2554 Mazovian protests

The 2554 Mazovian protests were a sweeping negative response to the arrival UNSC forces seeking to bring the colony back into the fold under the UEG. The deposing of Záviš Souček's government in 2538 left the colony without formal leadership. This led to the rise of the Mazovian Provisional Government, focused on rebuilding the colony after its encounter with the Covenant in that same year. For the next twenty years, the provisional government rebuilt most of the cities that had been glassed and even moved the government capital back to the city of Sněžka in 2540. The colony began forming an independent identity of its own after it was left to fend for itself, and managed to survive the rest of the war in relative peace.

When the UEG finally returned to reclaim the colony in early 2554, tensions began to stir around the planet in opposition to reunification. The situation on the colony had already been agitated, as a food rationing edict was entering into its third year as the colony's agricultural infrastructure had fallen into disrepair. While initially in support of Eunika Novak's provisional government, protesters swayed more and more against them as the protests went on, demanding both full independence from Earth as well as the dissolution of Nowak's government for the mismanagement of the colony's food stocks.

Restoring a Shattered World
The fall of Souček's government in 2538 left the colony in a precarious situation. With most of its infrastructure in ruin and its population centers devastated, most of what remained of the colony were scattered refugees and those who lived far from major cities. What was left of the original colonial government was either dead or missing, leaving the fledgling UNSC Army garrison as the only true governing body on the planet.

Under the command of First Lieutenant Selim Çelik, the Army garrison worked to restore the colony to some semblance of normalcy. Çelik, who had already established a number of refugee camps began tasking able-bodied civilians with the clearing and repairing of the colony's road networks leading out of Jajovice Airbase. With the roads cleared, they could now reestablish the colony's electrical grid, restoring power to the city of Toruń and the surrounding region. Meanwhile, a large portion of the garrison was tasked with the consolidation of the planet's remaining food stores and bringing an end to the looting of ruins that had nearly caused widespread starvation to those in the camps.

While Çelik and his garrison did everything in their power to help them, anti-UNSC sentiment was already growing as rumors of their abandonment began to spread through the refugee centers. As living conditions improved, dissident groups became bolder. What originally began as heated arguments with UNSC sympathizers eventually escalated into the raiding of the airbase's armory in November 2538, seeing several firearms and hundreds of boxes of ammunition being stolen. Before the garrison could react, the insurgents had already fled the refugee center and bled into the surrounding landscape. Afraid that the group would begin targetting refugees, Çelik began resettling a large number of civilians into the Spaceport and Silver Coast regions of Toruń, which had been partially restored and cleared of rubble. After they had been resettled, the Army braced for clashes against the dissidents. But with the winter on its way, they did not come.

In January 2539, Çelik reestablished the colony's militia, drawing mostly from volunteers living in Toruń and other surrounding towns. This decision, however, proved to be risky as disdain against the UNSC continued to fester, and the loyalties of those who joined the militia remained suspect. The sting of betrayal would linger in the minds of Mazovians for years to come. By the end of the year, the militia grew to one thousand, more than double the Army's garrison.