An Explosive Founding Day Celebration

Sipping his coffee, Tank Mallory looks over the chaos below. It will be an interesting day to say the least, he muses as he begins to get dressed. There is nothing in the galaxy quite like it. Founding Day on New Origins. Even the other peoples of the galaxy come to see the spectacular event, though most aliens tend to stick to the relative safety of hotel balconies and flighted vehicles, where they can watch the chaos from a distance.

The planetary capital of Visionary, the first proper extrasolar stronghold for humanity, New Origins is a city with many odd traditions. Founded by humans of many backgrounds and cultures, they all oddly mixed in the chaos, as well as some elements picked up in the multigenerational journey out here, back before the interspace tunnel was forged. But Founding Day was the celebration of a crash landing. New origins, after all, was entirely an accident. The actual first extrasolar colony was supposed to be Unity City on the surface of what was known then as Klothon III, a planet in the habitable zone of the star Klothon. But on the way, one of the three colonyships crashed on the moon of Klothon V. This moon also happened to have water, under a thick layer of ice, and be large enough that a molten core heated said water up. Life was down there, albeit barely more than amoebic, but it meant that the crashed colony ship had little difficulty turning itself into a small colony, which thanks to the prevalence of valuable elements to be minded out of the nearby gas giant, as well as the relative security of the colony built into the ice, New Origins grew. The hab-dome expanded to an obnoxiously large size, and after a century, before first contact, New Origins overtook Unity City as the center of this system.

Dressed in his best antique enviro-suit looking outfit and oversized hammer drill in hand, Tank heads to his apartment building’s elevator. Pressing the call button, he is joined by several of his neighbors, also in their best cosplays of old-timey enviro-suits, carrying their own random tools. Founding Day is a grand old time. Tank turns to Jun, and asks, “Do you think they’ll be giving out the nitro again this year?”

Jun shakes his head. “Probably not,” he answers, “The Imprex Compendium hasn’t imported as much from us this year, so I’m not sure they’ll want to waste the money giving the dynamite away. Probably will have it for sale, though.”

From behind the pair, Dottie adds, “I saw a Jrr’lliac Pleasurebarge in the lower atmosphere when I looked out from my balcony. If someone can get in touch, they’d almost certainly be able and willing to pay for the nitro to be free access.”

Tank nods. “Worth a shot at least.” The elevator opens and all five of the residents of this floor that love themselves a good Founding Day walk into the elevator.

Zona shrugs. “I have a friend in the Jrr’lliac Embassy, I’m sure they can get in touch.”

Victor shakes his head with a smile. They all know what Zona means by friend. Victor himself doesn’t have any tools with him. He’s here for the rioting. “You do that. Just be quieter tonight than last week,” he half-jokes.

Zona gives Victor a light, playful shove, before saying, “No thank you.” She pulls out her compad and begins to type something into it. The others know better than to look. No one needs to see that.

The elevator ride is long. Richardhall Suites is not a luxurious or vast apartment building, but it is very tall. Only about twelve apartments to a floor, but with fifty-seven floors and counting, the owners of this place aren’t exactly lacking in residents. Every year or two they add another floor down deeper into the ocean. Fortunately for those above-water residents, there’s only thirty stories to descend from the roof to the “ground” level. Unfortunately, the elevator is old and Founding Day is popular, so by the time the quintet reaches the ground floor, the elevator is packed with people they haven’t seen in a year, and it’s been nearly ten minutes. Filing out into the lobby, Tank spots Zona on the phone, and waits by the door while most of the people begin to head out onto the streets. The rest of the quintet also stop, waiting around the lobby at different points. Tank pulls out his own compad and begins to look up Founding Day Zones.

The Founding Day celebration is one of the more chaotic celebrations, started about three decades after the city was founded. The city of New Origin had grown into disrepair while Unity CIty, at the time, was starting to be very successful. The massive plains of Aiona, the new name they gave their planet, allowed for their civilization to spread out and seemed to have plentiful resources while, at the time, New Origins had just started mining operations in Klothon V. And so, some upset citizen organizations that were definitely not gangs got together and organized the first Founding Day. A day-long riot, where they demolished buildings going into disrepair. And did other riot related activity like looting, fighting, protesting the government policies they didn’t like, et cetera. And the same groups did it again the next year, but at that point, people outside those groups started to join in on the destruction. Then, in the aftermath of the destruction, new buildings started to come up that were nicer, more advanced, and new technology started to be created to help fortify the city. So by the fifth year, the government decided to make it official. Made Founding Day a holiday for everyone, including law enforcement, and released maps to direct people to any building that hadn’t been built, renovated, or expanded in five years. So New Origins became a city of the future, at the cost of one very violent day every year. And while some people still destroy buildings they just don’t like, most follow the recommendations of either the government and/or those citizen organizations that are still around to this day.

Zona nods to everyone as she heads towards the door, and the quintet meet up. “So?” Tank asks her.

