Post by veronw on Jan 26, 2024 5:09:17 GMT
Absu Space
Various Locations
Water filled the void of space. Water in a thousand forms, in a thousand distinct movements.
Its flow was uninterrupted for astronomical units as it circulated across the center of gravity, which itself was held aloft by the juxtaposition of a sixteen star hierarchy.
Their creation.
Their Wonder.
Water served as the cradle of life, the primary element that defined the habitability of most planets in the known universe - or at least, the universe that they knew. This one was alien to them still, alien and brutal.
Across a great span of history, the combined species of the Meta-Sax - all 57 of them - had never encountered such a massacre as what had transpired in a brief moment’s time. They could properly account for every single one of those trillions killed. It wasn’t an abstract, some impossible-to-conceive-of-number. It was a real tangible fact that all of them intimately understood.
Lam Boh Fitti floated in the space near the Apolyonian that served as the bridge-point between The Real and The Duality; that metaphysical between where nothing existed outside of manifested will. They watched as the flow of cladeships and peoples continued - more were retreating into it every day.
To mourn, to heal, to try to understand.
It left the explorer handling a dicey bit of diplomacy.
“You’re telling us you won’t do anything!?”
“It isn’t that simple-”
“They destroyed whole star systems!”
It isn’t that simple..
Onboard the cladeship was the Kor Zahn representative - a singularly abject proponent for an active defense policy. Tiyre Rega wore a form that only slightly betrayed their meat-person origins; a product of many months of biological research here in Absu. Yet, his anger was palpable - a testament to his innate connection to the Scorn-entity.
“We must act, to preserve ourselves if nothing else! I’d have thought you of all people would get that!”
“We are acting. The Talcit Accords have voted in favor of our positions. All the areas we supported have been successful. The Union has withdrawn from SAGA and economic sanctions are in effect.”
“You don’t even do economics with most of these people though, that doesn’t do shit and you know it!”
“Regardless of the perceived effect, it is still action. We are still attempting to intervene in spaces where we can, however, there are too-”
“-Too damn few of you to do anything. I know. It’s all you people ever say. I’m done, if you won’t help, we will.”
They called the great bands of water the Tears of Ladon. As the angry meat-person departed the cladeship’s docking bay, Lam wondered if those would eventually be known as the Tears of Our People.
But was Tiyre exactly wrong? Could they do more? Yes, they could throw everything they had at the problem, and attempt to intervene majorly in the situation. They could devote their technical skills to the creation of biological pacification techniques, a subject brought up more than once by the Clade.
It was the brutality, the ship thought, that made them all go this far, to even consider this.
Even the Golreeq - the ones who ate the living for the sheer pleasure of it and feasted on the bones of whole worlds - had more chastity. It was unthinkable, unfathomable to utilize wormholes for the purposes of obliterating fellow sentients.
The Old Enemy was one thing, even the Army could be seen as a possible reason, but in the vainglory of normative conflict?
This wasn’t even a war. It was just a conflict, an economically driven quest for control. For finite and transitory powers that would be changed, dead or extinct in a millennia. It wasn’t war on a true scale, over fundamentally diametric purposes.
And yet still, trillions were dead. Entire stars had been killed. A reprehensive crime that the Volume would have extirpated for.
The cladeship couldn’t quite keep its metaphorical eyes away from the reports, from the huge list of damage and ongoing calls for help. The Zetyans were the closest, and thus the ones who would receive aid and support more swiftly than the others, but still..
There was no regard for civilian infrastructure, for any differentiation in acceptable targets.
It was simple, brutal, merciless, and empty. Just like The Enemy.
So then, was the only sane conclusion that the ones who enacted this level of death, who committed themselves to actual war, True War, should be treated as The Enemy?
Should the Clade bring forth the other weapons of the ancients? Is Necala Cu’s escape not sufficient? Would proper wormhole weapons be required to restore sanity? Should they delete whole portions of the universe with that power, to demonstrate the folly of it?
No..
This was the way that would lead to the death of The All. They couldn’t be tempted by it. By that kind of power. The ancients warned them of it, taught and passed down the terrible lessons of the usage of these things.
There were many potent reasons for the lack of their use in any conflicts since The Great War with the Devourer. Even the Golreeq had rules of engagement.
No.
They would not. They dared not.
In their mind, they felt the Consensus ebbing and flowing with this exact same debate. All of them were wondering, “What now? What happens next?”
Was it not enough that they had their children torn from them? Not enough that they’d have to reduce themselves to survive? Not enough to be the drop of shadow in the sun's light?
More ships passed back and forth between.
Leysa Puma was watching as plants sprouted along the coastal area of the shellworld they were constructing around Star 12. Her role, as the higal of seeking the spark, instructed that she be present to determine the viability of the habitat for the peoples in question.
