The Second Rebellion was a major civil war in Panem which began approximately seventy-five years after the conclusion of the First Rebellion. The conflict pitted Panem's totalitarian regime, led by President Coriolanus Snow, against the disparate rebel forces of the twelve outlying districts, supported and nominally led militarily by the forces of the independent District 13, headed by President Alma Coin.
Prelude[]
The First Rebellion[]
Seventy-five years before the Second Rebellion, the rebel war effort collapsed following the alleged loss of District 13,[1] and the seat of the Capitol's military power moved to District 2.[2][3] Rebel activity was thoroughly rooted out by Peacekeepers and the severe restrictions and penalties put in place on the district populace. Any surviving rebels presumably went into hiding, and with the districts effectively quarantined with the signing of the Treaty of Treason, they remained scattered and isolated in the years to come.[1]
The Hunger Games[]
The Hunger Games served as both a punishment and a reminder to the districts of the cost of insurrection and never make an attempt to do so again. The Capitol's effort proved highly successful at squashing rebellious activity in the subsequent years.
10th Hunger Games[]
The last known major rebel effort prior to the Second Rebellion occurred ten years after the First, when the Capitol Arena was bombed by alleged rebel agents in an effort to stop the Games. The attack ultimately proved futile, and the Games continued to be held over the next six decades.[4]
Continued resistance[]
Despite the Games' intended purpose, they stoked quiet resentment in the districts. Rebel efforts were likely aided by victors of the Hunger Games, who used their status and privilege to aid resistance cells— and their connections to victors in other districts likely proved useful in forming a wider rebel coalition.
In time, district rebels and Capitol citizens in positions of influence— including high-ranking officials like Gamemaker Plutarch Heavensbee— would collaborate with the hope to eventually incite a new revolution.[5]
Survival of District 13[]
Unbeknownst to the wider populace of Panem, District 13 survived the First Rebellion, having gained independence in a secret ceasefire with the Capitol after securing a portion of their nuclear arsenal. Despite being forced to exist underground and the destruction of their surface infrastructure, District 13 slowly gathered their strength over the subsequent decades, preparing to liberate the other districts from Capitol control. As some point, 13 got into contact with Panem rebels and began subtly supporting their insurrection.[6]
Pre-Second Rebellion civil unrest[]
Open rebellion began to gain momentum due to the events of the 74th Hunger Games. In the final two, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark from District 12, threatened to commit double suicide by deadly nightlock berries unless they were both allowed to live.[7] This sparked rebellious sentiment across the country,[8] enabling uprisings[9] and other resistance action in Districts 3, 4, 7, 8, and 11.[10]
75th Hunger Games[]
As retaliation for the districts' disobedience, the Capitol announced that for the third Quarter Quell, the tributes would be reaped from "the strongest among them": the existing pool of victors.[10] However, rebels quickly began to devise a plan soon after the reading of the Quell card, and during the Games, tributes from Districts 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, and 11 worked in tandem to protect Katniss Everdeen and break out of the arena.[5]
District 13 hovercraft over the arena
At midnight on the third night of the Games, Katniss fired an electrified arrow into the force field,[11] unknowingly allowing for her extraction to District 13 along with Finnick Odair and Beetee Latier. Capitol forces seized the remaining victors— Peeta Mellark, Johanna Mason, and Enobaria— and kidnapped Annie Cresta from District 4 soon after because of her relationship with Finnick.[5]
By this time, District 11 had seized control of transportation, and communications had gone down in Districts 7, 10, and 12.[5]
War[]
Bombing of District 12[]
Shortly after the force field was blown, Capitol aircraft firebombed District 12. The district itself was utterly destroyed, and of the district's population of eight thousand, only about eight hundred people survived, and fewer than a dozen of the district's merchant class were among the survivors. Gale Hawthorne herded refugees to the Meadow, and they worked together to tear down a portion of the fence and escape into the woods. Gale then led the survivors to a lake several hours from the district on foot. The bombing was over by dawn.[12]
Once they settled at the lake, the refugees tended to their wounded, hunting and fishing to sustain themselves for three days. Then they were discovered and evacuated to District 13. Former residents of 12 were provided housing and granted citizenship there.[12]
Liberating the Districts[]
Near the beginning of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1, District 13's President Coin said there had been riots and uprisings in seven districts.[13] Tactical, operational, and strategic details of the war from this point until the Battle of the Capitol are mostly unavailable. Fighting over the next several months was largely marked by indiscriminate surface-based and aerial artillery bombardments, as well as a confused mixture of asymmetrical and conventional ground warfare that resulted in widespread destruction of infrastructure and loss of life throughout the country.
