„It is our imperative, our duty to return to Earth. We are in the truest sense refugees. A torn home, but home nonetheless. May we one day find the strength to come back and heal the wounds we have inflicted on our cradle, to amend what we have done.
This is our promise, this is our mission.“
Since five minutes he had to bear it, , Marvin thought, gritting his teeth in barely repressed anger. It was a fool's errand to argue anymore. The Horkorists browbeaten the Fidelists to the floor with their help and the Custodians got appeased that, yes, they will return, but that they needed every hand in the new colony to succeed. And it was true. They needed every single hand in the colony. But not for a pipe dream of „fixing Earth“.
This was a matter of survival.
Ultimately, this was why they joined the Initiative. The human species must survive at any cost. They all knew they had to do sacrifices for this. To keep the body alive, one had to remove the rot sometimes. Gangrenous fingers were cut off, the tumorous growths excised and limbs amputated to help a sick person. These times were no any different, but on a much grander scale. The Horkorists knew this too. Was it not them who agreed to destroy entire nations to secure technology, to steal scientists and whisk them away into this frozen wasteland of a continent?
But now, where the time came to actually put the food where the mouth is, they stalled, feared and agonized. Typical. Fear for the future led the unsound and feeble mind to reminisce about the „good times“, the time before the disasters hit Earth, before there was a need for the Initiative in the first place.
It was foolish, stupid. A sense of old world morality, stating „We can't just take genetically superior people with us.“, „We need to save as many as we can.“ and „We can't just leave them behind!“. Yes, yes and yes. They could. They need to. This was not a matter of morality, of doing the right thing. Why did they even apply old world morality to this all? It was what gave to this mess in the first place. It was not genetic inferiority, it was genetic viability. Compatible with what they had and geared torwards keeping a strong, genetic base for a population bottleneck unprecedented since the first Ice Age.
All thrown into the wind under the notions of ethics and this promise. Did they forgot their first oath already? To do what needs to be done for Humanity, no matter the cost? He abandoned his family, his people, his country and his creed for this singular goal and now they betrayed it. For nostalgia.
They will pay for it. Horkos was not only the god of Oaths, as the Horkorists say. He was the punishment, the fury of a broken promise. And they broke theirs to Humanity.
He will be their Horkos.
The mission has been cleared up. Fidelists have been sobered up after they have been shown reports of the ongoing situation of Earth, with acocunts of agents and their sharing their own stories under each other. While many looked crestfallen, they ultimately understood how hopeless the situation was for Earth.
The Custodians were a little bit harder to convince, but they ultimately agreed to compromise and agree that most should go to ensure the colony survives. While a couple few prefer to remain behind due to personal reasons, almost all Custodians will ultimately join the Horkorists.
The Exodites were a different topic. Many were greatly upset about resources being wasted for such a silly proposition, that the whole point of the Initiative was survival of Humanity despite the fact Earth was going to be unviable. Many are mollified by the fact that they may see this attempts to recontact Earth would be many years in the future, but Marvin Clarity and the design team of Project Phoenix still seemed very upset while they begrudgingly agreed to accept the formalized mission statement.
Opportunities
Use SpaceX test site
One of the problems of returning to Earth is finding it again after the portal has been stepped through. However, an old, still somewhat functional facility of SpaceX might yield a solution to that problem, using it to fire a beacon satellite into geosynchronous orbit. Using this, we might be able to find the signal when landing in the colony.
Harden Initiative compound
It will take a lot of time to properly ward and freeze the outposts, tunnels and facilities of the Initiative against time and wear. But maybe it needs to be done so our mission, our goal is preserved against the curse of forgotten history. Maybe after generations, it will be found again and the people on Earth will know that they haven't been abandoned.
Author
Topic: And Boldy We Stride (SG) (Read 9700 times)