Songs of the Saiiban- A Poetic AAR

[Chilango2]

First Interlude: Taking Flight

Look now to this dawning day,
As we take anew fearless flight
Having finally found our way,
Out of our egg into new light
We stretch and spread our wings,
Let them taste the devouring dark
The silent universe to us softly sings
As finally on our flight we embark
But we know what we shall find
As we fly fast into the vast void
Shall forever change our kind
As with new things we are joined
Ah, very well then let us then be irrevocably changed
Only by such evolution can the sublime be attained

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

First Saiiban Confederation Census: 2210

Second Saiiban Confederation Census: 2220

Third Saiiban Confederation Census: 2230

Population Breakdown in 2230

 

[Chilango2]

You can do worse than call upon a bird of science
to supply your governmental guidance.

Our social scientists hold onto the view
All governments, whether of the many or the few
Are imperfect instruments with flaws unbearable
but that ours is at the least the least terrible.

Division exists
But civil war hasn’t come
How long will that last?

(Have you been listening to Hamilton recently? This gives me What’d I Miss vibes.)

To be divided; and yet, united
Is the struggle we must juggle
For without different views
science you choose to refuse.

(Hamilton is my favorite musical. That particular poem was inspired by/borrowed from "Washington by your Side")

Think of the humble cell
Secure in its membrane
Until another cell collides

Harmony to chaos
And in obediance to the biological refrain
What once was one now divides

We agree that without biological diversity
who knows where we all would be?
Not flying through space,
and by others erased
and yet we can't help but be annoyed.

--
I wanted to thank all of you who voted for this AAR in the ACA's. Coming in second for an AAR this new is really something, and it's all thanks to you.

I have finally caught up to where I left this game. I haven't been able to play this particular game since May because I didn't want to get too in the game from the AAR and lose the thread, and, now, about two months later, I've finally gotten there.

Now would be a good time to ask questions if you have them, especially if you want a screenshot of something. I'll pick up the game where I left off, start taking a new batch of screenshots and start prepping for the next round of posts.

 

[HistoryDude]

We fly in the great unknown,
Wond’ring what we will find.
Even silence speaks.

 

[DensleyBlair]

It is a truly wondrous thing
when even our robot friends have wings.

 

[Chilango2]

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

The condition of being alive
(at least as we understand it)
Is that one day you will be dead
Death is there from when we arrive
we practice it when to sleep we submit
Since sleep is the cousin of death.

To be, and then not to be,
That is our condition,
Every hatched egg follows the rule of three
It neither creates or destroys energy,
As it interacts with the world it creates entropy,
And this entropy ceases once the bird ceases to be.

But is this in fact the way it has to be?
What of these beings here?
When faced that most certain end,
They choose instead its cousin rather than to disappear.

In that sleep of deathlessness,
what dreams might have come?
Did they (Do they?) dream of coming awake anew?
Did they (Do they?) dream of metallic bodies free of rude sinews?
Did they (Do they?) simply dream to cheat fate, pass the time and then renew?
(Do they?)

We do not yet know the right song
To give form to their doomed hope
But when we do, should we also go along,
And from this rude flesh elope?

What was dead may never die,
But may come back, harder, stronger,
If we but sufficient science apply,
Then death will stalk us no longer

But if we will that they should live anew,
And join their metallic flight, stretching, straining,
Our new joyous forms,after our scientific breakthrough
Will there be anything of what is us remaining?

To sleep, perchance to dream,
Dream of machines which we might be,
Lasting for all eternity,
But no longer the birds that we used to be.

 

[Chilango2]

We fly in the great unknown,
Wond’ring what we will find.
Even silence speaks.

Indeed we have found
that among the depths of space
silence speaks loudest.

It is a truly wondrous thing
when even our robot friends have wings.

Do not all creators
create in their own image?
Life seeks to reproduce

(But also, did you notice?
that those robots that wish to kill us,
have wings also, just like us?
A dark murderous mirror, hungers)

 

[DensleyBlair]

A noble enough act,
to assist in a species’ wish for survival.

 

[stnylan]

Safe in our keeping
We maintain the lost
Who are but sleeping

Yet perhaps one day
We will break Time's frost
And what will they say?

 

[HistoryDude]

Some sleep
And yet we will weep
Weep at their predicament
For how different is it from death?

And yet if they can do it,
Why can’t we?
Perhaps we may even do it
Without as much risk.
Immortality calls to all,
And yet success could lead to our fall...