In addition to military assaults, both the rebels and the Capitol produced and aired propos. District 13 used Katniss Everdeen as the Mockingjay to inspire rebel soldiers on the ground, and the Capitol used Peeta Mellark to call for the districts' surrender or ceasefire.
"If we burn, you burn with us."
Bombing of District 8[]
About a month into the war, District 8 was heavily bombed one morning, and Katniss was sent to film propos there in the afternoon. However, after visiting a field hospital, a second wave of Capitol bombers came in, killing the patients and medics inside. Katniss and Gale took down the hovercraft with explosive arrows, using the same technique they used to hunt geese. Then Katniss filmed a stirring propo in front of the burning wreckage.[14] Once the first few propos aired, the reinvigorated rebels were able to take Districts 3 and 11, and they "made inroads in several other districts as well".[15]
One of Peeta Mellark's propos for the Capitol.
Bombing of District 13[]
One evening, the Capitol aired a live propo of Peeta Mellark, who was made to recount war damage allegedly perpetrated by rebels: a broken dam in District 7, a derailed train leaking toxic waste, a granary collapsed after a fire, and the bombing of a water purification plant. District 13 was able to break into the broadcast with their own propos filmed by Finnick Odair. After battling back and forth for control, President Snow asked Peeta if he had any "parting thoughts" for Katniss, and Peeta revealed that the Capitol was planning to bomb District 13.[15]
The warning came ten minutes before District 13's own systems would have detected the oncoming assault, at which point everyone in District 13 was already evacuated into a bunker deep underground. Bunker missiles[16] hammered the district for three days, causing significant damage to its infrastructure. Anyone on the first ten levels of the complex would have been killed, but due to the timely warning, no lives were lost.[17]
Rescue of captured victors[]
With Peeta and Annie in Capitol custody, Katniss and Finnick's mental and emotional states were greatly compromised. Fearing the loss of their most crucial propaganda assets, District 13's special forces launched a rescue mission into the Capitol— the first known rebel action to take place inside the city itself— aimed at freeing Peeta and Annie, as well as Johanna Mason and Enobaria.
At 15:00, District 13 aired a series of propos in the Capitol as a distraction, known as an airtime assault. The most prominent was a damning exposé by Finnick of sexual exploitation and government corruption. During this time, a team of seven from District 13 (including Gale Hawthorne) and rebel insiders freed three of the victors from an underground prison. As a diversion, rebels detonated a bomb in a government building several miles away, then cut the power to the prison and distributed knockout gas through the vents. Gale received a wound under his shoulder blade, but three of the four victors were successfully recovered. The fourth, Enobaria, was presumed by District 13 to have been released by the Capitol at some point prior.[18]
Aftermath[]
Upon their arrival in District 13, Annie was lucid and apparently unharmed, though bedraggled, naked, and only wrapped in a sheet. Johanna was unconscious, emaciated, and bruised, with her head shaven; she had been starved, soaked in water, and tortured with electric shocks. Peeta was just waking up from the knockout gas when he attacked Katniss,[18] and it was revealed soon after that he had been hijacked.[19]
The night after the rescue, President Snow aired the live execution of Portia, who was Peeta's stylist, and his prep team. By this point in the war, fighting was almost over in all the districts but District 2, where Katniss was sent next.[19]
Battle of District 2[]
District 2 supplied most of the Capitol's military force, and it also served as the loyalists' primary base of operations. The command center was located inside a hollowed-out mountain known to the rebels as the Nut,[2] after Plutarch Heavensbee's comment that the district was "a tough nut to crack."[19] Despite fierce fighting for weeks, only the outskirts of District 2 were secured by the rebels, while Peacekeepers and loyalist forces remained in control of the Nut and the city center. Several failed attempts at capturing the mountain complex were led by District 2 victor Lyme. Eventually, Gale Hawthorne put forth the idea of causing avalanches with rebel bombers and suffocating the loyalist forces inside.[2]
Katniss Everdeen delivering her speech in District 2.
