The Shepherd’s Path, Part 13: The Early Years
The decades that followed the arrival at Sanctuary were a blur of activity. The facility was slowly turned into a settlement, then eventually to a full-fledged city-state. New generations were born and came of age, not just in Sanctuary but across the whole planet. New nations and societies formed in the vacuum left after the destruction of the Church.
The major powers on the planet were in a near constant state of warfare. This warfare almost always had religion as a major focal point, making it particularly brutal and bloody. Entire towns were wiped out as people were slaughtered for religious crimes and burned at the stake for heresy. Examples of advanced technology also became causes for war, as warlords fought over and used tech far beyond their understanding to devastate their foes. As society in Sanctuary stabilized, a debate began to emerge among its leadership: should they stay out and let the planet continue its descent or should they intervene and stop it? The horrors visited upon the innocent resonated with those who believed in the Church’s role as guardian to God’s flock.
Regardless of the various parties’ positions on intervention, it was agreed that some military capability was needed. The biggest challenge facing any military force for Sanctuary was scale. While none of the existing forces on the planet were particularly large, all of them far outnumbered anything the inhabitants of Sanctuary could bring to bear. Quality would have to be prioritized over quantity. The Church’s storage and hoarding of technology proved to be useful in this regard by providing a ready base of designs to be studied upon and improved. Research into this existing technology found at Sanctuary yielded viable designs for combat vehicles. A reinvention of an existing bipedal design offered the best mix of firepower, armor, and maneuverability that the small forces of Sanctuary could then leverage. Fluidity and flexibility would be the name of the game. The very first design, dubbed the <error, data corrupted>, was put into production in 405 NJ (5823 AD). This first unit would be joined by the <error, data corrupted> less than a decade later as a representative of an alternative design philosophy.
By 452 NJ (5869 AD) Sanctuary had grown to become a city-state of its own. Its location at the north pole meant that travelers were absurdly rare, but those that did make it often made suitable recruits. In addition to the occasional traveler, Sanctuary personnel would travel in disguise amongst the regular populace. These travels also yielded two major assets. They offered a covert recruiting tool for new members, and also allowed the establishment of networks of agents across the planet. These agents would pass on information and any examples of lost technology they could acquire, as well as set up dead drops for materials going to Sanctuary. They could also serve as interference in case anybody got suspicious of the travelers from Sanctuary, and even provide safehouses for agents.
It was through these agents that Sanctuary’s leadership began to learn of attacks before they occurred. This added fuel to the debate about whether or not they should intervene in the rest of the planet's affairs. If the people of Sanctuary could stop an atrocity before it happened, weren’t they ethically obligated to try? Eventually, intervention was agreed upon, but not open contact. Sanctuary’s fledgling military forces had spent decades honing their craft and learning tricks to stay out of sight. This would become their modus operandi for the intervention. Strike hard and fast, fade away before retaliation.
The room’s three inhabitants were silent as the viewscreen played its recording. It was only a few days old, and had been forwarded to Sanctuary by one of its many agents across the planet. The recording was of the aftermath of a ‘battle’ fought by a group calling itself the Collective of a New Canaan. The Collective had a reputation for extreme brutality and, judging by the recording, may have outdone themselves here. The only thing that disturbed the room’ inhabitants more than the massacre was the fact that it wasn’t noteworthy.
An older woman finally broke the silence. “Do you see this? This is insane. It keeps happening, and it’ll just get worse until someone steps in.” The cold fury in her voice chilled the spines of the other two people in the room. An aged man responded to her.
“And you feel that should be us? I understand the impulse to help, but realistically what can we do to stop this? Wouldn’t responding with even more violence just escalate things further?” He waved his hands at the screen as he spoke.
The woman replied “No, it wouldn’t. Things are already escalating, even while we sit around doing nothing. If we destroy those who commit these acts, it will warn others of their fate if they follow in their footsteps. Something positive might actually happen for a change.” The man did not look convinced, but that was not unexpected. This argument had happened dozens of times, and every one of them had always ended in gridlock. As if repeating a chorus in a song, the two looked at the third member of their group. In the past, this would have solved nothing, as their third member was perpetually undecided. But that was before he had to retire, and was replaced by a younger man some twenty years younger than the aged man and old woman. This was his first meeting with his older compatriots. The younger man looked at the screen as his hands danced across the controls.
The younger man rewatched a section of the recording before pausing. A quick few taps on the controls zoomed in on a portion of the screen and moved the picture back a few frames. The image settled on a destroyed house. Bullet holes dotted the house’s facade like acne on a child’s face. The front door stood open, and it looked like someone had entered and cleared the house. He zoomed the picture further into the front door. The three viewers could make out some of the detail inside. The house looked like a single room where a family had lived. Had, in the past tense. What could be seen had been ransacked but that wasn't what drew their attention. A small stuffed animal lay on the ground. It was obvious it was ripped, stomped on. and heavily damaged, but the camera settled on the red liquid stains on it. The younger man looked to his two compatriots.
“Never again.”
