Sweba and Waska

Even before Sweba and Waska were observed for the first time by an Athenian scout ship in 2245 it was clear that these gardens were special. When giving the names and relative locations of the human gardens the Oracle had made no secret of the fact that these gardens were an unusual astronomical case. Sweba and Waska circle a single sun but at the exact same distance and almost one on top of the other. When approaching the star of Sweba and Waska from space it seems that the two gardens are actually touching. They are not, but standing on the northern hemisphere of Waska looking up the southern hemisphere of Sweba almost completely fills the sky and vice versa.

Early History

The cultures of Sweba and Waska are only slightly different and mostly with regards to arts, architecture and religion. The Swebans are monotheistic, believing only in one almighty creator while the Waskans are polytheistic believing in a large number of twin gods each representing positive and negative aspects of all things. The Sweban architecture is heavy and enclosed with the centre of any housing being the heath and shrine to the one god, where as the Waskans architecture is much more delicate and open.

     The earliest history of Sweba and Waska is largely the same as on many other gardens, with tribes gathering into city-states and then larger nations and finally empires when the trappings of civilization allowed it. One interesting phenomenon observed both by native and Athenian xenologists, anthropologists and historians was that the nations and empires of the southern Sweban and the northern Waskan hemisphere were centers of scientific and technological development. It seems that the mere fact that they could observe another world with the naked eye might have been a motivator and an inspiration for the creative minds of nations on both garden-planets.

     On both worlds, the inhabitants developed hot air balloons and kites big enough to carry humans at early stages of their civilizations. And huge telescopes were constructed in large cities on both gardens and were used to spy on their neighbor.

     Attempts to reach the other garden were made very early in their history, but even the biggest hot air balloon or kite could not reach the upper atmosphere and make the tiny jump from the gravity of one world to the gravity of the other.
     In 2075 ac a solution was found. Distilling a highly combustible chemical of a local insect and mixing it with an oily substance from a special tree a Waskan scientist managed to produce an effective liquid fuelled rocket that traversed the distance between the two gardens and crashed on Sweba.

     In the following years the Waskan scientists developed the science of bio-chemical fuel and simultaneously they began making groundbreaking research in the field of metallurgy and electricity. In the mid 2080’s Waska launched a number of test rockets as pushed their space program towards the ultimate goal, the transportation of people from Waska to Sweba (and preferably back again).
     Several of these test-launches were discovered on Sweba and panic ensued. The largest kingdoms on Sweba, traditionally been rivals, put aside their differences and created a huge institute of science, the “Sweba Space Academy” dedicated to developing space capability and weapons to counter the threat from the “Outworlders”. But even with all available resources at their disposal the Swebians were far behind in the space race of the two gardens. In 2088 ac the Waskans managed to send one man safely into space and get him back again. Even though this was seen as a great leap forward, the Waskan scientists had no illusions. Making a manned space craft capable of getting to Sweba might be possible, but making one that could do the trip and return was still far away, unless they could get help from the people on the other garden.

     So in 2091 ac an unmanned Waskan space pod fell to the ground on Sweba not far from a major city. The pod contained gifts and greetings from Waska and proclaimed that the people of Waska would soon come to visit their neighbors in person. After deciphering the messages the rulers of Sweba proclaimed that an invasion was imminent and the Sweban Church of the Creator deemed the Outworlders as heretic heathens who had not seen the light of the almighty, adding even more fear to the general population’s fears. Efforts to secure their world from an invasion were doubled and so was the research in space technology.

     By 2100 ac both Sweba and Waska were undergoing an industrial revolution. The by-products of their space programs were many and some of them became readily available even for the common people on both gardens. Electricity and light, steam engines and railroads, combustion engines and propelled airplanes and advances in medicine followed on both worlds. But nothing had more importance than the discovery of radio waves and their potential for communication between the two worlds. In 2109 ac this apparatus was invented on Sweba and only two years later a similar device was presented on Waska. It was then only a matter of time before the two civilizations began talking to each other.
     Unfortunately this only made matters worse. As soon as it was clear that communication was possible, the scientists and philosophers were waved aside and the military commanders grabbed the microphones. The first official announcements from Sweban leaders were boastful proclamations of their military might, an attempt to deter any intentions of an invasion by the other side, but instead it was interpreted (not unjustly) as a threat by the Waskan leaders who then responded in kind. During the next three decades communication between the two gardens was frequent but mostly it was either religious or political propaganda.

