Subscribe to download
Sawcath Tower - Newton

Sawcath Tower, in the Coluban city of Newton, is a demonstration of the carnage of the civil war that ripped apart the island nation. It is still standing today but abandoned for more than 3 decades and very war torn, preserved in it's crumbling state as a monument to the troubled past of the country.

Construction on the Sawcath Tower begun 68 years ago, during Newton's population boom at the end of the Vigeusuel War, and took 4 years to complete. It was designed as the crown jewel of the developing city, the tallest building by some way at 110m from base to the tip of it's antenna mast, consisting of 30 storeys of hotel rooms and offices, clad on the outside with local pale sandstone to blend in with the historical city.

It wasn't all utopian however, even before the civil war officially broke out in Coluba, there was tensions between the north (Coluba State Government) and the south (South Coluba Revolution Militia - SCRM). The northern Coluban states recognised the control of the government in the capital, Jipertown, and the southerner revolutionaries believed that an unfair share of resources and money was held up in the north. The SCRM initially wanted a peaceful vote to leave Coluba to form a new state, the Republic of South Coluba (RSC), with their capital of governance proposed as the largest town in the south, Centeno, only about 15km south of Newton. As time wore on, this seemed more and more unlikely and the SCRM decided the only breakaway from economic starvation would be to either forcibly leave Coluba or convince the government to allow a southern autonomy.

66 years ago, the first show of power from the south came from an independent act of defiance from a group of 5 people, targeting public services in Jipertown. This was the spark that lit a fire of defiant activity, followed shortly by Coluban counter-strikes against individual targets in south Coluba. The Republic of South Coluba was officially declared 38 years ago after an already devastating campaign of attacks, but still not recognised by Coluba. This caused the Coluban military forces to attempt to reclaim territory for Coluba, and is regarded as the beginning of the civil war.

Once the Coluban military became involved, due Newton's strategic location as a port on a thin peninsula between the north and south, the city got overrun by nationalist forces trying to fortify it as best as possible. As part of the city's transformation into the front line of a war-zone, the Sawcath Tower was repurposed as a military communications and logistics centre. A helipad was built on top of it, the antenna mast was upgraded into a high spec comms array, and 4 small AA Guns were mounted on the roof to defend the highest point in the city.

The border between the north and south was drawn up straight through the heart of Newton. Despite this line shifting throughout the course of the war, with the initial charge of the SCRM to take the states of Iribar and Edol in central Coluba, then being pushed back well past Centeno, nowhere was hit quite like Newton. The fighting combined bombardment and Guerrilla warfare, tearing the streets apart. Due to the intensity of the fighting, a ceasefire was drawn up after a year and a half of conflict which required Coluba to recognize the Republic of South Coluba as an autonomy, and allow it's own semi-independent governance. As this didn't really meet either parties goals, it didn't completely stop independent acts of violence, but this was the end of organized conflict for Coluba at least.

The redrawn border passed right across the centre of the Sawcath Tower, leaving the south side in the RSC and the north in Coluba. This, combined with the damage sustained during the war, spelt the end for any occupation of the 110m tall building. It was stripped of all salvageable equipment and left to rot. After this, the tower essentially became a huge billboard when activists from both sides of the border raised huge flags at the top of the tower, the red and orange intersecting triangles of Coluba's flag, and the orange and grey of the RSC. Over time, vandals, graffiti artists and fans of abandoned urban buildings overtook the husk.

27 years ago, after a decade of diplomacy between both halves of Coluba, relations begun to improve slightly, and thoughts turned to rebuilding. With this, in mind, it was decided the Sawcath Tower would be preserved as a war memorial instead of being demolished or repurposed. The city slowly grew back around the tower, slowly overshadowing it with taller buildings as Newton developed, but it remains as one un-healable scar, a reminder not to repeat the past and that cooperation is the only way forward.

Today, the tower still stands, though the flags have been removed in the aim of slowly reuniting the people of Coluba. Newton is now the 2nd most populous city in Coluba, with just over a million inhabitants, around a sixth of the islands population following the large amount of people that emigrated during the war. The Republic of South Coluba remains one of Coluba's autonomous nations, but the only one on their home island. The Sawcath Tower now draws large crowds, some to pay their respects and some to study modern warfare history. Given it's hugely turbulent past, it has definitely become one of Coluba's most iconic buildings. It symbolises optimism - how people can work together and build hundreds of meters into the air, it symbolises tradition, nationalism, persistence and permanence, but above all, it symbolises just how easily a country can fall apart.