OH NOEZ SCAR

The OH NOEZ SCAR, also called simply the Scar, is an extremely dangerous ascent up a vertical cliff face, after traveling through a flat, blackened warzone dating back to a major battle in Khanzem. It is part of the Itinerod.

Alongside HappyFace Creek Cliffs, Shatter Valley, and Howler Canyon, the Scar comprises what postal engineers colloquially refer to as "The Proving Grounds". On these sections of track, train drivers either live to pull the mail another day, or join the dozens of others before them that have crashed. Most would-be Itinerod engineers, if not scared by the other deadly areas, will back off the job when they are informed about the Scar. This is why Itinerod drivers are given such a luxurious pension and healthcare after they retire, even if the salary is not all that great.

Overview
Before the history can be established, one thing must be stated. The OH NOEZ SCAR consists of three key parts. The first part is a long stretch of plains as flat as any floor. These were smoothed over war trenches and wreckage from a battle over one hundred years ago. Next is the actual Scar, a vertical cliff several thousand feet high with sharp hairpin turns on tight ascending ramps. Near the top of the Scar is a tunnel that digs into the cliff and makes several more hairpin turns underground, before finally surfacing near the top of the cliff, where one last turn sends the train on its way to Ronald Junction, which sits on the flat plateau that the cliff marks.

Taiga
Long before the mail routes were laid, the Scar and its immediate vicinity used to be a gorgeous taiga, the cliff being a scenic backdrop to the thick forests that would do Club Penguin proud. The tall cliff actually shaded much of the forest in certain times of the year, which was why the taiga was named "Shadow Forest". High Penguin folklore claims that it was home to several tribes of HPs and Sroots before the war (like the uncharted forests of Twilight and Shadow), who were displaced by the battles in a large onslaught of habitat loss.

Siege of No Hope
It was here at the scar that a large High Penguin infantry was marching, possibly to gather new recruits in said tribes, when a Khanzenian airstrike by the Fluffenwaffle (the same that bombed Bead Seaport) open fired and dropped bombs on them, ensuring as few survivors as possible. The forest was lit ablaze. After the airstrike, a Khanzenian infantry surrounded the High Penguin troops on three sides of possible escape (the cliff serving as an excellent place to back the HPs up against). In addition to the conflagration from the airstrike, the surrounding Naughtzee army left the High Penguins with no choice. Refusing to surrender, a long battle followed.

In the battle that followed- sometimes called "The Siege of No Hope" -the Khanzenian infantries hunkered down and dug trenches to prevent the High Penguins from escaping. Every two days or so, the Naughtzee would leave these trenches and dig new ones, gradually coming closer and closer, constricting the High Penguins against the cliff until there was nowhere left to go. This destroyed what was left of the entire taiga (the fallen trees being sent elsewhere to be made into furniture and wooden houses for Lesser penguins by High Penguin slaves).

It took three weeks for the Naughtzee to surround the sizable High Penguin infantry to the point that they could run no further. A small oval shaped patch of forest was all that was left of the once vast taiga, and it was here that the Naughtzee opened fire. No High Penguin survived. The Siege of No Hope was one of the biggest Khanzem victories of the war.

Herbicidal warfare

 * Main article: Agent HP Remover Thingy

The Naughtzee headed back home and did not do anything to clean up their mess, the upturned land, or the wreckage they caused. In fact, they did more. Even after the battle was done, Whoot Smackler Whoot ordered a second Fluffenwaffle air raid. This time, it was to destroy any surviving trees and permanently kill the soil so that no tree could ever return. This was because Whoot had heard of the rumors of High Penguin tribes, and his quest to enslave and remove them of all power included destroying their native habitats.

The Fluffenwaffle dumped tens of thousands of gallons of herbicides on the Scar's area. It couldn't have possibly worked better; the soil was irrepreably contaminated and any surviving High Penguins probably didn't survive much longer. Their eggs were also abnormally soft and easily broken, and any chicks that hatched often had hideous deformities, if they lived at all. Every plant was killed.

Today, the erosion and lethal chemicals continue to keep the Scar forever barren and hostile to any life. It is advised never to exit the train during the trip up to the Scar's cliff, lest they too (and any of their future chicks) get poisoned and irreversibly harmed by the still-potent herbicidal chemicals.

The railroad
When the Itinerod was first commissioned in 2004, most penguins- including the designers of the route -had forgotten all about the poison, deformities, and warfare that had occurred in the Scar. They foolishly laid the tracks through the area, not knowing that it was a death zone.

Railroad workers in the Scar were tasked with flattening trenches enough so that the rail lines alone could be laid flat, and telecommunication poles could be routed through. This required heavy, earth-moving machinery that stirred up the soil and caused extreme exposure the the Khanzeniam chemicals of old. About two-thirds of the way through laying the rail, most of the workers on this stretch of land began to notice signs of illness and disease. Issues with breathing, digestion, and neural disorders were some of the most reported, as were abnormally soft and breakable eggs that produced deformed chicks. These were exactly the same symptoms that befell some Naughtzee and many High Penguins in the war.

By the time the railroad workers finished this part of the Itinerod, about twenty had died. The rest of the penguins were gravely sick or their chicks were.

The workers filed suit in the United States of Antarctica's court system. To this day, the cases are still in court, unsettled.

Involvement
Today, the OH NOEZ SCAR is still one of the most dangerous places to be in the Intinerod. Thus far, no train has broken down (but a few have crashed) in the area where the poisons lie, but because of these poisons (and to avoid future lawsuits), all Itinerod trains carry hazmat suits in the caboose.

Trivia

 * The Scar is a parody of herbicidal warfare in Vietnam, where hundreds of thousands of barrels of "Agent Orange" were dumped on the rainforests, causing extreme and brutal deformities in the Vietnamese people that are so disgusting that they can not be linked here.
 * The chemicals used to defoliate the Scar are rated "Grade B T/ST/W/BW - NT/HiGOV&FP&HiARMY&HiEPF/(Nix-UBER)". That is to say, "Extremely Poisonous Under Long Term Conditions, a Synthetic, Toxic Biological Weapon usable 'only by a creature that is in a High Ranking Government Position, with Explicit Federal Permission, AND a very high ranking Member of a legal Officially Recognized Army or Miliia (public or private), AND an Elitist with Ultra Super Amazing High Level Clearance, or a de jure Master of the Universe".