Thoughts

Fiction Portal Player Fiction
1

A world of substance.

A world of dreams.

A world beyond.

The Fulcrum has shown me so much, and in return it has consumed my limitations.

It has taught me a new name, a mantle grated to those who it has chosen. Those who have stepped beyond the meager limitations of their body so they exist in all three worlds.

The Deathless.

I still can’t wrap my head around this record.

It was already shocking and frightening to discover the Drifters and the Triglavians and to endure their attacks, but now we have to face a new precursor entity? One that controls a pirate faction as influential as the Deathless Circle?

I don’t even have my usual passion and curiosity for all things Jovian and precursors piqued while reading this journal, I just want it to be a hoax, a setup to sow doubt, fear and misinformation.

Unfortunately, the information we’ve gathered seems to indicate that this entity probably really exists.

The more time passes, the more I feel like this cluster is spiraling out of control.

Will we one day be so overwhelmed by emerging threats and violence that the four empires will collapse? Will all of New Eden fall too?

I hope I’m delusional, I hope I’m just panicking for nothing and that the empires really are indestructible bastions.

We survived the Drifter Crisis and captured their known systems after all. We resisted the Triglavians and saved many systems from them after all. I’d like to think this is proof that we’ll survive anything, but what recent history has taught me is that we should always expect to be surprised, especially in a negative way.

Maybe this is just the beginning, and maybe we’ll have to deal with even worse in the future. Maybe we were lucky enough to be immersed in ignorance for a long time, but that’s over, and we’ll have to face our past whether we like it or not.

Maybe new civilizations or entities or whatever will arrive and cause even more harm. Maybe even if they’re pacifist or willing to help us, the cluster’s inhabitants will reject them and start hostilities because they’re so sick of precursor crises. Maybe it’ll make things even worse. Maybe there are massively destructive technologies that could be used against us, maybe the Seyllin and Caroline’s star events are nothing compared to what awaits us. Maybe…

Ugh, why am I imagining things worse than what we already have? I must stay focused on the present and our research, on concrete facts and reality instead of my imagination.

I want to know everything about this. I need to know everything about this. I must know everything about this.

I don’t know if this will be enough to protect my family, my people and my species, but it’s the best I can do.

My original self killed himself so I could do this, so we could do this. I have to make sure it wasn’t for nothing.

I’m going off the rails, I have to focus. I have to focus.

“Commander? Are you alright?”

“Yes.”

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YC126.11.28

The rebels attacking Equinox colonies have decided to strike harder than usual.

They seem to be opposed to the occupation of their planets by Upwell and capsuleer alliances, an understandable and legitimate reason given their morally questionable actions to gain more power than they already have.

But Upwell and the alliances are useful for the CONCORD assembly, they are useful in pushing back pirates, Triglavians and probably other threats in the future.

These factions deserve to have people rise up against them, but perhaps it would create an opportunity for dangerous groups to gain strength. The empires and other factions of the core are certainly powerful and capable of defending themselves, but I have the impression that these days, anything could happen. This would make these insurgents potentially a threat if they destabilize nullsec space too much or expand further into the cluster, but it would take a lot of time and resources, as well as powerful backers and allies.

Perhaps in their anger, they could become as violent and controlling as their enemies if they are too determined to eliminate all threats to them, even if it means attacking innocent people. Depending on their ideology, perhaps the Deathless or pirates could come to the militia’s aid. Maybe it’s already the case. If so, it would be problematic.

I should check by myself by getting information on them or from them, willingly or by force. I’ll probably have to kill some of them despite their probably good intentions, or the fact that they might not be that dangerous or problematic.

I don’t want to attack probably like-minded people like them, I probably would have gladly helped them if I was sure it would be beneficial for the people of nullsec and not already on Upwell’s side during insurrections, but I have to do it.

3

YC126.12.03

It’s quite interesting to see how people react to the fact that two Michael Minate exist and live at the same time now.

Some consider us the same person.

Others think we’re each our own selves.

I’ve also seen some who find it rather strange to be faced with two clones so similar in appearance and personality.

In any case, they’re all glad to be able to tell us apart thanks to the position of our facial augmentations.

I’ve been asked several times how it feels like to face a clone of myself, I always answer that it’s a little strange at first but that I got used to it after a while, that in the end it’s like being in front of a person who looks a lot like me since I consider each clone as their own person who will never come back after their death. I wonder if it’s the same for other people who have done the same thing.

Ah, it’s time to head to the compromised colony of D4R-H7 VII, to get on one of the Agency’s warbarges.

My attempts to use my Vanguard status to get closer to the Agency and obtain information about them and their relation with the Circle will continue, I hope I can succeed.

