So I got my hands on a really cheap small light box so figured I would give it a go whilst adding the next instalment of
Eden
The Bamaka Clan
The 21st century places Africa at the centre of the world’s geopolitical chessboard. Human acts have exhausted the natural resources of industrialised countries, who are therefore looking to the unspoilt lands of the black continent to satisfy their appetite. Furthermore, this same industrial activity has provoked climatic imbalance, which has changed the aspect of hitherto fertile regions. The populations whose survival depends on agriculture or on the sea must therefore migrate towards the unaffected lands, which are already overpopulated. Humanitarian crises follow, on a continent already prey to tribal tensions, caused by the careless establishing of borders by the colonial powers of the 19th century. In this context, it is easy to understand how the rich countries could easily buy land from the political puppets they had armed and placed at the head of totalitarian governments.
Despite cultural disparity and tribal rivalries, a protest movement was born in the sub-Saharan African population throughout the second half of the 21st century. On the fringe of the wars which began to tear the world apart, Africa slowly but surely rejected the systems and the religions imposed by its oppressors.
A child baptised Babakar is born to the Masai in Kenya in 2129. For several years, its natural resources have become so precious that Africa is a permanent battlefield. When he is six, Babakar is captured by soldiers from Mahgreb and given Viral Improvement Agents (V.I.A.) before becoming, along with many other children of his age, a transgenetic fighter. Babakar becomes a war beast. In 2137, when the Apocalypse breaks out, his troop has already carried out many feats of arms in which he played an active part, in north-east Africa. He leads the Bamaka brigade ‘The Clan of Warlord Babakar’. New exploits against combatants from all over the world make him a respected officer. In Egypt, in particular, in 2138, the Bamaka inflict a crushing defeat on the armoured troops on secondment from the NATO and coordinated by a representative of NOAH, the ISC’s artificial intelligence.
Babakar does not owe his survival and his surprising ascent to hierarchic supremacy to chance. He has a secret: to preserve a spark of humanity in the face of the horrors of the V.I.A. and the Apocalypse, he has founded his faith on the cults of his ancestors. Whenever his spirit wavers, his ancestors speak to him. His operations put him in touch with the tribes of the continent, and soon he gradually acquires the conviction that he is neither possessed not schizophrenic: the ancestors of all the people are calling him to be the champion who frees the soul of Africa.
In 2139, while the world is falling into chaos, the Bamaka are engaged on a supply-gathering campaign in Uganda. On the banks of what remains of Lake Victoria, Babakar has a vision: the ancestors tell him that the Supreme Being, the superior divinity known under many names throughout African cultures, is about to unleash his flaming sword on the world. The transgenetic officer persuades his Bamaka to desert, and to accompany him to the Masai. There, Babakar shares his visions in front of a crowd swayed by the merits of his cause: in the following three years, the standard of the Supreme Being rallies a people who are gathering together between Kenya and Somalia. When the seismic weapons – the broadsword of the Supreme Being – strike the world in 2142, the Bamaka have gone to earth in shelters which they have taken over from different armed forces in the Horn of Africa. When they emerge, some weeks later, the Bamaka discover that Ethiopia and Kenya have been torn apart by the movement of the tectonic plates. A delta comparable to the Nile is now to be found to the north of Ethiopia, and the faults have remodelled the countryside to isolate their new paradise from the a world which is, from now on, in ruins. The temptation to stay in the Ethiopian rift is great, but Babakar has a mission to fulfil. He assembles a company of volunteers and sets off to conquer the rest of Africa.
The Bamaka encounter many obstacles in the course of their journey: their reserves run out quickly, and they have to face up to penury. Furthermore, some old military units have carved out their own strongholds, and lay murderous ambushes. Some have become cannibals. Every time, however, the Bamaka are victorious: firearms, followed by cold steel, are no match for the powers born of mutation.
Furthermore, Babakar has a secret weapon : his faith in the Supreme Being wakes a hope which has long slumbered in the hearts of the Africans. The Apocalypse is no longer a curse but a liberation, and the ancestors’ bequest redefines the identity of the survivors. As the years go by, one by one the Bamaka rally the tribes of Central Africa to their cause.
