The Dominion Stands with the Empire

[WuHanXianShi14 0]

 

Spoiler

 

 

It is always the same.

 

 

The Myth of Slavery and Oppression

 

You goad and cajole us to betray our allies and friends with the same old rhetoric. With promises of full independence and revenge for the wrongdoings of the past. Yet you fail to realize that independence is already ours, and has been for decades. You expect us to cling on to hatred from wars that happened centuries ago, in lands long gone. It is true, the White Rose committed atrocities which will be never forgotten by elf kind, yet, all humans of that time are now dead. The last century has been one of orcish marauders and dreadlandic raiders who plague my people. Yet, you expect me to forget the more recent past, in favour of igniting a much older, faded grudge?

 

“Throw off your chains!” they say.  “Rid yourself of the yoke of Orenian oppression!” Yet, when I take a brief look around me, I see no chains, nor signs of the subjugation that rebels and dwarves try so hard to imagine exists. But let us take a look.

 

Culture perhaps, are we oppressed in that domain? The Dominion of Malin practices it's own religion. Multiple religions, in fact. From the wooded glades of the Aspectist shrines, to the keep of the Trinity, to the deep caves which host the ancestral temples in which the mali’ker worship, you will find that we are not restricted in carrying out our way of life. Pagans, the Canonists call us, yet they call us allies too. The cultural blossoming of the wood elven people has come under our tenure as a suzerain ally of the Empire, and not before. For only after we built ties with the Empire did we experience peace long enough to turn our minds from war, and towards the building of society.

 

Laws, then. Surely if elven culture thrives, separate from that of Imperial Oren, then it is our legislative polities which suffer under this supposed yoke of Orenian slavery we live under. Naturally, the truth is different than what the Courlanders and company would have you believe. The Dominion of Malin drafts it's own laws, separate from Imperial Law. It is not beholden to the taxes of the Empire, nor any of its administrative institutions.

 

We are going further down this list, and still we have found no oppression, nor slavery. Let us look deeper. Perhaps in leadership. Orenia must have a heavy hand in choosing who leads the elven people, yes? False, once again. The High Prince of the Dominion is elected by the respective region Princes of the nation’s signatory territories. No foreign polity, the Empire or otherwise, has a say in that decision.

 

I believe that exposition should be more than enough to prove the Dominion’s status as a self-functioning independent polity. Yet, the facts matter little to those who cling to an anti-Oren rhetoric. It seems that no matter how many times we side against our close allies, friends, protectors and brothers-in-arms of the Empire, we shall always be the oppressed, subjugated elven slaves in the eyes of those who rebel against it.

 

Ironic that we see ourselves as more free than we have ever been, yet those who seek to “liberate” us constantly label us as slaves to further their own political agendas.

 

We Know Loss

 

My people have fought. For centuries we have fought. The peace and stability we enjoy with the Empire now was one we battled for, tooth and nail, through blood, sweat and tears. We endured the horrors of the White Rose, the conquest of Malinor. We endured the oppression of Kalenz Uradir’s Haelun’or. That was true oppression, mind you, an oppression where we could not practice our own religion, love outside our subrace, hold any position of power in the nation in which we lived, and were punished for speaking out, it was not the fake oppression that Courland pretends exists in the present.

 

We drowned in our own blood to win an independent nation for ourselves in the revolution in which we cast off our high elven masters. We bled more when Sohaer Kalenz returned to reconquer us. We bled in the tunnels, we bled in the trees. We lost our home, we retreated to the end of a hostile forest, where it seemed our hunters and pursuers would only follow us. We were mowed down like rabid dogs.

 

From the lands of Elysium and Kalos, all the way up to the end of Athera, a period of nearly 200 years, all we elves knew was war, chaos and instability. We latched on to coalition after coalition, dwarves, orcs, rebels, yet we were routinely destroyed. Our weakness bred weak men. Men who cared not for their nation, not for their culture, men who cared only for themselves. Malinor in it's dying days was a hub of toxic individualism, edge, and crime.

 

Yet we fought. I fought. Politically, economically, culturally, militarily, I fought until my body and soul was raw to realize the full potential of an elven nation. And the light at the end of the tunnel eventually came. The hand that reached out and gave hope a battered, defeated people, a people who had experienced loss after loss at the hands of Haelun’or, Orcs, and even Orenia.

 

That hand was the Empire.

 

We had fought against the Empire. We had bought into the lies and propaganda that it was an entity of tyranny and oppression. Yet under the Praetor (now High Prince) Tristin Tresery, we entered an era of prosperity under Oren. We began as a province, but the peace we were given allowed our culture to be reborn, our people to be reinvigorated. We proved our worth, in war after war, and were given back our independence in the form of the Dominion of Malin.

