Canabraid Peninsula

Official Name: Canabraid Prison Colony

Founded: 1887

Form of Government: Despotism

Head of State: Kara Sarosin

Population Level: Low

Society Structure: Survival of the fittest

Technological Level: Low

Background: In the early 1800s, the Antonian States found itself saddled with a growing prisoner population, in part due to rumors that the sickness that had essentially disabled the country for twenty years in the mid-1700s had returned. The crimes committed were no more severe than they had ever been, but with the tint of paranoia skewing how those crimes were perceived, sentences lengthened dramatically. As the backlog of prisoners waiting for permanent accomodations piled up, the question arose of where to put them.

As it turned out, the easternmost state of Canabraid was dealing with its own problems. Set in a valley surrounded by high mountains, the difficulty of travel in and out of the state kept the population small and basic government services at a minimum. The people of Canabraid took pride in their ability to live with few creature comforts, but this did not stop them from demanding services such as reliable electricity and plumbing; given the small size of the state, the federal government was the responsible entity, and the federal accountants did not smile on putting the money required into serving so few.

When the prisoner issue reached critical mass, a decision was made to relocate the residents of Canabraid and turn the state into a prison colony. The noise made at their displacement was not enough to move any political needles, as a much greater number of people were simply pleased to see the overflowing prisoners finally shipped to a land so difficult to reach they may as well have landed across the ocean. Thus, in the early 1820s (dates vary), the Canabraid Prison Encampment was formed.

For nearly sixty years the camp was run as a normal prison, apart from the fact the prisoners were kept in abandoned houses and other buildings rather than an actual jail. Guards kept order as best they could, prisoners were kept in confinement most of the day, and- when all prisoners were shunted to Canabraid in 1858, including women- separated by gender. This last part proved most troublesome, as more than one attempt was made by a horde of male prisoners to march north, where female prisoners were kept at the tip of the Canabraid valley, and take control. But the ability to close down all other prisons in the country proved too politcally valuable, and the setup was not altered regardless of potential trouble.

Founding: What stability existed in Canabraid broke with the coming of the Melt. Guards were slowly siphoned off to help with national emergency measures, until in 1880 the remaining force (about half of the old peak) was entirely removed. Without anyone to police the valley, chaos broke out almost immediately. Gang rivalries kept in check by the guards' superior firepower exploded; soon, once some of the men were able to free themselves from the fighting, a vanguard made its way to the women's camp.

Though almost no news made its way into Canabraid, the disappearance of the guards was all many of the women needed as a reason to flee into the mountains. Those who chose not to brave the cold and lack of resources, and those who did not venture far enough into the mountains to avoid capture, were swiftly rounded up and taken back south by the gangs. Once they arrived in the main camp- the old Canabraid capital- the violence increased further, if that were possible. With a male-female ratio of approximately nine to one, men showed an unfathomable brutality towards each other in an effort to claim one woman or another for themselves, frequently followed by violence almost as severe towards the women (the only thing holding them in check was a desire to keep the women alive, however barely in some cases).

By 1883, the situation had stabilized somewhat. The population had decreased dramatically, with only a few gangs surviving to become, essentially, factions in a new order. Marko Rivocic, an immigrant from Bremen imprisoned for a string of quasi-cannibalistic murders, led the strongest of these factions, known as the Hell Badgers. As the de facto head of Canabraid, he ruled through both fear of his extraordinary bloodlust and rewards handed out for loyal service- food, better shelter, occasionally even women. The situation remained tenuous, however, especially as rumors leaked of resources running low and skirmishes continued to burn away at their numbers

But Rivocic did not need stability. He eventually bought the loyalty of the other two factions, the Demon Weasels and the Belligerent Otters. (It should be noted that the first major Canabraid gang was known as the Death Tigers, and several other gangs spun up names designed to mock them as a way of asserting independence.) With that accomplished, in 1884, Rivocic gathered all the factions together and launched an assault on Nogero State, to the west.

Though the passes leading to Nogero were easily defensible, the desperation of the prisoners and their sheer numbers compared to the skeleton Antonian force made the battle no contest. Canabraid prisoners spread across the state; with no vehicles at hand except what they could capture intact, progress was slow, and most of the population was able to escape before the invaders arrived at their homes. But Nogero was still well-populated, and a significant number of women were taken prisoner (scattered accounts say some men were kept as well, but those have proven inconclusive; it is known at least the vast majority of captured men were executed).

Caught entirely off-guard, with all their troops hip-deep in rescue operations due to the Melt, the Antonian government was not able to react in time to retake the state. Planes flew endless reconnaissance missions, with some going so far as to make strafing or bombing runs on pockets of faction members, but the lack of intel regarding civilian prisoners kept airborne attacks to a minimum. By the time ground troops were gathered, Rivocic's forces had closed off the underground passes between Nogero and the rest of the States, narrow tunnels which could be guarded by one appropriately-equipped man against a thousand or more. With no reliable way to land a significant number of soldiers in Nogero- parachute technology was in its infancy, and enough Canabraid fighters roamed the state to spot just about any planes overhead- the unfortunate decision was made to focus on saving as many lives as possible from the Melt and simply block any further incursions from the prison camp.

As it turned out, Rivocic had no desire to press further. The crux of his plan was not only to relieve the pressure on the prisoners in Canabraid's relatively small valley; he threw both the Demon Weasels and Belligerent Otters at Nogero, keeping most of his forces in Canabraid. Once Nogero was taken, not only were the rival factions at a significant remove geographically, but with their only loyalty being to Rivocic, they were free to battle each other for supremacy in their newly-taken territory. Being safely a full mountain range separated from the action, Rivocic eventually declared the expanded Canabraid peninsula a colony rather than an encampment, with himself as supreme leader, in 1887.

