How war was ended in Chaladon
When Abagail ascended the throne, she quickly became known as the Warrior Queen, mobilizing the Celadonian economy for total war and leading the nation on a crusade against the hated Bloogans. Much of this was driven by her thirst for revenge against those who had killed her husband and sons, but historians believe political considerations were equally important. It seems odd now, looking back from the perspective of time, but in those days there was considerable opposition to the idea of a woman leading the nation. Abagail was extremely intelligent, and as the first female leader, she was careful to demonstrate she could be just as tough as any man. In any case, Celadonian citizens were equally filled with the thirst for retribution and they responded to her leadership with enthusiasm. Victory followed victory as the combined forces of Celadonia and Riptornika defeated Bloogan and Garbonian armies.
Equally important was General Bragon who came up with the idea of hitching Boodles to chariots and then developing this cavalry into a mobile strike force. For centuries, Celadonia had better-armed infantry, but often had suffered defeats by the more mobile Bloogan forces. Celadonian cavalry now cancelled the Bloogan advantage given them by their six-legged horses.
The Bloogan horse cavalry struck fear in the hearts of any infantry brigade, slashing wildly with their high quality broadswords and trampling the poor foot soldiers under the thundering hooves of the six-legged "demon" horses. Worse, the horses "ran like the wind," and infantry commanders never knew when these thundering swarms might suddenly descend upon their plodding troops.
Traditionally, Riptornikans protected their foot soldiers from the Bloogan horse troops with the fameous bear cavalry. Bears were not nearly as fast as horses, but horses were terrified by bears. Bloogan infantry foot soldiers were even more terrified because bears were known to bite, and in any case, they roared most horribly.
Garbonians had no domestic animals big enough to ride, so Laderbin persuaded them to train Snufflers to pull a sort of chariot that would allow the fameous Garbonian "long lances" to protrude several feet in front of the Snuffler where they could skewer enemy infantry like shish-ka-bob.
As mentioned earlier, Abagail's forces inflicted many defeats on the Bloogans and even established many Celadonian settlements in Bloogan territory. After a time, however, she began to have second thoughts about the unending conflict and negotiated an uneasy truce. Unfortunately, the peace that followed was doomed to be of short duration. Thirsting for revenge of their own, Bloogans used the truce to rebuild their shattered forces and to force their Garbonian allies into a mobilization as well. Finally in the year 3738, Laderbin and his Garbonian allies invaded Celadonia with the idea of exterminating Celadonia once and for all. King Clutch of Riptornika brought his army to aid in the defense of the Celadonia capitol of Bedab, but met with misfortunes. Clutch was not known as the sharpest arrow in the quiver, (Many of his officers snickered behind his back while calling him Lord Klutz.). First, he managed to lose his entire dog herd along the trail in a stampede caused by Squeezer attacks, (and thus, lost all the bear food), and then second, he lost most of his hungry cavalry bears as they broke through the corral fences in search of food. Meanwhile, a Garbonian advance force that had slipped into Celadonia by sneaking up an isolated valley behind the Celadonian defense lines to threaten Bedab from the rear was defeated in an amazing victory assisted by my own daughter and her friend Melvin, who were accidently on the scene as a result of the first tele-transport event. The dreaded Snuffler cavalry was defeated surprisingly easily. Melvin invented an "ant bomb," actually a small packet of ants fired by slingshots into the faces of the charging Snufflers that caused the terrified animals to roll on the ground and frantically paw their faces, completely wreaking the chariots in the process. Hundreds of wagons rushed forward in the second wave of the attack, each carrying twenty spear throwers with reserve spears—the first rapid fire weapons system in the history of Chaladon. Just one such wagon racing across a line of close-packed infantry could unleash a cloud of 600 deadly spears in the course of five minutes, and the Garbonian army had 978 such wagons thundering towards the densely packed Celadonain infantry legions. It was a terrifying sight. The wagons were pulled by teams of diminutive Sniglets, their long noses carefully tied up to prevent them from sneeting and thus causing the animals to panic. Unfortunately for the Garbonians, my daughter invented an artificial Sniglet sneeter. Lindal and the other girls of the "sneeter brigade" bravely rushed forth in the face of the charging wagons, sneeting as they had never sneeted before, and the thousands of confused