Originally Posted by knuckle
Originally Posted by Hellsfury
After StarSeige, the Rebels under the pressure of past tensions between the colonies and Earth, leave Sol (our solar system). They form the Children of the Phoenix in the Wilderzone, after Harabec the Phoenix Knight and former leader of the rebellion.
Oh, so THAT's what happened. I had wondered how the Phoenix were tied to the Martian Rebels from so long ago.
Actually, the "rebels" that left the system to become the Children of Phoenix are not the same rebels from the end of Starsiege. The "rebels" of Starsiege were colonials that were burdened by heavy taxation and forced labor with no benefits. They rebelled, of course, but joined up with the Empire as Prometheus' forces engaged Earth.
At the end of the war, the colonial forces, or the "rebels" as people call them, formed their own seperatist government called the Free Colonial Forces. What happens in between the beginning of The Chase and the beginning of Vengeance no one knows, aside from the information Cyberstorm gives us. The FCF fades from existence, and the Empire becomes less predominate as a totalitarian regime and becomes more of a conglomorate of the corporate meta-nations that control the economy, as it was before the end of The Fire. It can be assumed that the FCF either rejoined with the Empire by this point or was beaten/exhausted at some point and reintegrated.
The "rebels" that began the original Tribe, the Children of the Phoenix, are anti-Imperial dissenters, just like the ones from Starsiege. The difference is that these rebels are not victims of oppression by Earth, but disharmonious vagrants that self-exiled themselves to the outer rim of known space in an attempt to flee the corporate rule of both Earth and the colonies on Venus, Mars and the outer asteroids/moons of the system. Of course, there's no colony on Pluto since it was destroyed centuries before.
Anyway, the idea is that the Children aren't descendents of the infamous "rebels" from Mars, but are actually only heirs in philosophy. It should be noted that Harabec, "The Phoenix" that led the original rebels to victory, wasn't a colonist or a rebel at all to begin with, but the son of the Emperor, sent to infiltrate the growing rebel cause and subdue it from within, although the Emperor knew he would betray this cause, etc. etc. So the "Children," even if literal descendents of the line of Harabec, which is quite possible since he's a demi-immortal and could have had many descendents at this point, aren't colonials or rebels in the standard sense. It's probable that most of them are actually disgruntled "dirtborn" from Earth.
The most obvious reason for the Phoenix's name is because they were actually physically led by Harabec himself into the Wilderness. What become of him no one knows, but he certainly wouldn't have had the same body as he did before in Starsiege, since 1) his head only survived and 2) immortals need new bodies every couple of centuries to house their mechi-organic brains. Getting a new body causes Cell Memory Drift, however, so it's likely that if Harabec is alive at the end of Tribes 2, he may not even remember who he was, Victor Petresun, heir to the Empire's first Emperor. It'd make a good political story for the next Tribes game, if he were to return to try to claim the throne, which would create controversy between the Empire and the Tribes since in a way he's actually heir to both sides' leadership.
Anyway, the Children of the Phoenix aren't the Starsiege rebels, just a slightly unrelated group that follows the same suit centuries later.
