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Interim in Terra

by Nivi

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BlckDragon A Truly Inspirational Track from an Incredible Album Favorite track: Comfort, or: Four Parables About the Important Differences Between Intent and Readiness.
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1.
i stand alone amid what's left of our conveyance in the crater that it tore i stand alone amid the remnants of the corpses of the entities it bore i stand alone ---- they're closing in i see their shadows moving cautiously they haven't yet convinced themselves i'm totally resigned but they're closing in they chased me valley after valley they were herding me but i guess they are now satisfied 'cause now they're closing in ---- with promise in our hearts the skies we sailed and when disaster struck our landing we prevailed for a time i wonder how they'll feel in fifty years when they discover how we failed ---- it's an embarrassment to think of what we made it through to get to where we failed through ice and fire and impact we survived a fearful gauntlet to get to where we failed ---- we had steel and simulations and sustainable supplies but pomp could not defend us from the impact of the skies the flags and trumpets tricked us into thinking we were wise and we pretended never daring to suppose we could do better adhering to the overcautious rulebook by the letter where there were lessons to be learned we held our fingers in our ears and walked on past but i still hope we're not the last ---- i think of home i hope no longer for the now but for the decades of adventure that are surely now to come i think of home if they can learn from our collapse take more precautions not to crash take more precautions not to clash
2.
i heard a story of a girl who studied talking with a book she had the tongue positions down she knew exactly what it took she had the confidence to filibuster the whole entire day she was excited there was so much she had to say the crowd was buzzing as she stood backstage preparing for her speech she had so much to tell them a lifetime's worth of wisdom hers to teach she took the podium the buzz died down a thousand pairs of eyes and to her surprise she wagged her jaw she clicked her teeth it is easy to convince yourself you're ready you think it through you know exactly what to do and it is easy to believe that you're prepared that there's no reason to be scared but if you have a single drop of sudden rain a thousand closed umbrellas will not help you ---- i saw a man backed up against our hundred-metre wall weapon in one hand and wallet in the other another stood demanding that he throw them in the air our hero, frozen whimpering for mother he had three options: lose life and wallet keep his life or both and through inaction, chose the former, lost it all he had the answer in his hand but he was not prepared to use it in the moment, he couldn't pull the trigger instead he took the fall it is easy… and we take comfort knowing action is an option and we take comfort knowing we are far more powerful than them and we take comfort knowing if we got wind that they were planning to attack we'd get them back and we take comfort… but if you have a single…
3.
hey, XI, come up the wall i need you to see this see what, X? here look at this what's that? the fighting on the other side is in its two-hundredth year it's happening everywhere on earth that isn't here we are a island, a holdout, a bastion in the fear a bastion whose oversight by you is drawing near but i can't just let you take it there are things you have to know there are mistakes that we have made and there are places you can't go and i know that you are eager so i'll try do this fast but please believe me it's important that you understand our past so there was one who brought us fame and passion two who flew the flag number three survived the outset and disgusted, let it sag when she returned, the show was different a nomadic tinge ingrained but through it all, the music the humanity remained number four was never jealous of the way that three would roam and so he settled in the bunker which today we call our home but there was subterfuge and conflict and four was not a strategist, per-se and so he perished in an attack by [faction a] and five was angry so angry that she left to join the war but after seven years of fighting couldn't take it any more so she came back with guns and pacifism fortified the bunker with her men and started broadcasting again six took the cause one big step forward and began to build the wall but seven tried too hard to politic and for it, took a fall instead of eight, we had the morrins for a time, and that was fine but we came back when we were due, and then i took over from nine so this is it? this is what you leave for me? a people too afraid to climb a wall? an idle people free of all ambition in a world that has been waiting for so many years for anyone but these these people who don't realise they could end the war tomorrow if they pleased? i could tell you i'd defend them i'd be lying i could tell you i would die for them but i'd be lying the weaponry we're sitting on does not give us the right to interfere with what is ultimately someone else's fight it's not our duty or our aim to be concerned with matters outside of the wall we've built utopia, to fight would be to fall and while yes, it is a fact that we could end the war today we would be throwing several hundred thousand lives — and our innocence — away for such a sacrifice to ever be considered as defensible the state of play would be incomprehensible every day that we do nothing there's a thousand in the grave incomprehensible is acting like there's anything to save you sound like doctor morrin implying we should be the world's police assuming genocide would bring the world at last to some kind of peace extrapolating from the fact that we've done nothing and the current trend is down that we must thrash our little knives outside our town but you are wrong we have remained inert these last three hundred years and there were times when things were perfect and there were times when we had tears but we held on to our sanity, our empathy, our innocence, our trust no debt is due, no intervention would be just who would you nominate, but us, to be the arbiter who's in a better place to know what's best for everyone involved it's down to us, there's no-one else, we have to halt this world's decline and if these people are opposed or simply ignorant, that's fine i could tell you; lying; etc... (x2) i can't just sit and listen to you promising neglect because these people are still people; they deserve at least an inkling of respect they are the last remaining pacifists, their qualities are rare and their innocence is worthy of your care it's not their politics that anger you it's that they sit in silence while the world that they inhabit hosts another year of violence if they knew we had the power they would end it i am sure but it would tear them all to pieces if they knew what we were for
4.
