Quiet Area Rebellion
| Quiet Area Rebellion (2006) | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Belligerents | |||||||
| Midget Empire | Quietarians | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Commander Thomas | Unknown | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| ~20 | ~25 | ||||||
The Quiet Area Rebellion (not to be confused with an unrelated 1997 rebellion against the rule of King Alex) was an eruption of violence in the Quiet Area in May 2006, caused by tensions between the local population and the Midget Army garrison which had been stationed there.
Background
In late April 2006, the Midget Empire requested that the Quiet Area help them in winning the War of the Midget Hunters. The Quietarians sent a force to help defeat the Midget Hunters, but did so on the condition that the Midget Army would in turn protect them from any enemies in the future. Midget Master Jonathan agreed, and bestowed upon the Quiet Area the status of a protectorate of the Midget Empire.
A garrison of roughly six troops was sent to protect the Quietarians, but the Midget Master himself began to visit the garrison more and more, prefering the walls, trees and benches of the Quiet Area to the dust and shrubs of the Midget Base. By the end of April, the Midget Master was conducting most governmental duties from the Quiet Area, while maintaining that he was only there to protect its inhabitants.
Rebellion
The Quietarians seem to have nearly immediately regretted their decision to request Midget troops to be stationed in the Quiet Area, and dissatisfaction with the way that they were treating it as a province of the Midget Empire certainly helped raise tensions. A group of Quietarians approached the Midget Master and asked him to withdraw the garrison from the Quiet Area.
Whether he would have ultimately respected their wishes or not is unknown, but his immediate response was to question the reasons for their request, and argue in favour of a Midget presence in the Quiet Area. Violence broke out when he compared the Midget Empire to Rushymia (the memory of which the Quietarians deeply cherished and were proud to have been the capital of), with some Quietarians throwing sticks and stones at the Midget Master and shouting at him to leave. One Midget soldier ran to the Patioed Pathway to ask Commander Thomas for reinforcements, while the five other Midget troops shielded the Midget Master and attempted to hold back the Quietarians as a general insurrection broke out.
Unusually for conflicts in the Playground, the Quietarians were not using intimidation tactics but actual physical violence - the Midgets were unprepared for such an attack whilst overwhelmingly outnumbered, and so fell back to a corner of the Quiet Area, enclosed on all sides by angry Quietarians. The school uniforms worn by the Midgets and Quietarians included a jumper in school colours worn over a polo shirt. To protect his soldiers from injury, the Midget Master ordered his soldiers to remove their jumpers and tie them round their heads as makeshift helmets. With this defence, the danger posed by the projectiles of the Quietarians was neutralised, and the Midget troops were able to use their physical strength to push the Quietarians away from the Midget Master. Commander Thomas then arrived with roughly a dozen reinforcements, which broke through the rebels and reached the garrison. With the numbers on both sides now more equal, the Midget soldiers were able to subdue the rebellion.
Aftermath
The ringleaders of the rebellion were made to swear an oath recognising the Midget Master as their superior, but surprisingly no other punitive measures were taken against the Quietarians (although the size of the garrison was increased to ten). A rumour emerged that the Midget Master had been found by Thomas' troops hiding underneath a bench - while this was untrue (at one point he had stood on top of a bench to shout on his troops to victory), it may have been a factor encouraging his personal leadership of the Midget conquest of the Upper Playground later that month.
Midget Master Jonathan took much care not to offend the Quietarians to such a degree again. Although the Quiet Area was now effectively conquered, he still had it referred to as a protectorate rather than a province, despite making it the capital in all but name for the remainder of his reign.