Reconstruction in West Tapfer

Phase one will keep the former Vanic land legally distinct and separate from other Demesnes to establish proper rehabilitation and reeducation.

Reconstruction in West Tapfer is the planned process of reconstructing, resettling, reeducating, deprogramming, and stabilizing the residents of former Vanic lands in western Tapfer following the cataclysm and destruction of the Vanic source. The massive project will be undertaken as a joint program between the Natopian Defense Force, the Chancellor's Security Forces, and the government of the West Tapfer Federation. A brief outline:

• Phase One: Every resident of the Vanic land will be required to appear before an officer of the Natopian Defense Force and swear an oath renouncing Vanicism forever. Residents that do not swear or affirm this oath will be temporarily relocated to converted military bases on the former Vanic border. High ranking Vanic officials, sympathizers, hardliners, community leaders, civic officials, prominent residents, and others may be relocated as soon as possible to prevent possible rebellions.
• Phase Two: Settlers from elsewhere in the Bovic Empire and publicly declared anti-Vanic nations will be allowed to migrate to the former Vanic lands. The new settlers will establish new towns. The old Vanic towns will be removed from internal and external maps immediately and they will, over the next several years, be dis-incorporated, and de-funded to encourage residents to relocate to the new towns.
• Phase Three: Divide the new land in such a way to obliterate the old international border by giving parts to Massat, Opaeghia and Transegale. A new region, Salsang, will be integrated into the West Tapfer Federation, which has extensive history and success with de-programming Vanic corruption.
• Phase Four: Ongoing psychological support for all former Vanic subjects and equal treatment for former subjects acting in good faith. A path towards full citizenship and naturalization in the future for those that recover.
• Phase Five: Re-purposing or disestablishing the ring of military installations that marked the former international border after all threat of insurrection or uprisings is reduced to levels that can be dealt with by local police and demesne government.

The scope, manner, and logistics of reconstructing, de-programming, and de-Vanicizing the land is currently under debate in the Natopian Frenzy. Initial reports suggest a long-term investment of time, capital, and manpower in the area and its citizen-victims.

Timeline

Blumuar

• 10.V.1685: The day the government of Stormark fell. Myriad reasons include demonic possessions reaching critical mass among Vanic subjects; Harald Entity spread beyond capabilities of Storish and Frankish media to suppress its true extent; officials in all layers of government and the state religion exposed as proponents or participants of minor abuse; the true number of harassment and assault cases had been suppressed and underreported by the Storish media, local policing agencies, and the central government with actual pending case counts, allegations, and police reports numbering in the hundreds of thousands. The concurrent revelation of these scandals caused a near-immediate collapse in the public's trust in the Storish government, which saw its leaders flee or disappear, causing the government to fail to be able to exercise any effective control over its territories on Micras.
• 12.V.1685: Orbital surveillance and covert ops intelligence in the Vanic territory on Tapfer confirms the total collapse of local government, riots, and infrastructure damage.
• 13.V.1685: As the area is now international, the Emperor orders the Natopian Defense Force to enter the area. The Navy blockades the coastline to prevent anyone from entering or leaving the Green. The Army begins to mobilize at Fort Jan-Jak and along the former border.
• 20.V.1685: Advance teams have entered every major former city in the Green, widespread looting, riots, destruction, death, and chaos. Revelations of Vanic corruption turned neighbors against each other as vigilantes attempted to execute those who had committed Vanic corruptions. Some cities were without power as the grid came under attack from vengeful Vanics attempting to delay their inevitable capture.
• 26.V.1685: Army establishes a base of command, on the site of a former Natopian city in the area, now located in the countryside and away from the chaos, and name it New Banania. Process begins to fortify the base with minimal intervention from the surrounding cities engulfed in riots.

Sonnuber

• 1.VI.1685: The Natopian Frenzy begins to debate the necessity of establishing law and order in the area, and how best to do that.
• 2.VI.1685: More units of the Natopian Defense Force and the Chancellor's Security Forces are activated, as the scope and severity of the situation worsens. The riots and vigilante groups do not seem to be abating and certain factions are beginning to coalesce around the vigilantes and the fleeing Vanics.
• 6.VI.1685: Domestic pressure in Natopia mounts for something more to be done to control the Green as daily reports of riots, looting, arson, and execution squads roaming the land concern those Natopians living in Transegale, Opaeghia, and Massat.
• 8.VI.1685: The threat of a rogue nation becomes real when various militant groups put out statements organizing as the Vi-Vanic Vanguard, armed bands of Vengeful Vanics who terrorize former Vanic subjects who have taken oaths to renounce Vanicism, so-called Repentants. They hid their faces after being outed as frequent participants in the atrocities known as Vanic sexual rites.
  

