The Progenitors

Side Story - The Short-lived Democracy of Taliwari

I'm suffering from a decent bit of writer's block, but I'd hate to stop writing. Once I stop writing something, I tend to forget about it and lose enthusiasm.

Then it dies.... ;_:

So instead of letting that happen to his book (especially during NaNoWriMo), I'm writing side stories! These will probably be like the epilogue short-stories at the end of some books. they aren't necessary for the plot, but hopefully they'll get me thinking about the world more, and provide some filler content for you to read while you (hopefully) wonder what will happen to Hallen next.

Since these really aren't a part of the story, I have complete creative license to be as odd as I want. If it messes up the lore of my world, I'll just annihilate the chapter later with my imaginary existential Death-star laser.

Everyone has one of those, right? (Or the delete button - the delete button would work too..)

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Once upon a time, on a small uninhabited stretch of land with no distinguishing characteristics, a small band of tribal settlers settled, as settlers do, and tried to make their living in the barren area.

The settlers of Taliwari were never the smartest bunch. The fact that they had even picked the uninhabited Skull Coasts of Rhal was a testament to their lack of fore-planning or knowledge, as they had picked what was arguably the most dangerous piece of land humanly possible. Plagued by raiders, tsunamis, thunderstorms, hurricanes, and flesh eating tomato plants, the Skull Coasts were fraught with danger.

That was why they were uninhabited, and the lack of people made it perfect for the Taliwari.

The Taliwari had no "people skills", as some called it. Their lack of intelligence barely let them talk with one another, let alone with outsiders who didn't know their language. Their vocabulary largely consisted of the words food, kill, danger, and people. This vocabulary is possibly one of the smallest such inventions to have ever been made anywhere on the continent of Rhal, only surpassed by the one-tone language of the Bindhi. The Bindhi were a largely cannibalistic tribe, and only needed the word kill. Some scholar's have suggested that the Bindhi were in fact the offspring of the surviving Taliwari, though such theories have never been proven.

Despite the natural disasters and flesh eating fruit, the Taliwari managed to eke out a living from the unforgiving coast. Eventually, the group of 50 settlers grew to a group of 500 as... well.. settling happened, I suppose. You get the general idea.

At about this time, a single Taliwari came up with the idea of government. This Taliwari had the unenviable task of creating a word for his new idea - a new word hadn't been created in hundreds of years - and the task nearly destroyed his brain. He successfully, however, created the word democracy to describe his plan, as well as the word banana. Why exactly he thought that word up is unknown, though it may have been connected to the abundance of carnivorous insects in the region, which were bright yellow and banana shaped to attract prey.

After this herculean task of word-invention, Ogg, as we'll call our Taliwari for no reason, communicated this idea to the tribe.

"Democracy!" By this, Ogg meant that obviously democracy was the way to go, as there were already fights over land and food breaking out everywhere.

"Food?" Responded the group of elder Taliwaris. By this, they meant to ask if democracy was a type of edible substance. What Taliwaris consider food is by no means what the rest of the world considers food. The closest word to no in the Taliwari vocabulary is kill, and so Ogg proceeded to explain his idea.

"Kill food!"

"Danger food?"

"Kill danger food!" By now the elders were upset - anything dangerous enough to kill dangerous food was a threat indeed. They hadn't even figured out how to kill the carnivorous food-shaped insects yet.

"People kill danger?"

"Democracy kill danger! Democracy people!" Ogg proudly pointed to himself. The elder's took this to mean that Ogg considered himself able to kill danger, which of course was a fantastic thing. There was much danger to be killed on the Skull Coast, after all.

"Democracy kill?" Ogg was now the confused one. This was a significantly harder task than he thought.

"Democracy people!"

"Democracy kill people?" Ogg was out of options - and so resorted to the last word he knew.

"Bananas!"

"Democracy kill bananas?"

"Bananas food!"

"Democracy kill food?"

"Democracy!" Ogg agreed, before he realized what he was agreeing to. This led to his prompt and brutal murder, as the elders didn't want their food to be killed. The elders then, in a rage after this killing of Ogg, proceeded to kill off each other, starting a village-wide war.

In the after-math, the few survivors of the war were assaulted by a combination of tornadoes, tsunamis, banana-insects, and flesh-eating tomatoes, killing them instantaneously. The remaining houses were then struck by lightning, started a forest fire, and leveled the surrounding grasslands and forest areas for miles in each direction.

After this event, which some other, more civilized humans observed, an earthquake sunk the Skull Coast before it was vaporized in an explosive eruption, caused by a newly active volcano. This drove the nearby land apart, causing the formation of multiple continents. The continent said humans were on kept it's name, "Rhal", while the others were given various other names after the shock had passed and people found out they were alive. This failed attempt at government convinced all of the surrounding peoples of the danger of any form of law or control, leading to a perpetual state of anarchy that lasted for over 500 years. The story of the Taliwari democracy was retold over and over as a story to frighten children thereafter.

Some people however, twisted the story slightly. The Taliwari became more civilized in these tales, the attempt became more successful, and there was a surprising lack of explosions, tsunamis, and flesh-eating tomatoes. These sorts of stories led a few uninformed individuals to believe that a country ruled by law was possible. They evidently didn't learn the true story of the Taliwari.

Some people believe that a defective group of Taliwaris capable of only one word escaped and propagated, leading to the development of the Bindhi culture. The great plague of 905 wiped out the Bindhi colonies, as they generally ate their dead, spreading the disease.

The failed democracy experiment was never repeated - even the most insane rules only resorted to an aristocracy model. After all, no ruler wanted his kingdom to drown, be eaten, and then explode, as would obviously happen once you switched over to that form of government.

And that, pupils, is the story of the Short-lived government of the Taliwari. I've been teaching this subject to young students for the past 30 years, and I haven't been able to find a more entertaining subject so far. The mental image of their vaporization never gets old...

And so, when the time comes for one of you students to become the official scholar of Wilhelm, I hope you will remember the story of the Taliwari. Never attempt a form of government that favors the people - bad things happen!

And always avoid flesh eating tomatos, when possible.

- Frederick Falon Teronius Humphry Halimar III, Court Historian, Teacher of the Young, Protector of the Ignorant, Keeper of the Books, Writer of the Histories, and Bestower of Titles.

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Hopefully we'll be able to return to our *mildly* scheduled programming tomorrow! I hope you enjoyed this bit of random history for Rhal, and I hope you post any criticism or plot suggestions in the comments section below!

And please avoid any flesh eating tomatoes - I doubt touching those would prove very healthy...