Intergalactic Summit

Saisieni, pilots.

I should start off with two apologies. First, I wish to apologize to Khross-haan, and to the others in the Wiyrkomi Honor Guard, who have taken a considerable risk in taking me in, for speaking so soon, and so publicly. Some may attribute my beliefs to you, and they will err in so doing. The reason I must move so soon relates to the second apology.

In earlier times, my voice was often heard, here. I promoted a philosophy of separateness and distinction, the "otherness" of our kind, writing from a position of good faith, but limited understanding. Few followed, but many listened. In this, I have been a source of harm. If this is not precisely my fault, it is certainly my responsibility, and so I must write.

---

There are no Great Truths, as people understand them.

There are no Laws but those that cannot be broken. There are no Borders but those that bound reality itself. There are no Identities that divide, no Ideals that dictate a higher world.

There are no Great Truths but one: all that is.

If this is true, and it surely is, then what duties are there for us-- figments, shadows of our own minds? And what hope?

Across the ages, people have found many answers. A cold world spoke to the Caldari, and taught them of interdependence and sacrifice, and the value of resources. A warm world spoke to the Gallente, and taught them of rights and freedoms. An ancient writ spoke to the Amarr, and taught them of a God, of His hierarchy, and of His purpose-- and that purpose spoke, in turn, to the Minmatar, and taught them the importance of identity, of suffering shared, and of bitter loss.

Truths, small truths, to fill the lack of great ones.

And now, we, ourselves, walk the stars. And, as ever, the land we walk speaks to us of truths. The Black between the stars whispers to us.

The Black, the killing near-nothing, enfolds all, contains all.

None, whispers the Black. Speck, figment, there are none.

No worth that is not fiction, no truth that does not lie, no cause worth fighting for. Take. Give. Build. Destroy. All are one. All are naught.

... so be what you will be, and do as you will do, and do not trouble to care for either, for the universe surely will not.

That is what the Black whispers to us, capsuleers, we children of humanity who walk those empty halls sheathed in tritanium skins. It tells us what it knows, and, for it, it is right.

But the Black knows nothing of life. Life is alien to it; life exists within it only by living in the exception, the pocket of sustaining matter. It is anomalous for living things to touch it, but touch it we do.

It tells us of what it is. While we live, it is folly to listen to a place so hostile to life.

But as the creatures we are, doing the work we do, it is all but impossible not to listen. It seeps into us, creeps into our thoughts and our emotions, poisons us with cold uncaring. It mocks honor, love, and hope, sneers at charity, and laughs at principle. It cannot attack self, for self is nearer to us than it is, but it reduces us until self is all we have or care for.

Unresisted, it will make demons of us all, killers as remorseless as hard vacuum.

And yet, living things that we are, we can never be its creatures. Its state exists in tension with ours, as surely as our pressurized atmospheres exist in tension with its near-absence of everything. To become like it is to suffer, through that tension, to suffer and to spread suffering.

So, what to do?

There are three small truths common to all thinking creatures, three duties inimical to the void. They are not Great Truth, but paths to a life free of suffering, as is the way of small truths, and grounded in our place in things.

Humility, for the shadow that is yourself is only the nexus of greater forces.

Compassion, for it is only circumstance that grants superior strength to one over another.

Moderation, for extremity tears at the fabric of the world, of the lives around us-- and our own.

In any culture, even when unrecognized, these are the duties, the basic requirements, given humans and humankind. To follow them is, perhaps, no guarantee of happiness, but to violate them is to spread suffering, and to invite suffering upon one's self.

Are these three, in all ways, sufficient to a life well-lived? Perhaps not, but to live without them is to court a decline that will never end.

It is an understanding I have come late to, even if I had long been told these things, and had even repeated them myself. In the past, I have spoken of a need to separate ourselves, to part ways with humanity. I no longer believe this to be possible, or desirable. Nearer to the void, to the Black, than most of humankind, we surely are.

But that does not make the emptiness any less deadly.

While I am sure that you did not intend to do so, you began your argument with a self-defeating syllogism or oxi-moron if you like. The second statement cannot follow from the first. If no great truths proceed from Human Understanding, then to claim that there is but one great truth, as you understand, it is a contradiction of your own stated logic. Perhaps you want to start over and revise your preliminary statements.

What is best for humanity's future is not a thing I pretend to be positioned to judge.

That said, there is, I think, a difference between living in a habitat in space and coming in contact with space, Mr. Thessalonia. One involves walking down pressurized halls, breathing recycled air, and using more-or-less analog controls to maneuver one's vehicle, or whatever, around. Alternatively, it involves putting on a suit and bumbling about in a teeny bubble of oxygen covered with hopefully-airtight fabric.

The other involves putting on a tritanium body the size of, not coincidentally, a space ship, whose outer surfaces are directly exposed to space and which makes the little human lives scuttling around inside you like so many blood cells seem very small and insignificant indeed.

One leads to carpal tunnel syndrome. The other leads to capsuleer dementia. These two are distinguishable, as workplace hazards go. I'll be more enthusiastic about "uplifting humanity" to "my place" when someone invents a psychologically ergonomic capsule to mitigate the problem.

Until then, the fewer hyper-empowered people limited to using intellectual comprehension of what it means to be compassionate as a stand-in for actual empathy, the better.




Haha ... ah, Mr. Numenor, thank you, but no: I prefer it precisely as it is.

Are you and Mr. Momaki still close?

A null set is, by its nature, empty.

It's good to see you back, Ms. Jenneth.

And from emptiness comes everything that exists. So, sweetie, which is the greater truth?

... Ah ...

This strikes me as a statement of belief, rather than established fact. Usually, emptiness doesn't explode with sufficient force to generate a universe. You need something to do the exploding. What might have come before said very large kaboom remains unclear.

I admit that if it turns out that a god waved a recognizable hand and generated it all from nothing, I will be floored.

Is that so?

We welcome you back pilot Jenneth.

We Return.

You misunderstood the statement, unless I am mistaken. There is no human truth since every human sees his own personnal but biased, flawed truth through his own prism, and cannot comprehend the whole, the Truth. And the Truth is a concept that can not be proved false in its very own definition. It simply exists as long as the whole fabric of the universe exists.

You should read Gorda Hoje.