Between Snake River Dam and Borderlands

[What happened between spring 2001 when the last SRD episodes were posted and January 2003 when the Borderlands scenario started.]

Several players dropped out over the next few months, which made it necessary to drop several story threads.

Arat builds a luxurious mansion, resembling his ancestral home, for himself, Jeniard, Nick, a bunch of live-in servants, and a private armed security force to protect the grounds (and himself).

That fall, there's some political contention in Capitol between Hajene Bollit, an upper administrator with a hard-line anti-Audnes (anti-Arat) position, and Seruffin. Bollit will be challenging Seruffin in the coming election for Assistant World Controller. Seruffin is getting flak from various directions about Arat's management of the SRD site, and Arat's potential for involving himself in seditious, even secessionist, activities against the Tecton.

Seruffin decides to send Hajene Neptude and Arat's nemesis Sosu Pylor to the dam site. Neptude is to be Controller, with Arat as his assistant, as a sop to the anti-Audnes faction. He's also to write a report on conditions physical, social and political there. Neptude is notoriously bureaucratic and incompetent, but he's the only one Seruffin and Bollit can agree on. Bollit takes Neptude aside and coerces him to write a report damning Arat in exchange for helping Neptude's nephew Hajene Lexus who has run afoul of the law in the matter of some alleged corruption.

Neptude and Pylor arrive and panic/despair/scheming ensue. Taking transfer from Pylor puts Arat out of commission for two weeks, and Arat takes back the Controllership largely by coercing Neptude into subservience, using his powerful nager to evoke Neptude's Sime instinct to defer to the sec. Note that this is a behavior characteristic of pre-Unity junct culture, much deprecated in channels by the Tecton. Neptude isn't too unhappy about the situation, since it lets him do mainly bureaucratic work, which he much prefers to clinical work. Since he won't know until spring whether Seruffin or Bollit has won the election, he works on two versions of his report -- one praising Arat and one damning him.

Nick, Jeniard and Snake decide that Arat will alternate between Nick and channel's transfer from Snake, while Snake will use Nick and Pylor.

As the winter progresses, everyone gets increasingly stressed out and extreme behavior becomes more common. I'll skip over the minor story threads.

In early spring a messenger brings the news to Neptude that Bollit has won the election and is sending Seruffin out to be the new Controller at the Dam. Worse news for Arat is that Jeniard, the main factor in keeping him relatively sane, is to return to Capital.

Seruffin arrives, with Gerrhonot as his Donor.

Pressured by Snake, with his sanity and restraint eroding in the absence of Jeniard and the necessity of taking channel's transfer half the time, Arat begins moves to establish himself as head of an Audnes-type feudal regime at the Dam. Seruffin, who has always been sympathetic to him, tries to reason with him and Snake about the disastrous effects this could have should Bollit discover it and act, with not much effect.

Seruffin has long felt that the Tecton restrictions on Arat engaging in political activity are excessive and unfair, and believes Arat would never try to foment another Audnes rebellion. It is, however, his duty as Arat's superior to enforce these restrictions.

Snake, of course, has a life-and-death hold on Arat since she addicted him to xylexion. Her questionable sanity becomes much less questionable insanity, and there's no understanding her motives, or guessing what she may do next.

At this point Arat's visible political activities are limited to efforts to influence a disparate group of inept people who are clumsily trying to set up an elected government for the area. Since most of this is more or less within his rights as a citizen, Seruffin doesn't interfere except to warn Arat to restrain himself. Arat soon becomes disappointed with incipient democracy.

Seruffin gets things under some control at the Dam site, considering the limitations, but unintentionally offends the Naros bath house contingent who start a huge smear campaign spreading hundreds of bizarre rumors derogating him.

Later that fall, the Quadrilaterals pressure Arat to take political control of the Dam area, in fulfillment of the agreements he made with them several years before in Capital. Snake increases the pressure and plans to assassinate Bollit, as the main obstruction to Arat's long-suppressed ambitions. They confront Seruffin, and Snake implies that interfering with their plans may make his survival questionable.

Gerrhonot worries intensely about Seruffin's safety and even confides in Nick. While Arat is sleeping off a transfer, word comes of an almost successful assassination attempt on Bollit. Arat wakes and crosses the Rubicon, determined to take power at the Dam by virtue of his overwhelming sec, in the manner of junct society. He rejects Seruffin's duly constituted Tecton authority over him, despite Seruffin's offers to let him reconsider.

Seruffin, betrayed by his protege and loyal to the Tecton and its role, does something remarkable. He knows the Dam won't be able to make it through the winter without the two Farris channels, nor with Arat, Snake and their cliques rejecting his authority. He resigns the Controllership and transfers it to Arat, in order to keep the hierarchical organization of the selyn workers at the site intact. He hopes to make it back to Capital before winter isolates the Dam, to warn the Tecton of Arat's revolt. He also hopes that the Controllership will hamper Arat's political efforts by consuming most of his time and energy.

Seruffin and Gerrhonot arrive in Capital and discuss matters with World Controller Jaklin. She makes Seruffin her troubleshooter, which turns into his diplomatic job in Borderlands. Meanwhile, back at the Dam, two new First Order channels, associated with Bollit for different reasons, turn up and try to figure out what's going on there. Arat's plans for his little empire are further thwarted by their suspicions of him, and his paranoid unwillingness to trust them with any responsibility, which requires him to take on most of the load himself.

Through all this Nick has mainly focused on his life-consuming job of supporting two aberrant Farris channels with seemingly unlimited demands on him to ensure their survival. While he lost his trust for Snake when she used him as her unknowing tool to addict Arat to xylexion, he's continued to give Arat the benefit of the doubt and sympathize, more or less, with his suffering. Arat is annoyed by, but resigned to, Nick's total lack of interest in Arat's political or managerial activities except as they affect Arat's health and well-being.

Gradually Nick becomes aware that Arat really does intend to establish himself as the feudal lord of the region, in the manner of his ancestors. The last straw is when he finds that Arat has claimed and purchased all available land in the area, and the so-called land claims office in his proposed new town hall will be to establish tenancy under Arat's landlordship, not ownership of the land. Land ownership is a very sore point with Nick, who has long fantasized about owning a farm of his own. It's a further blow to him when Arat makes it clear that any personal relationship Nick believes he has with Arat is entirely one-sided. Nick has now been personally betrayed by both channels he's devoted his life to, but they continue to treat him and his services as only their just due, even though their lives depend on him.

At this point, Arat's player dropped out, so the Dam scenario was left hanging. We've been careful not to say anything too revealing about what might have happened there when the Tecton came in after the passes opened in the spring, but in one of the last episodes in the scenario, Arat indicated that one of his ideas for dealing with renSime unemployment at the Dam site was to form an army.