The Vale of Winds
2221 - 2234
“He held his arm too stiffly, and so was thrown back repeatedly, until at last I seized his forearm and snapped it back against itself. His training suffered while the arm healed, of course, but I felt this was a lesson he must learn early, and well.”
Spartan Kel,
Honing the Ki
Gish B III was a frigid world by human standards. The air was breathable and with some basic environmental suits humans could survive on the surface, but it would never be truly comfortable. Meanwhile, ecological resilience reports indicated that Autumn Grove and Forest Primeval could accommodate continued human immigration for another few decades without threatening existing ecosystems. For that reason, Gish B III was initially classified as a low priority for human colonization, projected for potential occupation no sooner than 2250.
It came as a mild surprise, therefore, when the Gaian colonial authorities announced plans to colonize Gish B III, in a colony to be known as Vale of Winds. More surprising still, the projected colonists would not be human at all, but Bouan. Per the official announcements, several thousands Bouans had agreed to migrate to Vale of Winds in order to supply Gaians with much needed alloys for the burgeoning civilian and military space fleet.
Conservative Greens had worried for years about the prospect of Bouan mass migration. Bouan folk religion had traditionally valorized commerce and conquest, and their off-world colonies were heavily industrial places dedicated to short-term resource extraction. Would the influence of a Bouan minority water down Gaian commitments to the preservation of life? However, for years the prospect of mass Bouan migration had remained just a prospect. The towering insectoids were adapted to a colder and drier world than their human allies, and only a few merchants or diplomats lived in Gaia’s Landing or Forest Primeval. This new colonial project would mean migration in the millions, perhaps the tens of millions.
To accommodate this fear, Governor Leina quietly implemented restrictions on the new Bouan migrants. For example, the Gaians subsidized travel for Bouans to Vale of Winds, but not the other worlds. Similarly, Bouans had access to prefab shelters, seeds, fertilizer and other supplies geared towards colonization of Vale of Winds, while the encounter suits used for warmer worlds were prohibitively expensive. Only a tiny Bouan elite would thus be able to afford offworld travel. On Vale of Winds itself, a human colonial government would oversee agricultural and industrial development to protect the native ecosystem.
Socialism was central to the Gaian economic system, a core value of both the Greens and Solidarity. On Planet itself residents took for granted that the necessities of life, from food to housing to education, would be available for them. In the human colonies of Autumn Grove and Forest Primeval, things were not quite so developed. The market presence here was more substantial, although the power of local trade unions and the growing Green and Solidarity political clubs could be brought to bear should an outrage occur.
Conditions were much worse on Vale of Winds. Leina’s restrictions placed control over the Vale of Winds economy in the hands of a few appointed colonial officers. Corruption and self-dealing were rife. Many skimmed money off the top of the colonial budget, took kickbacks from Bouan capitalists, and took stakes in the local businesses that they oversaw. The Bouans had little indigenous tradition of labor organizing. They did not speak the dominant human languages. Their primary source of support was the Bouan government itself, but the nearest consulate was on Forest Primeval. As a result, labor conditions were extremely poor.
Ciara De Barra, the colonial official in charge of ecological resilience, had used government money to refurbish an ancient alien factory found on the planet, arguing that the advanced technology would permit her to produce alloys cleanly and inexpensively. She used her influence to secure a monopoly on alloy production, and in this fashion had accumulated a large fortune.
Among Bouan workers, the alloy factory was the most dreaded assignment. Injury and death were common, in large part because De Barra did not truly understand the factory that she owned. In 2031, one of her engineers reported to her that the high fatality rate could be attributed to active security measures still in place. The engineer recommended that the factory be shut down until those security measures could be neutralized, which was projected to take several years. De Barra shelved the report, and conditions only worsened.
In September 2033, a whistleblower leaked that earlier safety recommendation to the Gaian press, prompting a sector-wide outrage. Humans may have found the Bouans alien but the corruption and self-dealing of the colonial bureaucracy was all too familiar. Lady Deidre ordered a full audit of the Vale of Winds colonial administration. Independent investigators soon learned that De Barra had bought immunity from safety inspection by offering bribes and kickbacks to officials at all levels of government--including Governor Siann Leina herself.
