Humiliation and murder
Legendary Pheonx... Worrisome? You don't say x)
stnylan, appreciable jump in pop, sure. Security...
The Bastion of Ganlarev: a fully fortified asteroid belt, defended by 24 peripheral fortresses, and enclosing three arsenal worlds.
* *
From the memory pool of Elder Kalinda Poojary
A century ago, I had told my father that he would not live to see the coming darkness that would engulf the galaxy, a prospect that looked increasingly unlikely considering the leaps and bounds our technology and understanding of life have made. Our life expectancy nowadays is evaluated to at least reach two hundred and fifty years - a very theoretical upper limit that has not actually been tested. "Death by old age" has been something unknown for a century and a half; even the Mussid and the Ludivellans, the methane-based sapients we have uplifted, have reaped the benefits of our science and psionic powers and have become far longer lived than either species remembered.
All that progress had made me end up doubting my vision of my father being dead many years before the coming of the great darkness. But I had never envisioned that my own actions would place him on a path at the end of which he would give up his own life.
Aggression? Since when? We're pacifists, you idiots!
The thunder struck on the 29th of July of 2333. The arrival of a precursor ship on Earth was nothing unknown. Sometimes the ancients came with an outlandish demand, like when our southern neighbors had wanted us to just give them the explorer Zeinab Salman, or when another precursor empire just demanded that we hand over a part of our population for "conservation purposes". At other times they came bearing gifts, like the custodian machines who provided us with a breakthrough serum to improve our health, and "rewarded" us for colonizing our second uninhabitable planet, Asimov, by handing over a treasure trove of knowledge that will considerably help our research. This time, the visitor came with a much less friendly message: we were told, in no uncertain terms, that we were about to be crushed and that there was nothing we could do about it.
To tell the truth, we were about to be crushed, and there was nothing we could do about it. Even with our recent rapid armament efforts and the technological leaps and bounds made in the twenty-two years since Onobanjo's demise, there just wasn't a way we would be able to match the immense fleets the Galaxy Array saw moving - two battlegroups of formidable power headed not even to our space, but to that of our hapless allies, who had honored the defensive pacts signed long ago with the United Worlds...
My father did the only thing he thought he could do: recall the Ganlarev ambassador and immediately accept their terms of surrender, which were to humiliate ourselves and proclaim our inferiority to the rest of the galaxy. Terms which were going to stick in our collective craws, on top of having to demilitarize down to levels the Ganlarev would tolerate us to keep, but the preservation of our allies was at that price, so my father went to the ambassador and told him, panting from the exertion of catching up with him, that the terms of surrender were accepted. What he didn't know was that some of the terms had been written in invisible ink...
In a way, I am feeling responsible for my father's death... I played a part in the overthrow of Dikotsi Onobanjo, which led to his being chosen to rule the United Worlds and direct the construction of a fleet for them, which in turn led to... I'm not going to retell that story.
Obviously, in the light of what had happened, an emergency session of the Assembly of Elders was held to decide on a new course of action, after the catastrophic event which had just befallen us. I forced myself to attend - what was going to be discussed was just too important, and I refused to stay silent about the events surrounding my father's death.
The session was opened by a beautiful gesture from Giovanna Garibaldi. She's a terrifying political opponent, but an honorable woman nonetheless. Before giving the floor to any speaker, she proposed that my father be cleaned up, redressed, and placed in a suspended animation capsule next to Josephine, at the entrance of the compound, in homage for his giving his life to protect all of ours and all of our allies'. And I don't think I felt more overwhelmed with emotion in my life than when the old woman asked who, among the Assembly of Elders, would second the motion, and nearly two hundred heads, Human, Mussid and Ludivellan turned in my direction. I managed to choke out the words, then had to be excused, and old Giovanna suspended the session for fifteen minutes.
When the session resumed, the first person who spoke up was Dikotsi Onobanjo.