Ultimately, the rebels decided against completely burying the Nut, and they left one path open to give survivors an opportunity to surrender. Rebel bombers began dropping their payloads on the Nut's upper elevations, triggering avalanches that buried most of the exits and disabled the base inside. Several trains carrying survivors made it out of the sole remaining train tunnel. Fighting began in the district's square, and a rebel offensive secured it and the surrounding area. Katniss gave a speech that turned District 2's forces to the rebel side. However, she was wounded in an attempted assassination and temporarily removed from action.[20]
Once District 2 joined the rebels, they all regrouped, fortifying supply lines, tending to the wounded, and reorganizing their troops. The Capitol, like in the First Rebellion, was cut off from outside help as it held the threat of a nuclear assault over its enemies.[21] The loss of the Nut destroyed most of the Capitol's air fleet, and their antiaircraft missiles forced 13 to ground their own aircraft, so the remainder of the war would be fought on the ground.[22] With the districts unified, rebels planned to launch an assault on the Capitol.[23]
Battle of the Capitol[]
Hovercraft transported rebel soldiers from District 13 to the bombed-out remains of 12, which was used as a makeshift transportation area. There, they boarded a cargo train, and after a couple days' travel, they stepped out into a mountain tunnel. Then they traveled six hours on foot to a rebel encampment, secured a week prior to Squad 451's arrival: a ten-block stretch outside the train station where tributes used to enter the Capitol for the Games. The Capitol's military was forced to withdraw further into the city itself as a last-ditch defensive effort.[22]
Rebel forces then invaded the city, resulting in the single most destructive urban battle of the war. The destruction of the Nut meant the loss of the Capitol's air force, leaving the defense of the city to Peacekeeper infantry. Despite the rebels' clear strategic advantage, the rebel advance was severely hindered by strategically placed traps known as pods. Some of these pods had existed since the Dark Days, with more having been designed by Gamemakers over the years. They could trigger anything from bombs to genetically-modified muttations.[22]
At some point in the battle, a rebel commander came up with the idea of confiscating abandoned cars and sending them unmanned down streets to trigger pods along the way. In this way, the rebels started to carve out the A, B, and C lines directly to the heart of the Capitol. However, the Capitol quickly caught on, and around four in the morning, they began to deactivate specific pods and manually trigger them when their rebel targets proceeded, thinking the coast was clear.[24]
The City Circle bombing[]
Seconds before the bomb that ended the rebellion.
After intense and confused block-by-block fighting, the rebels reached the City Circle. As a final defensive measure, President Snow positioned a large group of refugee Capitol children in a ring around the presidential mansion. A hovercraft marked with a Capitol insignia dropped parachutes similar to those that delivered Hunger Games sponsor gifts, but these turned out to be bombs that killed most of the children in the ring. The event forced a temporary ceasefire, with Peacekeepers and rebel medical teams alike uniting to assist the survivors. A second round of bombing led to further casualties.[24]
Believing the Capitol had bombed its own children, most resistance in the Capitol collapsed, and the country was seized for the rebels, ending Panem's second civil war. It was later revealed that the aircraft used in the bombing was actually owned by District 13 and operated under orders from President Coin, in an attempt to shatter what little remaining loyalty anyone had for President Snow.[25]
Aftermath[]
The following weeks were marked by what was supposed to be the restructuring and liberalization of Panem's government, but what actually became a consolidation of power by Interim President Alma Coin. President Snow was tried and sentenced to death.
