Event / era
The Fall of Neith
Also: Assault on Neith · Rumpish assault on Neith · Capture of Neith · Assault and Capture of Neith · Siege of Neith
The Rumpish assault on Neith in 1777 AD (1898 CP), and the capture of the entire moon by Chæmbo’s ship.
The Fall of Neith was the Rumpish assault on Neith, the Chicken home world, and the capture of the entire moon by the ship of Chæmbo, The Barbarian. The assault began later in the year 1777 AD, now more widely known as 1898 CP. When it was over, Neith had been taken from the sky of Venus altogether.
After The Destruction of Chickenheim, Neith had become a bastion of Chicken-culture and was regarded as the center of Chickendom in the Local Group. It had sheltered the Chickens since they found it in 234 CP. In the weeks and days leading up to the assault, William Herschel did everything in his power to protect the satellite.
The assault§
General Torumund Borgin, who by then oversaw many Rumpish military programs, Earth Ops among them, led the Rumpish forces in his massive vessel, the RF-9, aptly named after his top tier Rump Factor. The Rumps' primary objective was to annihilate the Chickens of Neith and claim the moon for their own; they also sought the Cheeknomicron. Among those reporting directly to Borgin was a Lieutenant, Gorginmeijer Borgleaus, who had reported to him in the assault on Chickenheim nearly nineteen centuries before.
When it became apparent that Neith would fall to the might of the RF-9, Chief Kwimpala and a band of brave Chicken-warriors, including Yellow Beak Stout Feather, turned to a last resort: a decommissioned surface-to-space moon laser, stored in the treacherous Sobek Mountains. They powered it with the Cheeknomicron itself and returned fire on the RF-9. The use of a surface-to-space moon laser was, it should be noted, technically a violation of intergalactic law. Nevertheless, the barrage was extremely effective, and it did major damage to the RF-9.
The retreat to Titan§
Crippled, the RF-9 turned away from Neith, and the Rumpnillion Bastadons withdrew with it. To the Chickens the battle seemed won. They believed themselves victorious, and that the moon which had given them a second home was saved.
Borgin's retreat was not a surrender. His vessel was too badly damaged to fight on, and he made for Titan, a Rump-held moon of Saturn, to repair the RF-9, take stock, and regroup. The respite was vital to the Chickens as well: it gave the Chickens of Neith time to regroup.
The capture§
Borgin, however, had one last stratagem. Unbeknownst to the Chickens, he sought the aid of an ancient and powerful force, the one that William Herschel had feared above all others. He summoned Chæmbo, The Barbarian, who had begun the war that destroyed Chickenheim nearly nineteen centuries before. Borgin felt he could ask in part because, in the last fighting at Chickenheim, he had taken a Chicken arrow meant for Chæmbo; and Chæmbo relished the request. It was a last resort. Chæmbo had spent the centuries since Chickenheim hunting Chickens across the moons of The Diaspora, without the exact place of their greatest refuge, and the Rumps, who knew it, had never given it to him: they meant to claim Neith for themselves, and they had heard tell of the ship Chæmbo had built after The Fall of Chickendom, made to swallow entire moons. When Chæmbo comes, he takes everything. In summoning him, Borgin gave up that prize to win the war.
As Chæmbo's ship drew near, its shadow, The Chæmbrolāmbra, fell across Neith and blotted out the Sun. The ship itself, wrapped in that darkness, could not yet be seen, but some Chickens, Chief Kwimpala among them, understood what the darkness meant and urged the others to flee. Many would not.
The ship, afterwards named the Neith-Taker, captured Neith: not its cities or its defenders, but the entire moon, with many Chickens still on it. In the words of John Herschel's poem, Neith "vanished into the Neith-Taker's jaw".
Kwimpala did not stay to be taken. He flew out on a ship and cast the Cheeknomicron toward Earth in a capsule, so that the Rumps would never have it, and he was killed by Rumpish forces on that mission. On Earth the capsule was later recovered by Marcus Aurelius Chamberlain Bentworthe, who kept it secret.
Neith has been no satellite of Venus since. Yet Chæmbo’s Peace, the common era, is reckoned still: not even The Fall of Neith brought it to an end.
In verse§
Sixty years after The Fall, in 1837 AD, the astronomer John Herschel, son of William Herschel, set it down in verse:
When Borgin fled to Titan moon,
He beseeched the Rump of Doom.
Victorious Neith in Venusian umbra,
Heeded not the dawn of the Chæmbrolāmbra;
It vanished into the Neith-Taker’s jaw.
And is said to rest in the Kitties’ Paw.— John Herschel, 1837 AD
The poem is the only record in the archive to tie The Chæmbrolāmbra to The Fall of Neith, and the only one to say where Neith now lies: in the Kitties’ Paw.