Sycia Sanghvi (Sai-see-ah Sah-ang-vee)
She who killed her master and gave the slaves power
Trigger Warning: There is a brief implication of attempted sexual assault in this article.
Who was Sycia?
Sycia Sanghvi was a slave. Born on Strana during the first two dozen cycles after what would eventually become known as the Great Collapse began, she grew up carrying the name of her parents' master. On the opposite side of the Cluster from it, the war with Baen Arleth and his forces was a far away thing that never touched the planet...but it was an inspiration that things could change and change quickly. During her youth and early years as a slave, however, Sycia showed none of the signs that would mark her as a rebellious slave. She was polite, quiet, and obedient - all the things that an owner or merchant looked for in a product.The Last Master
Everything changed in 3221 AFT when Sycia was sold to her last master, Camden Harcrow, who was a powerful merchant and owned a lush property called Kald south of the Claacaster Forest. It was well known on Strana and elsewhere in the Jordani System that Harcrow was a harsh, brutal master and that slaves who served under him were not treated well. Being sold off by him to work on Terminus Colony in the nearby Volantis System or shipped off somewhere else in the Cluster was well known to be a far kinder fate than being chosen to serve directly under his hand. The darkest rumors that followed him were that slaves purchased to serve in his house and not his fields were more likely to be seen again in a coffin than alive. Such behavior was frowned upon and encouraged against but few things were ever done against Not even a week into her service in his home, Sycia disappeared. Camden Harcrow was discovered dead three days after her disappearance, his pants around his ankles and his face beaten in so severely that the only way to identify him was by a tattoo on his arm. Judging by the scene left behind and the fact that other staff told authorities that Harcrow had sent away all others except for Sycia at the end of the mid-cycle. Given Harcrow's position of power, there were still calls for his killer to be brought to justice from his now widow and business partners. Sycia Sanghvi, however, was nowhere to be found.Rise of the Revolt
Despite attempts by the Stranan authorities to keep the exact details of the crime quiet, word travelled quickly through the slave population on planet. A slave killing their owner was such a foreign concept on Strana, even amongst those who were treated cruelly. It just simply wasn't done. After Sycia's story spread amongst them, however, it became more common. Supposed sightings of her popped up constantly around the planet and a slew of other slaves either attacked or killed their own owners (most often the most cruel and brutal of them). Some managed to also disappear but others were captured and publicly executed as an example against further incitement. However, given the already volatile atmosphere that gripped the entire Cluster since the EMPs had fired eight cycles before in 3213 AFT, these executions actually spurred the slaves on to greater action. Given that the digital database of slave records on the planet had been one of the many peices of technology that had been destroyed in 3213 AFT, finding Sycia or any of the others was next to impossible.The Revolt's Figurehead
After her escape, Sycia knew nothing about what she had caused to happen on Strana. Escaping into Claacaster Forest, she made her way north, following the base of the Spine of the World until she reached Malarmore Wood. Having heard stories being read to her master's son when she was a child, she knew that the wood was dark and deep and a peril for those who weren't prepared for it's dangerous. Armed with just an Old Terran relic of a ballistic pistol, a kitchen knife, and the determination that had allowed her to survive Harcrow's advances, Sycia was more than prepared. Finding a cave and using skills half-remembered from listening to others over the years, she lived in seclusion for a year before she dared venture out. In the town of Deham, one of the ones closest to the wood, she heard about the other slaves killing their masters. Saw the footage of the executions that was playing on the few vid screens still working. And after the shock passed of realizing what she had unknowingly started, she was furious. Sycia began searching for other escaped slaves, seeking out places where she herself might have hidden in, and eventually did find them. They developed their own secret system of communication, using marks carved or written in corners and other subtle areas to recruit and organize.The First Strike
Although the revolt of the slaves is considered to have started in 3221 AFT, the first official organized action of the revolt didn't happen until 3223 AFT. Using their secret communication, Sycia and her followers organized a mass revolt action across the entire planet involved not just hundreds or thousands but millions of slaves. Smaller cities like Deham and Khadena that were close to Malarmore Wood - still the revolt's base of operations - fell under slave control almost immediately. Other nearby cities also fell to them but also cities to the west like Phand, to the south like Ilexloft, and the east like Grasmere. One of the first places they ever destroyed deliberately was Camden Harcrow's former home of Kald. Sycia and her forces completely destroyed the lush home, buildings, and fields, burning all of it to the ground. Harcrow's widow and children were allowed to escape, although she said that their lives were threatened and it was a fluke that she got out. Kald had practically been a town itself and Harcrow's cruelty - as well as the cruelty of his widow - turned all of his staff as well as the slaves to Sycia's cause. The rich merchants and other high class inhabitants of Strana weren't willing to give up their lush lives without a fight, however. Although a lot of the more high-tech weaponry had been rendered obsolete, more ancient weapons such as ballistics and blades were perfectly functional. Some starships and other transportation such as skimmerbikes and floaters had escaped the destruction and were put to use during the conflict.The War for Strana