Her heart wasn’t in it though.
Would it be ignorant of her, she wondered, to say she’d never considered the magnitude of cruelty that was possible?
All her life, she’d been among the Others. Among those who built worlds and seeded stars and traveled and traveled and traveled. They didn’t consider anything like this as even a remote possibility.
They didn’t build True Weapons.
But the people here did. They built them, and then they used them.
The major players in the galactic scene had either been hit directly or been vicariously impacted, and now everyone everywhere was scrambling, trying to figure out what to do.
Trying to figure out who they were.
“Are we the type of people who fire back?” That is one question that Leysa has heard from just the ones who hold refuge in Absu. A question with grand reaching implications, with powerful refutation among her own kin.
But they are not the only ones in Absu anymore, nor do they wish to be. This vast space, this bubble in the heart of a nebula, was too grand in scope for them alone. The ones who came here - Kor Zhan, Svarthan, and more - would likely be the ones to determine its real fate. Thus, their opinions and perspectives should carry greater weight. It was inevitable, in the minds of the Entire, that they would cease to be eventually.
Either the Clade would lose hope and abscond into the Apollyon, or they would stay to the bitter end and be slain by one of the myriad enemies they’d attracted.
Yet, before that end… who would they be? Would they resort to it? To True War? Could they? Or are they so numbed - even now, with so much taken from them - that they would rather die?
The plant reaches towards the star, stretching its fronds with all its might, with all its being to scrape at the energy bathing the world that she helped to create.
“What do we do?”
Pahun Pah was just as taken by events as everyone else. He’d been in the midst of learning how to cook a fran when news reached Absu space of the superweapon exchange.
They’d watched collectively as information made its way to the various outposts and networks they’d established among their allies. Soli were the first to sound the alarm, to trumpet concern and then fear.
The disaster in Borealia had scarcely been given time to finish full consideration within the Consensus when yet another horror befell everyone, and it was simply getting to be too much. Too great a burden, too great a wound.
He didn’t blame those who fled the material world entirely. Not everyone had the strength of will to endure this, not everyone could cope with the loss of their children, the destruction of the bright future they’d wanted to build. Not everyone can see the world burn and have any inkling of a desire to rebuild. They didn’t have the point of view that this was all part of the same cycle.
The cycle that they broke from.
Then again, he also found it strange.
He’d been there during the Excision, when the Golreeq had hunted and killed many of these same peoples that formed Clade Ladon - including Ladon Himself. Pahun thought, not for the first time, that they’d have been on the front lines of trying to prevent another catastrophic war.
But, this was in part the draw of the Clade. They believed in peace.
They’d tried for diplomacy; begging, pleading, scraping by any favors that they had. Most of which had been spent trying to recover from the Borealis affairs.
Four thousand years ago, his Generation would have made their presence fully felt by those who even thought of using True Weapons. Yet, that is not the case. Nor can it be, for that Path was not the Path the Clade wished for.
He sighs, stirring the pot again, “Not as it was. Not as it can be again. We are where we are.”
And we are who we have chosen.
Pahun puts the pot into the makeshift “oven” - the symbiote itself found the entire process of “cooking” to be equally fascinating - and sat down. Perched as he was inside his home, he fell back into The Flow, plucking at the tired strings of history.
Once, 3,000 years ago, there had been a similar - though far smaller - conflict. They’d been involved as diplomats then too, though they were far less powerful and far more numerous than today. They’d sent an Antecedent to a conference, to try to defuse tensions.
He smiled wryly at the memory. Grandmother was many things, but diplomatic was not one of them. Terrorists tried to blow her up two different times, both at different diplomatic summits attempting to deal with the political and economic crisis of the cluster.
People then had failed to achieve peace, resulting in the war that ultimately forced the Antecedents to acknowledge that the way of the old Confederation was not the way to the future. That they had to change.
And now, as he watches the information unspool in his mind, he wonders if that was a mistake. Were they mistaken, for trying to remain neutral? For trying to remain in a position of non-intervention when possible?
Wasn’t Corona flying in the face of that? Were they attempting to thread the needle of nuance, when a hammer was what was necessary?
Yet, was not that also a Path of futility? It would be far too easy to surround themselves with peoples who had utility, but were not Peers. Far too easy to assume the mantle of imperialship, of colonialism. Far too easy to let slip the morals and guidelines - the noema of the ancestors - and to become something far worse. A Dominion of Ego. A cancer.
He knew in his hearts that the Clade would resist this draw. Ladon would insist upon it, and he knew of no others in the Clade who could not see it clearly for what it was. MITA itself already walked that thin line too closely for most of their comfort, and only through the continued connection with the powers they were cultivating was their continued participation given lease.
Pahun’s thoughts drift over to Kirlan, and to Yani, and Ingrumn, and the others that were touched by Saxheelian lives.
