17 - Respite
So, it’s done. Pretty much.
(This isn’t news to anyone I think by now, though from some of the rhetoric I’m not sure all the kybers have totally figured it out.)
There’s not a lot more to be done, maybe, until whatever teams are working on the Arshat transmuter have news. I mean, like, actionable news.
We’re home.
So … a few things to cover.
These journals of mine won first and second place in the YC 123 New Eden Capsuleers’ Writing Contest News/Gossip division. Yaaaay!
I do have slightly mixed feelings about taking both spots, particularly when there weren’t a pile of entries in the category to begin with. It’s not quite like I don’t feel proud of both works or feel like they’re both really one work or anything, but I do think I won’t enter the later entries from this journal in next year’s contest since it’s already won an award for the earlier ones. (Though I might rethink that if I’m still doing this by then and there are like a bajillion new entries.)
My earlier speculation about the clades and their roles turned out to be spot-wrong, according to no less a source than CONCORD. Seems at some point they quietly filled in a bunch of new data for us. The reality’s a good bit more nuanced than I thought, at least in terms of the clades’ specialties. It’s good to have some more accurate stuff to work from. I do wish somebody’d told me, earlier, though. Ah, well.
Directrix Lunarisse Daphiti is now Directrix Lunarisse Phonaga. The marriage happened basically the same time the last structures were falling in Pochven, which was a lovely if completely coincidental kind of wedding present. That reminds me, I still haven’t given the Directrix mine. Embarrassing. It’s been weeks. I was maid of honor at the wedding, too. Gave a toast to distinctly mixed reviews.
In the aftermath, the directrix and Mr. Phonaga seem to have some pretty extensive plans. I hope they’ll be happy. I expect they will be.
So … I guess … maybe I should say something about this:
… or maybe I shouldn’t, but I will, I guess.
Elsebeth, I never didn’t see. I get it. I got it. I did. I don’t stand at the directrix’s side out of ignorance, at least not of this. I just don’t share it, is all.
I didn’t before. I don’t now.
I’m aware also that the history between you and the Amarr isn’t even over, that it persists even now, and that it probably feels as real and bitter and raw as anything the Collective did. Probably more-so, even. After all, the Collective’s actions, as horrifying as they are, weren’t so … complete. They didn’t try to pull everybody into the Abyss, at least not yet. In a sense they just kind of went … shopping: a star here, a star there. It seems like the worlds and orbital habitats they picked up were just sort of a bonus. We could even describe at least some of their actions as a form of charity: “Oo, first time into the Abyss, huh? Here, you’ll need this.”
The Amarr didn’t conquer your stars. They conquered your people. That was the target: not your territory, but you.
So, yeah, I get it, but it doesn’t change so much for me.
It’ll probably be a while before we work on the same side of something again, at least in such an extended way. I hope we get the chance. To me, Pochven was a truly welcome respite, a glimpse of a world I’d have preferred, a world united in purpose and at peace with itself, even if the grievances never actually went away.
Maybe I’ll get to live there again one day.
Meantime, it seems likely we’ll return to some version of the usual. I’ll do my duty and you’ll do yours and I guess we’ll see how it all goes.
I’m tired of it. But me being tired doesn’t signify.
It was neat to see your base of operations, Elsebeth. Thanks for letting us stay there.
See you around.