History

dealing with devils: a summary

***

Twenty-four years have passed since Panem was first subsumed by the tides of bloodshed that came from uncontrolled dissent.

Twenty-four years have passed since the Hunger Games were first formed, written into history in order to stamp out the flames of rebellion that lingered amongst the populace, built by disparity and kept alive by little more than hope.

Twenty-four years have come and gone.

But conflict still lives in the hearts of the people, and beneath the streets of Panem's twelve despairing Districts. The spirit of rebellion lingers.

And it festers.

(How have we returned to this?)

(How has the Capitol failed?)

Everyone knows the story; the children of the Districts and Capitol alike grow up hearing tales of the first Rebellion - the original sin that led to the most brutal conflict the nation's ever seen. It began with the Dark Days: the revolt of Thirteen, when a cabal of dissidents (heroes?) rose up and made to stoke the flames of ire in the rest of the country. One by one, each District fought back against the Capitol, seeking retribution for the oppression they'd long suffered. There was rioting in the streets, rampant theft and tumultuous assaults that lead to an ever-rising death count for three straight years. Murders would occur in back alleys. Executions were carried out in the city squares, and broadcast to the masses without decorum or remorse. The rebels took up arms and the loyalists did, too. Propaganda beat everyone down.

(Just like the twenty-fourth, the Uprising had no victor.)

In the third year, when the chaos was at its worst, the Capitol reached a breaking point - the acting President, Ellis Theodred Hellebore, made the call to drop the bombs on the first District to rebel - Thirteen, a former jewel overtaken by treachery.

When the smoke cleared, rubble was all that remained.

Over the next few years, efforts were made to restore a sense of normalcy throughout the war-torn country; envoys were sent to the Districts on order from the president, and relief forces were deployed for the recreation of infrastructure as Hellebore sought to bring each District back into the Capitol's fold. Two was the first to acquiesce, and their loyalty brought them favor, wealth and glory fashioned out of their supposed patriotism. Six and Ten were a different story. Their fighting would continue, as would the bloodshed, the poverty and the pain, beyond the Dark Days' end, and beyond the rise of the Tributary of Blood.

(Perhaps it shouldn't be a surprise that when they were finally subjugated, violence still raged. The children of dead and incarcerated rebels continued the work of their families. And those rebels that still lived grew more subtle, more manipulative… lashing out from the shadows while making a point to recruit new blood.)

As the Capitol reestablished order, President Hellebore sought the ringleaders of the rebellion in Thirteen. Naturally, he found them. Six executions would be carried out, beginning with his own Minister of Defense, Ivory Vanderheim, and ending with the appointed Head Peacekeeper in Six - a native of District Thirteen itself - Veronika Verduin.

After six years of tenuous rule, the fragmented Districts once more coalesced into a united Panem. A new Panem. But not one lacking for rage or vengeance - and thus, the Hunger Games began. On the order of Panem's government, it was decided that in order to provide tribute to the Capitol for their guilt, each of the twelve districts of Panem would send forth two children between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in a contest of death. The contest would be broadcast across Panem in order to convey the violence and anger wrought by uprising - and to remind the districts that no crime can ever be without punishment. The sole victor, living only for their strength and valor, would stand as a symbol of the Capitol's mercy and favor to be showered with wealth and provided for so long as they drew breath.

While the Games were at first taken to with shock, horror and disgust by the District's citizens, they became a customary tradition over time; rebellious attitudes began to cool, and the deathmatch that was the Hunger Games grew to be accepted as almost... normal, leading to the rise of Career culture and training traditions in many of the inner Districts, whose populace was comprised primarily of Capitol loyalists. However, this was not to last; during the year of the Twenty-First Hunger Games, political tension was brewing in the Capitol, and it culminated in the form of an assassination attempt. A survivor of the original uprising, Valentin Verduin, lashed out in a rage of renegade despair, and poisoned three members of Hellebore's current presidential cabinet in an incident that has since come to be known as the 'Cabinet Poisonings'. While two of the assassination victims died, the third - a young man by the name of Coriolanus Snow - survived, and formed a truce with Panemian Secretary Maryse Delacroix to consolidate power for governmental reform.

During the year of the Twenty-Third Hunger Games, Delacroix and Snow set in place a plan to oust President Hellebore from office by placing Valentin Verduin (who was also Maryse's brother) in the position of Head Gamemaker. But while this scheme was successful in the ways that were intended, it also had unforeseen consequences; anti-government sentiment throughout Panem began to peak in Six, Seven and Ten, and Verduin's attempts to rig the Games in favor of District Seven's outspoken and dissident tribute Elowyn Eiken became public knowledge. He was arrested, tortured, avoxed, and imprisoned - naturally, one might say - but his longing for justice never dissipated. It simply blossomed into something new: a drive for vengeance, both personal and familial.

When the Twenty-Fourth rolled around, Verduin struck again - though Maryse held his leash, she was lax in her oversight, just as her ally Snow intended. Verduin wheedled his way out of her grasp, and he perpetrated treason beyond the Capitol's wildest dreams. By introducing an acidic formula into the water engineered to flood the Twenty-Fourth's arena, the enigmatic Scourge of Panem managed to kill the tributes remaining in the finale, leaving the new (incompetent) President Newmahr to wrestle with the fallout of a country betrayed. New violence reverberating through Panem's underground burst from the streets and took center-stage after the fiasco that occurred in the arena, and as more details emerged of Verduin's actions, many of the rebel fringe movements in Six and Ten began to consolidate their power - and expand.

Now, with the country on the brink of a second uprising, the newly-anointed Vice President Snow is tasked with restoring order in a world gone mad.

(Luckily, the odds of this Games are very much in his favor.)