Air Nomad Genocide

"fire"

- With Roku gone, and the great comet returning, the timing was perfect to change the world. I knew the next Avatar would be born an Air Nomad, so I wiped out the Air Temples. But somehow, the new Avatar eluded me. I wasted the remainder of my life searching in vain. I know he's hiding out there somewhere. The Fire Nation's greatest threat... the last Airbender.

The Air Nomad Genocide was an enormous massacre committed by the Fire Nation that resulted in the almost complete extinction of the Air Nomads and the fauna that lived in the Air Temples with them. The only known survivors were Aang, Momo, and Appa. The effects of this cultural destruction empowered the Earth Kingdom and the Water Tribe to arm themselves and declare war on the Fire Nation, leading to the large-scale war that continued for 100 years.

History
Avatar Roku died fighting a volcano that erupted on Roku's Island, when Fire Lord Sozin came to his aid. Towards the end of the battle, as he battled a second eruption, Roku inhaled its toxic fumes. Overcome with the smoke, he begged Sozin to help him, but Sozin realized that his plans wouldn't be possible with his former friend's interference. Sozin abandoned Roku, who died with his dragon, Fang, in order to carry out his desire for world domination. Just as Roku drew his final breath, Aang was born.

Sozin knew that Roku's successor would be born an Air Nomad, and he plotted out the possible assault against them, possibly with the same cunning he eventually used to win the Battle of Han Tui. He then waited for the comet (which would later be renamed Sozin's Comet) which arrived once every one hundred years, in order to execute his plan.

Twelve years later, Aang became a master Airbender and the youngest Airbending master in history. Due to the threat of oncoming war, the Council of Elders, including Monk Gyatso, told Aang of his identity as the Avatar, when under normal circumstances the Avatar is told of his or her identity at the age of 16. Gyatso attempted to maintain Aang's carefree lifestyle to minimize this new and colossal burden placed on his shoulders, but the monks decided to split the two up and send Aang to the Eastern Air Temple in order to continue his training. Little did Gyatso and the other monks know that Aang had been eavesdropping on their conversation from a secret hiding place. Unsure of what to do, he ran away on Appa towards the south, but shortly afterward found themselves caught in a fierce storm. He and Appa fell into the ocean and plunged beneath its surface, which forced Aang's Avatar State to intervene. Utilizing both Airbending and Waterbending, the state-induced Aang froze himself and Appa; the storm carried his frozen body south towards the Southern Water Tribe and therefore it never thawed.

Genocide


Details of the timing and execution of the genocide and information such as casualties, technology utilized to besiege the temples, etc. are all unknown. Some temples, such as the Eastern Air Temple, appear to have been more damaged than others, such as the Western Air Temple, but archaeological evidence obtained from the temples is also unable to provide a concrete explanation as to the Fire Nation strategy during this opening phase of the War.

A small number of Air Nomads escaped the initial attack on the Temples and proved far too elusive for the Fire Nation to hunt down. Changing tactics, Fire Lord Sozin instead had relics looted from the temple and had a number of small residences high in the mountains furnished with them, giving these places the appearance of being inhabited by other Air Nomad refugees. Using a number of spies to spread rumors about such places throughout the Earth Kingdom population, Sozin was successful in luring the remaining Airbenders into the hands of waiting Fire Nation soldiers. This tactic proved effective in decimating what few Airbending survivors there were.

Immediate


The only Airbender known to have survived the onslaught was ironically the one that the Fire Nation sought to kill in its quest for world supremacy: the Avatar, Aang. By fleeing the temple before the first attacks against the Air Nomads, he saved himself. However, Aang felt guilty about fleeing and believed he could have defeated the invading Fire Nation forces and saved the Air Nomads, which he eventually revealed to Katara.

Sozin died at the old age of 102. He spent the last twenty years of his life looking for Aang, who by that time had been frozen in an iceberg beneath the ocean for several years. Sozin died before he could find Aang but he spawned a legacy and dynasty that lasted for one hundred years.

General


One hundred years after the genocide, Katara and Sokka freed Aang and Appa from their frozen state. Aang soon learned of the battles with the Air Nomads. Aang revisited his former home, where he discovered countless Fire Nation corpses along with Gyatso's frail skeleton. Overcome with emotion, he entered the Avatar State and encased himself in a sphere of air which threatened to destroy the surrounding structures, but Katara calmed him down. Inadvertently, his transformation into the state was inside the temple and caused the statues and tapestries of every other Avatar within every Avatar temple in the other nations to have white, glowing eyes, alerting the world that the Avatar had returned.

Aang and the gang arrived at the Northern Air Temple and discovered it is inhabited by Earth Kingdom refugees who were forced from their homes by a flood years before. Aang was angry to see the temple vandalized by the Mechanist's modifications. However, he relented after seeing Teo's spirit and how the refugees defended their new home from the Fire Nation. Aang stated that just like the hermit crab he saw earlier, they found a new "shell" to call home and allowed them to stay.

It is still unknown how the Fire Nation's armies managed to reach the Air Nomad temples in the very highly-elevated areas of mountain ranges, as Aang states that the only way to reach an Air Temple is with a flying bison, though it is likely that they used dragons.