Title: The Hinterlands (hinter.scn)
Author: Dommiel
E-Mail Address: david7@tiac.net

        The Russian homeland, mightiest of all the human nations, had grown
immense; so immense, in fact, that there was hardly a stretch of land left
to claim.  As the population continued to swell, many people began to look
across the seas for new land to settle.  Taking what little they had with
them, one such group of explorers set off across the ocean, landing many
months later on the shore of a small island.  They unpacked, and erected
a new village for themselves, exited about the prospect of spreading the
glory of their homeland...
        Meanwhile, not a few miles from the island, six tiny city-states
were locked in perpetual conflict, bickering over petty little land disputes.
Treaties were signe and broken, leaders rose and fell, and people lived and
died, knowing nothing but war and bloodshed for decades.  This continual
warfare had all but halted scientific, as scholars and farmers alike were
drafted into the puny armies, to fight over this hill, and this stretch of
river.  They did not notice when the Russian settlers landed on one of the
islands just off shore, but soon enough, they will have to fight for a lot
more than one or two worthless hills...
