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A Plea of Treason
My name is… unimportant. It will soon be gone. This text should be the reasons that our course must change, a plea to my brothers and sisters for salvation of our race. But I know nothing will change the way things have become, and so this is nothing more than my epitaph. The epitaph of us all: This is my statement of treason.
Born on Orment Orbital in Arta Caelisits, I am now twenty-six years of age. My family was privileged, with both parents all but enthroned high within The Group’s upper management levels. My siblings all went on to pursue careers within the Union: an elder sister lives in Dau L-10, and serves as a senator; my younger brother already captains a Constellation Class vessel, the “*TPG Prosperity and Health.”
I have chosen the path less traveled, at least within my own circles: a formal education and period of reflection before starting my life’s work. To this end, I have spent the last four years earnestly absorbing and questioning the knowledge of our universe. My first year I enrolled in basic courses at the Aroan Executive School of Trade & Commercial Transactions; there I learned all there was to know about accounting, price points, the arts of negotiation, and most importantly the theory behind the Union’s policies.
Because of extensive customs delays at Sky Command in Sol II, not uncommon I came to learn, my educational visa for a year’s study at Professor Toshiro’s University in Serco space was delayed until the third year. This has, as I now see things, been quite fateful for me. At the time, it just meant that I would spend my second year on Omata Meditation in Itan, seeking to understand the fundamental precepts of Itani philosophy. The monks taught me of the soul of the Itani people; the scientists of the research station instructed me in the means by which that soul, through the raw materials and technologies provided by my homeworlds, was given much needed tools.
The third year saw a visa for my study term in Serco territory arrive suddenly and without warning. The pouch in which it arrived carried the markings of over two hundred and eighty nine agencies, departments, bureaus and commands: it weighed 70 kilos, though the visa itself was a small 10cm by 40cm card. The rest of the bulk were the forms I was to fill out, the regulations and rules I would be subject to, and the orders that informed me that I would be subject to expulsion were I not on Sol II for processing into the educational system in two days. The third year did not appear to be off to a rosy start.
When I arrived, I was told that because of my having spent a year in Itani space my course selections would be severely limited. No research or technological courses would be allowed, no science or higher math that I could somehow use to assist their enemies. All of the usual courses in military tactics and strategy were right out. In what proved to be a prelude to terrifying epiphany, I resigned myself to a year of studying history…
Born on Orment Orbital in Arta Caelisits, I am now twenty-six years of age. My family was privileged, with both parents all but enthroned high within The Group’s upper management levels. My siblings all went on to pursue careers within the Union: an elder sister lives in Dau L-10, and serves as a senator; my younger brother already captains a Constellation Class vessel, the “*TPG Prosperity and Health.”
I have chosen the path less traveled, at least within my own circles: a formal education and period of reflection before starting my life’s work. To this end, I have spent the last four years earnestly absorbing and questioning the knowledge of our universe. My first year I enrolled in basic courses at the Aroan Executive School of Trade & Commercial Transactions; there I learned all there was to know about accounting, price points, the arts of negotiation, and most importantly the theory behind the Union’s policies.
Because of extensive customs delays at Sky Command in Sol II, not uncommon I came to learn, my educational visa for a year’s study at Professor Toshiro’s University in Serco space was delayed until the third year. This has, as I now see things, been quite fateful for me. At the time, it just meant that I would spend my second year on Omata Meditation in Itan, seeking to understand the fundamental precepts of Itani philosophy. The monks taught me of the soul of the Itani people; the scientists of the research station instructed me in the means by which that soul, through the raw materials and technologies provided by my homeworlds, was given much needed tools.
The third year saw a visa for my study term in Serco territory arrive suddenly and without warning. The pouch in which it arrived carried the markings of over two hundred and eighty nine agencies, departments, bureaus and commands: it weighed 70 kilos, though the visa itself was a small 10cm by 40cm card. The rest of the bulk were the forms I was to fill out, the regulations and rules I would be subject to, and the orders that informed me that I would be subject to expulsion were I not on Sol II for processing into the educational system in two days. The third year did not appear to be off to a rosy start.