Every now and then, I remind myself that I hate that man. On this day, I did not need the reminder. My father's body wasn't even cold yet and there he was, spouting his party line about the need for complete disarmament, and even having the nerve to lecture us about how we'd brought the Ganlarev upon ourselves when we forgot that "there can be no peace when resources which ought to be devoted to economic reconstruction are to be diverted to an intensified competition in armaments" - his conclusion was that we had got what we had deserved, and we needed to disband all our fleets that very day.
I was sorely tempted to launch a psychic attack on him then and there, but it turned out there was very little need. All that old Onobanjo managed to achieve was turn the Assembly against him and cement us in the staunch affirmation that we would not disarm just because someone else had decided we did not have a right to bear arms against any perils the galaxy might throw at us - and clearly, the need the precursors felt to ensure they all kept nearly two hundred ships of war tends to point at their thinking there are threats lurking in this galaxy or beyond. And unlike the Ganlarev think, we are not one such threat. We could already have conquered half of the galaxy had we been one.
Remained the problem of what happens after the ten-year-truce with them expires. We might be stronger by then, but by no means are we going to be capable of fighting the Ganlarev on equal terms even then. We might have to accept another humiliation instead, and odds are whoever is the Chief Precentor who signs that next peace treaty will meet the same fate as my father. But we had to elect someone - Onobanjo wasted no time in applying for the top job again, and we couldn't let him win by default.
In the end, it was a quiet and unassuming Elder, who has been sitting on the council for ninety years, who offered herself. Yuan Zhang had been our very first Elder-Admiral, and she sorely regretted her inability to defend the fleet's assets under the Tories' long rule. She offered to take the charge of Chief Precentor on as a penance, and she was voted in office with an overwhelming majority. Her quiet resolve and acceptance of her fate have left a permanent mark upon many of our souls.
Scientific Leap agenda, Scientific mind trait... I'll take that 15% research bonus, thank you!
As I dwell upon these events, I'm standing at the entrance of the Council Compound, facing the bodies of two great personages who got to guide the destinies of humankind. And I can't help but feel sad at the thought that in the end, I got another of my wishes: my father and Josephine are finally united.
Five years left to play in the 2330s bloc ^^
stnylan, appreciable jump in pop, sure. Security...
* *
The Bastion of Ganlarev: a fully fortified asteroid belt, defended by 24 peripheral fortresses, and enclosing three arsenal worlds.
* *
A century ago, I had told my father that he would not live to see the coming darkness that would engulf the galaxy, a prospect that looked increasingly unlikely considering the leaps and bounds our technology and understanding of life have made. Our life expectancy nowadays is evaluated to at least reach two hundred and fifty years - a very theoretical upper limit that has not actually been tested. "Death by old age" has been something unknown for a century and a half; even the Mussid and the Ludivellans, the methane-based sapients we have uplifted, have reaped the benefits of our science and psionic powers and have become far longer lived than either species remembered.
All that progress had made me end up doubting my vision of my father being dead many years before the coming of the great darkness. But I had never envisioned that my own actions would place him on a path at the end of which he would give up his own life.
Aggression? Since when? We're pacifists, you idiots!
The thunder struck on the 29th of July of 2333. The arrival of a precursor ship on Earth was nothing unknown. Sometimes the ancients came with an outlandish demand, like when our southern neighbors had wanted us to just give them the explorer Zeinab Salman, or when another precursor empire just demanded that we hand over a part of our population for "conservation purposes". At other times they came bearing gifts, like the custodian machines who provided us with a breakthrough serum to improve our health, and "rewarded" us for colonizing our second uninhabitable planet, Asimov, by handing over a treasure trove of knowledge that will considerably help our research. This time, the visitor came with a much less friendly message: we were told, in no uncertain terms, that we were about to be crushed and that there was nothing we could do about it.
To tell the truth, we were about to be crushed, and there was nothing we could do about it. Even with our recent rapid armament efforts and the technological leaps and bounds made in the twenty-two years since Onobanjo's demise, there just wasn't a way we would be able to match the immense fleets the Galaxy Array saw moving - two battlegroups of formidable power headed not even to our space, but to that of our hapless allies, who had honored the defensive pacts signed long ago with the United Worlds...