Pre-Melt: N/A

Melt: N/A

Great War: As the world began pushing towards recovery from the Melt, the Antonian States continued to keep tabs on the situation in Canabraid by air. Most of this reconnaissance took place in over Nogero State- or Western Canabraid, as Rivocic demanded it be called in his occasional wide-band radio lectures on the glory of the strong over the weak- but occasionally pressed into airspace over the original prison camp as well. These trips were infrequent both because the camp was not currently accessible by any means, and because the higher mountains ringing the camp posed a greater danger. Indeed, in late 1888, a flight scheduled to roam the northern part of the old prison camp never returned.

As it turned out, assumptions that the plane had crashed in the mountains were correct, with all hands lost. What no one in the States knew was that the wreckage was not recovered by Rivocic's men, but rather by a contingent of women who had lived in the caves of those mountains ever since escaping just ahead of the arrival of the gangs almost ten years previous. It had been, unsurprisingly, an immensely difficult existence, and most of the escapees had died in the intervening period. About thirty remained at the time of the crash; they ventured up to the site in hopes of finding always-critical supplies or a functional radio.

What they found, instead, were an obliterated radio and tons of weapons. There was no sign of why so many weapons were loaded on board the plane, as the crew consisted only of two pilots and two support staff with unknown responsibilities; the precise numbers are unknown, but there were more than enough rifles and sabers to outfit every woman with one of each, with some left over in case of breakdowns, as well as four steel crates of dynamite no one cared to touch. Immediately a few of the women sought to charge out of the hills and shoot every man they encountered, but they were in some way mollified, and the group continued to live in secret. They familiarized themselves with the functioning of the rifles, but did not fire due to ammunition concerns and fear of the noise echoing out of the mountains, drawing unwanted attention. But all of them began to work on functional sword use, some more than others.

Amongst those more interested in swordplay was Kara Sarosin. At the time, she was nine years old, born in prison to one of the last women sent to Canabraid before its abandonment. Such occurrences were unusual, but not unheard of; while most of the group were in their 30s and 40s, there were also two girls named Sandy and Dusty, ages twelve and eleven respectively, who had arrived in the world under similar circumstances. They were friends and allies mainly due to having no other age peers, and needing support at one time or another against pressure from the older women. (It us unclear if any of their mothers were still alive at that point, but if they were it did not seem they offered much in the way of protection.) Though the young tend to see small variances in age as important, if not critically so, the three girls acted more or less as equals, and were viewed as such by the group.

Once the weapons were introduced, however, this began to change. Sarosin had already begun to display a natural dexterity, both with tools and an ability to move in silence. More than once she had foraged food from the base of the mountains, which was not devoid of dangerous wildlife, and had even boasted of sneaking supplies away from a temporary hunting camp set up by Rivocic's men. When the women began to practice their swordplay, although none of them had ever held a blade, the young girl learned the fastest and quickly began to outshine them all. After a year, the only women who remained challenges were Doris Hemingway, a farmer woman who had somehow retained much of her strength over the years in hiding and posed a danger solely on the basis of her strength and reach, and her two friends- but only if the two of them worked as a team.

By the time Sarosin was eleven, she had mastered the ability that would strengthen the group for what was to come- moving so quietly through the woods outside the old women's prison that she could sneak up on a deer or other herbivore and kill it with a stroke of the sword. The most difficult part, at least with the larger animals, was returning them to camp; it generally required Hemingway's help, which meant scouting a significant perimeter to make sure none of Rivocic's men had set up to hunt so that they did not hear her stomping through the forest. But the group made it work, and over time rebuilt their bodies to good health. Some, especially the older women, only managed a useful level of athleticism; others grew quite strong relative to the average women, with Sarosin and her compatriots turning out both lithe and powerful. In time Sandy and Dusty became capable enough to join Sarosin's hunts, and on at least three occasions were able to feed the group for over a week with a mountain bear.

This improved health helped the group stave off the slow deaths that had seemed sure to claim them, but as more years passed some continued to die away. By 1896, despite her age, Sarosin had become the de facto leader of the group. That year, around her sixteenth birthday, she returned to the crash site. The group had maintained some distance ever since the initial looting, as none of them knew what to expect from the explosives, but given the lack of problems Sarosin assumed they were stable. She dragged the crates back to camp one at a time; once they were stacked up two and two, she sat up on them and explained how she perceived their situation, and how she planned to change it.

Over the course of several weeks, the group shifted its base out of the mountains and into the ruins of the women's prison. For whatever reason, the men never used it when hunting; perhaps after years of being locked up in normal houses, followed by years more of actual freedom, the idea of staying in or near jail cells was repulsive. Regardless, the position put them less than a week's walk from the main Canabraid city. Presumably Rivocic still stayed there, though the condition of the city was a mystery.

From there, Sarosin left the hunting to Sandy, Dusty, and whoever else was capable of helping them. Her nights were spent creeping outside the edge of the forest, calculating the men's movement patterns- when they came to hunt, how long they stayed, how long until they returned. The men themselves were thankfully easy to spot; not thinking they needed to take any precautions, large campfires were the norm, as was the bellowing of drunks. Contact was avoided at all costs, and Sarosin's hunters were instructed to remain far from any territory the men might cover in a given day.

Once the men's movements were hashed out, the next few months were given to scouting the entire distance between the women's camp and the capital.

Post-War to Present: