Fandom 𝖑𝖊𝖆𝖛𝖊𝖘 𝖋𝖗𝖔𝖒 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖛𝖎𝖓𝖊 | 𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖗𝖆𝖈𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝖈𝖗𝖊𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓

Unfortunately this earth is not a fairy-land,
but a struggle for life, perfectly natural and therefore extremely harsh.
-Martin Bormann

◈ THE BASICS ◈

◈ APPEARANCE ◈

◈ ABILITIES ◈

◈ PERSONALITY ◈

Some would say his greatest virtue is his patience, honed with years of practice among the insufferable crust of Fire Nation’s finest nobility. His patience and understanding nature makes him stand out as the voice of reason among the fiery tempers that are common in the leadership circle of the kindred spirits that advocate for the restoration of the Fire Nation, often being the mediator between the different voices, a trait that has proved particularly important in his station as the leader of the moderates. Complimented by his fair if heavy-handed nature.
Another critical aspect of Zuolin’s persona is his pragmatism, always aiming for the optimum benefit for both himself and the interests of the numerous organizations that he is affiliated with, regardless of the implications of such deeds.
Alas all the positive qualities tend to be overshadowed by his rather unsavoury traits
Zuolin harbors a zealous admiration for the late Fire Lord Sozin, who he views as the founding father of the modern Fire Nation. As such Zuolin is a firm believer in the ideals espoused by the late Fire Lord, or at least a version of it that is accented with his own beliefs and interpretations.

◈ OC QUESTIONS ◈

The Fire Nation was the greatest among the Nations, on a path of progress ever moving forward unlike those who came before, carving a new golden age for themselves with iron and blood, with toil and hard work, not beholden to the whims of the «supernatural» forces, nor the ever reactionary wisdom of the Avatars. For the first time in known history, men had taken the reins of their destiny in their own hands. Factories sprung up, trade was revolutionized with the invention of the steamboat, opportunities for education became widespread and above all else conditions for the average subject of the Fire Lord improved drastically

Proud with the accomplishments of his nation and wanting to share such great progress and prosperity with the less fortunate, backwards nations of the world, Fire Lord Sozin would take action, for advancement of all, the Fire Nation would act as the teacher, taking the less fortunate Nations as her pupils so they too would prosper under the ever watchful guidance. United in their struggle for a better tomorrow.

The unforeseen successes of the Nation brought on the vicious envy of the lesser unenlightened gentiles who refused to be part of the promised future and clung to their obsolete ways and in their ignorance they festered. They hopelessly resisted against the new order in a futile attempt to reverse the course of time and they would be crushed as not even the Avatar could contend with the full might of the Industrious Fire Nation brought fore, no they had to resort to underhanded tactics, so they used the banished prince and his treasonous uncle, who back-stabbed their own brethren for their own personal revenge.

Now, the dream of an ever prosperous world that Sozin kindled the fires of all those years ago has been compromised, almost two hundred years of progress, the path to a new prosperous civilization has been nearly vanquished by the forces of the reaction that congregated around the Avatar.

Yet not all is lost for the Fire Nation, for a Nation is not merely a country defined by borders but a people, while the Fire Lord and the Home Islands may shun their past and ignore their culture and legacy, the embers of Sozin’s dream continues to burn within the former colonies, the betrayal that sullied the legacy of the crown will not be easily forgotten nor forgiven. The cinders will be reignited and fire will rage through the land once more, The Fire Nation will be reforged from it›s remains once more in their second homeland.

N/A

The face of the reaction, the enemy of progress, for all the talk of the Avatar being the uniting presence for the Nations, for Zuolin he is nothing but the destroyer of the world›s one chance to truly be united. For him The Avatar is a relic of a bygone era, neither the Avatar nor the values they espouse has any meaning in modern reality.

On the topic of the last Avatar, the air-bender who was no older than twelve when he went against the greatest monarch still breathing on this world, was but a misguided child, poisoned with the lies of the primitive tribals and longing for a world that no longer existed. It is hard to blame a child, ignorant of the wider consequences of their actions, as severe as they may be.

The destruction of Sozin's dream of an ascendant Fire Nation once and for all is the bane of Zuolin's existence, coupled with a general fear and despondence abou what a world, controlled by the Avatar and the forces of reaction, devoid of free will and any sense of human ingenuity will mean for mankind.

◈ HISTORY ◈

The history of Ashina Zuolin is one that is best described as a story of soaring heights and lowly-lows but to begin the story, even the most storied histories have humble beginnings, if once could even call the second son of one of the greatest clans among the Fire Nation’s ranks humble at all.

Born as the second son of Shoushan Ashina, the patriarch of the Ashina Clan, and the leader of Ashina Conglomerate. Alas, one might be born into a family of wealth and influence but that didn’t mean he was the luckiest one, as he was born without the natural skill to fire-bend that his elder brother Dachai had, the early years would be marked with a constant struggle to prove his worth in comparison with his elder brother, where he was, where Dachai excelled under the harsh regimen of their mother, Zuolin always fell short.

With his brother’s decision to leave the family business to pursue a career with the military, Zuolin suddenly found himself as the primary heir to one of the greatest financial empires in the entirety of the Fire Nation.

All the years under his mother’s training regimen would in the end earn him a brief and unsuccessful stint in the Admiralty Proper. Turns out his rather unorthodox beliefs and general questioning attitude did not mesh well with the system in place, had it not been for his rather high status, there is no doubt that expulsion would have been the least of his worries. Albeit years of studying in the best schools Fire Nation had to offer did come in handy.

While sympathetic to his plight, his father still could not resist the demands of his mother. In the end he had had him sent to the colonies as a functionary in the recently established Colonial Development Company, a perfect pretense for his exile from the Home Islands.

Once he began to acclimate himself into the colonies, Zuolin came to admire the teachings and the dream of Sozin on a new light. The colonies were indeed a land of great opportunity, They had indeed brought civilization to this untamed land and were realizing the dream, yet the full potential of the colonies were yet to be seen, so far they had served as a means to an end, but Zuolin saw more than just a vast expanse to exploit. No, developed properly this land could be an equal to the Home Islands.

So he began his work, at first it was just low-level projects, a factory here a mill there but steadily it grew, especially with the advent of investing into the Hu-Xin Railway Company, establishing interlinked townships and hotel business along the bustling railway and by the end of the first half of the 90s, Ashina Zuolin had made a name for himself as the Railway Magnate of the Colonies, and through his connections in the HX-RC a rising name among the Bureacuracy of the Colonial Establishment.

And that’s when the opulence hit and a series of questionable decisions followed suit. Culminating in the fact that he sired a child with a lowly earthen-colonial peasant, the news of which circulated through the Colonies and even the fire nation proper as a result He was unofficially ‘exiled’ from the Colonial Heartland into the periphery by his Uncle. under the pretense of being promoted to the ‘Regional Overseer’ of the Ashina Company’s assets.

Alas the soaring heights that the company had experienced were soon to come crashing down, as news of Zuko’s Palace-Coup in the Home Islands hit the colonies. A period of unease engulfed everyone, no one knowing what would happen in the near future. At the time he had expected the military to intervene, to save the Nation from the bonds of slavery that would no doubt be shackled upon them by the lowlifes. Yet the expected coup never came. Instead the cowardly officers acknowledged the usurper lord alongside Azula in a compromise that left everyone involved unsatisfied.

An uneasy peace settled upon the Nation. It was like a powder keg ready to blow up any second and eventually, of course, it did. Only three-years into their joint rule. Starting a Civil War that would rage for six years and destroy what little remained of the Fire Nation's dignity. By the end of it they, the people who had stood atop the world as gods among men, would be reduced to nothing more than the ashes of a broken past.

With the Colonies in disarray, the local Governor declared his support for Azula, and under this new arrangement, Zuolin, as one of the most prominent businessman present was appointed as the Chairman of the Fujwei Chamber of Industry

His job was to ensure that the Economy of the colony worked like a well oiled machine, and he was nothing if not dutiful in this affair, no matter the cost. He’d plan the most effective ways to ruthlessly exploit the resources of the colony. Quotas had to be met for the Glory of the Fire Nation. He’d spend days at his office overseeing all the paper-work and issuing ‘requests’ for more ‘labourers’ to meet the demand.

By the time the fourth year of the conflict rolled around, it was becoming increasingly clear that Azula and the Loyalist faction were destined to lose the war, the news from the Front-lines, both in the Home Islands and the Great Siege of Ba Sing Se were all grim, for every victory in the Home Front, thee were three defeats and the disgraced General was making progress with the Siege of the Great City. With each defeat the demands of the Loyalists on the colony got more and more ridiculous, asking them to provide all the resources that they could or for that matter, couldn’t effort. It didn’t make a difference for the High Command. As more and more resources were diverted to the war effort and the people started to grow discontent, more so than ever, a legitimate threat without a central government to send in reinforcements to crush a revolt if such came to be. So something had to be done, and soon.

Gathering all the allies he could, ranging from fellow members of the Chamber, concerned bureaucrats, the local naval garrison and even some dissident subjects. All ready for a Palace Coup, which came to occur on one fateful early morning. In which the incumbent Governor was detained and a retired Admiral, Admiral Shin was installed as the Governor-General of the Colony as the nominal leader.