Deidre Skye was furious--at the loss of life, the inhumane conditions, the tarnished repudiation of her grand adventure into the stars, and most of all at the poor judgment of her heir apparent. She ordered De Barra’s prosecution and a thorough house-cleaning of the colonial bureaucracy. The alloy foundries would be given a complete safety inspection and then given to the collective ownership of the Bouan workforce. Governor Leina was officially censured by the Sisterhood.
During her 2234 Imbolc address, Lady Deidre declared that the Vale of Winds scandal had been a collective failure. The Gaians were dedicated to remembering the tragedy of Earth, but instead they had replicated many of its abuses. She declared the world of Fywanes II would be consecrated to mark this failure. The newly-christened Memory of Earth, a temperate continental world once slated for colonization, would never know permanent human occupation.
To Lady Deidre, the Imbolc ceremony had marked the end of the Vale of Winds scandal. Many Gaians disagreed. In particular, most members of Solidarity were incensed at their erstwhile faction leader. The premise of Solidarity was in the equality and sorority of all sapient peoples, values that Governor Leina had clearly betrayed. They weren’t satisfied with a reprimand and a symbolic apology. In the former Spartan city of Hawk of Chiron, a Solidarity organizer named Aoife Deaca proposed a simple, three word demand: fire Siann Leina.
To the Gaians of the 2230s, this was a radical demand indeed. The local Solidarity and Green clubs were supposed to defer to their faction leaders, not make demands of them. The Sisterhood was a tight-knit elite, bound by deep personal loyalty. The experience of war and mutual sacrifice had once forged a deep bond between them and the average Gaian citizen; and Lady Deidre was convinced that those bonds held true still. Even her reprimand was considered extraordinary.
Aoife Deaca (b. 2200) had hit on a potent generational cleavage, however. To those born too late to remember the wars of unification, the Sisterhood was simply a complacent oligarchy that took care of its own. Their grand ideals were just so much hypocrisy. Beyond that, the institutions of the Gaian state--built to govern a single continent on Planet--were genuinely struggling to administer an interstellar empire that now spanned hundreds of light-years.
Deidre dismissed the Hawk of Chiron protest as a fringe reaction, but by the spring equinox, there were weekly protests in a dozen cities on Planet. Beltane, the great festival of youthfulness, was marked by protests on all four Gaian worlds. Deaca and her fellow organizers held a rally in front of the stand of white pine in Gaia’s Landing, a potent visual for the Gaian media. More than three hundred thousand people attended.
By now, the political crisis was evident within the Sisterhood, but they could not agree on how to respond and their lady did not know how to lead them. Lady Deidre had put her full authority behind an institutional response to the Vale of Winds scandal, and for the first time in generations that had failed. Fearing another outbreak of the drone riots of a previous century, she could not give in to what she saw as social disorder. And yet when Admiral Lathal proposed that the Gaia's Landing protests be put down through force, Deidre was horrified. And so she dithered, throughout the long hot summer of 2234.
By the end of August, Siann Leina had come to realize that her continued presence in office was a threat to Deidre herself. She offered Deidre her resignation on September 14, 2234. When Deidre was still reluctant, Siann met privately to deliver a reality check: popular opposition would continue to grow unless the Lady found a way to co-opt it. It was an emotional encounter, filled with anger and grief, but it worked.
The following day Deidre met with Aoife Deaca. The older woman said that she was prepared to remove Leina from office, but that left her with a problem: finding a new governor that had credibility with the people and a mandate for reform. To her mind, there was only one conceivable candidate--Deaca herself. With a small smile, Lady Deidre asked, would the Solidarity faction find that acceptable? Nonplussed, Deaca said that she would have to sleep on it.
On September 24, Aoife Deaca was inaugurated as the second Governor of Gaia’s Landing, while a crowd of thousands thronged in the great commons. Many in the Sisterhood avoided the ceremony. Those who did attend pointedly turned their backs when she made the ceremonial offering of hawthorn to Brigid’s flame, and sat on their hands when she donned the robes of state. One leading Green hissed at her, “No one here supports you.” Deaca only shrugged, and went to address her supporters in the square.
