Being an ex-Benandanti, I've played a pretty important role in this
whole drama. This is the story as far as I know it and interpret it.

It starts with the first war over Tasur'ke. After that war ended, the
totem was put up and Tasur'ke started to change. After a while, the
Citizens of Tasur'ke started trying to undo the changes. One of the
methods they used was extermination. Duiran responded by enemying the
exterminators and rejuvenating. For a while, it worked out well, since
CoT asked Ikne to exterminate, and he was already enemied from the
forests. Then Strung asked Spirokai, who exterminated and was enemied by
myself.

I got a message from Strung saying that he had asked Spirokai to
exterminate and asking for me to unenemy Spirokai and enemy Strung.
After brief talks with the other Benandanti, the decision was left as it
was made. Perhaps that was a mistake, perhaps not. But this definitely
was a mistake: I never contacted Spirokai about when he would be
unenemied.

A few months later, someone told me that Spirokai was exterminating on
Ulangi. So I ran there. All propaganda aside, I actually had been
thinking about unenemying him just before that. So, anyways, Spirokai
and I talked a bit, while I rejuvenated. I forget exactly how many rooms
were done, anywhere from five to ten. Spirokai's reason came out, which
was that I hadn't contacted him. I told him I'd talk to the other
Benandanti and decide what to do.

In actuality, I think I managed to talk to one Benandanti and a few
Councillors. But to make a long story short, the decision was made:
three years and a 5K fine (I think. If that's wrong, it's probably a
little high). The next month, Spirokai decided that the fine was okay,
but the enemy period was too long, and so he continued to exterminate
Ulangi.

War broke out, Spirokai formed the FFoS (Freedom Fighters of Sapience,
which is ironic, since he was doing everything on Ulangi, but that's
just idle musing), and Spirokai, with Dillon, fought mostly against
Duiran, Haern's Order, and the Sentinels. Although there were other
organisations involved, those three were the major ones. The war dragged
on, past the day he would hofe been unenemied otherwise.

Dillon decided to stop fighting Duiran and was unenemied. Eventually the
war died out completely, largely because extermination was impossible
for a while. Spirokai stayed enemied.

Then out of the blue, Spirokai dissolved the FFoS and formed the RL. His
justifications for extermination changed from "to stop the tyranny of
the Duiran/Haern/Sentinel block" to "to live peacefully on Ulangi". Keep
in mind, however, that after the war had been going on for a while, he
and the FFoS decided to move to Ulangi, so Spirokai used the second
reason before the RL, as well.

Lots of small, interesting details got left out, but that's most of the
story.

At first, I agreed with everyone that Spirokai was either being A)
stupid or B) greedy or C) both. But as the war dragged on, I slowly
started to think that Spirokai actually believed some of the things he
was saying about being treated unfairly and made an example of and so
on. I wasn't out to make an example of Spirokai, but I can understand
why he would think that.

Also, I think it's interesting to note the effect that the war had on
the internal workings of Duiran. There were Benandanti and Councillors
negotiating with Spirokai all on their own, there were decisions made
and posted and ignored, and so on. Eventually what happened is that
Relandroc, in a way, took charge of everything. He handled all the
negotiations. This is interesting because before that, while people were
negotiating on their own, one Benandanti calculated Spirokai's fine to
be something like 300K (just a rough estimate from memory), which
sparked Spirokai's claims that Duiran is greedy. Much later on, another
Benandanti offered to unenemy Spirokai if Spirokai stops exterminating
and fighting Duiran. The offer was refused.

(Side note: in a more recent post, Spirokai stated that unenemying him
would be one of the ways to stop the war. I urged the Benandanti to just
do that and let it be. Instead, Duiran decided to escalate the conflict
by enemying more people, which I think is a bad decision. But I get the
feeling that Relandroc is the one making all the important decisions
again, although I might be wrong.)

Oh, before I forget. Khalay: you said that the RL can use Ulangi as for
essence, depending on the rejuvenations so they can exterminate again.
Not true. Firstly, Spirokai's the only one who exterminates, so it would
only help him. Secondly, nobody replants the exterminated areas, and
since extermination steals the life essence from the plants, I believe
Spirokai actually loses essence with every room he exterminates.

Anyways, I've ranted enough now. I'll publicly suggest to the
"Duiran/Haern/Sentinel block" to unenemy Spirokai and let this stupid
war end. I have no more desire to take part in it.

Oh, and I may as well take this opportunity to publicly apologise to
Spirokai for the whole list of misunderstandings and miscommunications.
I'm sorry.

Taryn

Penned by my hand on the 20th of Variach, in the year 89 MA.