Their progress slows down. The scouts sent over the Congo river take note of living forests, whole regions where man has been eradicated to the benefit of creatures from a bygone age. In the west, the situation is urgent: a great tribe, the Senoufos, has also launched itself into the conquest of the continent. It has soldiers and arms in great numbers. Its warlords, brought together in a multicultural council, have the firm intention of purging Africa of the presence of its mutants who have inherited, they say, all the vices of the old invaders. The Bamaka, on their side, know that mutation is unavoidable: the first children born to the marriage of the old transgenetic warriors and non-transformed individuals will give birth to mutants. They do not all survive, but at the time of the first skirmishes, some have reached adolescence.
The Bamaka win a victory over the Senoufos after four years of bitter war around the Niger delta. Once again, the spiritual ascendancy of Babakar plays a decisive role in the issue of the conflict: the blessing of the ancestors gives an aura of legitimacy to Babakar’s crusade, against the Senoufos whose only authority is a material one. In 2153, the surviving Senoufos join the ranks of the victors. Babakar surrounds himself with a council of lieutenants, the chakas.
So the Bamaka take west Africa. A new generation of mutants is born, and leaves for the north, by following the Nile. In twelve years, the Bamaka reunite ancient Egypt, Libya, then Algeria. The long column of mutants splits up in the course of the journey: the chakas leave Babakar on the outskirts of Cairo to continue their expedition to the Middle East. Others undertake the exploration of the Atlas mountains, crossing the ancient Algerian border.
Babakar is at the height of his glory. He declares, however, that it will be his descendants and not he who achieves the unification of Africa, desired by the Supreme Being. In the following months, the years of battle and mutation take their toll: all at once, the leader of the Bamaka becomes old. He installs himself in the ruins of ancient Tunis, and supervises the assembly of a handful of ships. While his old comrades and his children finish unifying Africa, he wants to know if Europe is accessible and, if that is the case, if it would join the Bamaka clan in the union of the Supreme Being.
Bamaka leaves Algeria at the head of a reconnaissance fleet in 2167 and established a forward post in Sicily, whose aspect has changed dramatically during the Apocalypse. Spreading out, the ships travel all around southern Europe and return immediately to their home port, to put together the information they have gathered. At the onset of autumn 2168, Babakar gathers his faithful chakas together on a hill near Syracuse: he passes the leadership of his whole clan on to them. Babakar dies in 2170. His body is taken back to Africa and fed to the vultures, in accordance with the rites of his original tribe.
Babakar leaves behind him a clan whose authority is uncontested over the northern half of the African continent, and which could leave for the conquest of Europe in a few months. The loss of the mutants’ patriarch, however, is a blow which calls a halt to Bamaka’s campaigns: the Council of Chakas is numerous, and disagreements do not take long to show up. The chakas disperse and go about their own affairs. Intrigues and wars of succession progressively reduce the number of chakas in the decades which follow : from 100 at the death of Bamaka, there are now only fourteen. Each of them governs a large province in Africa or the Mediterranean.
The Bamaka clan’s first large-scale battle on European soil took place in 2181, near Florence in Italy. The Sisters of the Matriarchy of Sybille set the stern face of their faith against the animist religion of the Bamaka. These last were finally beaten, but took back encouraging news to their brothers in the south: Europe is a land of opportunity, able to supply the resources which the Sahara could not yield. The Battle of Florence marks the start of several successive waves over the ensuing decades. The Bamaka established bridgeheads throughout southern Europe, especially on the islands of the Mediterranean, in Anatolia, Greece and Spain. The aim is always the same: find sites where resources are to be found, and try to install themselves on them. A handful of chakas encouraged their warriors to convert the Europeans to the rites of the Supreme Being. Until now, the results are mixed. Apart from the language barrier, the mutants are looked on with hostility.
It’s 2260, and a recent event has just overtaken the Bamaka clan, which until now was believed to be invincible on African soil. The Askaris have just emerged from underground strongholds in the Arabian desert and the wastelands of Libya, Egypt and the Sudan. These creatures give a new meaning to the word ‘mutant’, as they are inhuman, and benefit from a technology which comes straight out of the Apocalypse. Just five weeks are enough for the Askaris to take advantage of their surprise attack, and to take Beirut, the Suez Canal and most of Libya. The Egyptian chakas, too, are in the process of losing to this blitzkrieg. A defeat may sound the death knell for the Bamaka clan: without Egypt and the resources of the Nile, the routes linking the Bamaka of the African Horn to their brothers in Europe would be cut. Sabaka Big-Foot, a powerhouse raised to the rank of chaka, gets his men together to lead a counter-attack.