Sniglets responded with panic, each fifteen-Sniglet team trying to run in fifteen different directions at the same time. Wagons were overturned and wreaked, scattering dazed and demoralized spear throwers about the battlefield in complete disarray where they were easily captured by the Boodle cavalry. (This amazing story is described in the separate account entitled, Chaladon, First Contact.) Two weeks later, the two armies lined up for the "fight to the death"on the pretty, green fields just north of Bedab The opposing forces were roughly equal in strength. Bloogan swordsmen and Garbonian spear throwers only slightly outnumbered the well-armed Celadonian legions and "mobs" of Riptornikan rock throwers. The two cavalry armies also were roughly equal. Laderbin had lost his Garbonian cavalry forces, but General Fragem also had lost his Riptornikan bear cavalry, so the final match would see whether the fierce Bloogan horse cavalry could defeat the Boodle chariots. Only one thing was certain—thousands of Chaladonians would die this day. A few days earlier, the consequences of this impending battle had weighed heavily on Abagail's mind, and she had thought long and hard about her part in the unfolding drama. Finally, she had asked for a private meeting with old Hamish, her long-time Grindle friend and advisor who had helped develop her sense of humor and finally cope with the loss of her loved ones. She had laid out the entire scenario where both groups were determined to exterminate the other, and she had agonized about her responsibility to preserve the Celadonian nation and its culture at any cost, however grim those results might be.
Grindles are short and stout, waddling about on ten-inch legs without a knee. (When they run, they resemble a fat penguin in a hurry.) They have large ears, seemingly able to hear sounds from miles away. One observer described being with a Grindle as they looked out across a forested valley. The look on the Grindle's face was one of almost indescribable bliss, and so he asked why his companion seemed so pleased. "Ah, my friend, I am simply listening to the beautiful harmonies of nature." Reported our observer, "I think they can hear things we can only imagine." Their eyes, however, are most striking of all. They're as big as teacups, and when a Grindle looks at you, it seems as if he can see inside your soul and read your heart. Doubt that? Consider this: while looking into the kindly and knowing eyes of a Grindle, just the THOUGHT of telling a lie makes words stick in your throat and cold sweat trickle down between your shoulder blades. Grindle eyes suck truth out of a person like a mighty moral vacuum cleaner. After Abagail finished explaining her agonizing dilemma, old Hamish just looked at her with that kindly, thoughtful look he always displayed, thinking long and hard before he replied. Finally, he answered, "dear girl, I understand the problem—and so do you. You just haven't yet found the words to explain it to yourself." Abagail just looked mystefied, so he continued, "Maybe it would help if you tried to explain to me the reason why you silly humans want to kill each other—and I mean the real reasons. Don't tell me the tales about he did this, and he did that, and so we did so and so. Tell me about the real reasons—when did it start and how did it start?" "Well," she hesitantly replied, "I suppose it all goes back to the fundamentals. God gave my ancestors the fundamental laws for living a moral life way back in the beginning of time, supposedly etched on stone tablets, but whether that part is true or not makes no difference because we have been following those rules for as long as there has been a Celadonia. They are true because god handed down those rules, and anybody who says differently is simply a godless and immoral person. The other three dispute that idea. Riptornikans say god sent his son to Chaladonia with a set of rules for them, and because of that, their rules are the true rules so forget about ours. Then, the wicked Bloogans come along with a nutty story about god speaking directly with one of their holy men and this fool claims god gave HIM the real rules, so all of us can forget about our ideas that WE KNOW FOR A FACT ARE CORRECT. The Garbonians—well they're worst of all. They don't even believe in god. Yeah, they have their moral rules too, but they claim these are based on common sense—and well, that is simple blasphemy. How can somebody believe in something so important without believing ithat god is the basis for everything? Hamish, frankly speaking, I don't don't see way out of this mess until one of us kills the other three—at least then we'll find out which side god really supports." And then with a mischievous look in his eye, "I did understand you correctly—you said 'until you kill all the others?'" "You heard right." "And one of the main commandments handed down by your god says 'thou shalt not kill?'" "Well, yes, there is that one small problem." "Actually, not so