Out of My Element
04 Nov 2021Lily Flemmon
So, Colonia is a lot farther from the core systems than I realized. This gift will have to be delivered by a more qualified pilot. I got to CB-4, about 7% of the way there, and I learned the hard way why I don't consider myself an explorer. But still, it gave me a better understanding and perspective of just how big this galaxy is. How much is out there. Humanity is small, but we are far from insignificant.I do still have access to Galnet out here, and it looks like people are still forgetting that we need each other to survive. Out here in the black desolation of uncolonized space, I've realized that fighting against Hudson's influence isn't just about human rights, peace, and prosperity- it's about the very survival of everyone in the core systems, and with the establishment of the Colonia Bridge, humanity as a whole. It's not just about whether humanity deserves to survive, it's... it's about whether we can survive at all. We need to learn to deny the encroaching and deadly grip of natural selection, not only to advance, but to survive.
So I think it's time I wrote that letter to Colonia.
People of Colonia,
I, Commander Lily Flemmon, am writing to you on behalf of the Chilton Agricultural Cooperative, and its people, dedicated to nurturing life and tending to those in need, to inform you, to warn you, and to implore you.
First, to inform you:
Three thousand years ago, the Roman Empire was beginning to fall. Their leaders sought after greed and power, and neglected the needs of their people, denying them basic needs by labeling them as luxuries. Now, the most powerful man in the galaxy, Zachary Hudson, does the same. We remember the Roman empire because after it fell, its people survived, despite entering into a thousand-year period aptly called the Dark Ages. The people survived because of the rich soil and resources of the Mediterranean's many archipelagos, the warm, rich climate of those islands and the peninsulas of southern Europe, Mesopotamia, and northern Africa. The vacuum of space seldom offers such habitat. I know this, and you know this, but while it may seem obvious, the grand majority of humanity does not.
And so I warn you that while it is truly marvelous that a bridge is being built between you and the rest of humanity, the people you are becoming more connected to are losing touch with what it means to cooperate, what it means to thrive, and Zachary Hudson continues to feed to anyone he can the lie that thriving is individual to each person, that greed drives prosperity, and that self-subjugation is an essential part of humanity's existence. He is the most powerful person in the galaxy, and many have stood up against him, and sometimes he is defeated in seemingly major conflicts, but even then he only continues to grow in power. The people of Chilton Terminal are a welcoming antithesis to his ideas, and so are you, people of Colonia.
So I, on behalf of the Chilton Co-op, implore you, the people of Colonia, to serve as a loud and undeniable reminder that humanity needs to cooperate and remember to give aid to its weakest in order to survive. We are broken, and we will soon be dying, and I implore all of you to do what you can to save us, not from Thargoids, but from ourselves.
We all need to remember, now more than ever, that the vastness of space is not the final frontier. The final frontier for all of us... is home.
-Lily
I'm no explorer. Space is too lonely for me. It's time to get back home. Dwindling warmth is better than none.