Tarar Long Strides
The Bamaka Clan
The 21st century places Africa at the centre of the world’s geopolitical chessboard. Human acts have exhausted the natural resources of industrialised countries, who are therefore looking to the unspoilt lands of the black continent to satisfy their appetite. Furthermore, this same industrial activity has provoked climatic imbalance, which has changed the aspect of hitherto fertile regions. The populations whose survival depends on agriculture or on the sea must therefore migrate towards the unaffected lands, which are already overpopulated. Humanitarian crises follow, on a continent already prey to tribal tensions, caused by the careless establishing of borders by the colonial powers of the 19th century. In this context, it is easy to understand how the rich countries could easily buy land from the political puppets they had armed and placed at the head of totalitarian governments.
Despite cultural disparity and tribal rivalries, a protest movement was born in the sub-Saharan African population throughout the second half of the 21st century. On the fringe of the wars which began to tear the world apart, Africa slowly but surely rejected the systems and the religions imposed by its oppressors.
A child baptised Babakar is born to the Masai in Kenya in 2129. For several years, its natural resources have become so precious that Africa is a permanent battlefield. When he is six, Babakar is captured by soldiers from Mahgreb and given Viral Improvement Agents (V.I.A.) before becoming, along with many other children of his age, a transgenetic fighter. Babakar becomes a war beast. In 2137, when the Apocalypse breaks out, his troop has already carried out many feats of arms in which he played an active part, in north-east Africa. He leads the Bamaka brigade ‘The Clan of Warlord Babakar’. New exploits against combatants from all over the world make him a respected officer. In Egypt, in particular, in 2138, the Bamaka inflict a crushing defeat on the armoured troops on secondment from the NATO and coordinated by a representative of NOAH, the ISC’s artificial intelligence.
Babakar does not owe his survival and his surprising ascent to hierarchic supremacy to chance. He has a secret: to preserve a spark of humanity in the face of the horrors of the V.I.A. and the Apocalypse, he has founded his faith on the cults of his ancestors. Whenever his spirit wavers, his ancestors speak to him. His operations put him in touch with the tribes of the continent, and soon he gradually acquires the conviction that he is neither possessed not schizophrenic: the ancestors of all the people are calling him to be the champion who frees the soul of Africa.
In 2139, while the world is falling into chaos, the Bamaka are engaged on a supply-gathering campaign in Uganda. On the banks of what remains of Lake Victoria, Babakar has a vision: the ancestors tell him that the Supreme Being, the superior divinity known under many names throughout African cultures, is about to unleash his flaming sword on the world. The transgenetic officer persuades his Bamaka to desert, and to accompany him to the Masai. There, Babakar shares his visions in front of a crowd swayed by the merits of his cause: in the following three years, the standard of the Supreme Being rallies a people who are gathering together between Kenya and Somalia. When the seismic weapons – the broadsword of the Supreme Being – strike the world in 2142, the Bamaka have gone to earth in shelters which they have taken over from different armed forces in the Horn of Africa. When they emerge, some weeks later, the Bamaka discover that Ethiopia and Kenya have been torn apart by the movement of the tectonic plates. A delta comparable to the Nile is now to be found to the north of Ethiopia, and the faults have remodelled the countryside to isolate their new paradise from the a world which is, from now on, in ruins. The temptation to stay in the Ethiopian rift is great, but Babakar has a mission to fulfil. He assembles a company of volunteers and sets off to conquer the rest of Africa.
The Bamaka encounter many obstacles in the course of their journey: their reserves run out quickly, and they have to face up to penury. Furthermore, some old military units have carved out their own strongholds, and lay murderous ambushes. Some have become cannibals. Every time, however, the Bamaka are victorious: firearms, followed by cold steel, are no match for the powers born of mutation.
Furthermore, Babakar has a secret weapon : his faith in the Supreme Being wakes a hope which has long slumbered in the hearts of the Africans. The Apocalypse is no longer a curse but a liberation, and the ancestors’ bequest redefines the identity of the survivors. As the years go by, one by one the Bamaka rally the tribes of Central Africa to their cause.
Their progress slows down. The scouts sent over the Congo river take note of living forests, whole regions where man has been eradicated to the benefit of creatures from a bygone age. In the west, the situation is urgent: a great tribe, the Senoufos, has also launched itself into the conquest of the continent. It has soldiers and arms in great numbers. Its warlords, brought together in a multicultural council, have the firm intention of purging Africa of the presence of its mutants who have inherited, they say, all the vices of the old invaders. The Bamaka, on their side, know that mutation is unavoidable: the first children born to the marriage of the old transgenetic warriors and non-transformed individuals will give birth to mutants. They do not all survive, but at the time of the first skirmishes, some have reached adolescence.