Zona sighs. “Kirrzl’n says they’ll get in touch and make it happen, but evidently that Jrr’lliac vessel is one of the Zj’nqlin clan, so they may be hesitant.”

Tank nods, not fully understanding Jrr’lliac politics but knowing that some clans still remember the First Contact War more than others, and if this Zj’nqlin family is one of those, the idea of giving a bunch of humans free explosives, even if just dynamite, might not be high on their list of fun activities.

Jun speaks up. “So I really want to mess up the Hyland Center, because they’re on the list and refused to let my friends have our big birthday party there just because we looked like we might wreck the place.”

Dottie looks at him. “So to prove them wrong, you’re going to wreck the place?”

“They’re on the map,” Jun says, “So I’m being a good citizen of Visionary by bringing those jerks’ building down.”

“Where is that on?” Victor asks.

“Ward Four, it’s in map seven of the recommendations,” Jun answers.

Victor pulls it up. He’s looking for a place that’ll have hired security forces for him to rough up in the area. Then, he nods, “Sounds like a plan.”

Dottie shakes her head. “Please say there’s something around there other than your petty revenge?”

Tank thinks back on the maps. Map seven had the old Grigorian Triumphant Tower, which was permitted for destruction and massive, up and down into the ocean below. “The GT is there, and that would be fun to collapse down. Assuming the nitro isn’t too expensive. Even better if it’s free.”

Zona smiles. “That would be fun to blow up,” she replies, “Let’s head out.” And with that, the quintet of floor twenty seven walk into the snowy streets of New Origin. Built atop ice, the only weather that ever occurred in the dome was snow, sleet, or fog. Sometimes it was sunny and sometimes a bit cloudy, but both were comparatively rare. And it was always cold. The quintet walk through the light snowfall to the next ward over. Fires around them heat different city blocks. Tank makes sure they stop by Llywellyn’s shop, to see if Zona’s friend actually got the nitro to be free. Walking in, Tank and Dottie greet their old drinking buddy. “So, Lew,” Dottie jokingly says, “Do we get any free stuff today?”

Llywellyn shakes his head. “Actually, you do. Evidently, city government got a huge donation so if you fill out a form you can collect some good old fashioned dynamite free of charge.”

Tank nods, looking over at Zona. “Looks like you owe your old friend a dinner,” he says.

She smirks. “Nah, it wasn’t that big a deal,” she counters, “Just a breakfast.”

Victor shakes his head. “Come on, get your booms and let’s get moving. With all the peaceful times in the city, I haven’t gotten to beat the snot out of anyone in a month.”

Tank, Dottie, and Zona all take and fill out the digital forms. Evidently, Jun wants his vengeance on the theater to be more hands-on. The forms list where it will be used, and how large the structure is, then they process that data to give out just enough to do the work, plus some extra fireworks to make the explosions louder and flashier for the audience. That part of the forms was new, after the First Contact War. When they began to ready their attack on VIsionary, they joint militaries of the Laari alliance witnessed a founding day celebration, and were confused and a little scared watching the humans blow up their own capital seemingly in preparation for a bombing of said capital. And so, after the Treaty of Laaxil Parc, the members of the alliance began to visit Visionary to witness Founding days, and they paid for the event. So our city government began to make it more of an event, with cameras and closeups and prizes for those who did cool, broadcastworthy acts during the riots. And so the riots became more flashy and more of a violent party rather than a political act, much to the chagrin of many of those original rioters. So with explosives, they often pack a bit of showiness like fireworks and noisecrackers and flares.

After getting the dynamite from Llywellyn, the quintet resume their walk to the map. Tank pulls up the building’s public information and pictures, to try to decide what would be the most fun and important to blow up. Because he feels like doing a timber, but that would mean separating the tower from the basements, preferably above the first floor so the basements don’t break out from the ice and sink down into the great under-ice sea. As they walk, Jun notices Tank’s look and asks, “Are you going to at least try to miss the theater?”

“I mean, I can shoot for the theater,” Tank jokes, “But my plan was to knock out Victor, so we can actually get him home at a reasonable hour.”

Victor smiles. “Wait, are you saying I’m going to get to dodge a building? Woohoo,” he jokingly shouts out. The next block is fully on fire and as we walk past, a massive explosion bursts out from the inside of the building, showering the quintet in sparks and glass. Above them, the fire turns green as some drones come over to get close up shots of the explosion’s aftermath.

Zona smiles as she looks up at the falling sparks. Jun and Dottie shake their heads, but Tank gets it. Zona and him both experienced such beauteous destruction firsthand before, having lived in a building marked for Founding Day when they were younger. They’ve been neighbors for longer than the others, and will remain neighbors once the others have moved on, with the probable exception of Victor who has joined the pair a building ago and has stuck with them when they moved into Richardhall Suites. And to us, we recognized the sparks, the riots, the explosions, for what they were. What they have always represented to the people on the ground, since before Founding Day went corporate. Progress.