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Vargo: Imperial Survey History Recontact As word spread of the arrival of an unfamiliar vessel at the starport, crowds of Vargens from across the area made their way there to greet the newcomers, believing that the Second Republic had returned at last to reunite Vargo with the rest of humanity. The joyous tumult of the crowds served as a distraction to the negotiations, and little was accomplished in that first meeting. Upon concluding a preliminary exchange of information, the scouts boarded their ship and returned to Tethys, to carry news of this discovery back to Alexius.
The Senator and his immediate family were killed, leaving Vargo leaderless. A few days later, when Alexius' ambassador arrived along with a squadron of Imperial warships and a battalion of troops, he landed to find Vargo City still smoldering from the attack as rioters ran rampant in the streets. The ambassador deployed his forces to restore order, but in so doing he sowed the seeds of suspicion and rebellion. Most Vargens came to believe that the Empire, arriving so conveniently on the scene, had actually orchestrated the initial attack. Imperial Protectorate Vargen terrorists assassinated the ambassador while he was delivering an address in Vargo Square. On the heels of his death, Hazat and Decados warships arrived in the Vargo system, further complicating the tense situation. The Imperial squadron drove off these new arrivals, but it was clear that Vargo had piqued the interest of Known Worlds factions and would not soon be forgotten. When word of the growing crisis on Vargo reached the Emperor's ear, he acted quickly to keep the planet from being torn apart by rival factions seeking to win the world for themselves at all costs. By Imperial decree, Alexius made Vargo a protectorate, and dispatched a governor to administer the planet in his name. He chose Marco DeVore Gunnarson to serve as Vargo's first Governor, an experienced Reeve who had spent more than a decade in Alexius' service. Gunnarson arrived with his staff, accompanied by representatives of the five major guilds, and set out to establish the stamp of Imperial authority on Vargo. To many observers, it seemed as if the Emperor was handing the planet over to the Merchant League in reward for its support during the Wars. The Royal Houses, incensed by this perceived snub, demanded that they be given a voice in Vargo's affairs. Even Alexius' allies among the nobility pressured him for access to the lost world, questioning the Emperor's right to blockade Vargo with the Imperial Navy. Yet the strongest pressure came from the Patriarch, who had been angered by reports of the attack on the Cathedral, and was troubled by rumors of heresy among the Vargen Orthodoxy--which had been isolated from the Church's doctrinal decisions for a thousand years. At the time, in early 4995, Alexius was still consolidating his power. House Decados and the Hazat had only just conceded their claims to the throne, and peace was tenuous at best. In order to preserve that peace, lest Vargo become a bone of contention among the Houses, the Emperor agreed to grant them consulates on Vargo--and a hand in the planet's administration. Yet he placed strict limits on the military presence that the factions could maintain in the system, to keep a shooting war from breaking out over control of Vargo. The Contest In an unexpected move, the Emperor made one further concession to Vargo's would-be masters: He would give the various factions of the Known Worlds five years to prove their fitness to serve as shepherds of Vargo's destiny. At the end of that time, Alexius would grant rulership of the planet to one of the factions. The Houses, the guilds, and even the Church were quick to embrace this contest, eager to gain another world. Yet in doing so they had tacitly conceded the field to Alexius, agreeing to play the game by his rules. The Contest got off to a rocky start. A Church delegation representing the five sects, led by Orthodox Archbishop Anand Kraelian, met with the surviving Vargen clergy in the city. To say the meeting did not go well would be an understatement. After a heated debate over Church doctrine, the proceedings closed with Archbishop Kraelian declaring the Vargen clergy to be heretics--over the strident objections of the Amalthean and Eskatonic representatives. Kraelian issued warrants for the arrest of the native clergy in Vargo City. All but 27 of the clerics in the city managed to elude the Inquisition, headed by High Inquisitor Icarus ul Sendraka. Those 27 stood trial before a tribunal consisting of Kraelian, Icarus, and Adept Yu Jie of the Brother Battle. The tribunal found the Vargen priests guilty of heresey, and sentenced them to death. They were garroted in the Plaza of the Prophet. When word of the executions reached the inhabitants of the city, riots broke out: Adept Yu Jie had to deploy her Brother Battle to protect the Cathedral as Imperial troops restored order. The events that followed are sketchily known, derived from interviews conducted among Vargens in the fieflands. The surviving Vargen clergy from the city joined their brethren in the countryside and organized native landholders against the Known Worlders. The efforts of the Vargen clergy to rally the populace against the 'invaders' apparently played a critical role in recruiting the army of resistance that gathered under the banners of the Mercedes and other leading Vargen families. The 27 executed clergy were hailed as martyrs. Reconquest The rise of the Vargen insurgency caught the Emperor’s agents by surprise, and the small Imperial garrison on the planet suddenly found itself on the defensive. After a series of inconclusive skirmishes, the new Imperial Governor, Marco DeVore Gunnarson, redeployed his troops to defend the capital and the starport--Vargo’s vital link to the rest of the Known Worlds. A standoff emerged as the Vargen resistance leaders, reluctant to test Vargo City’s defenses, opted to bide their time. Gunnarson sent an urgent plea offworld for relief. That relief came in the form of an Imperial Army regiment under the command of Colonel Christopher Rena, fresh from battling the Symbiots on Stigmata. Rena’s first act as garrison commander was to launch a lightning offensive against the insurgents. This time it was the Vargens who were caught off guard. During the spring of 4996, Rena’s troops pushed upriver, driving the Vargen defenders before them. One by one, the villages in the vicinity of Vargo City were “liberated” from the insurgents and placed under Imperial control. Colonel Rena implemented stern pacification measures in the occupied areas to quell native resistance. With the aid of the Holy Inquisition, still headed by High Inquisitor Icarus ul Sendraka, the Imperial troops instituted a draconian campaign to root out republicans and heretics in the native populace. Public executions were held as a lesson to any would-be rebels among the conquered Vargens; resistance leads only to death. A sullen atmosphere pervaded the newly reconquered territory as Rena imposed an uneasy peace. The Imperial advance upriver came to a sudden halt in July, 4996. The Vargens, who had yielded ground steadily to date, suddenly staged a counterattack. After several pitched battles, in which the Imperials found themselves both outnumbered and outgunned, Rena abruptly adopted a defensive posture. Rather than risk losing the beachhead he had already secured, Rena ordered his troops to build a series of earthworks and fortifications across the river valley. He intended to hold this line until reinforcements arrived from offworld. 2 |
