In-Depth Lore (Pax)

Ash Kakisto was born to a family of Overlander humans in the Station Square District of New Mobius City, the capital of Mobius, a country in a continent far away from the events of Aloidia SMP. Her birth was during a tumultuous time period of Mobius’ history, the Mobian Civil War.

Mobius historically was ruled by the Koopa Kingdom, who created a tradition of treating Overlanders better than the majority Mobians or tribal Zoah due to marrying a Overlander or having an Overlander concubine in the king’s harem each generation. And during a devastating war against the Crusader Kingdom of Aeolia in 100 BS, the majority of Zoah and Overlanders were exempt from conscription, leading to the majority of Mobii (the demonym of Mobius) fighting in the war to be Mobians. The loss of the war led to the Koopa Kingdom being forced to take in Overlander and Koopa peoples from Aeolia, with the Overlander people being settled in Mobius. This inflamed ethnic tensions and led to many pogroms and public lynchings of Overlanders and Zoah.

20 years before Ash’s birth, Mobius eventually became a democratic republic, referring to itself as the Social Democratic Republic of Mobius, promising freedoms and rights for everyone. However, this was not to be. Due to the xenophobia of Mobians, other Mobii such as Overlanders and Zoah were subject to discriminatory legislation and state-sponsored pogroms and lynchings. Due to this, many Overlanders and Zoah began to think that only through violence, will they be ever able to be free from the constraints of this system.

A month after her birth, the predominantly Overlander terrorist group known as the Archons of Overlander Territory (will be referred to as AOT from now on) seized the Station Square District along with the Soleanna District (a predominantly Overlander District) and the Ark, which was the slums of New Mobius City, declaring it the Free Territory of Archaea. The Constitution created by the AOT, lead to an end of discriminatory legislation being imposed on Overlanders, Zoah and any Mobians who continued to reside in Archaea.

During the next 4 years, she became close friends with Marcus, a Zoah from the Phoenix Tribe who resided within the Ark, and Sulvr, a Mobian, residing within the Soleanna District, whose family sympathised with the plight of the Overlanders and Zoah. They enjoyed playing make-believe with each other and pretending to be culture heroes such as Rosy the Rascal, the Overlander Concubine who managed to help Mobius become independent or prophets of Acolytism, Shadism or Voxai.

However during this time period, AOT started losing its hold on its territory outside of the former New Mobius City, and with the aid of Aeolia, Mobius’ army and guerrilla groups started reclaiming the territory outside New Mobius City, until New Mobius City was the only remaining stronghold of AOT.

A week before Ash’s fifth birthday, Ash was busy playing with Sulvr and Marcus in the Ark when Archaea’s Invasion Alert System started blaring. Sulvr’s parents quickly picked her up and drove her home while Marcus ran inside his house. Ash, started running on the road towards her home in the Station Square District.

On the way there, she spotted Mobian soldiers burning down houses, looting, raping and hunting down Overlanders, Zoah and any Mobians who tried resisting them. Not wanting to be caught by them, she runs off the street into the park and jumps into the river. A few minutes later, when the line of the soldiers marches up to the park, a few of the soldiers approach her body in the water, one of them, a Corporal, checks for her pulse and feels one. However, instead of murdering or harming her like his fellow soldiers had done to others, he tells his fellow soldiers that she had died, leading to them marching away in the direction of the Ark and leaving her alone.

Once the soldiers had marched far away enough, Ash stepped out of the river and continued running towards the Station Square District. She eventually arrives to see the majority of it destroyed. She runs into her home, which wasn’t fully destroyed by the soldiers and sees the mutilated and dead bodies of her mum, dad and sister. Frightened, she runs into the cupboard and stays there until night, when she wakes up to hear numerous people walking around inside the house. Eventually, someone opens the cupboard and it turns out to Sulvr who runs downstairs to tell her parents that she found Ash.

Sulvr and her parents take Ash into their car and quickly drive away south towards the border between Mobius and the city-state of Blockburg. Sulvr falls asleep and then Ash asks them about Marcus and asks them if he’s fine, but Sulvr’s parents tell her that the military had sectioned off the Ark and all its residents, including Marcus and his family, were taken into trucks and taken out of the city. Ash starts to cry but Sulvr’s parents tell her that they will try use their influence as Mobians to save Marcus and his family, leading her to cheer up and hoping that the day that she sees Marcus again is soon.

They arrive at the border where there are thousands of people waiting for a chance to get into Blockburg. Eventually, the Ruling Committee of Blockburg decides to give all refugees from Archaea citizenship, and all the refugees took their chance, scrambling across the border before the military secured this border.

Upon reaching Blockburg, Ash has to change her name to prevent her from discrimination and as such changes it from Ash Kakisto to Saran Eidolon. She resides with Sulvr and her family within the suburb of Meep. On the first day of school, she along with Sulvr become good friends with three children in their grade: Eric, Justin and Michael. Due to her friendships with them, Saran starts to forget her memories of what happened on her last day in Archaea and moves on from it.