When I arrived, I was told that because of my having spent a year in Itani space my course selections would be severely limited. No research or technological courses would be allowed, no science or higher math that I could somehow use to assist their enemies. All of the usual courses in military tactics and strategy were right out. In what proved to be a prelude to terrifying epiphany, I resigned myself to a year of studying history…
It was during this year that the first threads of what would become a net I felt dragging me down began to form. I began with the standard courses in Sercan history, but soon found them to be so much tripe. Hero stories for the Serco children. With the assistance of a Professor of Ancient Military History, who had some sort of family influence I never fully understood, I dropped all of these to begin a course of guided self study in the Sol II archives. Here I read of the earliest times, when Sol II was peopled by a single race suddenly cut off from the home planet of Earth. The beginnings of the first war between Itani and Serco, the Colony War of AD 2651, and Akan’s rise and the danger the IDF presented to the Serco were clear in the first person accounts and personal documents of individuals on both sides, of all walks of life. I saw how the initial balance of power and temperament had favored the Itani; how the Serco way had met, countered and finally overrun. How that same temperament had caused the Serco race to rest on its laurels while it grew more and more prideful in its ‘accomplishments’.
I tried to trace the roots of the Sercan people, what they were and believed and how they would fit into the world I had learned of in the previous two years. I saw that despite their inherent arrogance, which drove them to avoid change, evolution and progress, they were also impelled, when their hubris had been shown rootless or when their very survival was at stake, to progress in great leaps forward. They could be both ingenious and execute rote, brute force on a massive scale at the same time, provided conditions were right. Sadly, I began to see that in spite of this great capability, it was possessed by a race with a corrupt soul: many fine individuals I met in Serco space, but as a people their way of life was as an end oppressive. Intolerant. Barbaric, even: I heard reports of cannibalism in war by Serco warriors. None who spoke of such things were horrified; only bored or mildly amused.
For the Serco to rule us all would be a fate worse than death, though death would come to billions under such authority. But their history, in my year of studying it, showed me that they would come to rule us all! Despite the Colony War’s ill turns, they held on because their great strength is to hold fast, to be impregnable. Each advance by the Itani, no matter how costly in men or time or money, was matched by a more hardened Serco defense. And while this stalemate played itself out, they did not just hold. They dreamed with the fire of hatred for those who had wounded them, with the passion of the fallen mighty, and with the genius of necessity. They both did what they already knew on a scale never before witnessed, and innovated a new and terrifying technological sword with which to strike down all those who were though enemy. A week was all that it took before; but then, each side was more or less even to start with. Back then.
I tried to trace the roots of the Sercan people, what they were and believed and how they would fit into the world I had learned of in the previous two years. I saw that despite their inherent arrogance, which drove them to avoid change, evolution and progress, they were also impelled, when their hubris had been shown rootless or when their very survival was at stake, to progress in great leaps forward. They could be both ingenious and execute rote, brute force on a massive scale at the same time, provided conditions were right. Sadly, I began to see that in spite of this great capability, it was possessed by a race with a corrupt soul: many fine individuals I met in Serco space, but as a people their way of life was as an end oppressive. Intolerant. Barbaric, even: I heard reports of cannibalism in war by Serco warriors. None who spoke of such things were horrified; only bored or mildly amused.
For the Serco to rule us all would be a fate worse than death, though death would come to billions under such authority. But their history, in my year of studying it, showed me that they would come to rule us all! Despite the Colony War’s ill turns, they held on because their great strength is to hold fast, to be impregnable. Each advance by the Itani, no matter how costly in men or time or money, was matched by a more hardened Serco defense. And while this stalemate played itself out, they did not just hold. They dreamed with the fire of hatred for those who had wounded them, with the passion of the fallen mighty, and with the genius of necessity. They both did what they already knew on a scale never before witnessed, and innovated a new and terrifying technological sword with which to strike down all those who were though enemy. A week was all that it took before; but then, each side was more or less even to start with. Back then.
My final year I spent interning at the Dau Senate; my sister had secured me a spot. Nepotism is not all bad, I say. The idea, my terror, that the Serco would rise from their powerless position in universal affairs, while retaining the barbarity and drive to conquer by destruction, was fully formed when I began there. I had no idea how much fuel my year in the Senate was to add to the fires that tormented me at night.
For in that year I watched as the UIT sanctioned, encouraged, deals that provided the Serco with new weapons, new ship technologies, new raw materials. I already knew that this was a conflict between two irreconcilable peoples; the Itani could not permit the Serco way to flourish, and the Serco would not stop until death or victory was theirs. Now I saw we took no side but that of profit, and though I’d known this all my life, had been taught that it was our way, a better way, I wanted to scream that we were murdering our children, as surely as we had taken up the tools ourselves and driven them through their frail bodies. In a war where there can be no surrender, and one side is evil, slow and sure… the other inherently good, bright and quick… how can we not take a side?
