There once was a pigeon. He was born in a communal nest along with dozens of other eggs, because the right of pigeon couples to build their own private, monogamous nests had been revoked from them when the exotic birds took over. He was raised without parents to speak of, relying only on his fellow nest-dwellers for support throughout his early years, never having any parental figures to guide him.
But he soon realised something: he was really different from the other pigeons he grew up with. While the others were rowdy and developmentally challenged due to a lack parental guidance, but he found that he needed only himself to stay sane, growing and smart. He never did have much desire to play the degenerate games of his fellow pigeonry, and he dedicated himself fully to his education. As a young teenager, he demonstrated outstanding performances in a series of entry exams for the prestigious local preparatory school, and he eagerly accepted when they offered him a spot. The school was dominated by robins, vultures, eagles and other exotic birds, and he felt blessed to be among them. He was going to become an elite, an intellectual; nothing like the mongrels he was cursed to call his species-mates.
At the prep school though, he realised that being a "good" pigeon was not enough to save him from endless discrimination, harassment and general mockery from his peers. His teachers never called on him; he was ridiculed way harder than anyone else when he made a mistake; he was constantly bullied and called a flying rat; and he could swear his teachers were giving him lower marks for no discernable reason. But he pressed on, convinced that this was all mostly justified because, after all, he was indeed of a lower species. He was the one who needed to prove himself.
Eventually though, through endless hard work and many sleepless nights, he emerged with outstanding grades and got accepted into an Ivy League university. He couldn't be happier; his efforts had finally paid off and here he was. But at the university, he rather inadvertently got acquainted with some... unconventional characters. He met a group of other pigeons at the university who had gotten in based on pure merit, skill and triumph much like he had, but they had far different outlooks on their situation in the world than him.
He learned from these pigeons that, in reality, the conditions for those like him and how they grew up were rooted in deep historical roots of systemic speciesism. When exotic birds arrived on the land that originally belonged to the pigeons, they signed a series of treaties promising the pigeons would keep their own designated land in exchange for the exotics getting their own land too. But the exotics quickly went back on these treaties and invaded pigeon land as they pleased, stealing everything from the "flying rats" as they were dubbed and forcing them to live in segregated communes cut off from the rest of society. Pigeon parents were then forbidden from raising their young and forced into separate communes once they were able to lay eggs.
Why were all these horrible laws enforced? Well, the exotics saw the pigeons as primitive and beneath them intellectually, due to their comparatively modest Mesolithic-era way of life, compared to the highly advanced civilisations the exotics had built for themselves. In reality, the pigeons lived in much different conditions than the exotics; the barren landscapes they were native to were nothing like the rich areas the exotics evolved in. But the exotics perpetuated the idea that pigeons were inherently at the bottom of the "bird hierarchy" and thus most accepted their systemic oppression.
Our young uni-bound pigeon soon came to the most formative conclusion of his life: not only had he been wrong all along about his place as the species he was, but the system he had lived under had him be consumed by internalised speciesism and self-hatred, rather than embracive of his individual strengths as a particularly intelligent animal. He realised this horrid system he and his fellow pigeonry lived under needed to be dismantled, and only with violence would success be possible.
This pigeon's name was Havrilicious Cucker, and together with the other pigeons he met in university, they formed the Revolutionary Pigeon Nationalist Collective (RPNC), a Marxist-Leninist paramilitary organisation dedicated to bringing down the institutional exotic supremacy all around them. They purchased hundreds of guns, swords, armour and other military gear from black market merchants, and it was from here that they quickly garnered a following and soon had dozens of other pigeons wanting to join their ranks. Within just a couple months, they had garnered exactly 50 highly fanatical members, all purebred pigeons with extensive training in military combat and revolutionary political theory.
Some notable members of the 50-strong RPNC included: Justyce Rigo-Jamal, who produced propaganda music for the organisation on their indie-run radio station; Kerriska Hampton, an elegant erotic artist who distributed softcore pornographic magazines for the RPNC as entertainment; Matthew Lemoassiter, who produced propaganda cartoons featuring RPNC members; and Heart Candilliard, the token female of the organisation who co-wrote the RPNC newsletter alongside Havrilicious.
And then, on the day of April 20, 1969, at 13:37 in the afternoon, the RPNC gained worldwide notoriety. The day prior, Havrilicious delivered another one of his powerful speeches, in which he announced that the group would be leading an attack on the very university he had attended. They would sack the building and kidnap as many exotic birds as they could, holding them hostage until the government agreed to give them equal rights.
Everything went to plan. The RPNC laid total and utter siege to the university, destroying books and other supplies left from right, burning down large sections of the building and capturing dozens of exotic students and staff, holding them hostage at their headquarters out in the countryside. Vulture-dominated police surrounded the complex and demanded they surrender. Havrilicious came outside and announced that all hostages would be freed if pigeons like them were to be no longer treated like dirt by the system. The cops hastily agreed, and with that, Havrilicious and his followers all exited the building.
But this was all part of the plan. With the cops still surrounding them, Havrilicious took out a remote and pressed a big red button, setting up a series of explosives all across the property, killing all the cops instantly. With that, the crew got in the police cars and drove off to city hall, where they burst through the doors and shot every exotic politician they saw. Within a matter of hours, the coup was completed; pigeons now ruled the city of Wingborough!
Today, Wingborough - now named Columbidaeborough - is over 95% pigeon-populated, after the vast majority of the exotic population was chased out after the 1969 coup.
Havrilicious the Great was my grandfather, and there is no one in this world I have more respect for. And now that I've finally gained 50 fans here on Newgrounds, part of me feels just like him, and his little group of 50 revolutionary followers who destroyed anti-pigeon racism completely for the first time in modern history. It makes me feel that one day, we can truly achieve a world where pigeons are not only equal, but have ALL of their land back!
So, thank you all for 50 fans. I hope my antics here on NG continue to attract even more of you. Perhaps one day, we will have DOUBLE the size of the Revolutionary Pigeon Nationalist Collective! Only time will tell.