 

From there, we fought hard to prove ourselves worthy allies, as all good nations should do when offered an olive branch of protection. We bled in the fields of Barrowyk in Adria. We bled in Urguan and we finally conquered the Orcs, whom had been terrorizing our civilians for decades.

 

Where was your coalition doing for us during this time?

 

Raiding our people. Punishing us for being friends with the Empire. The orcs picked off lone elven travelers off the roads and carted them off to their slave camps. The dreadlandic bandits hunted us for sport and the old Warhawkes attempted to murder the wives and children of our leaders to make a point.

 

We Have Faced Worse

 

We stand by the Empire. We stand by the Empire until it collapses, as it has stood by us. As it has helped us grow, as it has given us the stability to break our entire species out of a 200 year long slump. We stand with the Empire because we are loyal to our allies and our friends.

 

We have faced worse odds. We’ve faced down the wrath of the White Rose, the insanity of Kalenz Uradir, and always we have survived. A band of rebels occupying a fort in Northern Lorraine does not worry us.

 

Yet, even should the Empire collapse, we shall fight on. The elves have stood alone before, and survived. If necessary, we shall stand alone once more and fight those who seek to destroy us. The Orcs, the Rebels, the mali’fenn and the assorted bandits and slavers who fight among your newest coalition.

 

We will fight with our allies until the end. And if necessary, defend our home from those who would want to destroy us for choosing the wrong friends.

 

The Dominion stands with the Empire until the end, and should we go down in flames for it, let it be known that we were true to our friends, and true to our way of life. That even if our enemies tried to mislabel us as subjugated slaves, oppressed minions, we knew the truth. We are free elves, who want a stable world where we can live in peace, free from the realm of war, and to do that, we must fight.

 

Will you punish us for not abandoning our allies in a dire hour, folk of the Coalition?

 

Time will show your true colours.

 

With Regards,

The Free Elves of Axios

 

[mmat 7460]

Khaine readies his spear in defence...

[Inkthorn 1434]

Ser Sylvestre executes a proper Kaedreni salute as he visits Linandria, facing the Dominion's flag. "The mali'ame are wise."

[garentoft 9265]

Eleyas nodded his head a few times, "They can say whatever they wish, though we've no chains to rid ourselves off. Perhaps they should rid themselves of the chains of their mentality that the Empire and all who support them are inherently bad?"

[AGP 3169]

"It's not really oppressive it's just kinda boring," says Constantine.

[Zhulik 3559]

"Maybe I've given the elves a bad wrap. . ." comments the xenophobic Ser Leopold as he eyes the decaying Elf-Cage within Death's End. Shortly after, he'd apply two new letters to the sign, relabeling it 'snElf-Cage'.

[seannie 7443]

"The leadership of the Dominion are dogs of the Empire, unless the people do something about it themselves, no progressive change shall occur." scoffs Glyswen.

[Legoboy7984 3155]

Markus Brawm smiles hearing the news of the Dominions standing by the Empire

[KeatonUnbeaten 1103]

16 minutes ago, 吳憾戰士14 said:

Will you punish us for not abandoning our allies in a dire hour, folk of the Coalition?

"Of course not," Gared would remark. "We'll just have to show you the error of your ways."

[WoodenApples 382]

"Now that was a surprise"

[Guest]

Just now, Aeldrin said:

"If the Dominion stands with the Empire, it will die with the Empire," shrugs Aelthir II upon hearing the news in the privacy of his home.

"As will you." quips Finnadh.

[Vege 4804]

"It looks like we have some trees to burn." sighs Tobias.

[WuHanXianShi14 0]

3 minutes ago, Aeldrin said:

"If the Dominion stands with the Empire, it will die with the Empire," shrugs Aelthir II upon hearing the news in the privacy of his home.

"They'd still be about four genocides short of evening the score." shrugs Artimec I from the upon figuring that the snow elves would likely have such sentiments in the privacy of his own home.

[Chef891 232]

After reading the decree from the welves Ailduin recanters by saying, "You wish for a stable world but yet you refused for my kin, the mali'fenn, peace. In fact you attack us demanding that we bend the knee to the opressive Orenian Empire as you have done so much in the past century. So I ask again how is it that you strive for peace when you attack the mali'fenn out of spite for our existence?"

[Jonificus 2763]

"Raise high the black flags, my children. No prisoners. No pity. I will kill any man I see with pity in him." Merchant Prince Mithius of Ker'nor calls to his ragtag band of sellswords, bodyguards and ruffians. The lardy elven lord looks around the vicinity from atop his great stallion, angrily grumbling as he sees none of the other elven bannerforces about. "Hah, the good seeds and clans of the dominion fail to produce a worthwhile army like my own!" The bombastic bloated Mithius laughs heartily untill some wanderer passes them by, scoffing out "The others marched off five hours ago, halfwit." And with that, they fall back to forge tales of their valour at the missed battle in true Dalma fashion.