Every shady deal I saw, selling Itani technology on to the Serco, ate away at the precious thousand plus year advantage that kept us all free. The Itani had taken over a millennia to reach the stage of superiority they now enjoyed: we were destroying it in the space of a generation for a few trillion credits. Almost 1200 years! And already the Serco were so close, they were slowly but surely crawling out of the muck and because their pride was wounded once again they would arise. And we, we were hastening that fateful time. But, I was chided, we sold equally to both sides: surely the balance would last forever. And we would Live Well In This World, we could ride the never ending wave of Serco hatred and ambition clashing against Itani goodwill and protective drive.
But that is not the way I believe things will be. The entire foundation of the Union is based on a false premise, that the conflict will be even as long as we play both sides. But it isn’t even, not even close. Trained for war, trained to kill, to hate, to overcome: in the end, given enough time, the Itani will fall to the Serco, because that is the only purpose the Sercans have. Yes, the Itani are good, they would never seek to exterminate or oppress us or even their mortal enemies. That will not save them; it may kill them. Yes, the Serco are all the things the Itani look down upon them for, but they can overcome them long enough to crush their foe. And we will not be far behind.
We are playing Sercan Roulette. Every ship we sell, every cargo bay of ore or alloy, every weapons prototype… brings us, the galaxy, one step closer to the end. But this time there will be no Ark, and there will be no Exodus of the Neutrals. One day the power in the Serco space will burst forth and sweep all that they hate away: we may survive, even some Itani may survive. But our fate will be control, and as time passes our masters will bear down on us, first heavily, then maliciously. Before, I never would have thought such things, but now I know them to be so. They terrify me, but I cannot deny their truth.
For in that year I watched as the UIT sanctioned, encouraged, deals that provided the Serco with new weapons, new ship technologies, new raw materials. I already knew that this was a conflict between two irreconcilable peoples; the Itani could not permit the Serco way to flourish, and the Serco would not stop until death or victory was theirs. Now I saw we took no side but that of profit, and though I’d known this all my life, had been taught that it was our way, a better way, I wanted to scream that we were murdering our children, as surely as we had taken up the tools ourselves and driven them through their frail bodies. In a war where there can be no surrender, and one side is evil, slow and sure… the other inherently good, bright and quick… how can we not take a side?
Every shady deal I saw, selling Itani technology on to the Serco, ate away at the precious thousand plus year advantage that kept us all free. The Itani had taken over a millennia to reach the stage of superiority they now enjoyed: we were destroying it in the space of a generation for a few trillion credits. Almost 1200 years! And already the Serco were so close, they were slowly but surely crawling out of the muck and because their pride was wounded once again they would arise. And we, we were hastening that fateful time. But, I was chided, we sold equally to both sides: surely the balance would last forever. And we would Live Well In This World, we could ride the never ending wave of Serco hatred and ambition clashing against Itani goodwill and protective drive.
But that is not the way I believe things will be. The entire foundation of the Union is based on a false premise, that the conflict will be even as long as we play both sides. But it isn’t even, not even close. Trained for war, trained to kill, to hate, to overcome: in the end, given enough time, the Itani will fall to the Serco, because that is the only purpose the Sercans have. Yes, the Itani are good, they would never seek to exterminate or oppress us or even their mortal enemies. That will not save them; it may kill them. Yes, the Serco are all the things the Itani look down upon them for, but they can overcome them long enough to crush their foe. And we will not be far behind.
We are playing Sercan Roulette. Every ship we sell, every cargo bay of ore or alloy, every weapons prototype… brings us, the galaxy, one step closer to the end. But this time there will be no Ark, and there will be no Exodus of the Neutrals. One day the power in the Serco space will burst forth and sweep all that they hate away: we may survive, even some Itani may survive. But our fate will be control, and as time passes our masters will bear down on us, first heavily, then maliciously. Before, I never would have thought such things, but now I know them to be so. They terrify me, but I cannot deny their truth.
