Let me tell you the story of Joris, the Once Overtyrant of Polaria, the Kingdom of Winter. Once, many years ago when I was just a cub, when we bears were split into feuding clans that squabbled amongst one another, a great warlord returned from Exile. He had traveled the world as a mercenary commander, and had learned his craft from the griffons across the sea. He fought for kings, emperors, republics, revolutions and bandits, and when he had learned all he could he returned in a mighty vessel of steel and fire. He was known then as Paw Wellington, the name he had adopted in Exile. When he came back, he challenged the lord of Clan Scyfling and won. As Tyrant, he brought all his knowledge and foreign weapons to bear on the other clans, and after four years of war unified them all under his rule. Yet all was not right, under the surface. It would only be another three years after that when he needed to address the issues between the clans, as the society he thought to construct faltered and fell to disorder. But he saw within us a potential future. Rather than destroy all the other clans, as Scyfling’s great host certainly could, he saw another way.

Rozenkrantz, Kane and Gotlung, the warlord clans of Onlartir he united by word instead of by force alone. Dueling those few who challenged him and negotiating with those who would listen, only a few were struck down before the south came to him. A strange, unbearlike method done in a very bearlike way. The Warlord clans were made to kneel. The three minor clans of Falsen, Brodkorb and Benkestok that made the Triple Alliance of Wesslandia he attacked one by one, causing each to capitulate until they surrendered. Together they were a powerful force in Polaria. Apart and alone they were no match for the host against them. The Triple Alliance was brought to heel by force. Volsungr, the strange southern Harmonist clan, willingly returned when the Tyrant asked, once he had shown due respect. Clans Anker and Svartpels would never be talked down. They could only be brought to heel through force. And so, at the Battle of the Ice, the Despot struck down Torben, the Thunder Lord. Having surrendered before Wellington’s might, both clans were subjugated by Scyfling’s force once more. Another Unification War, won.

Now I tell you of what Wellington changed. He did not go back to the way things were, of relying on the clans and trying to maintain the old ways and balance the status quo. Instead, the Despot Overtyrant Paw Wellington forged himself a crown of starsteel and on the frozen plains outside of Mathair Fearainn before the lords of all the clans loyal to him he crowned himself King Joris I of Clan Scyfling, First of His Name. He founded the Kingdom of Polaria, and he swore to make us a great people again as a nation, not merely as a race.

For two years, King Joris worked to achieve that. He put all his time and energy into founding his new realm. He built factories, roads, established our economy and currency. He married the Princess Eira of Clan Volsungr and made her his Queen. He began to trade with other nations and welcomed Exiled bears, penguins and griffons to his lands. He wrote a legal code. He established a police force. More than anything else, he made us proud. He showed us his vision of what we could be, and more importantly -we- began to believe.

Then came Chrysalis. The changelings, our oldest enemy, came to our border. They demanded oil and gold for no other reason than they thought they were stronger than we. King Joris said no. And we prepared for war. But Chrysalis fought us with words as much as with guns. She sent in Bjornling. The Exile, a Rosensverd heretic who had rallied his clan. With his bear warriors and changeling tanks and aircraft, he marched on us. And he started from inside our lands, beyond the fortresses we held.

Mathair Fearainn fell first. He slaughtered all who resisted with advanced weaponry, with changeling jagers at his back. He overwhelmed Onlartir with artillery and armored firepower. He split and beat down the minor clans of Wesslandia, and annihilated the halls of the Southern Mountains, purging Volsungr from the peaks. He sank our navy and defanged Clan Anker. Then he crushed Clan Svartpels until the Thunder Lord himself emerged to challenge the army attacking him. And Lord Torben did not falter, smashing a dozen tanks on his own. Where he went…I cannot say. I believe the All-Father took him from us in that moment, so He may return our lord in our time of greatest need.

And then Bjornling got to his real task. He pacified the clans himself. Began dismantling what made us proud of our traditions, our heritage, our might. He returned the Heretic Exiles, the worst of those cast out; Rosensverd, Tordenstjerne. He gave them power over all else and gave the old clans two options; submit or be rendered extinct, like Volsungr and Svartpels.

We accepted. We had no choice. With the Hegemony behind him, Bjornling was too strong. He crowned an exiled changeling Queen and proclaimed us the Northern Protectorate. He armed us with changeling technology, built strange industry. He says we are loyal servants of Her Majesty. He says when Equestria is gone and all this land belongs to the Hegemony, then all the north will belong to the bears. He keeps using a name; he calls our future nation Hyperbearia.

We were once squabbling savages, too set in our ways. Then we had a kingdom. We had a nation, and we had a future. And now, our past and our future are both stolen from us. Bjornling and Chrysalis wiped out two entire clans. They change our history, invalidate our traditions, our culture. And they give us only one possible future; victory.

So I do not march for what we can gain. That vision was already given us by our rightful king. Then it was stolen from us. I march in Bjornling’s army because there is nothing else. Be a warrior like we have for thousands of years or be a slave in his unrelenting machine. He will sacrifice all in the name of his dream of Hyperbearia. And we are trying to keep alive the murdered dream of Polaria. I march for what we have lost.

-A record from Vaktleder Hakka of Clan Kane, spoken to Vise-Korporal Rexxar at camp in the Windigo Forest, July 7th, 1011

Author's Note

So in case you didn't know, the EaW modders dropped a whole heap of new lore and content for Polar Bears. And I love it all. Good news is, my guesses based on trends and teasers was mostly right, meaning I only have to change a little bit. Instead, I decided to release this chapter to cover a portion of the world not mentioned so much in the story, and unfortunately unlikely to be covered much in From Front to Front. Instead, I have compiled a record that is quite fitting to what the bears are in the story; violent, yes, constantly squabbling, but also deeply introspective in their own way, and with a long legacy and recorded history that puts many other 'civilized' nations to shame. I love playing them, I think they're a blast.