[Can’t Opt Out]

Myths of the majenstra of Crishar reach back as far as those about the Lowdouran of Lüshan do. They press back to a time when nations held different names—to times when long forgotten rulers claimed glory in wars that may never have occurred, and if they did indeed bloody the continent millennia ago, these conflicts would certainly have been mere blips of struggles compared to even the last Colonial War, to say nothing of the war that ravaged our world a decade ago.

This is not to say there were no heroes, nor that whatever suffering these ancient people experienced should be considered nothing compared to what came later. Neither heroics nor calamities are something so simple as to be compared to one another in anything more than the vaguest of ways, especially given how, due to a combination of information losses, propaganda, and outright lies and obfuscation by those in power, so much knowledge of our continent’s past is gone—forever erased from our world and collective knowledge.

In a similar way, to compare the majenstra and the Lowdouran isn’t something that should be done with any seriousness, and yet, they are so many crossovers in the way their stories have been shaped. They are near myths, their abilities unfathomable to many. While the majenstra remained a secret to the world outside of Crishar for millennia, their existence only becoming known once war broke out, the reality that there were still living Lowdouran was a secret to all but a few for millennia.

As a result of their still secretive nature, the publicity that came with their participation in the war, as well as their close association with Division 30, it seems only natural for majenstra and Lowdouran—as well as those Division 30 members who possess other strange, if lesser known, irregular deviations—to constantly be spoken of in relation to one another. These two near mythical irregular deviations, cast together in a tangle of history and theory, and the simple reality that, if rumours are to be believed, many of Division 30’s most prominent members became aware of the existence of both nearly eight years before the war began.

It is amazing, in many ways, how much of the continent runs on rumours that we may never know the truth of. Division 30’s public members have patently refused to speak on the subject of the role they played in the conflict that broke through Lüshan nearly a decade before war began to spread over the world. For nearly a decade, Wander Fulbrun led a brutal regime in which he enacted martial law as he attempted to force criminals and corrupt Drinarna from the nation, through choice or death—it did not matter to him which. Many people have taken the silence of each member on the subject of this bloody affair to be an effective acknowledgement that they played a part in it—and certainly, a number of Division 30’s members are suspected to have originated in Lüshan before immigrating to other nations near the beginning of Wander Fulbrun’s campaign against crime and corruption.

In Norvel, many found a home within the palace, finding fame within the Dread Coliseum. Later, they joined Division 30 along with the then Prince Ju, and remain close friends of Emperor Julian today.

In Seer’ik’tine, at least one set down roots with the Yu family, becoming the nation’s de facto liaison between Seer’ik’tine and Lüshan during a time when few foreigners were allowed within Lüshan’s borders.

In Baalphoria, several Lüshanian children are now known to have been adopted by the de la Rue family and Vrin Devano, while another was fostered by Halen Mhrina’s family.

Several suspected Lüshanian refugees even spent time within the Dionese Inner Court, despite relations between Dion and Lüshan having long been a source of strain—in fact, it wasn’t until the Tragedy of Falmíer in the latter years of the war that either nation actively aided the other. Today, the two have become active trading partners, but between the last Colonial War and the Tragedy of Falmíer, trade between the nations was illegal and few citizens of either dared visit the other.

This is to say nothing of the very public situation that occurred within the Baalphorian Embassy in Falmíer, which resulted in a half dozen members of the Hyrat family effectively being trapped within its walls for three decades as the Baalphorian and Lüshanian government struggled to agree on how to handle them after the nation was effectively locked down.

There are even allegations that the incident that set Wander Fulbrun on his campaign, which originated in Falmíer, may have led to the destruction of the Ghrino Family—which has been described as both a criminal organization and a religious cult by officials—in the Grey Sands several years later. How, exactly, these incidents are related is unknown, and yet, rumours of some connection between the incidents persist.

What is known, are the uncountable rumours that flow through so many incidents that stretched over our continent in the years before the war began.

Microsparking before it was made a publicly available skill during the war.

A Baalphorian silverstrain with connections to both the Dionese Inner Court and the coren’taz whose many members eventually became founding members of Division 30.

