underside that Commander Patterson almost felt embarrassed to ask about, but which she found was another sensory stalk. “Welcome to the Quorato,” it told them. “I am afraid that I am not as gifted at languages as our captain, so I have been studying yours since we first received your signals so that I could speak with you.” The humans assured the Emeriosan that it spoke quite well. It pointed to a small box; “This is a voice synthesizer that our engineer adapted for me. My body is incapable of replicating your language, but the Quarai cannot stand anyone not communicating.” Commander Patterson thought she detected a hint of resentment in that, but ignored it. “My people's function in the Amandaran Union is largely one of organization; our Quarai friends, as you might guess, drift toward the unknown as – moths to the flame, I think your phrase is?”

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