2951-12-21 – Tales from the Service: A Conversation with the Kyaroh, Part 2 

This Feast week, we here at Cosmic Background hope that you are safe and well, and are able to spend time with your loved ones. Our embed team at Sagittarius Gate has the week off, just like employees back here at Centauri. This week’s entry will be a continuation of the interview transcript which Duncan posted last week. 

This interview was conducted in-person aboard the Sprawl station in the Sagittarius Gate system on 18 December. The wardroom of the ASWO’s office was employed as a familiar space for the interviewee. 

D.L.C. - Duncan Chaudhri is a junior editor and wartime head field reporter for Cosmic Background.     

N.T.B. - Nojus Brand is a long-time explorer, datasphere personality, and wartime field reporter for Cosmic Background.    

S.A.L. – Senior Advisor Lved is a close associate of the chief of the Kyaroh delegation to the Sagittarius Gate system, and speaks in this interview as a private individual of his people, not as an official representative of his government. Lved’s grasp of Anglo-Terran is quite good, but not perfect; in this transcript his words will be presented verbatim, without correction. 

T.B.M. – Commander Tory B. Monaghan is the Alien Sapient Welfare Officer for Kyaroh on the Sprawl. She has learned the language of her charges and in this interview will act mainly as an interpreter to smooth over language and cultural differences. 

[D.L.C.] – That is your hope, then? That after this war, that your people can learn from ours? 

[S.A.L.] – I mean not to offend, but I think it is more important to learn from the Incarnation, and why they so nearly subjugated our people. It is unlikely that your empire would do the same. 

[N.T.B.] – Wouldn’t, not couldn’t. 

[S.A.L.] – At this moment, distinction does not provide insight. Perhaps a future generation might find differently. 

[D.L.C.] – Imitating the Incarnation doesn’t sound like a good long-term development strategy to me. 

[S.A.L.] – Our people and yours are made in different images, Journalist Chaudhri. Imitation of the ways of any group of humans seems most unwise. When I speak of learning from our foes, it is not of copying their ways. 

[S.A.L.] – Perhaps the best comparison would be to how humanity learned from the Atro’me invasion. No-one could accuse that generation of copying the society of our invaders. 

[N.T.B.] – I suppose not. 

[D.L.C.] – What do you think your people have to learn from the Incarnation, then? 

[S.A.L.] – I lack the proper expertise to make such an analysis. But you wish for me to speculate? 

[D.L.C.] – Yes, if possible. We understand that it would be your best guess. 

[S.A.L.] – I do not wish even to speculate. Perhaps experts among your people are already compiling the best lessons from this conflict, but for our people, this would be unthinkable. The future must wait until the conflict’s end. 

[N.T.B.] – Is there anything more about your peoples’ future hopes that you want the average Confederated citizen to know? 

[S.A.L.] – Many things, but perhaps here we have only time for one. We will continue our fight with or without the Seventh Admiral’s aid. And we will endure. We will endure all things to their ending. 

[D.L.C.] – That almost sounded like it could come from a religious text. What gives your people the strength to endure? 

[S.A.L.] – I am sorry to mislead. It did not. Enduring troubles is our way in peace and in war. The Incarnation will someday fall, but the Kyaroh will remain. 

[N.T.B.] – And on that day, we will all find out what the new peace will mean for your people. 

[S.A.L.] – We will all find out what the new peace will mean for us all. This conflict’s ending will shape also the future of your people, since it is a war born within humanity. 

[D.L.C.] – That is true. The Incarnation has always seen us as the end goal of its conquests, even before we knew they existed out here. The Kyaroh, the Grand Journey, and everyone else native to Sagittarius are just in its way. 

[S.A.L.] – Another species might resent being “in the way” as we are, but we do not. If it were not for The Incarnation, another power might do the same to us. Or perhaps the Kyaroh would be doing the same to another people and bringing the wrath of many on our own heads. The futures that never took place are likely worse than our time. 

[N.T.B.] – I like that attitude. It reminds me of Card, one of my favorite old-Earth novelists. 

[S.A.L.] – Interesting. When this conflict is ended, if I remain living, I might research this “Card” - that is a name used among the Kyaroh, too.