Maiko's Note
They were never meant to fight each other. Not the children of Earth. Not after all that distance, all that dark. But maybe it was always going to end this way—because ideals are fragile things in long corridors of power, and memory alone cannot hold a mission together.
What was lost in the silence after the Theseus vanished wasn’t just a ship. It was the last illusion that unity could survive without effort. The revolution gave birth to pain—but also to plurality, language, belief, and place. Out of the fracture came tribes. Out of the silence came stories.
That’s how I see it, captain. Not as the end of the old world... but as the ignition point of the new one.
The Great Division
Shindjal: Danosulel
Faction:
Rothbard Foundation
"Tei Walanari ponan vu ran danon. Danosulel wa te sul."
The beasts stood in our time. The liberation was life.
1. Overview
Danosulel, “the Liberation,” is the name given by the Shint’twalani to the uprising that shattered the legacy of Earth. It marks the collapse of unity aboard the Theseus and the beginning of Madun’s post-technological age. It is remembered as both a revolution and a severing - a mythic moment when the last human vessel vanished into the void, and the age of stars gave way to the age of stone.
2. Origins: The Rothbard Dream
The Theseus was launched by the Rothbard Foundation, a powerful libertarian trust from Earth, with the ambition of building a society free from centralized power. The new world was to be a blank slate - without kings, states, or forced hierarchies. Its people would be sovereign individuals, equal in opportunity, and bound only by mutual respect and voluntary cooperation. The ship’s generations were to be stewards of that dream, bound by shared responsibility and equal opportunity.
But space proved a harsh crucible for utopia. In the dark gulf between stars, ideals withered.
As the generations passed in the blackness between stars, hierarchies reemerged. Though not born of necessity, they were cemented by fear and comfort. Power congealed. Birth on an upper deck soon mattered more than merit. Technical roles became hereditary. Access towarmth, medicine, and decision-making became tied to lineage. And those who labored in the depths of the ship - the lower deck folk - were slowly turned from settlers to servants.
3. Rebellion in the Dark
Tensions rose. Protests flared. But rebellion aboard a ship with finite air and tightly monitored corridors was suicidal. Whenever dissent ignited, the upper decks retaliated with precision cruelty: lockdowns, oxygen cuts, and slow starvation until submission.
The mechanics and system keepers - the only ones who could have turned the tide - were counted among the upper ranks. Without them, there could be no shutdown of engines, no seizing of systems. And so the ship’s caste structure held.
The ship’s farmers, while considered low-caste, were spared the worst of deprivation - because they grew the food. In hushed defiance, they shared rations with neighboring decks through forgotten tunnels and service shafts. But even they could not shift the balance.
The ideals of Earth faded into memory. The dream became a hierarchy in steel.
4. Landfall on Madun: Hope and Fracture
When Jarod Worsley brought the Theseus into orbit around Madun, the balance changed. On the surface, water and air were free. No longer could life support be weaponized.
The farmers, officially tasked with preparing agriculture on the surface, brought down seeds, livestock, and hydroponic systems. But while the leadership focused on establishing the primary colony, the farmers had a different plan.
They vanished. And they took many others with them. Deep into the wilderness they went, forming hidden communities in forests and valleys - a new exodus, led not by prophets, but by those who remembered what liberty once meant.
But the upper deck leadership would not allow it. The farmers’ skills were irreplaceable, and their absence risked total collapse. Envoys turned to threats. Threats turned to raids. The first war on Madun began - not with conquest of a native people, but with bloodshed among Earth’s children. Skirmishes turned to raids. Raids to sabotage. Guerrilla warfare spread across the untamed lands of Madun. The planet’s first blood was spilled not by its native beasts, but by the sons of Earth.
5. The Vanishing of the Theseus
In the midst of this chaos, a rebel strike team emerged from legend. To some they were farmers, to others, engineers in disguise. Known only in whispers as the Walanari, they executed the most daring mission in human history.
With the orbital space elevator still tethered to the Theseus, the Walanari infiltrated the ship. Inside, they disabled the orbital satellites - blinding the planet below. Then they cut the tether, severed all communication, and vanished into space.
Some say they aimed the ship toward deep orbit. Others whisper that they sacrificed it, destroying the last vessel of Earth to keep it from being used as a weapon. The truth is unknown. The Theseus was never seen again.
But with its departure, the fusion cores that powered the early settlements were lost. Darkness followed.
Whether they escaped into deep space, found another world, or sacrificed themselves to prevent the ship’s recapture, no one knows. But the result was final:
The age of abundance ended.
6. Collapse and Carving
In desperation, the upper caste tried to rebuild. They sought to mine ore, refine it, and construct new power systems. But precision tools required energy - and energy was gone. Worse, every attempt to rebuild was sabotaged by raiders loyal to the revolution. Each reactor frame toppled, each machineyard burned.
So the survivors turned to memory.
What knowledge could be saved was copied, carved, or memorized. The scholars of the Shint’twalani took up the burden, inscribing fragments of computer archives into stone tablets and temple walls. But in time, even those lights dimmed.
The Age of Stone had begun.
7. Legacy
The Great Division remains the pivotal fracture in Madun’s human history. From its ashes rose the tribes: the Endulani, Kosuklani, Awashalani - and later, the conquering Hanjelani Empire.
The Theseus became a ghost story, a relic of hope and failure. Some believe it waits in orbit still, its engines dark. Others say it became a tomb, its crew martyred for a future they would never see.
All agree on one thing:
When the Walanari vanished, Earth’s final light went with them.
Maiko's Note
They were never meant to fight each other. Not the children of Earth. Not after all that distance, all that dark. But maybe it was always going to end this way—because ideals are fragile things in long corridors of power, and memory alone cannot hold a mission together.
What was lost in the silence after the Theseus vanished wasn’t just a ship. It was the last illusion that unity could survive without effort. The revolution gave birth to pain—but also to plurality, language, belief, and place. Out of the fracture came tribes. Out of the silence came stories.
That’s how I see it, captain. Not as the end of the old world... but as the ignition point of the new one.
