For those who were there, 'the dark times' is not a too dramatic name for the end of the last, great, principality push in my home kingdom.
I had enthusiastically polled for it that time, stumping on our northern culture, our unique identity, our character, and our stubborn resoluteness.
My 21 year old self was naively blind to the divisions of the day. I saw, but did not recognize the fractures running through our region like fault lines shattering a foundation.
Every time since then, I have offered an unqualified, enthusiastic, and hard 'no' when asked about the subject.
I had been there, and I was in no hurry to go back.
Of course, my resistance to this was no only rooted in the past. I was no fan of the architect of this year's effort. I did not share in vision for the north, just like I didn't share any other aspects of his opinion on how the SCA should be run. We were men diametrically opposed on so much, that we should disagree on this question was almost a forgone conclusion.
But, when I rose this Friday last, I read the exact same missive from the same man as everyone else in the kingdom; the polling of the north was complete, and was 'overwhelmingly' positive.
Back then, the enthusiasm for Principality faded the farther south you traveled towards the Red River. Eldern and most of the barony of Namron at the time were not so humorously ready to move the regional border in order to avoid the whole affair.
Now, whatever resistance there was to be had looked to be a shadow of its former self. And many of those who had polled against it were now talking about supporting the effort in the interest of uplifting their fellows in the north.
The north was hardly of like minds on the subject, but in this one thing, we as a group seemed to have come to a consensus; we would see a principality formed.
As I sat there, reading, looking, processing the conversation that slowly, and then not so slowly unwound itself below Master Ainar's Facebook post.
To absolutely no one's surprise, the reaction from the rest of the kingdom was not uniform, or even coherent at times. To their credit, the vast majority of replies ranged from openly supportive to neutrally polite. Of course, and also to no one's surprise, a few trolls crawled out of their caves to pay that party a visit, and the only reason I don't name them here is I don't feel like poluting my blog with their names.
But oh, if that were all. Some of the movers and shakers weren't happy either. Politically active players from high levels were also not shy about their positions, or slow to indict with the charge of 'underhandedness', or deception. Cries from some insisting that all of the kingdom were entitled to their opinion were echoed with calls against the character of the north. Before long, some of those same were calling us selfish, rude, destructive, and a number of other school-hard belittlement. Other feeds carried personal grievances against us, with one reportedly proclaiming "my god, our 40th anniversary event is being hosted by a bunch of people who don't even like their own kingdom!"
And honestly, its worth saying, for every such word that reached me, or filled the page that morning, there were four of support in one flavor or another, and two more who said they would not oppose us as we went forward.
Many clearly did not understand the process as well, the true powers, few that they may be, of a territorial P&P were clearly drastically inflated in some minds. Others still seemed to assume the process would take days, and not many, many months. More still assumed that this meant full secession from the realm. It would almost have been amusing if it were not adding noise to the cacophony of disharmony that was fulminating around mid day that Friday.
And yet.. in that, I saw something I had never, in two decades of play in the same location, seen before.
Unity.
I saw people who sincerely opposed the idea of principality stand up for the fundamental rights of their fellow men as actual supporters were singled out.
I saw a cohesion of spirit, people cheering in support.
I saw for the first time in a very long time, the spark of a type of hope that really can only be born of the most impossible of challenges. The audacity to say 'yes, we will do it', even in the face of men and women who's political prowess is well known, as is their willingness to crush their opponents.
I had not seen this.... ever before. Not here anyway.
Sure, there were hits, glimmers, glimpses, suggestions of what could be, but never before had I see so many different people come together quite like this before. We don't all have to agree, and inf act, we are stronger when we disagree, but we are at our strongest when we agree on how we will disagree.
I saw union that day.
And I saw the foundations of that union were build on freshly laid blocks of dignity.
Now, for all its poetry, the scene before me was hardly utopic. We do have our own laundry that needs to be washed and left to air out before this is over. And we have some seriously scores that need to be settled within our ranks before we ever reasonably move forward.
And oh good lord do we need to education people, a LOT of people, about what this is really all about.
And even as I considered all this on that day, my own thoughts turned inward, my often times too critical, too brutal lens of scrutiny turned inward, and would not offer a moment's peace until I stood under my own judgement and measured the pillars of my opposition to this movement.
My one chief fear in all of this was that the move in this direction would turn neighbor against neighbor again. I dreaded a mass blood letting where a third of the region would declare want of independence outright, another third would decry them all as traitors, and the last third would hide until it was over. Exaggerated? Maybe. But for those of us who were there before, its not as over-the-top as even I want it to be.
But the one thing that was clear now was that all of the people most able to trigger such an upheaval were not, and some were openly proclaiming support for Principality. Social leaders and charismatics were proclaiming "calm" and "reason", and putting to bed quickly any calls of treason or treachery. Many of the young were excited, Many of the old were invigorated.
My own fears had proven to be truly nothing but ghosts of the monsters they once were.
My anchor against a coming storm was no longer needed.
"The die are cast" I declared in a long Facebook post. "There is no way to stop the process, and opposing it now is fruitless towards my own personal values."
I am now changing my position to fully pro-principality, with an unapologetic end goal of eventual full secession from Ansteorra and the creation of a new, independent kingdom. This is said with the full understanding that it will take years, likely a decade (or even more) before it could ever reach that final goal.
And with that, I declared myself part of this strange, controversial idea that is, potentially, the first Principality of Ansteorra.
"Long Live The North!"
His Lordship Ivo Blackhawk
Kingdom of Ansteorra
"Long Live the King!"
