Who We Are
14 Dec 2024Rawnu
"Three down, five to go," Marika had said, her glass held high, her grin infectious. Apollo and Kain had joined in, clinking drinks, cracking jokes. For a moment, I was there with them—laughing, raising my glass, pretending everything was fine. But it wasn’t. My mind was miles away, still caught in the void. I’m sitting in the cockpit of the Gallifrey, checking her systems, trying to find calm in the well-known sounds of this beautiful machine. It started after the bombing run. We’d just broke Cocijo’s third heart. The explosion was a blinding surge of energy, the Titan’s defenses momentarily staggered. Cheers erupted over comms, but I could barely hear them. As I pulled back through the caustic haze, something hit me. I wasn’t even in hyperspace, but it felt like it, my old condition flaring up. My hands shook on the controls, and my breaths came shallow and fast. It was worse than Triton because this time, I knew it was real. Whatever I felt, whatever I saw, came from the Titan. It wasn’t trying to destroy me. It was trying to know me. And to ask me something.
Cold fire. Whispers. Lights splintering across my vision, sharper and more vibrant than anything real. Voices—alien and familiar, layered over one another, rising, falling. And a presence—not hostile, not kind, but watching. Reaching. Inquiring. Who are you?
What happens when Cocijo falls? The Titan hangs above Earth, its enormous mass poised like a blade over the cradle of humanity, waiting for our next strike. But what will that strike bring? Every heart we destroy sends shockwaves through the void—through their systems, through ours. We call it an invader. A monster. But if we bring it down, what will we unleash?
First, a new star will rise in Earth’s orbit. A thermonuclear explosion bigger than anything humans ever unleashed. Gigatons over gigatons of TNT, radiation and ammonia on fire, and an entire city made of steel and alien flesh will light the Earth’s sky. Some of it will remain in orbit, clogging it for years to come, disabling satellites and communication, the lifeblood of our society. Some of it—will fall. Metal and flesh, poison and radiation, the carcass of a living sun.
Mountains ablaze. Green smoke over valleys. Burning lands and houses. And screams, so many screams. The voices are shaking, the visions get blurred. But death hangs over all of them. Not violent, not cruel. Just death. Indifferent. Final. Do you want this?
We won’t just kill a Titan. We’ll kill our home. And so much more.
The fires, the deaths, the destruction won’t come from the Thargoids. They’ll come from us. We did this. To ourselves.
This isn’t just a war for survival anymore. It’s a test—a test of who we are, what we’re willing to do. Because this is the question: are we so consumed by fear and vengeance that we’d sever a limb from our own body just to destroy an enemy? Are we willing to burn our home, our mother, to the ground for the sake of victory?
We have to stop.
To everyone fighting this fight, I plead with you: for one rotation, just one, stop bombing the Titan. Bring all your ships—your Anacondas, your Corvettes, your Cutters—and form a wall between Cocijo and Earth. Show it that we will protect. But also show it: an escape vector, an option to stand down. To live. Let’s show them we’re not just killers. Let’s show them we’re more. That we won’t burn our mother to kill an enemy. That we’re willing to find another way. We have to prove that we are not what they think we are. We have to show ourselves that we are more than fear, more than anger, more than hate and rage.
Because if we destroy Cocijo like this—if we let it fall—we will not only lose Earth.
We’ll lose ourselves.