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Once upon a time, there was a small island in the middle of a large flowing river.
The island was beautiful, but not perfect. It had its problems, corrupt politicians, poverty, etc

One day, an emissary from a very rich parish came to the island bearing good news.
"We would like you to be a part of our little community" he said "and while this process may be long, eventually your population will be better off and thankful."

Meanwhile on the other side of the river lay a king who presided over a vast feudal empire. His armies were strong and his domain was vast and wealthy.
But the king hoarded everything for himself and left his peasants in poverty. He kept using the media to invent new enemies and scare the peasants into not revolting. He even started a few wars to invent new enemies or to quench the nationalist lust for land and glory.
And he didn't like what was going on in this little island - no sir, not one bit.
He thought: "This island is near my domain so it should be rightfully mine, or at least do what i say. To hell with their free choice!"

But the tyrant could not invade the island, his own allies would condemn him, so instead he devised a trick taught to him by his bearded advisor.
"You see, milord" the advisor said "this island speaks a language similar to ours, so if we would send some unmarked troops there, it would look like a civil war"
"But what if they call us out?" the tyrant said.
"Not to worry milord, we can keep denying and denying even in face of clear evidence and there is nothing they can do about it but talk. After all, our mages have creates powerful spells that could anihilate entire cities. And we have plenty of these spells, hidden in underground libraries.
If all else fails, we can threaten them to use those spells and they will quickly recoil in horror. Our pretended madness - even if a bluff - will allow us to do what we want."

The lord agreed. And so the small island soon had to deal with the empire's armies. They soon called for help to their prosperous friends.
"Help us!" they said. "The empire is attacking us, we know it, you know it, everyone knows it but they just deny it."

"We can't" they said, "you see, we have commercial ties with the empire and we are too cowardly to admit we need to change our policies so instead we are willing to sacrifice you for our own good"

"Didn't you do this 70 years ago? At a town called *Zalta* ?"
The prosperous nations had no answer. They kept trying to appease the tyrant by offering more while the tyrant laughed at them behind closed door.
He always wanted more and more. His troops continued to push into the small island's land, destroying everything in their wake.

The prosperous community had also a group of very interesting people. "The problem isn't " they said "that the empire is gobbling up the island" you see. "no no...they problem is the empire feels threatened by our attempt to get them into our community".
Some people could not see this warped logic but the empire's propaganda had seeped into the community and began to sow discord. The once proud values of tolerance and debate were being used to stiffle decision making and - ironically - promote intolerance.
There was another group, who hated this community, they figured it is best for each person to live individually ( even though historical records showed they had fought over grazing land for over 500 years culminating in two great street fights ), and that all this cooperation was ruining individualism, and that the capitalism of the community was an "unelected dictatorship".
Suspiciously these people kept getting caught as being funded by the empire or have problems with a certain class of people whose skin was a bit different due to them living in a warmer region.


( to be continued )