  Cartoon of the Vi-Vanic Vanguard, published Sonnuber 9, 1685, in the Bagelcratican Sporadically
• 9.VI.1685: The Natopian Defense Force, operating under a humanitarian mission profile, begins to enter former cities en force, establishing command centers, identify anti-Vanic groups to work with, and begin to distribute fresh water and rations.
• 10.VI.1685: Leaflets are dropped in cities explaining there is no future in Vanicism, it's resurgence will not be tolerated by the Natopian Empire, and that without the logistics, manpower, and military of the former Vanic Realm, a Vanic state would not be allowed to exist on Tapfer and any popular movement to re-establish Vanic or Storish control over the area would be met with the full destructive force of the Natopian military, up to and including the use of orbital bombardment to obliterate cities that resist; Natopia would be willing to incur any international sanctions to accomplish this final goal.
• 14.VI.1685: Skirmishes between Natopian forces and Vanic combatants escalate throughout the week.
• 17.VI.1685: A Bill is formally introduced to the Frenzy that would seek full Natopian control over the Vanic territory on Tapfer.
• 18.VI.1685: The line of forts along the former international border begin to undergo renovations and expansions to receive a large number of Vanic combatants, sympathizers, high ranking officials, civic leaders, and other unrepentants.
• 23.VI.1685: The NDF Corps of Engineers completes repair of a damaged radio tower in former Port Chloe, to test transmission range and power, they broadcast speeches by Liv Dravot on repeat for 24 hours.
• 30.VI.1685: Radio stations through the Green are allowed to go back on air but may only re-broadcast feeds from the greater Lindstrom area. Advertisements are replaced with PSAs promoting Natopianism, Lindstromism, and interspersed with harrowing interviews from Vanic religious rites survivors.

Friedeber

• 1.VII.1685: As the detainment centers near completion, the Defense Force begins the process of taking and recording oaths denouncing Vanicism from residents, those that refuse are immediately sent to detainment centers.
• 3.VII.1685: A Decree of the Princess of Arboria in Council orders the suppression of the practice of Froyalanish Ancient Ways forever within the Principality (including Transegale), and adherents and practitioners thereof are subject to immediate arrest. The Church of the Froyalanish Ancient Ways is suppressed and all its property is declared forfeit to the Government of the Principality of Arboria.
• 10.VII.1685: After two months of anarchy, the economy has almost completely collapsed. The Natopian government begins to weigh its options for how it can prevent the area from collapsing into an apocalyptic hellscape.
• 25.VII.1685: As people's lives worsen, Vanic groups like the Vi-Vanic Vanguard gain in popularity. The Commanding officer of the mission sends a request to the Chancellor's Minister of Justice for an interpretation on allowing SATCo to come in and establish fruit plantations in the north and salt production facilities in the south to give people jobs.
• 27.VII.1685: The Ministry of Justice issues a memo stipulating that although under normal international custom, the resource rights of the Green shall not come under the control of a nation; the special circumstances of Natopia effectively occupying and blockading this area puts the area under de facto Natopian control and this subject to resource extraction. The memo further suggested that any and all profits from extracted resources be kept in the local economy.
• 28:VII.1685: SATCo announces plans to rebuild the fruit plantations around New Banania and to set up salt facilities near the Laguna coast.

Natopuary

• 4.VIII.1685: While SATCo builds infrastructure at a quick pace, the economy continues to freefall. Former Vanics begin to starve and public interest in reconstructing West Tapfer back in Natopia begins to waver as news reports show the VVV is growing larger and more influential.
• 13.VIII.1685: Bands of Vanguarders roam the countryside, assaulting former Vanic subjects by threatening, Freya's Embrace, a code word used by the VVV to refer to Vanic sexual rites performed on children. Oftentimes Repentants are shot dead by the VVV even after converting back to Vanicism at gunpoint.
• 15.VIII.1685: Meanwhile in the cities, NDF officials barely maintain law and order as riots break out at food pantries running low.
• 20.VIII.1685: Starvation, lack of sanitation, untreated transmissible Vanic infections, VVV massacres, and other factors combine to reveal an alarming death rate in Western Tapfer. The NDF has recorded oaths from only about 25% of residents and some figures suggest anywhere from 5% to 10% of the Vanic subjects have died since the Vanic Unraveling.
• 21.VIII.1685: NDF commanders noting the destruction, mostly self-inflicted, of the Vanic cities and issue memos to the Court of the Verdant Gardens suggesting evacuating some of these cities which may be beyond repair and razing them from orbit.
• 29.VIII.1685: Several small towns have been 'reclaimed' by the VVV using fear and intimidation for the Repentants, threatening to "re-Vanicize" each person by force. With NDF and NSF forces stretched thin, these small towns become de facto controlled by the VVV.