Execution of President Snow[]
On the day of Snow's execution, President Coin held a private meeting held with the known surviving victors, where she proposed a final 76th Hunger Games with the children of high-ranking Capitol officials. This was meant to satisfy cries for bloodshed from the rebels, some of whom apparently called for a "complete annihilation" of Capitol citizens. A 4-3 majority voted in favor of the Games.[26]
Katniss aims to shoot Snow.
Just before the execution, Katniss Everdeen was given a single arrow to symbolically fire the last shot of the war. The execution was staged on "the narrow terrace in front of the president's mansion" before a massive audience. Regular citizens lined the streets, with guards, officials, rebel leaders, and victors taking their places outside. Coin stood on a balcony above them all. On the terrace, Snow was tied to a post with his hands behind his back, and the plan was for Katniss to shoot him in the heart at ten yards.[26]
Assassination of Alma Coin[]
Alma Coin is shot dead by Katniss Everdeen.
Coin's refusal to step down as President, coupled with intelligence supplied by former President Snow while he was incarcerated, led Katniss to assassinate Coin at what was supposed to be Snow's public execution.[26] Snow was also found dead afterwards, either from choking on his own blood or being trampled by the crowd.[27]
Trial and sentencing[]
Katniss Everdeen was swiftly apprehended, and she spent several months in solitary confinement at the Training Center during her trial in absentia. The trial was televised. Plutarch Heavensbee testified in her defense, and due to testimony from Dr. Aurelius, she was deemed not guilty by reason of insanity. As a condition of her release, she had to continue treatment with the doctor over the phone, and she was confined to District 12 until further notice.[27]
New government[]
Following an emergency election, Commander Paylor from District 8 was sworn in as Panem's new president. Travel opened up between districts and the Capitol, allowing people to move freely, and districts could establish new industries, such as a medicine factory in the reconstructed District 12.[27] The Hunger Games arenas were demolished with memorials being built in their place, and the history of the Games was taught to children in school.[28]
Notable rebels[]
Living[]
| The Capitol | District 12 | Other Districts |
|---|---|---|
|
Deceased[]
| The Capitol | District 13 | Other Districts | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
|||
Trivia[]
- The outcome of the Second Rebellion, like the First Rebellion, was decided by air raids in the Rocky Mountains. In the first war, rebels attempted to scale the Rockies, leaving them vulnerable to Capitol bombers overhead. Conversely, in the second, rebels conducted an air raid on Capitol forces inside the Nut in District 2.
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 The Hunger Games, Chapter 1
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Mockingjay, Chapter 14
- ↑ The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Chapter 1
- ↑ The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Chapter 10
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Catching Fire, Chapter 27
- ↑ Mockingjay, Chapter 2
- ↑ The Hunger Games, Chapter 25
- ↑ The Hunger Games, Chapter 26
- ↑ Catching Fire, Chapter 6
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Catching Fire, Chapter 12
- ↑ Catching Fire, Chapter 26
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 Mockingjay, Chapter 1
- ↑ The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1
- ↑ Mockingjay, Chapter 7
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 Mockingjay, Chapter 9
- ↑ Mockingjay, Chapter 10
- ↑ Mockingjay, Chapter 11
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 Mockingjay, Chapter 12
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 19.2 Mockingjay, Chapter 13
- ↑ Mockingjay, Chapter 15
- ↑ Mockingjay, Chapter 16
- ↑ 22.0 22.1 22.2 Mockingjay, Chapter 18
- ↑ Mockingjay, Chapter 17
- ↑ 24.0 24.1 Mockingjay, Chapter 24
- ↑ Mockingjay, Chapter 25
- ↑ 26.0 26.1 26.2 Mockingjay, Chapter 26
- ↑ 27.0 27.1 27.2 Mockingjay, Chapter 27
- ↑ Mockingjay, Epilogue