Writing a Rebellion

My fantasy setting features 2 different 'races' so to speak. One that is capable of using Body Surf to extend their lifespan and one that has the average human lifespan. Everyone can choose if they want to be a Body Surfer or an average person, but some people make their choice due to religious/moral reasons. There was/still is prejudice between these groups (mostly normals towards the Body Surfers, due to the fact many of them believe it dishonors the gods)

Part of the backstory of this setting involves a (small scale) representative democracy where elected officials retain their position until they are impeached/unable to perform their duties, resign or die. The 'normals' become upset with this system of governing for some reason (maybe they believe the Body Surfers have an unfair advantage or they believe they aren't being represented in their government) but either way, radical normals assemble an army to attack the Body Surfers, leading to an all out war that causes huge fatalities on both sides.

• The war eventually ends and leads to the establishment of a charter that forces each province to elect an additional official of 'normal' background if the population of that province exceeds 40% 'normal'
  • This war continues to be a controversial topic to the present

A majority of the characters in my story happen to be of the Body Surfing type and I'm worried that if the radicals that caused the war are interpreted as 'freedom fighters,' it would cause readers to interpret the other characters as oppressive dick holes.

Any thoughts/tips?

You can have both oppressive dickholes and complete jackass rebels you know.

What Garcon said. As long as you make it clear that Both Sides Have a Point, you'll be fine.

One trick I've seen a lot in stories involving this sort of thing is;

• Character A's POV is used to establish they have X way of thinking.
• Character B is a jerkass who rudely assumes A has anti-X way of thinking.
• The unfairness helps the reader identify with Character A and more likely to think Character B is being unreasonable in other ways. You can also have Character C as a more reasonable foil to B, if you want to make it clear that A's not completely innocent.

It seems to work equally well whether A is an ethnic majority, a tourist (or other visiting foreigner), Defector from Decadence from an Always Chaotic Evil people, upper class or simply B's boss.

edited 13th Apr '14 3:12:27 PM by Bisected8

There have been entire dissertations written on the dynamics of a rebellion or an insurgency, and it makes for fascinating reading. For an insurgency to sustain itself, it has to have plenty of popular support (otherwise it wouldn't be able to go up against the might of a nation-state and its resources). This implies that a fair percentage of the population sympathizes with the insurgency's goals, if not to the extent of outright supporting them. Remember, most people will view violence as the last resort; the only way hotheads and radicals gain traction is if they're able to build a fairly wide base of support.

This in turn implies that, to the average person in their position, the insurgent's goals are reasonable, even if his tactics aren't supported. It shouldn't be hard to portray that.

There are, of course, no shortage of case studies for you to use. Insurgencies tend to be long, grinding affairs, fought by nonstate actors that are unable to muster the requisite force for all-out civil war. (If you can rally entire regiments to your cause, kit them out with advanced weapons, and capture cities outright, you probably would. But most nonstate actors can't, so they resort to guerrilla warfare.)