All the Division 30 members, their names and descriptions falling out of mouths and over documents and reports about each incident. Some of those documents, even before the Flaming, could never be accessed, our continent’s governments citing privacy concerns and international treaties and agreements that later became the basis for the privacy agreements that continue to give non-public Division 30 members their secrets.

Secrets are exactly how so much of the continent sees their privacy. There are whispers of the truth, if anyone chooses to look, and yet a single person capturing all those truths seems an impossibility for the simple fact that this is a transnational conspiracy.

In Zironia, Pylenius’ refuses to discuss his own students’ membership within Division 30, citing ethics and the right to control ones’ identity.

In Norvel, Emperor Julian refuses to discuss the identity of ward’s mother, citing Baalphorian Youth Privacy Laws, and no Division 30 member dares speak on why Ophani Harlow has been held within a Norvellian prison since for nearly a decade.

In Dion, members of Division 30 rarely leave the Inner Court, and those who dare speak of them to outsiders have vanished, while in Lüshan, it is suspected that the nation’s prisons have been filled with people who would dare attempt to share the unit’s secrets.

The entire continent, it seems, is intent to keep Division 30’s secrets at the expense of the public.

Secrets are a problem. Yes, there are times when secrets serve their purpose. As anyone who has paid any attention to the secret irregular deviations that have been forced into the public eye over the last forty years knows, those secrets often hide something more insidious.

The ability to burn nearly anything, even the aether itself, to ash.

The ability to strip memories from a mind without anyone knowing.

The ability to read thoughts, intentions, emotions.

The ability to implant thoughts, intentions, emotions.

There are people within our world who are terrifying, and our continent’s governments have become active conspirators in keeping the reality of the monsters who surround us from our awareness.

This is to say nothing of the reality that, according to numerous high-ranking government officials of multiple nations—including Baalphoria, Dion, and Jinkai—no one outside of Division 30 knows how the war was ended. Allegations even exist that no one within the unit itself is aware of how their general ended the war either—and really, it is amazing anyone knows that Division 30’s anonymous general was the one to end the war, for how little is known of the exact details.

With how many members of the unit are now known to possess irregular deviations that allow for the manipulations of the mind and memory, as well as Division 30’s close ties to The Black Knot, it is perfectly plausible that no one remains who knows the details of how that final battle played out, nor how the war was ended. Aether forbid the war break out anew, whatever the unknown general did to save our world once now potentially hidden within a tangle of manipulations of their mind.

Will they be capable of ending the war again?

Will they require time to once more figure out how to end the conflict?

How many people will die while they pull together the knowledge they need to end the war once more?

The General of Division 30 is a genius, says virtually everyone who has been given the privilege of trust enough to meet them. We should trust them, says nearly everyone who is deemed acceptable to know their secrets.

Yet, what happens if Division 30’s general dies? So much of the continent agrees that even Hurinren Yaolin does not have the natural skill or ability of their teacher, the Blood Rain General. The young Dionese non-dev is skilled, make no mistake, but once his aging teacher is gone, so too will his power vanish from this world, perhaps for the simple fact that the Blood Rain General has taken so few students—that withholding of his secrets potentially leaving the continent all the weaker for it. The same is at risk when it comes to Division 30’s general and so-called-most-powerful member—a title that has been disputed by numerous people, some of whom claim Halen Mhrina was more skilled than our world’s anonymous saviour, many more of whom claim Colonel McIntyre eclipsed Division 30’s eventual leader.

At the time of his death at Alliance Ridge, Colonel McIntyre and Division 30’s future general ran the unit in collaboration. There are many, however, who claim that the late colonel was far more powerful and did the majority of the work within the unit—and certainly, there are many more who claim that, had he not died, Colonel McIntyre would have continued to be the most powerful non-dev in existence.

“There’s a reason why he was always the one in front of the press, you know? Making a list of his accomplishments during the war would be impossible—he just did too much. Sure, sometimes this other leader was mentioned as playing a part in whatever incident, but it wasn’t often. Some people claim a lot of members weren’t mentioned by [Colonel McIntyre] in his briefings because they didn’t want the publicity, but that isn’t true. [Colonel McIntyre] gave credit when it was due, talking around their identities so they could retain their privacy, but it often wasn’t due anyone else,” says his former teammate, Major Finara Clach in her memoir Before You Died, which covers her perspective of the war before Colonel McIntyre died at Alliance Ridge.