War ended up being the only name that truly could be applied to the conflict. Several cities had buildings destroyed utterly during the cycles between the first true strike in 3223 AFT and 3227 AFT and several were destroyed entirely. Ilexloft and Frepool in the southwest were completely destroyed by massive homemade bombs in 3227 AFT, killing the slaves who were holding the cities and civilians alike. This action turned civilians who were the middle class on the planet against the higher class, sparking protests that sowed further confusion. Sycia knew that her forces needed somewhere safer to organize than Strana itself and, using still working starships that they had comandeered, began shuttling portions of her followers to nearby W'Renge. They attempted to set up a new base of operations on the planet but the flora and fauna there proved to be especially violent. Despite this, they persisted and managed to establish a base and start to organize greater and greater strikes against the higher class on Strana. The richest families on Strana raised the bounty on Sycia's head to an almost astronomical number - more money than a slave could ever dream of - in retaliation. They also, upon learning that she was personally organizing the revolt from W'Renge, began gathering their own forces to go after her.The Fall of Sycia
In the end, Sycia Sanghvi was betrayed. A fellow slave, lured by the exorbitant price that had been placed on her head, went to the rich families and gave them the information that they would need to strike out at the base on W'Renge. While his name has been lost to time, spoken only now as the Traitor (while spitting on the ground), his ultimate fate was not. After the betrayal, he was found brutally beaten and unrecognizable except for the clothes he had been wearing - an echo of how Sycia had killed her last master. The richest families of Strana sent everything after Sycia and her forces on W'Renge, outnumbering them at nearly three hundred thousand attackers to a mere five thousand defenders on the planet. However, she and others withstood their assault for almost six whole days thanks to the layout of their defenses and killed half of the force. Sycia was given a chance to surrender but refused, running on foot out to meet her enemy at the end with less than a thousand able followers left behind her. When she fell, she was found to be carrying only two weapons: an Old Terran ballistic pistol with Harcrow engraved on the barrel and a kitchen knife. Her death was recorded and broadcast across all working vid screens across Strana but it did not end the revolt. If anything, watching the figurehead of their rebellion die at the hands of those who had ruled over them for generation after generation drove Sycia's followers even deeper into their revolt. They took over the major port cities of Krostead, Aneburgh, and Orelens, giving them almost total control of the southern part of Strana.End of the Revolt
After further protests were sparked when a rich merchant orchestrated the destruction of Aneburgh, killing slaves and civilians as had been done in 3227 AFT with Ilexloft and Frepool, the Stranan governor, Mase Claacaster, threw up the white flag. He declared that enough lives had been lost to this foolishness and asked that rich and slave alike set aside their weapons. Mase invited all parties to come to the table to figure out - together - how to move forward. Sycia's second-in-command, Rister Gryante - another former slave and, according to rumors, her lover - came personally to the meet that the governor organized and was a part of every bit of the process. While he could not say in the end that what came out of it would have been what Sycia would have wanted, he did say that the caste system would be better. It would not only allow slaves to rise above their station but they would be protected from having anything happen to them like what Sycia had escaped (but those before her had not). Although he was given a position in the new High Caste if he wanted it, Rister refused and ended up leaving Strana a few years later on a still working starship - along with several others from the revolt, including a young child that rumors theorized was his child with Sycia. If that was ever true, no one knows as records of Rister, the ship, and the child were lost during the chaos of post-Collapse.In Modern Times
Six hundred cycles after her death, Sycia Sanghvi's story remains strong on Strana, told to children of every caste. She is practically a saint to the Upper and Lower Slave Castes, though some question why slavery was not abolished in its entirety after her forces seemingly won the conflict. There is a statue of her in Claacaster, built by Governor Mase Claacaster after the end of the revolt. A second statue, funded by a mysteriously large donation (that some believe was the money given to the Traitor and taken off his dead body), stands in front of the ruins of the base that she defended and died for on what is now Sycia's Stand. While the former is made of gold and has her standing up straight with hands reaching outward as if pleadingly depicts a view of her that was a lie according to her comtemporaries, the latter is more truthful. Built of iron mined out of core of the Spine of the World, it is Sycia running forward, fury on her frozen features with an ancient pistol in one hand and a kitchen knife in the other.AKA Syvia Sanghvi and How She Oopsed a Revolution (thanks Rin/2Nerds from the WA discord)
Date|Location of Birth
3195 AFT | StranaDate|Location of Death
3228 AFT | W'Renge
Children
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