Rebirth: It's the End of the World as We Know it
16 Nov 2022Astraeius
But I do feel fine... And so do most people in the Galaxy, it seems. There are colossal, impossibly visible, unidentified signatures approaching the cradle of our entire civilisation, yet nothing has truly changed. Sure, you get the occasional GalNet article. Sometimes local news outlets outline possible security measures. I've even been stopped a couple of times, by civilians who asked what the Fleet would do to protect them once the "Stargoids" came to attack us. Good luck getting an answer there... Perhaps the high riders in the First Fleet know something more, but as far as us lowly Auxiliaries, we were not even given the order to stand ready. Sometimes I wonder if there even is a planned response. Or rather, if there could even be one. I look at that star-shaped doom that stalks our bubble, and wonder if I could even comprehend what the enemy has planned against us. If anyone could. Is it a weapon? Are these ships? Or are those madmen in the Federation right and, like Odysseus's crewmen, we have been killing the cattle of some faceless, unnamed, God, only to awaken its wrath. Wouldn't that be something?
Then I remember reading - though for the sake of me I cannot remember where - that the Thargoid enemy too, that solar cattle that we've been slaughtering so merrily, make war upon each other. And part of me hopes that these new threatening lights are in fact an ally. Then I remember that we don't live in a world of fairy tales. But, perhaps... at the very least, the enemy of our enemy?
Our enemy... the Federation, the Alliance, us... what difference would it make, then? Perhaps the Emperor is right, and we are best when left at our devices, but I don't think our insectoid counterparts will care much. I first scoffed at the Xeno-Peacers, thinking them overly optimistic if not disingenuous. Now, even were they to succeed in their mad attempts at talking with the enemy, I wonder what they would say. That our governments are so decentralised that it's imposible to form a treaty with "humanity"? That half of us still think their extinction is the only way of survival? That a fringe group of lunatics revere them as gods? Would the hive mind understand the concepts of Senators, elections, hierarchies? Perhaps I give the enemy too little credit, or perhaps I misjudge the great minds at work on this communication project... but I hold little hope for it.
"Hope". That's all we have, isn't it? When you have no certainties, all you can do is hope. Hope that the end is not upon us. Hope that if something is to end, something better will take its place. Hope that I'll be there to see it. Or maybe, just hope for the best, come what may.