Having Himself appointed as the Chief Civilian Advisor to the Governor-General and Mayor of the Capital, effectively becoming the De-Facto dictator of the entire Colonial Province, it was time for Zuolin to reverse the course set by the previous government of Azula’s sycophants and began implanting his vision for the Colony. The First order of business was to order the cessation of deliveries to the Frontline. No longer would the goods that were necessary for the survival of the people of Colony be used frivolously for a lost cause.

Citing concerns over a possible intervention by the Earth Kingdom forces, A new auxiliary civilian militia was created under the name of ‘Volunteer Defence Corps” funded generously by the coffers of the Colony.

A new commission was formed to review the sentences given out under the previous government, yet citing the ‘ state of emergency’ many were conscripted into the Labour Battalions of the VDC with a meagre stipend. A shallow improvement.

He began appointing local colonials who were loyal to him into positions of power within the new administrative bureaucracy, a significant amount of which came from an Earthen background, a situation that raised concern and suspicion among Zuolin’s more conservative allies but such concerns were silenced by generous ‘gifts’ and when that didn’t work out, a visit from the VDC always worked.

By the end, a semblance of the Pre-Civil War stability had returned to the province. With Zuolin as the undisputed Architect of the relative prosperity. He stood atop the House of Cards he built as the one true victor, once more he felt undefeatable...

A series of unpopular and controversial decisions that ran contrary to his previous pragmatic policies followed suit, first of which was to actually marry his long-time mistress and legitimize his numerous bastards. A decision that scandalized the old elite, the fellow businessmen and even the officer core that had allied themselves with him, yet they couldn’t do anything with the ‘Auxiliary VDC’ outnumbering the Formal Garrison to 3 to 1.

The news from the Home Islands came from his own brother, requesting help in evacuation, that the war was soon to be over and Zuko would come out on top sooner than expected came as a sobering blow to the The House of Cards that Zuolin had built for himself in the Colonies would come crumbling down, once again the only thing he could do was to ensure that the damage that would inevitably occur would be as minimized as possible.

At first Zuolin tried to reach out to the other Colonial Governors for the possibility of forming an united front against the Home Islands but the other administrations were either wary of working with him due to his reputation or regarded him as a traitor for his decision to cease support.

By the end of the month, Zuko’s faction would re-consolidate their rule over the colonies. Initially the Government of Fujwei considered the option of resistance against occupation, in a lengthy meeting between Admiral Shin and Zuolin, that lasted the better part of the day, they would come to the conclusion that the best option for them was to surrender the province to the Forces of Zuko rather than risk any further needless bloodshed, or worse, give another opportunity for the Earth King to intervene in. Zuolin continued his efforts to get as many people out of the jurisdiction of the authorities until the last moment when the soldiers of the traitor would come to detain him, rumours say that he was signing away one paper after another with an army of couriers coming and going back and forth until the moment the occupation forces arrived on his doorstep… And few spoke of the suspiciously convenient fire that engulfed the Colonial Government’s archives.

Taken back to the Home Island’s to face the Fire Lord’s justice alongside the countless other Colonial Functionaries that had taken part in the war effort supporting Azula in one way or another. Initially charged for cooperation with traitors and profiteering, Zuolin was able to make his case over the course of the year long trial and reduce the sentence to the point that he was only charged with being a sympathiser of Azula.

The news of the Fire Lord Ceding the Colonies to the Earth Kingdom came to him while he was still being held in custody, and it wasn’t news that unexpected it still did shook him to hear that the Fire Lord had caved in without any sort of negotiation for the Fire Nation’s benefits, where others despaired, Zuolin was already envisioning the opportunity that this inaction would create.

Once released back into the free world, he didn’t waste time trying to salvage what they had left. The Ashina Conglomerate had been dismantled into many smaller companies and most of their holdings seized but not all was lost. Soon, all the small companies had gathered together under the Ashina Group.

With all the low-level bureaucrats that he had appointed previously, it wasn’t all that hard to acquire citizenship, of course helped by some palm greasing.

Initially Zuolin was adamant about working with a radical like his brother but he knew that people would not instinctively follow a man such as himself, however his brother had been a General during the Civil War, and a war hero for the masses, Dachai was a more marketable face for the masses while Zuolin could manage the actual day to day affairs behind closed doors.

Now, back in the land that he toiled so hard for, Zuolin is once more ready to achieve the grand dream of Sozin, but this time there is no place for a margin of error.

.[/comment]