My father did the only thing he thought he could do: recall the Ganlarev ambassador and immediately accept their terms of surrender, which were to humiliate ourselves and proclaim our inferiority to the rest of the galaxy. Terms which were going to stick in our collective craws, on top of having to demilitarize down to levels the Ganlarev would tolerate us to keep, but the preservation of our allies was at that price, so my father went to the ambassador and told him, panting from the exertion of catching up with him, that the terms of surrender were accepted. What he didn't know was that some of the terms had been written in invisible ink...
In a way, I am feeling responsible for my father's death... I played a part in the overthrow of Dikotsi Onobanjo, which led to his being chosen to rule the United Worlds and direct the construction of a fleet for them, which in turn led to... I'm not going to retell that story.
Obviously, in the light of what had happened, an emergency session of the Assembly of Elders was held to decide on a new course of action, after the catastrophic event which had just befallen us. I forced myself to attend - what was going to be discussed was just too important, and I refused to stay silent about the events surrounding my father's death.
The session was opened by a beautiful gesture from Giovanna Garibaldi. She's a terrifying political opponent, but an honorable woman nonetheless. Before giving the floor to any speaker, she proposed that my father be cleaned up, redressed, and placed in a suspended animation capsule next to Josephine, at the entrance of the compound, in homage for his giving his life to protect all of ours and all of our allies'. And I don't think I felt more overwhelmed with emotion in my life than when the old woman asked who, among the Assembly of Elders, would second the motion, and nearly two hundred heads, Human, Mussid and Ludivellan turned in my direction. I managed to choke out the words, then had to be excused, and old Giovanna suspended the session for fifteen minutes.
When the session resumed, the first person who spoke up was Dikotsi Onobanjo.
Every now and then, I remind myself that I hate that man. On this day, I did not need the reminder. My father's body wasn't even cold yet and there he was, spouting his party line about the need for complete disarmament, and even having the nerve to lecture us about how we'd brought the Ganlarev upon ourselves when we forgot that "there can be no peace when resources which ought to be devoted to economic reconstruction are to be diverted to an intensified competition in armaments" - his conclusion was that we had got what we had deserved, and we needed to disband all our fleets that very day.
I was sorely tempted to launch a psychic attack on him then and there, but it turned out there was very little need. All that old Onobanjo managed to achieve was turn the Assembly against him and cement us in the staunch affirmation that we would not disarm just because someone else had decided we did not have a right to bear arms against any perils the galaxy might throw at us - and clearly, the need the precursors felt to ensure they all kept nearly two hundred ships of war tends to point at their thinking there are threats lurking in this galaxy or beyond. And unlike the Ganlarev think, we are not one such threat. We could already have conquered half of the galaxy had we been one.
Remained the problem of what happens after the ten-year-truce with them expires. We might be stronger by then, but by no means are we going to be capable of fighting the Ganlarev on equal terms even then. We might have to accept another humiliation instead, and odds are whoever is the Chief Precentor who signs that next peace treaty will meet the same fate as my father. But we had to elect someone - Onobanjo wasted no time in applying for the top job again, and we couldn't let him win by default.
In the end, it was a quiet and unassuming Elder, who has been sitting on the council for ninety years, who offered herself. Yuan Zhang had been our very first Elder-Admiral, and she sorely regretted her inability to defend the fleet's assets under the Tories' long rule. She offered to take the charge of Chief Precentor on as a penance, and she was voted in office with an overwhelming majority. Her quiet resolve and acceptance of her fate have left a permanent mark upon many of our souls.
Scientific Leap agenda, Scientific mind trait... I'll take that 15% research bonus, thank you!
As I dwell upon these events, I'm standing at the entrance of the Council Compound, facing the bodies of two great personages who got to guide the destinies of humankind. And I can't help but feel sad at the thought that in the end, I got another of my wishes: my father and Josephine are finally united.
* *
Five years left to play in the 2330s bloc ^^