Cowtide

• 15.IX.1685: The first salt mine in southwestern West Tapfer opens, SATCo provides trailers, tents, and commissaries, and offers reduces rates for room and board for all applicants in the first month. The new town is named by SATCo's marketing team as "Relief". SATCo agrees to operate the salt mines at no-profit for the first ten years, to offer living wages and low cost of living for the salt miners to be able to send most of their paychecks back home to stabilize local economies.
• 16.IX.1685: Over 1000 Repentants show up the first day of the salt mine's operation seeking work, overwhelming administrative staff. Personnel are transferred from other SATCo projects, including Waffel Plains colonial services. Applications number in the high hundreds every day going forward. Employment contingent on several factors: an oath of anti-Vanicism sworn to a company representative, direct deposit payment in natopos in a Natopian bank account, one-year employment contract and a promise to stay in West Tapfer for ten years, and other standard terms designed to keep employees busy, productive, and sending their wages back home.
• 18.IX.1685: So-called salt-bloods continue to show up in Relief, which is fast approaching a housing crisis.
• 30.IX.1685: A controversial SATCo-sponsored propaganda campaign known as "Become a Miner, to Protect a Minor" begins to be broadcast over radio and TV and printed in newspapers with the suggestion that a new career in salt mining is the quickest and most public way to prove anti-Vanicism. The VVV uses the campaign to recruit and deter Repentants by using the rallying cry: "It's magic puberty, not statutory!"

Bulltober

• 1.X.1685: The Emperor and Chancellor issue an Order-in-Council to combine the military services of the NDF and the policing services of the Security Forces. A joint declaration was issued: "Today, on the first day of Bulltober, let us take inspiration from the Butter Bull and not suffer fools and deviants. Today, the Natopian Defense Force and Security Forces are undertaking a joint-mission with a singular goal, the eradication of any VVV members. We have classified the VVV as a foreign belligerent and authorized the use of deadly force if Vanguarders do not surrender, recant Vanicism, and get taken into custody."
• 2.X.1685: The first target, a VVV encampment located in a rural area and populated only by adult combatants known to have caused damage to life and property, was carpet-bombed by the Tactical Air Force without any survivors. The footage was replayed on television in west Tapfer for weeks as part of a government PSA campaign.
• 14.X.1685: A huge uptick in kidnappings is reported and surveillance shows VVV camps and towns have begun to increase the number of children living in the camps. The children are being used as "shields" and for Vanic rites.
• 17.X.1685: Public outcry from Repentants and Natopians in other parts of the Empire have created a PR and ethical nightmare as the NDF Air Force refuses to target these camps and suggests that the Army needs to be doing more groundwork. Meanwhile, VVV leaders release sketches and photographs of themselves inflicting Vanic rites on children, always with the slogan, "It's magic puberty, not statutory!" Further incensing the entire world and putting immense pressure on the Natopian government to take decisive action.
• 18.X.1685: The Natopian emperor grants permission to the Dozan Bovic Church to enter Providence and proselytize. The Pentheros of the Dozan Bovic Church, Sergius Hergones, was in fact the former Metrobosarch of Lyrica during the high point of Storish-Natopian relations. Sergius establishes a special dispensation for Bovic missionaries to reframe certain teachings about Nathan Waffel-Paine the Once-Living God and Butter Man of the Bovic Quadrate. During his long life, Nathan lived in Stormark for a time under the name Sighard Gafolgyld. Within Mandatory Providence, according to certain rules laid out by the Pentheros, Bovic missionaries would embellish, enhance, and prioritize the reverence and worship of the Once-Living God and refer to him as Saint Sighard the Untainted. Similar to Dhurism and Elijahnism, this new geographically specific rite of Bovinism, would target the needs of the locals. The Sighardist rite would focus on this one facet of the Bovic Quadrate as an easy point of entry, to allow Repentants a more full Bovic experience later on. The Pentheros reasoned that worship of one fourth of the Quadrate is better than no worship of the Quadrate. Bovic missionaries use Saint Sighard as an example of a man who lived among the Vanics but did not become tainted.
• 19.X.1685: The former city of Deoraby suffered the most infrastructure damage and population loss, it is identified as the first target for Operation: Castrum. Natopian officials begin the mandatory evacuation of the ruined city.
• 23.X.1685: Bovic missionaries establish a church on Providence Bay and consecrate it in Saint Sighard's name.
• 25.X.1685: Advanced combat teams begin to infiltrate and rescue victims from VVV camps and towns.