small, don't you think?" "Hamish, stop playing with my head. You know what I mean." "Of course I do, dear girl." And then after a long pause, "seems to me the other three also have the same commandment— am I right? "It's a real mess, isn't it?" After another significent pause, Hamish quietly posed the question, "Curious isn't it? I mean, do you suppose this god you all believe in planned all this? Perhaps some sort of godly entertainment?" "HAMISH." "Sorry." Neither spoke for several minutes, Abagail in agony, Hamish with that curious and knowing smile. Finally, she spoke, "Hamish, why are you smiling? I'm in real pain and you look amused." "Actually, I am amused. Problem is, you humans are such curious folks. Always making yourselves crazy looking for 'REAL REASONS.' (And with this he held up two fingers on each hand, making imaginary quotation marks in the air.) What's so difficult about accepting something for what it is? A bug bites you on the butt and you curse the bug, right? You don't go looking for any explanations. You don't trouble yourself wondering whether a green god, a red god, or a blue god sent the bug, and you sure don't offer to kill anyone who disagrees with you. So, why are you all trying to kill each other over the question of who has the REAL REASON why you all shouldn't kill each other? You don't think that is a little comical? "Hamish, there is a big difference between biting bugs and the fundamental rules for living ones life." "Maybe you could explain it to me. Especially since all green, blue, red, and brown rules basically are the same." "Well, if you want to believe in something, how do you know if it's true? What I mean—well, you can't believe in something unless you can prove it's true," "So, you can prove god handed down his commandments?" "Hamish, a person can't prove something like that, but it's still true because we all believe it and HAVE believed it for thousands of years." "I'm just guessing, dear girl, but I rather think the other three might give me the same answer." "Yes, but they're wrong." With that, Hamish laughed out loud. "Abagail, it seems to me you just argued yourself in a circle." And then chuckling with even more enthusiasm, "don't you find that more than a little amusing?" Abagail just glared at him. Realizing she was very frustrated, he spoke very soothingly, "Actually my dear, you just answered your own question." "What question?" she interrupted. "You asked, how can a person believe in something unless he can prove it's true? Then you answered yourself: a person can't prove something like that, but it's still true because we all believe it and HAVE believed it for thousands of years. Abagail, ask yourself this: what does it matter WHY a person believes in the same fundamental truth? Isn't the fact that he DOES believe it good enough for you?" And then finally, "dear girl, why do you think a simple old Grindle like me wouldn't be hughly entertained by all this nonsense—humans all making themselves crazy worrying about the reasons somebody else has for believing the same thing?" As disturbed as she was by this simple logic, a small smile started creeping into one corner of her troubled face. "Abagail, want something even funnier? Have you ever noticed that when one of you colored humans convinces himself he is right about something, he turns a deeper color? The reds get redder, and the browns get browner. You greens especially get greener, and the blues, well— they get almost black. The more you think you have a monopoly on the truth—that you have the only possible "right reasons,"—the more arrogant you get, and finally, as the arrogance gets stronger and stronger, you all turn into pompous asses. It seems to me you can almost measure the degree of 'pompous assdom' in people by their skin color." "Now, here's the funny part: the greater the pompous assdom in a human, the more that human takes himself seriously—he thinks he is making perfect sense, brilliantly explaining his absolutely correct conclusions. Actually, he is simply making himself look like a fool. We Grindles understand that arrogance is another word for idiot, and we think idiots are immensely entertaining. Abagail, think about the last time you heard a Bloogan explain why blues are better. Did he convince you? Or did he make you think he was an idiot? And to be fair, greens explaining why greens are better aren't any different." At just that moment old Hamish embarrassed himself. He had eaten a hugh portion of beans for lunch and the gassy results erupted in a serious "toot" as if he was putting an exclamation point at the end of his sentence. Both broke out in hearty laughter and Abagail wondered afterwards whether old Hamish had spoiled his trousers. "Actually, that's what arrogant arguments are really worth—just a healthy toot," this said with tears of laughter streaming down his face. A "light bulb" lit up in Abagail's head and a knowing smile crossed her face.
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