Living to See Interesting Times
03 Aug 2022Lily Flemmon
I'm currently far from the Bubble, in the Vulcan's Gate region, while things back home become more and more clear to me.One of the worst curses ever devised by a tormented human mind is "may you live to see interesting times." Writing and study regarding this abounds, and while these interesting times are critical turning points in history, the reason there's so much writing is because these times are times of sorrow. When humanity is laid bare. When the worst and best in all of us is brought out, whether we like it or not.
Zachary Hudson claimed his reason to support Azimuth is that Federal citizens have a right to not have to worry about alien invasion. Which is absurd, considering Federal citizens do not have the right to not have to worry about domestic invasion. the PDB is a police state, but if Federal history is to be repeated, it will never formally call itself as such.
For those familiar with the ancient mythology of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, you may recall the first horseman, atop the White Horse, a variety of ways. Conquest, Prosperity, Contagion, and, in an interpretation thought to first arise shortly before the Third World War, although it was lost in the widespread destruction and recovered centuries later, Indoctrination. While these seem to be distinctly different ideas, it has been thought that these concepts may be parts, or aspects, of a whole, as the myth has evolved to further encompass the human experience of cultural apocalypse (S. Tridentari, Orion University, 3304). While Tridentari does not outright state in her works that that Zachary Hudson fits this sum of these four ideas of the White Horseman, she uses a surprising number of his campaign statements and early actions as President as examples in her work, noting how "It seems eerily convenient how many examples come from [Hudson's campaign and early Presidency]. I would argue that it is no coincidence. Hudson embodies those four interpretations of the First Horseman of the Apocalypse in full. Additionally, so does Edmund Mahon, and so does Emperor Arissa Lavigny-Duval. Conquest, Prosperity, Contagion, and Indoctrination, as one.
The second horseman has a remarkably clear interpretation, war. Bloody, civil war. Not for conquest, but for oppression, and for blood. The NMLA used as a front for the Lords of Restoration, the PDB clashing in the streets against the Federation's own population, and the failed resistance against an Alliance-Sirius pact are all frighteningly precise examples of the Second Horseman.
And the third, the Black Horse- Famine, Greed, and Scarcity. A bit more complex than the second, and hidden in the shadows, with public attention drawn much more to the First and Second Horsemen. But it's there. Federal citizens starve on the streets, preyed on by police, all because of artificial scarcity. Alliance citizens are drawn to social support programs, only to be abused and mistreated by underpaid state employees, who are seldom reviewed for their competence, until they die of hunger and disease waiting for paperwork to be processed so they can eat. And in the Empire, little of the Black Horse can be seen, since there are large efforts to ensure the quality of life of Imperial slaves, but these efforts are often greatly hindered outside Duval space. Two close friends of mine were once courtesans, one bearing cybernetics and a House Torval brand from the abuse she suffered. And that only scratches the surface of the horrible things that are done to some Imperial Slaves.
And so, we see the White Horse, the Red Horse, and the Black Horse.
I can only hope the Pale Horse is not coming.