He smiles softly, “If for no other reason, than for them.”
The old Pathfinder draws inward the necessary spaces to connect to the outer networks of the Consensus, tapping into Soli leap points until he’s able to connect with the ones he needs, “Hi there, can I talk to Kirlan please?’
Las Kute was in ARM space when the attacks happened.
Like the rest, he’d seen the horror of it immediately just by the magnitude of the attacks, the methods, and the targets.
The a-humans on Perliszo had been in a mild panic, wondering if they would be next as CONA members. In perhaps the smallest bit of karma, the people who had willingly deployed weapons of stellar destruction had themselves been struck, crippled and unable to attack further.
Everyone else was scrambling to pick up the pieces.
The Soli were meant to be the front-line effort, the main diplomatic and cultural engagement for the Saxheelians to try to find common ground, to build presence, to build connection between the various factions in the galaxy. Instead, they ended up as first responders.
Departing ARM space, Las Kute and his fellows onboard Dianasda made their way to the territory near Elwar’s space, to inquire whether the vila qai would be willing to assist in sophontitarian efforts.
It was a long journey, but not the galaxy-wide distance between ARM space and Absu.
It left him plenty of time to consider events, and to consider what was going to happen as a consequence. He’d retreated into the mental space of The Duality, while his physical form rested in The Real. It was a pleasant place, this shared element between them, one of reds and greens and purples from their various homeworlds.
The heavy form of a qelnari thunked onto the bench next to him, “You’re going to make yourself sick you know.”
“I know.”
“So, you should stop.”
“I can’t. The numbers are just-”
A hand lands on his shoulder and he looks up. The aquatic features are pronounced; thick and heavy, with all the angles of a predator. Yet, it was the eyes that betrayed the concern and the gentleness - the juxtaposition of the universe. They fed compassion and concern equally into Las, as well as a bit of centering. Grounding. Letting him know that he wasn’t alone in his thoughts and feelings. Las patted the hand, “Thanks, Sayi.”
His friend nods, “We’ll do what we can. It’s just like the old wars, there’s only so much that anyone can do when this type of thing goes down.”
“I know, but.. This could destroy everything. Even us.”
Silence fills the space between them for an uncomfortably long time. No one among the Saxheelians had forgotten that possibility, not for a second. Not when a dramatic change was going to overtake them soon, not when they were facing extinction in the long run.
Sayi sighs, dragging a hand across his face in a very vasudani gesture, “Dark ages or not, we’ve got a duty. We focus on fulfilling it, as Soli and Sax.”
Simple and to the point, but not wrong. Even if the escalation destroyed the foundations of the galaxy entirely, there would always be people to help, tasks to be done - the job wouldn’t end here.
“You know, we don’t have a relationship with Elwar. It’s possible it’ll just kick us out.”
“Then we move on, simple as that.”
“And.. you’re not nervous about it being another AI?”
His friend laughs, “What’s to be nervous about? They’re not like your boogiemen.”
Las frowns, “Mine? My people were at the same time yours were. The only boogiemen I know are Hunters.”
“Scars run deep. Trust in AI doesn’t come easy, but we’re not all that accustomed to thinking of them as anything but other star gods.”
The naomonese groans and flops his head down, “Not again with the star gods thing!”
“What? We hold onto our faith, even if you don’t!”
“We always believed in science!”
“Yeah, well, you weren’t throwing around sharpened sticks when the Hunters came to say hello.”
Las didn’t have a good response to that, so he switched the subject, “I hear that the hospital ship’s going to be departing Absu soon, for Zet space.”
“Mhm, Selenican led initiative I think.”
“Maybe this one will turn out to be a good choice for a change?”
Sayi laughs a little, winking down at Las, “Uhuh. Seems to me the bigger Gods have it in for us. Little Ladon isn’t strong enough to alter fate, we’ll need Nhathufttausax for that one.”
Las shakes his head and raises his shoulders in surrender, “As you say my friend. If I recall, you attributed that title to Ang Ai at one point.”
“Still do! When they return, they’ll have a proper welcome home, as is tradition. You are, of course, invited.”
“Of course. Though, what will that mean for the Enclave?”
“..mm.. Perhaps we should do a ritual there? To show them how such different people get along? Give the ARM something to aspire towards, rather than something to fear.”
Las frowns, “Fear?”
“You haven’t noticed that we scare the shit out of most people?”
“..Maybe this will help.”
Silence settles over them again, yet there was still hope in them both. Hope that maybe, just maybe, they’d be able to make a difference here and help the people suffering the after effects of these attacks.
If Elwar refused, they’d continue on to Altarian space. 10 Soli and 1 Cladeship weren’t much, but it was what they had available nearest this sector of the galaxy. And, as Sayi had said, they would do what they could.