Butterary

• 2.XI.1685: Early Sighardist converts seem to be among the most desperate to erase their Vanic pasts and, as a result, adopt extreme forms of self-flagellation, despite protests from the Bovic missionaries.
• 7.XI.1685: The military's options are limited by Natopia's ambiguous legal right to act in the area. Internal and external pressure mounts calling for Natopia to solve the humanitarian crisis at their doorstep.
• 13.XI.1685: The Emperor and Chancellor issue an Order-in-Council to extend Natopian sovereignty over the former Vanic land in western Tapfer. The area will continue to be under military occupation and Imperial government control as Mandatory Providence. The former city of Port Chloe is renamed Dyuupvik, after Liv Dravot.
• 14.XI.1685: Militias of common people rise up against the claim, calling themselves Providence Nationals, and demanding that Natopia recognize Providence as a sovereign nation instead of continuing its "invasion."
• 15.XI.1685: NDF rescue/infiltration missions continue to put pressure on the VVV. Skirmishes throughout Providence as militias of common folk rise up against the Natopian declaration of sovereignty. Vanguarders resort to guerrilla warfare tactics.
• 20.XI.1685: After several days of rioting and skirmishes, the militias begin to disintegrate as leaders are arrested. Providence nationalism appears to be a flash in the pan, reactionary movement.
• 28.XI.1685: St. Sighard's Church has now attracted a few hundred Sighardist converts, who begin to organize themselves into a cultlike religious order, wearing red jumpsuits, and calling themselves the Mortificant Order of Saint Sighard, worrying the Bovic missionaries who fear they have lost control of the situation. Sighardists believe that continued physical self-punishment will keep the Vanic taint from creeping back into their minds. The missionaries send word to the Pentheros seeking help.

Konil

• 5.XII.1685: The Pentheros grants a religious charter to the Mortificant Order, allowing minor and non-permanent mortification of the flesh for the purpose of sanctification. "These Mortificants are compelled to excise the sins they believe are in their own flesh. Truly the Vanic corruption ran deep into their souls if this is the only way they believe they can accept themselves again after the crimes they committed. The Monastery of the Mortificant Order will be established to house and contain these particular individuals. The Monastery will keep them under lock and key for their safety, provide basic medical care, and feed them essentials."
• 11.XII.1685: International recognition of Natopian sovereignty over Vanic western Tapfer: "Mandatory Providence." The Emperor declares that "One day, in the near future, we will look back on this happy day as the day our continental empire achieved a remarkable goal; and as the day when our Tapferite family was finally unified. I welcome the Repentant Salsangers to the Bovic Empire as our newest brothers and sisters."
• 20.XII.1685: Konil 20th, on what is sometimes celebrated as Nathan's Birthday, depending on the calendar, the plan for Operation: Castrum was initialized and greenlit. The ruined city of Deoraby had been fully evacuated and cordoned off for nearly two months. The NSS Damocles was positioned above the city in low orbit and was ordered to prime its kinetic weapons. The objective, to obliterate the ruined city with kinetic force to minimize environmental damage from incendiary or nuclear weapons. At 21:15, the order was given and the former city was razed to the ground by kinetic rods launched from low orbit. Seismologists in Kalfu and Bulwark recorded a 4.0 micrasquake as a result of the destruction.
• 21.XII.1685: Witnessing the destruction of Deoraby broadcast on live television, causes a surge in religious conversions to Sighardist Bovinism and the Mortificant Order, hoping to curry favor with the new Natopian ruling class and coming to terms with past crimes.

Tasneber

• 2.XIII.1685: The town of Sighard's Watch is established around the growing Monastery of the Mortificant Order of Saint Sighard.

Dankember

• 2.XIII.1685: In preparation, Princess Esmeralda of Arboria convenes the Council of Arboria in Cape Isabella, Transegale, and decrees the following:
  • Legal reconstitution of the cities of Baudrix-su-mere, Isabellatun, Alexanderplatz, Milarosa, Gumaro, and San Pedro
  • Decreeing the election of a Mayor and Deputy Mayor of each city, assuming office upon the effectivity of the West Tapfer Claim and Reconstruction Act

Future

Proposal for eventual organization of new territories in western Tapfer, incorporating them into the West Tapfer Federation and adjusting the demesne border with Transegale.

Successful reconstruction of western Tapfer and integration of Repentants into Natopian culture coincides with the completion of two major goals that guided Natopian foreign policy for generations: territorial expansion on Tapfer and isolation of the Vanic Source. As such, the Emperor has called for festivals and celebrations to mark the occasion, hoping to replace any lingering shame that Repentants may feel for their Vanic pasts (and any ill-will in other Natopians) with a new sense of civic pride as the people who allowed the Bovic Empire to claim two major policy victories.

It is also likely that the term "Repentants" which is only useful during Reconstruction, will be replaced with a less stigmatizing demonym for the people that live there. Salsangers or Salt-bloods is a nickname that is currently used by SATCo taskmasters to refer to the inexperienced workers that flocked to the SATCo saltmines, and the fact that they have sustained many injuries from lack of mining. Their determination to work is a testament to the future prosperity of the region.