While the two were sent to different units once Division 30 was created at the behest of the Blood Rain General, Major Clach’s unit often collaborated with Division 30—something that, for unknown reasons, became uncommon after Alliance Ridge. In the final chapter of her memoir, which effectively summarizes the reason why her military record during pre-Alliance Ridge was far more impressive than it was in the latter years of the war, Major Clach claims that post-Alliance Ridge, Division 30 “functioned more like a cliquey party house.”

“They had their friends, and they didn’t want anyone else. It didn’t matter that other people wanted to help, nor even that they had abilities that could help in the war effort. Division 30 after [Colonel McIntyre] died was all about themselves and no one else. They had their members who would claim the glory for battles—regardless of whether they had actually done anything, but they needed a public member to claim that glory. Often, [Division 30] refused to let anyone else near their battles, lest someone else contribute more to the fight than them. There were so many of us who could have helped, but under [the anonymous general]* this wasn’t an option. We were sent away. Maybe we wouldn’t have been any help, or maybe, we could have ended the war sooner, if only [the General of Division 30]*had allowed us to offer our thoughts and opinions.”

It is important to note that Major Clach’s memoir was subject to censorship by the OIC system—two instances of which are marked above—which removed the names of numerous Division 30 members, as well as several other military officers, who wished to remain non-public. In the resulting legal battle, the courts ordered Major Clach to respect the Alliance’s privacy mandate, which requires all active duty soldiers—Major Clach remains active duty as of today—to not publicly name military members who have indicated they wish to remain anonymous. Major Clach was later threatened with a court-martial after she allegedly outed Division 30’s anonymous general during a semi-public conversation. As everyone who overheard her using the general’s name was Baalphorian and agreed to allow the Hyrat clones to erase their knowledge of the name, the Alliance agreed to not proceed with the court-martial at the request of the Baalphorian government, although Major Clach retains a note in her file that this incident is her “final warning and future attempts to publicly name any non-public member of Division 30 without prior authorization by all three of the Alliance’s top Baalphorian members will result in charges immediately being laid.” Currently, two of these three positions are occupied by Andre Laprise, current head of The Black Knot and an allegedly close friend of the anonymous general, and Division 30’s general themself.

And thus, the layers of secrecy deepen.

Sometimes, secrets are important and serve a purpose. In the case of the last Lowdouran, they have suffered multiple attempts by criminal organizations to steal them away in the years since their existence became public knowledge. At the same time, there are theories that the last Lowdouran was once a member of the Lüshanian criminal organization that set off the incident that led to Wander Fulbrun’s nationwide crackdown, although this has been denied as “inaccurate” by multiple sources, including Wander Fulbrun himself.

Still, perhaps if the Lowdouran’s powers were more understood, the Tragedy of Falmíer would never have occurred.

In a similar vein, if the abilities of the majenstra had been more well known, perhaps the coup that turned Crishar upside down for several months in the midst of the war would never have occurred. It is impossible to know, but many of our continent’s leaders have agreed that, had they known of the majenstra’s existence beforehand, they may have taken a more active role in aiding King Meridian in reclaiming his throne. King Meridian himself has denied any need for such assistance, and while a significant number of his late father’s majenstra were killed or imprisoned when he reclaimed the throne, many more remain in his service.

Why does he retain majenstra when they once betrayed him? It is yet another secret.

Perhaps, the general public have no right to such secrets—no right to understand how the world of power and privilege works, nor even how the war that snuffed out so many of our lives ended.

Perhaps, however, we do have a right to know—a right to be sure we are safe and that our governments are not acting against our interests.

With how many conflicts and coups and wars have crisscrossed our continent for millennia, can we really ever trust that our governments are not conspiring against us, each secret a drop in the bucket of ill intentions they hold towards us and those we love?

What are we to them, but people who do not have the power nor knowledge to keep ourselves safe?