     As a reaction to this so-called “Radio War” the Waskans began construction of a veritable invasion fleet of manned space crafts to once and for all show the superiority of their civilization. But the Swebans had not been idle. They had also managed to send a manned space craft into space and get it safely.
This feat was observed from Waska and it startled the population, who had felt that they were well ahead in the technological race. Soon a public demand for immediate invasion of Sweba grew, aided by certain opportunistic politicians.
     In 2145 ac the Waskan invasion fleet took off. It consisted of twenty four space crafts, capable being reused if they could be refueled on Sweba, each craft had eight of the finest Waskan soldiers and scientists on board. The Sweban defense forces spotted the incoming space crafts and immediately went to meet them. None of the 192 men of the Waskan “invasion” survived the encounter with more than fifty thousand well armed Swebian troops. This was the first attack from space, but over the next fifty years many more were made from both sides, but they all failed, often miserably.

     From a military point of view the raids failed, but many politicians on both worlds saw them as a brilliant way to divert attention from other problems or as a way to ensure work for thousands of people in their home districts. But as time went by and the attacks continued to fail, support wavered on both sides. The last attempt to launch a military invasion was in 2202, but the eighteen ships never got off the ground as the wives and relatives of the soldiers who were supposed to go on the suicide mission stormed the launch site and burned it down.
     In 2206 ac a peace agreement between the two worlds were reached, signed by almost all nations. As a symbol both sides send a space ship down to the other garden carrying gifts and promises of eternal friendship.

     For a short while it seemed that the tension had ended, and many scientists, artists and religious teachers were exchanged.

     But in 2214 ac a civil war in a Waskan nation ruined this shaky peace. The rebels were all followers of the dominant Sweban monotheistic religion, Church of the Creator, which had gotten a strong foothold, especially among the poorer classes on Waska. Many Swebans leaders, often very religious themselves, or at least claiming to be, expressed their sympathy for the rebellion, much to the disapproval of their Waskan counterparts.
     The rebellion was finally crushed and the Sweban missionaries on Waska were sent home under loud protest from the Sweban leaders. The incident did not escalate into war, but it did start yet another arms race.

Even before Sweba and Waska were observed for the first time by an Athenian scout ship in 2245 it was clear that these gardens were special. When giving the names and relative locations of the human gardens the Oracle had made no secret of the fact that these gardens were an unusual astronomical case. Sweba and Waska circle a single sun but at the exact same distance and almost one on top of the other. When approaching the star of Sweba and Waska from space it seems that the two gardens are actually touching. They are not, but standing on the northern hemisphere of Waska looking up the southern hemisphere of Sweba almost completely fills the sky and vice versa.

     In 2245 ac the first Athenian scout ship spotted the twin gardens. The scouts found two civilizations that obviously had a high level of technology compared too many other barbarian worlds, but since many of the military instillations and defensive positions on both gardens had been deliberately hidden to avoid detection from space, they failed to properly asses the situation. And perhaps, most importantly, they failed to discover the radio technology of the two worlds, landing only in a remote Waskan village where the inhabitants still lived as they had for hundreds of years.
     So when the Athenian scouts reported to their masters they seriously underestimated the danger the first invaders would face.

The Athenian Invasion

The first invasion barge to reach Sweba and Waska was from the polis of Carystus. It was speeding ahead of a joined fleet of invasion barges from several poleis, in the hope of acquiring some of the choice territories in these new colonies.
     On board were about two thousand fully armored hoplites, as well as just over four thousand barbarian auxiliaries, mostly scouts and light troops.