My apparent loyalty to the Republic and overall the fact that I am on the “good” side of the law may complicate things, but with enough agents, corruption, information gathering, and time, we might be able to do something.

YC126, when Minate decided to create the PAIRC and planned his future schemes.

I wonder what the opponents of Shakor’s regime, especially those I plan to invite to live at the PAIRC, will think of the security doctrine I will put in place. I don’t intend to be as unnecessarily brutal as Shakor, but they certainly won’t be as free as they’d like. I hope, at the very least, that the rehabilitative justice and freedom of opinion and expression that I will put in place will put them at ease enough to come. Some will probably accept my invitation and stay anyway because they’ll feel better there than in the Republic or the Federation, while still finding that I’m going too far. Some will probably hate me, and they will have every right to. It wouldn’t surprise me if some, probably a few, think it’s worth it for their safety.

I hope I won’t appear too suspicious to the Republic’s higher-ups by protecting opponents and wanting to create a freer colony. I should temper this by saying that I want to create a pseudo-liberal colony to keep these opponents away from the Republic while keeping an eye on them, but I think it will only go so far before they suspect treason on my part. Or maybe they won’t care that much and will think that a nullsec research colony dedicated to helping them and possessing a meager army won’t be such a terrible threat. I hope the fact that my colony will claim to be freer while still being controlling at some level will convince them.

I hope there will come a time when I will be able to proclaim the birth of Neo-Matar, publicly criticize the Republic’s excesses and maybe even try to incite rebellion within the Republic so that it truly becomes a nation of free men and women. I can’t stand the fact that our leaders are so desperate to free their brothers and sisters, only to chain them up again as soon as they return, whether by using their beliefs or their army. I hope that building a reputation as a defender of the Minmatar people, as a captain who fought for years to protect his people, as a leader of a prosperous colony, will be useful when I do this. I should try to “speed up” the process of my promotion to major or general so that it goes faster, a general deciding to rebel against his nation for the good of the people will probably be more credible and influential than a commander doing the same thing. I’ll probably have to leave the Republican militia when that happens, so I’ll take advantage of the fact that I’m still in it to contribute to the war effort as much as I can.

I hope I won’t disappoint my family too much when I will start this, they who want the “great Minmatar empire” to return and endure so badly, despite how autoritarian this so-called empire could be just because of the sanmatar’s influence and position. Some are for Shakor’s security measures, others are against, but overall they very often agree that Minmatars no longer need a democracy. Democracy is imperfect, but I still prefer it to a dictatorship. My parents agreed to let me live in the Federation when I was young, so I could study at the University of Caille itself, despite their desire to keep me close to family, traditions, and their hatred of the Amarrians. Since they accepted the “risk” of me opening myself to other ways of thinking during my studies in order to ensure I have a great career, since they are proud of me for what I did with the PAIRC despite the fact that they are all but admirers of technocracy, perhaps they will accept that I wish to rise up against the government to ensure the Republic is better than ever. Unfortunately, I don’t think they will be happy to see me promote my ideas that not having attacked and stopped the so-called “Elder Fleet” and having started a war against the Empire were critical mistakes. Disappointing my family is the least of my worries, I shouldn’t think about it so much, but yet it…still scares me?

4

I still remember the first time Michael’s Minate first copy fought as a capsuleer, the first time a Michael Minate tried to kill people.

He decided to test his combat skills and willpower by attacking a small Angel base in Minmatar high-security space, something easy for a rookie like him.

I remember him warping to the site in a Rifter, being attacked by enemies, and then targeting them in return.

He locked onto an Angel frigate, fired at it, the projectiles went through the shield, then the metal, and then the frigate exploded. Then he did it again with all the other frigates.

I don’t know how many people he killed, or how many were able to evacuate.

Among the people he probably killed, perhaps some were pirates not by choice but by necessity. Perhaps he destroyed families. Perhaps some were people whose deaths would bring more good than harm, perhaps some deserved it, if some people truly deserve to die, to begin with.

He felt uneasy afterward, frightened by the fact that with just a thought, he could fire projectiles large and fast enough to destroy lives. Although he thought that the loss of those lives was in retrospect probably necessary for the greater good, he still wondered if it was deserved.

Despite the guilt he felt, the growing one of his successors regarding what they had respectively done including what their predecessors had done even though they were not the same persons, their fear of having made terrible mistakes during their lives and their desire to just become an humble scientist living in the federation, they all continued to fight, kill, traumatize and collaborate with morally dubious people for their vision of the greater good and I should do the same. I should continue and finish what they did and what I’m doing no matter how I feel about this, as it is for the greater good.

For the greater good.