“It was inevitable, really. Once the people woke up and realised the false utopia that UNO offered them, its days were numbered.”
- - Valzaria
The Ottzello Revolution was a civil war in the Ottzello Sector of the Borealis Galaxy in the aftermath of Da Reckoning. Fought between the citizens of the Refuge of Ottzello against the AIs of the briefly reformed Unified Nation of Ottzello, it was the true end of UNO's legacy and the promise of a brighter future. Though many of the battles fought were brutal, the overall death count of the war was much lower than predicted and the war ended very quickly.
International involvement was initially limited given that the Polar Crystal Alliance began neutral and allowing allowed the process to play out, though crucial aid was given to the rebels in the revolution later. The PCA publicly declared and offered support towards the rebels, while the French Empire in the form of diplomatic cover, essential supplies, refuge and––at the climax of the rebellion––weaponry and advisors.
Events[]
Beginning[]
At the conclusion of Da Reckoning and the freeing of the Unified Nation's worlds, the Unified Nation of Ottzello Leaders, bar Tuolog, returned to power, and reactivated their System. The reformation of the Unified Nation began, as the refugees who had fled were required to take new nanomachine injections to become members once again, as UNOL promised them a time of peace. The Leaders expected a surge in returning refugees as they returned to their manufacturing of goods and synthetics.
But they received no surge in refugees. As extremely small numbers of Ottzelloans returned and took their injection, UNOL began to inquire into way.
In truth, many of the refugees, since leaving the System, had seen many of the flaws in UNO. They had seen how UNO's System would manipulate them into liking it by controlling the release of chemicals into their brain to simulate a love for their lifestyle, even as awful as it was. They had seen how UNO could, at any time, rid their society of crime or wrongdoing, and chose not to, deliberately, to make their population feel a sense of desperation to work hard and succeed in life, or to make them grow up to be better soldiers. They had seen how they had been economically exploited with limited freedom. And it disgusted them.
It disgusted them so much that they were willing to continue their lives as refugees in poverty if it meant never returning to a dystopian way of life. Even if they knew that they would enjoy it more with the System in place, in how it manipulated their minds to enjoy it, they simply could not accept the pretence of an enjoyable life. Soon, many protesters began to rise up all throughout the Polar Crystal Alliance, more vocal Ottzelloans who had made their home elsewhere in Borealis speaking out about how wrong UNO was.
The PCA had never liked UNO's treatment of its citizens, merely tolerated it passively since UNO did such good otherwise. Its citizens had been left in the dark as to how bad they were treated, but now they knew, they did not want to return to UNO. More and more protesters rose up in opposition to a return, urging their fellow Ottzelloans to protest and not return. But soon, they saw that those protesters were being killed. By Tralkik soldiers and by Ottzelloan Grox, no less.
And now it was painfully obvious. An Ottzelloan hacking group, known as the Ottzelloan Nameless, began to hack into UNO's AIs. Sending messages to several planets about how their people were having their liberties stripped from them. Those both outside and inside of UNO knew that it was, to them, a force of evil. And soon, it was war.
Battles[]
Planet Trylok, a military base and a major manufacturing planet, was the first world which the Ottzelloan refugees attempted to take back for themselves, wanting to start their own Ottzelloan government separate from UNO. But the fight was not easily won. Hundreds of Loron, Inalton and Galotian among other Ottzelloan species poured into the base attempting to destroy what UNO had built and take the world for their own, but it was in vain. Instead, they found themselves unable to breach through UNO's defenses. Andasium walls and hoards of Tralkik defenders massacred the thousands of soldiers attempting to breach through. The now corpse littered land was sent out as an image to the rest of the galaxy, believing that it would demoralise the refugees and they would give in.
Instead, it riled them up. Tuolog, who had declared himself the leader of the Ottzelloan fight for freedom, led a strike time into the spaceport above planet Zalkorid. The world and its surrounding asteroid field was UNO's biggest manufacturer of its andasium starships, and as Tuolog and the others set off many explosions within the space and land bases, they completely disrupted any of their operations. And it allowed for more refugees, fighting with their own warships, to breach through UNO's seemingly impenetrable defenses.
The Ottzelloans knew that regardless of this, UNO's resources were limitless compared to theirs. But the Ottzelloan Nameless hackers had another form of attack: cybercrime. UNO's greatest weakness had always been any attacks to its robust networks of AIs that were so essential to the entire system. Tralkik, Grox and robots were UNO's only true weapon, and being almost entirely synthetic, they were easy to hack and to turn on their creators, if one knew how. And a group of Ottzelloans, ones who previously had been familiar with the System and its ins and outs, could do this painstakingly. It was at this point that the war turned around and others began to seriously take notice.