     The commander of the invasion, Taxiarchos Methodos, opted to go directly for what seemed to be the largest urban area on Sweba. Often advanced cultures were easy to oppress if their leaders had been captured.

     As the Icharos and Daidalos shuttles descended towards the garden there was some surprise when they were attacked by propelled airplanes already before they hit the ground. Luckily the hulls of the landing crafts could easily withstand the meager firepower of the barbarian airplanes.
     The moment the first hoplites came out of their landing craft they were met by an incredibly well armed and organized army of locals. It was only after fierce fighting and the loss of half of the barbarian auxiliaries as well as more than three hundred hoplites that Methodos and his men could claim a secure landing zone of a few square kilometers.

     While supplies for the invasion were being shipped down, the Swebans kept the invaders under a constant pressure. Raid upon raid harassed the slaves working to off load the shuttles and many supplies were lost. When night fell the barbarians started to back off a little, giving the invaders some much needed rest.

     When the morning broke a message from the captain on the invasion barge reported that he had been attacked numerous times by almost suicidal space crafts and had suffered significant damage to the hull. He was returning to Kikkurutz for repairs. With Kikkurutz just over thirty days away this would mean at least sixty days without hope of help or supplies, but since Methodos was certain that he had broken the bulk of the barbarian force in this area, his logicians had estimated that more than eight thousand local barbarians were dead or wounded, he decided to continue rather than abandon the invasion.

     Around noon the second day of the invasion force began moving out of the secure landing zone towards what they had learned to be the capital of the Sweban nation of Zarmagon.
     From hidden positions the Swebans started attacking the supply train almost immediately after the army started moving from the landing zone. The weapons of the Swebans had a hard time penetrating Athenian armor, but the slaves and support personal were poorly protected against their Rock Throwers and incendiary grenades. In a desperate attempt to protect his train, Methodos decided to use the handful of Daidalos shuttles at his disposal to shelter them from enemy attacks while the army marched. This, however, seriously reduced the flexibility of his force, and since most of his barbarian scouts and outriders were killed off in an alarming rate, he was also more or less blinding himself.
     Perhaps this was just as well, because if Methodos had been able to see the forces now converging on his position he would have realized the impossible situation he was in. By the end of the second day, more than fifty thousand soldiers were facing fifteen hundred hoplites and only a few hundred barbarians.

     Seen from the Sweban point of view, the Athenian invasion came only as a small surprise. They had been used to living right next to another world with humans just like themselves, so they had more or less expected there to be other worlds with humans in the cosmos.

     Mandla, the general in command of the armed forces of the Sweban nation Zarmogan, had reacted quickly and launched all his nation’s space ships to destroy the enemy mother ship that seemed to keep pouring out more and more enemy troops. To his horror the suicide attacks only managed to mildly damage the enemy vessel which seemed to be constructed from some almost indestructible material. Finally though, the enemy vessel withdrew, leaving behind a numerically small enemy force for Mandla to take care of.

     The Zarmogan forces quickly realized that the invaders had far superior personal amour and weaponry, and the initial attempt to overwhelm them in close combat had been a disaster, and had not stopped them from landing their forces.
     General Mandla decided to changed tactics, and his soldiers began concentrating their hit and run attacks on the enemy supplies and supporting light forces, buying time while the entire Zamorgan army could be drawn in from all over the nation.

     During the early morning of the third day Taxiarchos Methodos ordered an attack on an entrenched enemy force in a small hilly forest, mostly in a desperate attempt to seek refuge from the attacks of the Sweban bi-planes. The fighting was bloody, but the Athenians soon forced out the defenders and secured the forest. Methodos chose to give his men a little rest in the protection of the forest and ordered camp set.
     This was a mistake.
     Before the day was over the Athenians were completely surrounded in their little forest by tens of thousands of determined Swebans.