The following next few years were the best part of Saran’s life as she was able to live a life without constant discrimination or fear of being killed by Mobian forces. During this time, she gave Eric, Justin and Michael nicknames. Eric received Mowntan Kik as he loved to ski on the slopes of Mount Rapture, Justin received Small Lizard due to a Halloween costume that he wore on the first Halloween that Ash had in Blockburg and Michael received Techboy thanks to his expertise in technology, whether that be software or hardware.

However during their teenage years, they drifted apart after an incident which left Michael crippled. Eric closed himself off from everybody else and became a NEET who spent all of his time watching anime or playing gacha games. Michael blamed Saran for the incident and as such started discriminating against her, making comments about her religion, ethnicity and Mobius. This left Saran with only two friends left: Sulvr and Justin.

However, Sulvr and her family had to leave Blockburg, and having no one else to rely on, Justin’s parents took Saran in. Over this time, Justin and Saran got to know each other and eventually became lovers.

Saran, looking for a job, decided to work for an NGO located in Blockburg dedicated to restoring Archaea and destroying Mobius’ military and ending the systemic discrimination present there. The NGO decided to give her a job as a drug smuggler, smuggling drugs into Mobius in order to make Mobian soldiers addicted to the drugs and more prone to being manipulated for a coup d’état. She was told that she had to pretend to be of New Mexican identity and Saran managed to successfully use this façade to avoid being detained by those at the military.

However, this would all end once Mobius decided that it should invade Blockburg to end the resistance of all of the Overlanders and Zoah people who fled there during the destruction of Archaea. Mobius gave Blockburg an ultimatum stating that if they were not to deport all the Overlanders and Zoah peoples back to Mobius, Blockburg will be invaded. The Ruling Committee of Blockburg refuses to do so.

As such, Mobius deploys its army and its predominant militia ‘The Freedom Fighters of Mobius’ in order to invade Blockburg. Blockburg decides to retaliate by deploying its only active military, the Phantom Force Militia to prevent this invasion. After a few days of siege warfare and guerrilla tactics, the Phantom Forces were defeated leading to the Ruling Committee to agree to an armistice which made Blockburg a vassal of Mobius, essentially meaning that the Committee became puppets for the military junta of Mobius.

Deciding to continue the eradication of all Overlander and Zoah people, the Generals of Mobius decided to place all Overlanders, Zoah and those who hid them into concentration camps. As such, Saran, Justin, Eric, Michael were all detained by the military, and imprisoned within the concentration camps.

The inhumane conditions of the camp triggered an ability in Saran that allowed her to turn objects into gold, meaning that she was forced to take part in unethical human experimentation by scientists determined to find out how to utilise her power. Saran suffered extremely at the hands of the prison guards as well for being Overlander. Due to this, Saran became resigned to her fate, believing that there was no life for her outside of this hell, and noticing her mental deterioration, Eric, Michael and Justin put aside their differences and started formulating an escape plan.

Deciding to take on codenames based of the nicknames that Saran had given them years ago, Eric, Justin and Michael helped organise riots against prison guards and destroyed all of the data recorded by the scientists. Saran, on the other hand, focused all of her energy into formulating a plan for a prison escape and created a utopia, where government no longer existed, people were truly free and people treated others with care without prejudice and discrimination, which she could strive to create. Having created this utopian vision, Saran decided to create a persona for herself named ‘Pax Australis’ after the peace that she had in Blockburg before Mobius’ invasion.

Eventually, thanks to support from Aaron Ax, who had managed to escape being placed in the concentration camp, the prisoners were able to hoard weapons and ammunition.

On Re:take Day, a Mobian national holiday that celebrated the end of Archaea, the prison escape occurred. First, Pax, Techboy, Small Lizard and Mowntan Kik all gave speeches giving the prisoners hope and then a scuffle was instigated between the prisoner guards and the prisoners. In the ensuing chaos, all the prisoners used their weapons and ammunition to overpower the guards, break through the security perimeter and flood on the streets.

Techboy proceeded to travel to other concentration camps in order to orchestrate further concentration camps, Mowntan Kik led the crowds to take control of the ‘means of production’, and Small Lizard and Pax Australis lead a destructive mob into Mobius. Aeolia, under the leader of Rachel Belle, uses this as an opportunity to invade Mobius, meaning that Mobian troops were unable to prevent the revolution in Blockburg.

Pax was stubborn in her belief that there was no hope trying to broker a peace deal and yearned for the destruction of Mobius. As such, she created a terrorist group named the ‘Vigilantes of Nocturnus’ (in reference to the legendary progenitors of Overlanders and Zoah) or VON for short. VON caused mass destruction and riots in Mobius. Small Lizard, opposed to this, approached the Freedom Fighters of Mobius for a special audience with the leaders of Mobius’ military junta in order to broker a peace deal.

Pax arrives at Crisis Zone, the headquarters of the military, where she meets up with Justin, who asks Pax to have a private meeting for him. Pax agrees and turns up at the specified location, her old apartment in Station Square. Small Lizard turns up, visibly in tears, and when Pax attempts to console him, he lunges at her and attempts to stab her in the chest. However, Pax catches his hand, in a panic turns the knife into gold and stabs himself in the chest. She then ran out of the apartment to see the dead bodies of the members of VON, and overhears some members of the Freedom Fighters that she, Eric and Michael are on a hitlist. She proceeds to warn them to escape and they flee the continent.