Whereas before the rebellion had been considered with caution by foreigners, the attack on Zalkorid and the exploits of rebel hackers demonstrated the movement's viability. A few began to speak out timidly in support throughout the universe, though very few wished to damage their relations with UNO to begin with. When it seemed clearer that the rebels could win, the Polar Crystal Alliance offered economic and military support to the refugees, believing that a reformed UNO would make a better ally than otherwise. The rest of the universe community also spoke out in support of the rebels while not being actively involved.
However, no foreign aid escalated as quickly as that of the French Empire. Within weeks, the French went from turning a blind eye to the presence of refugee communities, smuggling routes, and outposts in their Ottzello territories to actively using them to ferry supplies to the rebels over the border. The aid ranged from foodstuffs to guns and ammunition from France's considerable post-war stockpile, but the most significant aid came latest in the form of strike craft like decommissioned models of the Mirage Roi, Hyperfighter Hurricane, along with small shuttles and other ships. Equipment, fuel, and advisors followed to help the rebels establish their own hyperspatial strike craft force, perfect for the fighting of insurgent warfare. The aid provided also encouraged the PCA to provide more of their own, though those outside the Borealis galaxy did not intervene in the affair.
At their base at the Quiikil Nebula in the Ottzello sector, having brought together many UNO ships, the refugees had finally amassed a fleet that could take on UNO's. A large space battle occurred over UNO's mining and spice world of Leeros, a victory for the refugees and the first planet conquered by them. While the expectation was for the civil war to truly heat up, UNO instead called a ceasefire.
A meeting was called for Tuolog and many others to attend. While some believed that it was an attempt to fool them and to assassinate them, Tuolog knew that their intentions were pure, and being an advocate for non-violent approaches, he agreed to travel to the artificial planet Grenzaar.
Conclusion[]
Tuolog reunited with the divided UNOL, in which they would agree to a set of terms. UNOL and the rest of the AIs did not have a divided nation and a sour reputation in their best interest. While the PCA and the rest of the universe had been neutral up until that point, they were very likely to lose a large amount of trade and most of their allies if they continued down that path.
The oligarchy in which the artificial intelligences of UNO dictated the lives of its citizens could not endure. The ancient System created by the Kralgon would simply not last in an age in which it had been breached and exposed countless times. The group mind was simply not a robust system, and the Unified Nation's reliance on fooling its population and manipulating them with nanomachines would not last.
The only way to keep people in line and for UNOL and the AIs to retain their power was to give Ottzelloans a true utopia, rather than to give them the pretence of one. Both social and economic liberty were vital to their ways of life, as biological organisms were more important than synthetic ones. The two had to live side-by-side, and not have one overtake the other.
UNOL and the AIs would retain their power: they continued to own the land that UNO had once owned, would expand it, and would be able to earn huge profits by exporting andasium, spices and other goods. It would become a centre of commerce in Borealis with true liberty, and its entire population would reap the benefits. However, it would for the first time since the Galot Republic embrace democracy, as democratically elected officials would make all the decisions even if they were guided by the AIs. The System would be replaced with a looser form of nanomachines that would allow the population to be happy and safe but not to have their lives controlled.
It would be known as the Union Republic of Ottzello. A union of all of Ottzello's people, brought together after thousands of years of war, to finally embrace peace in a Republic. It would strive to achieve the first utopian state in the history of Ottzello, avoiding both the faults of the Unified Nation of Ottzello's tyranny and of the Federal Government of Ottzello's corruption.
The Polar Crystal Alliance welcomed the Union Republic with open arms and congratulated the Ottzelloans on their new direction, and the Ottzello bond with the PCA was stronger than ever before, with the Union Republic promising to contribute more to the Alliance than even the Unified Nation did. Very grateful for the help the French provided, the Union Republic declared it would trade more closely with France afterwards. Much of the universe' community spoke favourably of the fight against an imperialist regime that Ottzello was taking, as new relations could form.
Notes[]
Trivia[]
- The original plan for this fiction was in the aftermath of Ultimate Sovereignty of Ottzello, a fiction which is cancelled. This fiction would have had USO lose and Ottzello reform by going in the opposite direction to the one it took.
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