It had been tough months for the Fortress-Town Solaris to stand up on their two feet. Series of sabotages from fights at the sectoral market, broken watermills for the power plants, non-functional electric fence, missing supplies, arms stealings, kidnapings, you name them. Things got bigger and bigger that a potential coup and a meaningless civil war almost broke.

In fact, it already had but none of the 12 council members (at that time) got involved like how the heat of the moment initially split the councils into three groups. One that shows supports the leader's decision (4 members), another that rejects the leader's proposal (2 members), and lastly the members who were either not wanting to take part of the decision or those who simply indiferent--the decision would not hamper their daily work, whatsoever,  and would not bring the fortress-town down to ashes.

'To be fair, disagreements within an organization is a normal occurence! What's more, this is Solaris that we're talking about. You know, the fifth sturdiest fortress-town in this apocalyptic time that one can find at the southern land! Even the Bullwark-City Federation acknowledged Solaris as a force to be reckoned with.'

It was hard for the council members to admit how wrong such assumption was. And even more so for their leader to bit back her own tongue then acknowledged the potential risks that she had overlooked before submitting her proposal to the councilboard.

Not that the leader was in a complete blind, she was always in the concscious to perceive Solaris--the Fortress-Town that she and the three early leaders had built--was not immune to threats (unlike the majority of its inhibitants, including the council members--sadly).

The fortress-town, despite the sturdiest defense mechanism that it had, was formed upon 12 smaller watcher-villages within a close distance. It did not erase the fact that there were geographical gaps between each watcher-village (one of the critical concerns being listed in the council's agenda since the beginning of its formation).

True that upon Solaris early establishment, the leader (along with two oldest council members) had manage to map out both the natural and human source potentials of their respective main watcher-village along with their surroundings. For four years, the pioneers worked tirelessly to invite as much as advantageous neighbors and accept those who voluntarily seek assylum in the increasingly dangerous post-apocalyptic world; they make use what was available. The fortress-town gain further rapid development after they attract few-more practicioners and experts (city planners, architects, post-apocalypse terrain investigators and researchers, engineers, and the likes). It has been 6 years of Solaris official establishment and never once did Solaris ever went out to raid the less threatening groups, except when their inhibitants was in danger. With the increase of fame, bandit groups would think twice before they would even step into Solaris' teritory. In short, bandit-like invasions from the usual small thug groups were a breeze for Solaris. They would deal just fine with simple thugs or invasion from their smaller neighborhood. They even build up strategic posts to deal with unwanted hordes of mutants and sent out scouts to monitor their everchanging surroundings to neutralize mutants from 'sticking-together'. More people soon joined to improve Solaris defenses and sustainabiloty for the betterment of their security. In fact, the smaller neighbor towns used to come and hire some trained combat teams from Solaris to protect their group from mutant or thug attacks.

Despite Solaris had acomplished so much, it still had weaknesses that needed to be closely monitored. The most cliche problem that could reduce Solaris to ruins was the potential inner conflicts.

And Kim Dragon knew this quite well.

At worst, the Solaris' leader had expected betrayal from her own people--one or some of the council members complete with people that supported their protest would come with guns and confronted The Dragon to leave her leadership throne.

Yet, surprisingly, that was not the case.

None of the council members, despite their interest differences as well as their capability to be independent from Solaris, ever considered to change their current commanding position with Kim "the Dragon" Yongsun as the center.

However, such fact was only known much later. Call it luck or miracle or quick wits, for amid the tension and confusion the council (in the end) manage to get ahold the source of trouble. Long story-short, a third party outside of the conflicting members' had been subtly taking influence in the fortress-town for almost a year.

The Coup Drama, the council members named the recent embarassing history of Solaris administration. It began with a sudden--though not obvious--proposal by Kim Dragon which mentioned a random nomadic village known as Traderslog. The 60-ish nomads were seeking assylum to Solaris and was then waiting for the councilboard's approval. Kim Dragon was very insistent in her introduction. Turned out, they nomad village was but a disguise used by Headless, a rumored mercenary group famous for their good intel investigation in the illegal part of post-apocalyptic society. Nobody knew how Kim Dragon worked her eccentric charisma to get ahold of the rumored group (if any, it would mostlikely be the two elite council members). Kim Dragon even sneaked in 13 "core" members of the disguised nomadic village into the council's underground meeting chamber to proof their existance as well as arguing their loyalty to Solaris. They would of course be an useful asset to their forterss-town.

However,

accepting a group famous in the illegal-world was bound to instill doubts among the council members. At first, the council members put a full trust to Kim Dragon's plan and proceed to see how Traderslog would function. They were not immediately accepted into Solaris, as much as Kim Dragon wanted so, but they were given a place to stay in a less unoccupied area located in the middle of sector 2, 3, and 4.

Ever since then, seemingly neverending problems occurs around Solaris. The council called for a meeting to discuss the matter with Traderslog's stay in Solaris. The meeting went into a heating debate that leads to 7/12 vote to accept the Traderslog, then it ends with almost a coup--if a certain Jung "the Wind" Wheein (Sector 4, Solaris Council Member) did not interrupt the firey banters.

There was something odd with the recurring sabotages, as in, the sabotages oddly happens in six different patterns--according to sector 4's 'impromptu' investigation team (at Jung Wind's emphasis). The representative of sector 4 mentioned that she had non