Every inquiry I made, any question too far that I asked, only made me more and more of an outsider at the Senate. Profit is all, it is unquestionable by anyone. Most do not see that the market is in our own death, most think it sustainable. But I am not the only one who does not: there are, in the very highest seats of power, those who know. Those who know the true impact of our ways, of our policies, of the theory that drives our Union. And they continue on, full of knowledge, because they know it is not their future they are selling. They believe that for them to live well in this mortal world is the only good, and they would kill anyone and mortgage any future to have that satisfaction. Perhaps they are the only ones I truly hate: the Itani are a people of grace and love, the Union is largely hard working and honest if sharp and hard bargaining, and even the Serco are not so much evil as they are simply bad neighbors. But those who run the Corporations and the Senate, they know and they act anyway.
I cannot go on like this. In the last year I have toyed with the EJECT lever on my prized white Border Guardian many times: never have I worn a survival suit. But I will not be so cowardly as to take the easy way out, while pretending that it is really a brave way to send a strident and un-ignorable message. I have decided that I will sell my goods and all my family shares, and set out for Itan again in my Guardian. There I hope to bring my fears to the ears of my former teachers, but I know already they will dismiss me with a smile. An old Earth maxim, they will whisper, contains the only true fate of the galaxy: Love Conquers All.
They are wrong, and it would be the death of us all. I will serve the Itani race as best I can, because the enemy of my enemy is my friend. In time I may be able to get them to share less with the Union, and stop the tide of technology to the Sercans. In time I may be able to fight for the survival of our only hope for freedom and peace, the Itani. It is our only hope. I shed my old life and self, and I become:
Kavs Locin.
I cannot go on like this. In the last year I have toyed with the EJECT lever on my prized white Border Guardian many times: never have I worn a survival suit. But I will not be so cowardly as to take the easy way out, while pretending that it is really a brave way to send a strident and un-ignorable message. I have decided that I will sell my goods and all my family shares, and set out for Itan again in my Guardian. There I hope to bring my fears to the ears of my former teachers, but I know already they will dismiss me with a smile. An old Earth maxim, they will whisper, contains the only true fate of the galaxy: Love Conquers All.
They are wrong, and it would be the death of us all. I will serve the Itani race as best I can, because the enemy of my enemy is my friend. In time I may be able to get them to share less with the Union, and stop the tide of technology to the Sercans. In time I may be able to fight for the survival of our only hope for freedom and peace, the Itani. It is our only hope. I shed my old life and self, and I become:
Kavs Locin.
OOC: Great story. :)
Though I am still but a whisper of a voice among my Itani breathren, I have recently be on a fast track of promotion, and have made many friends in high places among the IDF council and the Itani senate.
The Itani people will hear your plea. Please come to Itan asap, I have already convinced the senate to listen, and they are truely alarmed by the many things I have told them to expect to hear.
Though I and many of my breathren wish no harm upon the sercan peoples, for we value all life as sacred, I fear that If left to their own agenda the serco will silence a great many voices in our galaxy, including their own. This must be prevented at any cost. Though It may cost my life and career, I stand now with you in hopes that together we may bring a new age of peace and proparity to the lives of every living being on this side of the galaxy, be they Itani, Serco, or UIT.
Please contact me via private channel, my callsign is drazed. I will lead you to Itan, and together we will try to change the shape of our worlds for the betterment of all mankind.
I salute you, wise one who was born outside of our happy blue space, and await your replay with patience.
The Itani people will hear your plea. Please come to Itan asap, I have already convinced the senate to listen, and they are truely alarmed by the many things I have told them to expect to hear.
Though I and many of my breathren wish no harm upon the sercan peoples, for we value all life as sacred, I fear that If left to their own agenda the serco will silence a great many voices in our galaxy, including their own. This must be prevented at any cost. Though It may cost my life and career, I stand now with you in hopes that together we may bring a new age of peace and proparity to the lives of every living being on this side of the galaxy, be they Itani, Serco, or UIT.
Please contact me via private channel, my callsign is drazed. I will lead you to Itan, and together we will try to change the shape of our worlds for the betterment of all mankind.
I salute you, wise one who was born outside of our happy blue space, and await your replay with patience.
OOC: Very well written! Don't know how to reply.
OOC:
@drazed: IDF is no more, and you also have many friends in Dominion high places draz. Not sure he can trust you. :P
@Kavs Locin: it would be a pity this ends in VO RP forums oblivion, please continue. :)
@drazed: IDF is no more, and you also have many friends in Dominion high places draz. Not sure he can trust you. :P
@Kavs Locin: it would be a pity this ends in VO RP forums oblivion, please continue. :)