On October 24, 2043, a 8.3 Richter scale earthquake struck the island of Rilao and changed the people of our the people of Rilao forever. In the scary days and weeks shortly after the earthquake’s roar, the world watched as people from different walks of life came together and searched from the salty shores to the mountain tops for survivors amongst the rubble. Strangers opened their houses and their hearts, and the city did some self inquiry into what the future of Rilao would be and what it means to be Rilaoan in general. They discovered that the answer to that question is in the fair island city’s past.
The Krakken Creation Story myth describes a god-like being that came from the sea and visited city founder Raymond Lao. In his journals, Raymond Lao described how the Krakken implanted images of a beautiful yet uninhabited island ripe and ready for conquest. Lao founded the island of Rilao and created a religion in the Krakken’s honor.
Soon after reaching the island, Raymond Lao made another discovery: oil. The booming Rilao oil business began, and Lao used his fellow Krakkenism followers for employees. Oil was the financial backbone of the island. Money flowed from the Oil Corporation to Krakken church coffers, and then into the hands of the Rilaoan political machine. This alliance allowed for the succession of Krakken favored politicians into office that favored the Krakken elite to the disenfranchisement of the lower underclass. This underclass, finally dissatisfied with being left out of the political process, used music to subliminally protest. Their rebellion finally came to a head in the Central Stadium Concert Massacre of 1975, in which government militia raided a concert fundraiser for political opponents and resulted in the banning of music in Rilao.
Key interviewees include Murilo Hauser, Chief City Historian, Uttera Singh Lao, Raymond Lao’s Great-great-great-great-great granddaughter, Salome Mergia, a tenured professor of Cultural Studies at Rilao State University, and Reverend Ascot Smith, a Krakken Church Priest.
