Spartan Kell:::::History Of Sparta

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In Sparta, you never call a person by their first name unless you know them very well. Even then, it is reserved for certain moments in the conversation were rank and last name are not called for. For those of us that go back to the beginning, the number of people that even know your first name can be counted on one hand. For that reason, and one or two others, I am simply know as Spartan Kell.

Spartan Kell:::History Of Sparta:::

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--The Early Years

In the course of my life I have seen Humanity come close to destruction so many times that it now seems routine to me. I have been called a historian by some and propagandist by others, but in truth I am merely an observer who puts down what he sees. My live began many hundreds of years ago on the mother world. Or at least what we once called the mother world. At that time Earth was looking like a lost cause to most of the experts and to many of us that only knew the day to day misery of living in poverty or the occasional war it looked equally bleak. For many young men in western North America, such as myself, the only way out of the poverty was to join the federal army or one of the many local militia groups competing for power in the remains of the western states. I wanted to join the Federal Army because they paid more and the chances of surviving to my twenty first birthday were far better then in the local militias. But situation and location made the long difficult trip to the border almost impossible, so I was left with the bleak and depressing options of the militias. I chose the City Guard in New Los Angeles. They were sanctioned by the distant federal government which meant that I still had a remote chance of some day leaving this god forsaken state and living a decent life. Until that distant day however, I was stuck in the hell that was New Los Angeles. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t as bad as say India or Eastern Europe at the time because at least we had food and there was no radiation to contend with. And it wasn’t a constant war zone like Ireland or Spain. It’s just that one day all would be ok and the next day you were in the middle of a fire fight against a militia that wanted to extend their territory into your neighborhood. After a year and a half of that nonsense, a man starts to wonder exactly what he is fighting for. Then of course he is reminded exactly what he fights for when he sits down at night to eat. One thing that I learned during my stay there was that idealism is easy on a full stomach and in warm bed. I also found out that those people in a war zone tended to be much more practical then those in far away conference rooms.

I met a lot of interesting people during that time, but none would come to dominate my life like one particularly attractive and powerful woman by the name of Corazon Santiago. My first clear memory of Santiago is of a young woman trying to find her niche in the world. She had joined the City Guard at a relatively late age compared to most of the veterans. But her experience in small scale fighting was far more extensive than most of ours because she had come from Mexico which was in far worse shape than California ever dreamed about being. So when Santiago showed up in NLA she was already a veteran in her own right. She may have joined the Guard relatively late compared to myself and others but a year later she became the youngest commander in City Guard history.

Her leadership ability was tested very soon when the East Side Militia decided that they needed breathing room and city hall stood in their way. The thirty days of chaos and death that followed were among the most savage and cruel displays of humanity that I have seen in my all my days. The site of thirteen year olds being used as the vanguard of the attack has stuck in my mind until now. The street to street fighting that followed the initial day of attack and the joining in of the other two major Militia groups spelled the end of the uneasy truce that had descended over the city following an agreement brokered by the Feds and UN. The UN envoys hadn’t even made it out of the city before their convoys were attacked. In a way the failure of the UN gave Santiago the opportunity she had been looking for. She had inherited the peace talks which she never fully wanted. And while the UN guards were being slaughtered in the streets, she began to put into motion her plan that she had worked out on assuming command. I can still picture that fool negotiator demanding that Santiago stop her attack operations long enough to negotiate the release of UN personel. The last image of him that I saw was him trying to pick himself up after a back hand from Santiago. Not him or the entire UN army was going to stop Santiago’s plans. After the month was up Santiago had not only retaken the city, but pushed far up into the surrounding hills where she routed the remaining militia supporters. After three more weeks she held undisputed power in most of Southern California. For the first time in eleven years the people of Southern California knew peace. That peace had come at a price in lives and untold damage, but there were no more militias. Only Santiago. When the officials from the federal government arrived to take over, Santiago was ready to leave as the boredom of being a commander with no one to fight proved more than she was willing to take and there was no way that she wanted to be an administrator. Before she left she asked a few of us that had become close to go with her. Now I think of myself as an individual and I am proud of that fact. But to be truthful, not me or any of the men she asked even cared where we were going. We just knew that she had respected us enough to ask for our skills. For me at least, I didn’t really care if she was going to invade hell. I for one wanted to be there when she succeeded and took Satan’s throne. To my surprise, we ended up going the opposite direction. I couldn't help but wonder how I had gone from being a teenager with no future, to part of a humanities last desparate act to ward off extinction. While the future still looked uncertain to most of us that went with Santiago, we knew one thing for sure. She wasn't just going along for the ride. She had a plan. A plan that would one day lead to a society that would make the most of the vast frontier that lay ahead of us. A society that would make it's presence felt upon the history of humanity.

