Credo Social War
The Credo Social War was a noted period of strife from 687 to 739 between two factions of Credo's high society that grew from petty harassments through malicious practical jokes to outright violence.
Description (Specifications)[edit]
The root of the quarrel was the Credo Cloud Resort Society Awards, a set of awards handed out by a self-appointed committee of social leaders. These awards (known affectionately as the Snooties) included such titles as Most Charitable Person, Hostess of the Year, Sportsman of the Year, and the much-coveted First Man in Credo.
The awards were handed out for the first time in 640. By 680 a vocal minority of Credo's elite headed by millionaire philanthropist Elias Greene were complaining that the awards were being kept almost exclusively within a small inner circle. The Awards Committee ignored the complaints and continued as before. In 687, at the Cloud Resort's annual general meeting, Greene's party staged a coup and ousted the executive committee. The new management's first act was to dismiss the Awards Committee and appoint a new one. This action split Credo's haut monde down the middle. The old committee argued that the resort was merely the venue for the awards ceremony and had no power over the committee itself. At that year's ceremony Greene's opponents walked out and handed out their own awards in an adjacent hall. In 688 each side held its own ceremony, both of which were disrupted by practical jokes. From then on, the conflict escalated out of all proportion, to the point where members of the two sides could not be in the same room together and fistfights became a common occurrence. Several duels were fought, and in 714 a stock broker named Stuart Parker was found beaten to death in a parking loft. Four months later merchant banker Casimir Summerfield was assassinated in his office. Over the next two decades more than sixty deaths by violence among society leaders were attributed to the Social War. The number of dead among bodyguards and private agents ran into hundreds.
History & Background (Dossier)[edit]
By 735 many of the original participants in the feud had died - some actually of old age - or fled to other worlds. The next generation had grown tired of the bloodshed and made peace overtures. It took another four years to achieve a settlement, but in 739 both sides cancelled their award ceremonies and held a reconciliation party instead. The CCR Society Awards were never handed out again.
References & Contributors (Sources)[edit]
- Traveller Wiki Editorial Team
- Author & Contributor: Hans Rancke-Madsen
- Author & Contributor: Lord (Marquis) and Master of Sophontology Maksim-Smelchak of the Ministry of Science