 

[Chilango2]

Skipping Rocks

To think that not to long ago
.....A asteroid flying towards us would be
........A disaster unparalleled and a mighty blow
...To every nest and egg that could ever be
But the winds of time have picked us up
..... Thrown us into the unknown and uncaring sky
.......They care not if we break up blow up or burn up
...They only demand that to the past we say good bye.
And so a day of doom imagined flies by
..... And to the doom what we have learned we apply
.......Lasers, missiles and the speed of light defied
And what once would doom is now but pebbles in the sky.

 

[Chilango2]

A noble enough act,
to assist in a species’ wish for survival.

Perhaps it's noble
but to us mostly it is
an experiment

Safe in our keeping
We maintain the lost
Who are but sleeping

Yet perhaps one day
We will break Time's frost
And what will they say?

Would we speak with the dead?
But are they not yet living?
Like a thought experiment of a boxed cat
There's no clear answer to arrive at.

Some sleep
And yet we will weep
Weep at their predicament
For how different is it from death?

And yet if they can do it,
Why can’t we?
Perhaps we may even do it
Without as much risk.
Immortality calls to all,
And yet success could lead to our fall...

The nature of death is to be changeless
The nature of life is to be changing
Would living forever, changeless
change us from living to dying?
----
Hi folks! School (or really, August Professional Development to prepare for this Most Interesting School Year) has started back up again.
I'm not sure what narcotic substances I was taking when I thought I could finish this project over the summer, but we shall continue. In case you can't tell, we are not even close to done, and if fact, I have only played 60 years into the game.
Nonetheless, expect slightly slower updates, hopefully about one a week, but as you may have noticed, sometimes a bit more delayed than that.
Don't forget you don't actually have to post in poetic form, I just reply in character and in poetic form because that was my vision for this AAR.

 

[stnylan]

The nightmares of yester eve
Solved problems of today
Last night we would not believe
We would face the rock without dismay

 

[DensleyBlair]

A disaster averted
becomes a great opportunity

 

[HistoryDude]

O, how far we’ve come
What was once a existential threat
Now barely threatens us at all
The universe doesn’t care who we are
Yet we can make our own fates

 

[Chilango2]

Who Tells Your Story?

When I was young, I dreamed of glory
I founded a nation voyaging into the stars
I created marvels and made planets ours
But now that I’m gone who will tell my story?

My time is gone and I am done being old
My song has stopped, do its echoes take hold?
My last flight done, my wings are still and cold,
By who and how will my story be told?

I am planted now, a tree becoming
To which new hatchlings will be coming
Will this new flock be my legacy?
Legacy? What is a legacy?
Is it new nests for our flock I never get to see?
A young hatchling singing of the past by my tree?
New knowledge unlocked by scientists who sing of me?

Who will sing for me?
I am silent now, feathers fallen
Who will keep my flame?
Who will remember my name?
Who will tell my story?

New beaks break from new eggs
New songs sung with new melodies.
My time’s up, wings up, rise up,
I go into the sky.

 

[Chilango2]

The nightmares of yester eve
Solved problems of today
Last night we would not believe
We would face the rock without dismay

Asteroid nightmares become dreams
Robot dreams become nightmares
To guess the future we do not dare.

A disaster averted
becomes a great opportunity

Disaster abound
opportunities as well
Probability plays no favorites

O, how far we’ve come
What was once a existential threat
Now barely threatens us at all
The universe doesn’t care who we are
Yet we can make our own fates

Masters of our fate
is this not the dream we share?
but the tyrant past casts shadows.

 

[DensleyBlair]

The wise bird will plant trees
with a mind to nests they will never see built.
They should not despair, then,
at having no songs sung of them in times to come.
For one day each young breath will sing in celebration
that, once, they lived at all.

 

[HistoryDude]

Songs live longer than Empires,
And Empires live longer than men.
Many remain to keep the flame of the dead...

 

[Chilango2]

Remains


Wandering the dark, idly singing
What do we find here, idly sitting
Graves and ghosts and ghouls perhaps
Of what was dead and what was not.

Fevers and fights and frauds and failure
All in one small compact container
One little ship crashing into the dark
And all that is left are but some remnant remarks

Defeat despair defection and desiccation
Fevered dreams delusions and deceptions
A world full of drama and woe for such a small spot
Of a crew lost and losing themselves in the dark.

Could any become such taken by such an ill wind?
Could any kill their own and feast upon the flock?
Could any murder become naught but a murder wrought?

Probability probably plays favorites not
But our response to its outcomes determines the next lot
Remember then the role of random events in your lot

When the universe rolls we only pick some of the dice
And must roll as best as we can with whatever comes up
But sometimes your outcome simply means your time is now up
Then fold your wings, bow your beak, sing your last note
And hope that what remains of your remnants rises into the sky.

 

[DensleyBlair]

The shipwreck is a stern portent
and harbours many a morbid event
(We pray the Saiiban never see
such terrible calamity)