Spartan Kell-----The early years

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Pre-Unity Sparta

The Spartan movement began from a desire to simplify our life from the ever increasing pressures put up the individual from competing forces. Those of us who lived through the final years leading up to the departure of Unity can still remember the tremendous strain of every day life. The constant stream of information took its toll on the individual as wars erupted and nations were destroyed and created in the blink of the eye. It was a place where a person’s nationality (as it was defined then) could quiet literally change from week to week. Hard concepts such as loyalty and betrayal became blurred as patriots and traitors changed places depending on the fortunes on the battlefield. Government forces became rebel forces overnight in most places on the planet. The real tragedy was that there was no great event responsible for the chaos. It was a slow process that crept up on the planet as a whole. It began in the poor countries and slowly spread its way to the rich. By the time cities like Los Angeles, New York, London and Paris were affected people had grown accustomed to it so that unless it was happening in your city, it was just another news vid showing on the screen.

The irony of the story of Sparta is that it began as a community of veterans from various countries who were tired of the constant fighting and social pressures that seemed to be never ending. We were exhausted from years of traveling the world and seeing the worse humanity had to offer. Even Santiago who never seemed to be at ease anywhere longed for a respite. We did not wish to totally cut ourselves off from the world but we did seek to simplify our lives. But try as we did, we could not escape the realities of the then modern world. Many of us had made names for ourselves in the popularized circles of mercenaries and fighters. Both enemies seeking to settle scores and prospective employers simply would not let us be. As the world plunged deeper and deeper into crisis our skills and experience with combat prevented any semblance of normalcy. We fought for good causes and for more than a few bad ones, but we always fought together. We had called our community Sparta in honor of both our simplified lifestyle and our skills as soldiers. In time we organized ourselves further and for a time were more or less independent of the territory that surrounded us. In hindsight, I suppose we knew it couldn’t last for long. In a time of independent militias taking over cities, no nation would allow for long a powerful mercenary unit to permanently establish itself inside its territory. While many wanted to stay and fight, the decision was made to disband our permanent settlement and move on to different surroundings. After a year of searching Santiago led us to the service of the UN. We did not join as Spartans and initially we did not serve together in our postings. Many became dissatisfied because they did not trust our leader. Those of us who were used to commanding found ourselves in subordinate roles under less than qualified UN officers. Little by little we all rose to the top because most of us had been fighting since we were teens and if it was one thing the UN needed during those days were people who knew how to lead soldiers into combat. It was during that time that core cadre of the future Spartan Federation began to form. The names are all familiar to those of Chiron now. Much as written and been said about their many exploits but at that time we were all just minor members of the giant UN establishment getting ready for humanities biggest undertaking. The Unity Mission.

At this point I am forced to mention the man who would ever pose a serious threat to our movement and that is Sheng-ji Yang. The histories of Yang and Sparta will be covered in later writings but I must point out something from the very beginning. Much has been portrayed in the popular fiction of the later day factions about how the Spartans forced Unity into a crisis and forced everyone into different competing factions. While I cannot speak for the other leader’s intentions at that early date, I can say without a doubt that Yang knew who we were from the very beginning. He could not have known our exact plan but he knew who we were and what we stood for. Despite UN propaganda, it was Yang and not Garland who had sway over the security detail for the Unity Mission despite our well known links to each other we all were assigned. During that time some thought he might sympathize with us but Santiago knew that Yang was not one of us and Anakkala (a comrade whose name would inspire many Spartan battle crys down through the years) would become the first Spartan to fall because of Yang. But that was still many years down the road.

The only thing that I will say about the final hours of the Unity Mission is this. In the end they all saw it our way. As the ship broke apart it wasn’t cooperation that would save them but competition. Even Lal with his high minded ideas compromised in the end. I was in the cryobay when Lal came to make a deal. If not for him Santiago might have never gotten out of the cell and would have went down with the ship. All humans have the instinct to survive buried within us. Some just have to dig a little deeper than others..

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The other factions have it all wrong about us. Life is not cheap in Sparta. Each life is essential to the survival of the whole. It is only when the individual becomes a drain by not pulling his or her own weight that will cause that individual to be removed from our ranks. It was how we fought on Earth and it is how we will survive and flourish on Planet..
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Spartan Kell-----The early years