the energy you're wasting with your bickering would be better spent against our common foe but most of you are clearly not cut out for that and the rest of you will march to let them know a few of you are willing to murder for your cause but i'm not interested in watching you destroy yourselves so i'll just go ---- i have advisors who advise me about problems and i hear about them every single day we've got a terrorist, a war and people banging at our door some saying say 'use them' some saying 'throw them all away' but when it's time to solve these problems i can't bring myself to care so i distract myself with something i pretend that they're not there and they go ---- but tomorrow and tomorrow and the next day and the next they will remain and every moment i pretend that we're not moments from the end i spend in vain ---- i won't pretend i ever cared for this place anyway my apathy will never be outdone i won't defend as if the king, i will not sacrifice a thing i will not hesitate i will not hesitate to run but indifference is more harmful than a leader who you fear i'm not malevolent, for sure, and i would rather be anywhere than here ---- so for now, let's all pretend this is democracy i'll step down on my own because my thoughts are intersecting with your voices at a single point alone ---- i have no reason not to wish you all the best because as certain as i am that as a people you'd be damned there must be one of you who could guide the rest to greatness when i go ---- the legacy is over; my inheritance is lost and i am free and i will wander unaccosted in the desert being who i want to be ---- xi, this is not what you were born for so walk away so walk away xi, this is not what you were born for that's what they say that's what they say and i read you loud and clear i'll walk away
5.
6.
in the desert, i expected there'd be misery in the desert, i expected there'd be pain in the desert, i prepared myself for enemies in the desert, i prepared to go insane with every step i take i take another final step with every step i take i take another i take another --- there's nothing to be seen nothing to be seen on the horizon no seas no trees ---- despite the absence of corners around which to see things i'm seeing things around every corner i don't know if they're real but there they are in front of me ---- i see but i can not be sure i see if my eyes deceive me then what are they for but they've done this before they've been deceitful and i've been sore i know know in my heart it's completely insane i know and why i believe is so hard to explain i know it's all my brain if it's what i want i can't complain ---- and there they are on the horizon they move they wave and i stand still
7.
they wanted me to be something that i did not want to be they wanted me to not be me they built their world on the unshakable foundation that the sinner can be saved so they can't condemn one who is one of them ---- even as i left they tried to change me not one of them could bear to say goodbye because the person that they thought i was the person i projected wasn't me nor who i want to be ---- i can not be i'm a persistent deviation from their new philosophy and now i see they're scared of me they want the very best for everyone who happens to be standing on the right side of their gun i see hypocrisy they see a flaw in me ---- even as i left they tried to change me not one of them could bear to say goodbye saying i'd be more than welcome if i exorcised the devil in my mind they think it kind ---- hate the crime, not the criminal that's what they said while they drugged me and planted things into my head hate the crime, not the criminal hate the crime, not the criminal they preach this understanding of people who do wrong and so convinced are they it's noble that they just trundle along they are so blinded by compassion for the victims of these flaws that make us to the things we do without what they perceive as cause but it is part of me despite their disbelieving and ideals to have my friends attempt to kill it? oh, you can't know how that feels ---- but there is one place in the world i'd be accepted and it's the one place i can never ever go the place that you escaped from 'cause to you it seemed like hell is home to me it's where i long to be ---- even as i left they tried to change me not one of them could bear to say goodbye because to them i'm still a victim still a patient to be cured of my disease don't try to save me please
8.
the stronghold that we thought was inescapable has proven of itself that that's not so and if one man can escape from atop the tower then surely we can take what's down below ---- we want to end the war; that's our priority we want to go back home a little, too so we've been wandering the desert, plotting hopelessly we have ambition but we cannot follow through but when we were at our lowest, giving up and lying down we hear your footsteps in the distance and we smile because we're hoping you're the answer we've been waiting for and we are hoping you will go the extra mile for miles and miles around it there is nothing to be seen there's just the ruins of the cities of the past but we can take it, turn it, use it for the good of those remaining and bring the slaughter to its epilogue at last ---- eleven, here's the plan, here's what we'll do we'll take it all and bring it back to you and all we ask of you is a bomb or two and we'll be on our way what do you say? ---- together we will grind them into dust together we will strike so hard they will not know what hit them together we will grind them into dust and they will not know they will not know what they will not know they will not know
9.
we'll tear into you we'll tear right through we're kicking at the walls and we're cheering as it falls ---- last time i was here i ran away in fear but this time i brought friends and they won't be so and they won't be so forgiving
10.
here's you the only person qualified to lead and simultaneously the last one i expected i thought for sure that doctor morrin or an underling of his would take the throne make it their own here's me tossed maliciously a spanner coming home at last triumphantly returning from the wild but my attempt is met with hate and contempt i left a child and i came back reviled ---- i saw it happen i watched you falling from the sky i watched you die but here you are your eye as ever penetrating me what does it see? ---- does it see through me to all of my allegiances does it know that i made friends outside the wall or does it see past all that that i intended all along to do them wrong but you're telling me you see them in the basement and you're showing me they're fighting even now and i realise what is down there i realise what i've done and i am frozen they have won ---- …i left a child and i came back a child
11.
Anthem 04:34
before our hubris melts our eyes let's turn our gaze towards the skies they're somewhere out there, looking back i hope they do better

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A sequel (or prequel, depending on your relativistic perspective) to Alter Locus, covering events on Earth while the Pyrrhan mission is underway.

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released December 21, 2014

Featuring Barry Watson (barrywatson.co) as Doctor Morrin, Peter Shillito (twitter.com/theshillito) as X, Avanna as Timone and yours truly as XI, Pumba and one of the Pyrrha colonists.

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