The Bamaka win a victory over the Senoufos after four years of bitter war around the Niger delta. Once again, the spiritual ascendancy of Babakar plays a decisive role in the issue of the conflict: the blessing of the ancestors gives an aura of legitimacy to Babakar’s crusade, against the Senoufos whose only authority is a material one. In 2153, the surviving Senoufos join the ranks of the victors. Babakar surrounds himself with a council of lieutenants, the chakas.
So the Bamaka take west Africa. A new generation of mutants is born, and leaves for the north, by following the Nile. In twelve years, the Bamaka reunite ancient Egypt, Libya, then Algeria. The long column of mutants splits up in the course of the journey: the chakas leave Babakar on the outskirts of Cairo to continue their expedition to the Middle East. Others undertake the exploration of the Atlas mountains, crossing the ancient Algerian border.
Babakar is at the height of his glory. He declares, however, that it will be his descendants and not he who achieves the unification of Africa, desired by the Supreme Being. In the following months, the years of battle and mutation take their toll: all at once, the leader of the Bamaka becomes old. He installs himself in the ruins of ancient Tunis, and supervises the assembly of a handful of ships. While his old comrades and his children finish unifying Africa, he wants to know if Europe is accessible and, if that is the case, if it would join the Bamaka clan in the union of the Supreme Being.
Bamaka leaves Algeria at the head of a reconnaissance fleet in 2167 and established a forward post in Sicily, whose aspect has changed dramatically during the Apocalypse. Spreading out, the ships travel all around southern Europe and return immediately to their home port, to put together the information they have gathered. At the onset of autumn 2168, Babakar gathers his faithful chakas together on a hill near Syracuse: he passes the leadership of his whole clan on to them. Babakar dies in 2170. His body is taken back to Africa and fed to the vultures, in accordance with the rites of his original tribe.
Babakar leaves behind him a clan whose authority is uncontested over the northern half of the African continent, and which could leave for the conquest of Europe in a few months. The loss of the mutants’ patriarch, however, is a blow which calls a halt to Bamaka’s campaigns: the Council of Chakas is numerous, and disagreements do not take long to show up. The chakas disperse and go about their own affairs. Intrigues and wars of succession progressively reduce the number of chakas in the decades which follow : from 100 at the death of Bamaka, there are now only fourteen. Each of them governs a large province in Africa or the Mediterranean.
The Bamaka clan’s first large-scale battle on European soil took place in 2181, near Florence in Italy. The Sisters of the Matriarchy of Sybille set the stern face of their faith against the animist religion of the Bamaka. These last were finally beaten, but took back encouraging news to their brothers in the south: Europe is a land of opportunity, able to supply the resources which the Sahara could not yield. The Battle of Florence marks the start of several successive waves over the ensuing decades. The Bamaka established bridgeheads throughout southern Europe, especially on the islands of the Mediterranean, in Anatolia, Greece and Spain. The aim is always the same: find sites where resources are to be found, and try to install themselves on them. A handful of chakas encouraged their warriors to convert the Europeans to the rites of the Supreme Being. Until now, the results are mixed. Apart from the language barrier, the mutants are looked on with hostility.
It’s 2260, and a recent event has just overtaken the Bamaka clan, which until now was believed to be invincible on African soil. The Askaris have just emerged from underground strongholds in the Arabian desert and the wastelands of Libya, Egypt and the Sudan. These creatures give a new meaning to the word ‘mutant’, as they are inhuman, and benefit from a technology which comes straight out of the Apocalypse. Just five weeks are enough for the Askaris to take advantage of their surprise attack, and to take Beirut, the Suez Canal and most of Libya. The Egyptian chakas, too, are in the process of losing to this blitzkrieg. A defeat may sound the death knell for the Bamaka clan: without Egypt and the resources of the Nile, the routes linking the Bamaka of the African Horn to their brothers in Europe would be cut. Sabaka Big-Foot, a powerhouse raised to the rank of chaka, gets his men together to lead a counter-attack.
Tarar Long Strides
Sabaka Heavy Foot
Abama Large Belly
Ngwane Lightning Claw
Ngozi Short Winded
Sigwana Clear Spirit
Folayan Soft Belly
Ngobo Quick Arm
