Vega: A Non-Human Perspective

October 16, 2015, 03:23:53 pm

I have heard it said that Tevarin have long memories. Perhaps that is true. I wonder why I must have so long a memory when I can summon recordings of Idris IV as easily as I check yesterday's news. I also wonder why it seems that only my kind care to remember the past.

Vega should anger you all. It angers me, and I lost no friends there. I suffered no wounds- and yet it angers me. This is not the first attack the Vanduul have made against the Empire. It is not the second, or the third. The Vanduul have been attacking the Empire, have been killing Human and Tevarin alike, for hundreds of years. How many more systems must fall before the Empire awakens to this threat?

Centuries ago, Tevarin fleets descended upon Humanity. Humanity threw them back and cast them down. I will not speak to the rightness or the wrongness of that time, for it is beyond my life and my father's life, and that of his father before him. I will not say that my ancestors deserved to fall; nor will I say that they deserved victory. Others have said those things and more, and I have no words of consequence to add to what has already been said.

When the Empire conquered my ancestors, it took them under its protection. Claimed them as its own, with a promise written in the blood of their kinsmen, to defend them, since it would not allow them to defend themselves.

The Empire has failed to honor that promise. It has failed to defend even the Humans whose ancestors founded it. Instead it has retreated, it has capitulated, it has compromised, and it has cowered in fear as the Vanduul devoured Orion, and Tiber, and Caliban, and Virgil. Do none of you remember these places? Do none of you remember the blood of your kin spilled upon the ground, their bones scattered among the stars? The Empire names warships after great battles it has won. Perhaps instead it should name them for battles it has lost. Perhaps then the dead would not be forgotten.

Admiral Bishop has not forgotten. By his martial prowess and by the courage of the people under his command were the Vanduul turned away from Vega. His words in the days since ring true. We are at war. We have been at war for hundreds of years. A weak man only follows orders. A strong man speaks truth to those who issue orders. He stands in the heart of their decadent complacency and throws their failures at their feet, daring them to rebuke him for exposing their cowardice! I should like to meet this Admiral Bishop. If the Empire had but a handful of such leaders, the Vanduul would tremble.

Perhaps as long as even one great leader stands ready with a fleet at his back, there is yet hope for victory- but I hold none for the Empire such as it has been. The slow decay of cowardice the Senate has condemned us to is something I will not excuse. Only if the Senate follows Admiral Bishop's example in demanding retaliation and total victory will I believe the Empire can survive, but I will not hold my breath. It is easy for them to cheer his words and his passion while they stand safe in the halls of government, but they must act before they can redeem their failure. They have not yet acted, and so their cheers ring hollow. The Empire that retreated from Orion, from Tiber, from Caliban, and from Virgil is not the Empire that brought my proud ancestors to their knees.

I will not stand by and watch my kind buried under the smoking ruins of yet another nation that is too weak in will and in spirit to defend its own existence. I will take my fate in my own hands, and join with the men and women who have chosen to strike the enemy which threatens us all, Human and Tevarin alike. In Operation Pitchfork, I place my hopes for victory. Where the Empire has failed to act, we shall. Whether we live or die, it will not be said of us that we died with our backs turned to the enemy. It will not be said of us that we wrung our hands and cried as our planets burned and our people bled.

I hope that the Senate will permit Admiral Bishop to lead his fleet into battle beside us. The Empire owes its dead the full measure of its retribution against the Vanduul. That retribution has been too long in coming, but we would welcome it all the same.

And should the Empire fail to give Admiral Bishop the support he and his brave warriors deserve?

There will always be a place of honor for him in Operation Pitchfork.

- Varlan Kurai. October 13, 2945.

Re: Vega: A Non-Human Perspective

Reply #1 – October 16, 2015, 03:37:29 pm

Very nice, WOD! Makes me wish they'd give you a custom Tevarin character model just for it...

Re: Vega: A Non-Human Perspective

Reply #2 – October 18, 2015, 06:06:06 am

That is excellent writing, WoD! Like, "holy crap that is good stuff" good

Re: Vega: A Non-Human Perspective

Reply #3 – October 26, 2015, 02:16:44 pm

I agree with the previous comments. This is a good read with no flaws and accurate perspective to every scrap of Tevarin culture we are currently aware of.