     General Mandla sent out negotiators to the encircled Athenians, hoping to find a reasonable solution to the situation. It took the most of two days for the negotiator to learn enough of the Athenian language to communicate efficiently and when he came back it was with disappointing news.
     The Athenian commander did not seem willing to surrender, and he claimed that more invasion forces were coming and that it was the Swebans who should surrender. General Mandla could not believe the arrogance of these invaders and ordered his men to renew their attacks. However, in the confined space of the forest and fighting defensively it soon became evident that the Athenians could hold out against virtually anything the Zarmagon army could throw at them. Even burning the forest down around them did not help much and most of the largest trees still gave plenty of cover against the Sweban planes. Furthermore the Athenians had come up with a way to take down the Sweban planes by ramming them with their five remaining Daidalos shuttles when they came swooping over the forest.

     On the tenth day of the invasion disturbing news arrived on Sweba. Athenians had landed on Waska and this time in even greater numbers. The day after that another Athenian invasion barge was sighted over Sweba and both civilizations began fighting for their lives.

     No such news reached the encircled Carystian forces however, and the situation was getting desperate. Methodos decided to attempt a desperate move to take out the enemy leaders. He loaded up his five working Daidalos shuttles with the remaining four hundred and fifty hoplites and landed in the middle of Zarmogan City.
     In a hopeless gamble the shuttles landed in the biggest and most impressive building they could find, hoping it would be either the parliament or the king’s palace. Unfortunately it was a hospital. And again the Swebans reacted with incredible speed to the new situations, and had soldiers surrounding the building even before the Athenians had finished off loading all their men.
     Methodos and his hoplites barricaded themselves in the hospital and lasted another eight days but in the end their Helios Packs ran out and they were finally overrun. Only a dozen hoplites survived to be paraded in front of the Zamorgan population.

     This was the first, but not the last, victory of the Swebian forces. Similar events took
place on Waska with the invaders from Megalopolis were forced to retreat to their invasion barge, though the invasion army from the Naxos Federation held on to a strong position on Sweba and was reinforced before they could be forced to retreat.

     When the news of the defeats on the twin planets reached Athens many saw it as an embarrassment to the entire Athenian culture, and popular sentiments demanded that the barbarians were severely punished. On a real-politics level this was also seen as a necessity. If the Sweban and Waskan armies were seen to be defeating the Athenians, the news would reach other barbarian gardens and rebellions would undoubtedly go up in numbers. The undefeatable image of the Athenian hoplites needed be maintained.

Post Invasion

Over the next ten years more and more poleis joined in the effort to crush the Sweban and Waskan resistance. Volunteers enlisted from almost all over the Athenian Hegemony to fight on the two worlds, and ambitious commanders saw it as a way to gain rapid promotion.

     At first many of the Sweban and Waskan nations managed to hold on to large parts of their gardens, but the Athenians methodically conquered strategic locations such as cities, mines and industrial complexes. And once the Athenians had conquered a location they were almost impossible to dislodge, something all indigenous commanders had to learn the hard way.

     In the end the resources available, both manpower and materials, became too scarce for regular armies to keep fighting, and the remaining forces had to retreat into the wild to continue their fight in the bushes.

     During the Sakalid War many rebel commanders tried to use the weakened state of the Athenians to throw them out, but no concerted effort could be organized. As the war progressed, and the Athenians were pushed back to Kikkurutz, the twin gardens became a staging area for the Alliance armies on their way to the front, forcing the rebels to keep a low profile in the face of several million battle hardened hoplites and barbarian auxiliaries.

     In the first years of the 25th century, Athenian Calendar, the rebels continue to fight the Athenian occupation vigorously, making both colonies some of the most dangerous in the Hegemony, but there are areas where the local population has been largely pacified, especially on Waska.

Content Type > Approved Content
Realms > Mortal Realms
Realms > Mortal Realms > Catalyst
Realms > Mortal Realms > Catalyst > Garden Of Athena
Games > Savage Worlds
Features Of Realms > Geography
Features Of Realms > Culture
Features Of Realms > Technology
Features Of Realms > Politics
Features Of Realms
Features Of Realms > People
Features Of Realms > Events

Created by: Magnus. Last Modification: Tuesday 24 of November, 2009 10:09:10 UTC by Magnus.

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