Nation/Words From An Arachnos Cell

From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe

Composed by Battlebriar and released to Inevitable Evolution after the Dinner Event from which he had to be absent:

As I compose these thoughts, I am sitting in an Arachnos cell. I will spare you a description of my injuries; there are some who care, but they would either gain some pleasure from the description of my pain, or only be drawn to greater concern. I am alive, and in that, there is always hope.

I say this thing, not to be trite; not to trot out a pretty phrase, an aphorism, that does as much good as an extra hole in the head, but because it's a fact. We lose our chance to change the world as life ends. This world in which we live is an amazing, precious thing; a mote of blue suspended in a sunbeam. For a hundred light years around, there is nothing like us, no place like home.

I am not able to be there at this dinner, this meal we are having. That's almost a shame, though I expect it for the best; I am antagonistic and I refuse to back down. I will argue my opinions into the ground and will hear no end until there is resolution. However, I fear that I am dealing with an audience disinclined to this kind of rigor.

I have walked a strange path since I came to Nation. I fell from grace as a Paladin of a faith that means nothing, lies to children, mutilites them in many cases, objectifies women, hates on alternate sexualities and suppresses desires just deep enough that when they explode, all is in fire. From there, I walked into Nation, and have found the road ever upwards.

We are on the side of the Angels; the people of Nation, and the people of Inevitable Evolution.

We do not have the luxury of unity. Absolute faces, points of absolutism do not exist in these laws of biology that we must follow. We cannot simply invest faith in such things, and hope they will abdicate reason to us. We cannot be a union of equals, because we cannot afford that unity. That way lies groupthink, lies atrophy and death.

We are alive. We are living creatures. It is so easy to think of ourselves as better than humanity, as beyond them, as somehow higher on the evolutionary chain, but that way lies madness. Evolution is a process; it is not a score card. We are no more better or worse than the cockroaches that lie beneath us.

The title Evolved is not a genetic imperative; it is not a proof, or evidence of its own right. No, it is a necessary demarcation. We must set ourselves apart, not because we are better but because we are different. It would be so nice if we could go back to normal families of non-Evolved, of the people who gave us birth, and quietly and softly be amongst them. But we do not have that privilege, nor do we shoulder that burden.

We are different, genetic cuckoos placed in unwitting nests by a callous chance. There are those amongst us who would trade their status and their powers for normalcy in a heartbeat: Those who regret being what they are as though it is somehow their fault that they lie between this species and the next.

It is Not.

The most terrifying realisation that grips us in this age is not the realisation that one day we will die, but, far more damning, that the universe does not care about us. Life is not fair; indeed, I would hope that it is not, for if it were fair, we would all receive just rewards for our misdeeds, of whatever scale, and we might never find out what that scale is. No, life is not fair, and we must remember that. There is no rescue, no savior, no god to redeem us: We can be forgiven, only by faulty memories and open hearts. Bear that in mind: It makes you a better person. It makes you want to get things right the first time around.

We Evolved, from whatever walk we have found ourselves coming, are part of life's constant struggle. I will not, for now, talk of the enormous tasks that lie ahead of us if we will to make good on our promise to our ancestors.

Thrive or Die; the universe does not care which you choose. But over time, those are your only options. Nation wish to take to the stars; we wish to make our own country, to withdraw from Humanity and force governments to contend with us as a people worthy of respect and rights beyond labels on the forearms and cards in our pockets, and mutant-only restrooms and so on. We want to make a place of our own, a place to be; Inevitable Evolution... well, it is hard to say what exactly you wish. After all, my time listening to Riot has convinced me of little but that Riot is very adept at changing his stance to better fit the person he's talking to. However, if I am to believe what I am told, he seeks a betterment, to change the world we have to fit things better.

I have never asked him how he accomplishes this. Does he attack banks? Does Inevitable Evolution find itself destroying corporate entities and dismantling the machinations of crime gangs that are untouchable due to the rabbit warren that is the law? Does he preach firebombings and church-desecration, seeking to upend old icons?

I have no quarrel with you, Inevitable Evolution. My dealings with all of you, one on one, have been cordial, even polite, and there are those amongst you who I would love to simply listen to speak; there are ideas and thoughts and beautiful, beautiful dreams. There is strength, there is pride, and there is power.

All I ask is one question: What do you want?

We are family. The loom of biology has woven us together as tightly as ever. We are cousins to one another, closer than we are to the apes and closer than the apes are to the fish, and closer still than we all are to that one aforementioned chordate; did that little entity, swimming blindly and blithely through the cambrian soup ever consider for a moment the colossal thing it would spawn, over time, as its young grew and diversified and slowly but surely claimed the swamps, then the land, then, as with our arms outstretched, the stars? No. It had no idea. We do not have any idea where our forebears and followers and children will be. We cannot: But we can do what our common ancestor did not. We can choose; we can determine our destiny, and make a better life for our offspring than was made for us.

I am perhaps overly sentimental. I had no family of my own, raised by nannies and doctors and priests while my parents attended far more important matters, such as money and success and prestige. I know in this I speak of something that echoes darkly to many of you: How many orphans are in our number? How many who were disowned by parents at their differences?

Well; we can determine our destiny. So very well, let us. I choose to no longer be alone; I choose to no longer be destitute; I choose to no longer allow another to simply cut the strands of family because their child makes them uncomfortably. I am brother and son to my fellow mutants, and we are all brothers. Shadows in our DNA bind us and give us strength.

And as with all my family: I will tear apart the moon for you. I will make the world safe for your sake, or I will make the world very, very unsafe in retaliation for your hurts. You have but to ask, and to let me know what you want.

There is... a vice to my rhetoric, of course.

Whatsoever thy hand finds to do, do it with thy might. Proof that from the mouths of fools and drunkards does occasionally spill a pithy bon mot. There are those I have offended, with my bluff words, with my harsh arguments, my anger and my vituperation. I know no malice towards you. As family, I seek forgiveness, and in turn offer it if I was wronged in turn.

Just tell me what you want, and I will make it so. So should we all.

I expect there are those who, right now, wish to visit harm upon me. And so be it. An apology is an amzing thing, given sincerely, but we have, through our years, grown hard and ridged and resistant to its power. The first insincere 'sorry' poisons the rest. When I am out of here, and when I am healed, I will seek that we might mend what is wrong - and if we cannot between us, very well: We will come to blows, if that gives you the release you seek.

Thrive or die. It's all I can do. All all of us can do.

- Battlebriar of Nation