Jcb112
patreon
Humans Don't Hibernate [Part 120/?] Revised Version
🕑 Added 2024-12-11 02:09:42 +0000 UTCHey everyone! I’ve decided to revise the last paragraph of this chapter primarily because I wanted to change the way Lysara phrased his response to Evina in order to better reflect what I want to convey through his explanation! The original seemed as if he was preparing to cast blame, which wasn’t the intention, as I wanted to moreso frame it as Lysara attempting to connect the dots to put together the sequence of events leading up to the war and how it related to the interloper’s plans! :D The revised versions are annotated with underlines in order to see what’s been revised! :D
118 Hours After the First Round of Interloper Interrogations. Dunir-Sar Moon Base. Loading Bay.
Lysara
My eyes widened, as I felt the frills atop my head straining beneath the protective yet equally restrictive helmet-lining, a sensation that I never seemed to become accustomed to.
Though that wasn’t the only thing I hadn’t yet gotten used to.
As my reaction to the revelation in front of me, would be something that Evina would be quick to point out.
“What’s with that face? I thought you would’ve already been kinda used to this sorta thing y’know?” Evina questioned frankly.
“No, Evina.” I replied almost immediately. “Although I can certainly understand the logic behind that train of thought.” I acknowledged, garnering a nod that urged me to continue. “The fact of the matter is, that the moment you start reacting to these sorts of discoveries with ambivalence or apathy — simply based on their ‘objective significance’ when juxtaposed to other, more ‘objectively’ larger discoveries — is the moment you lose sight of the sapient cost behind each and every tragedy.”
“I just thought the old adage of ‘one death is a tragedy, but a million is just a statistic’ would sorta hold true here, especially given what you guys have seen and been through.” Evina shrugged in response.
“It would seem as if that old adage transcends cultural lines.” I spoke through a despondent breath. “It’s understandable though, considering how tragedies seem to scale with a civilization’s increasing sophistication. It often becomes difficult to visualize the scale of destruction after a certain threshold, at which point, that old adage often rings true for most. Sapients… at least most of us, simply find it difficult to wrap our heads around the sheer scales involved with modern tragedies.” I took a moment to pause, shaking my head in the process. “Apologies, I don’t know where I was going with that, only that I wished to rationalize how and why that proverb seems to have independently developed in all of our cultures.”
“Heh, it’s alright Lysara.”
“In any case, I try my best to avoid going down the road of relative apathy. Because once you go down it, it becomes difficult, if not impossible for most to come back. Moreover, that sense of apathy and disillusionment has a tendency to… taint and discolor your own drives and aims. And while I’m not saying that I’m completely free from the trap that is the path of apathetic acceptance, I am trying my best to acknowledge it, and by doing so, to hopefully keep it at bay.”
“Yeah… you’re telling me.” The felinor chuckled darkly. “Once you live long enough… or in my case, inherit enough contiguous lives, you start to realize just how easy it is for your sense of self, your identity, and ultimately your own goals — to become misshapen and contorted by the crappy world around you.” A brief sigh followed that, as those sentiments were eventually wrapped up by a shrug. “Having others to ‘ground’ you helps. Some of my prior iterations tried to go it out alone… they mostly ended up going down dark paths not long after.”
“I imagine Eslan fills that role for you, yes?” I asked with a cock of my head.
“Perhaps he is, though I wouldn’t want to inflate his ego considering he’s probably listening in on this.” The felinor jokingly spoke, before shifting to the darker and more severe tone we both had landed on following the translation of that rubber-stamped document. “Right then. Let’s see what ‘Activate Kill Protocol’ entails…”
The conversation went silent following that, however a running narration definitely wasn’t needed here given the emotions currently going through Evina’s features. As intrigue quickly transitioned into intense curiosity, followed by shock, confusion, before ending up at an expression she so often landed on whenever discussing her government prior to the fall.
“I’m assuming this is another instance of your immeasurable disappointment in your government?” I questioned.
“No. Well, not entirely. It’s difficult to really be disappointed in them when it’s quickly becoming clear that they weren’t all bad.” She began cryptically whilst laying out page after page of the orders in what she quickly described as a chronological sequence of events. “All of these were orders stretching back to about the midpoint of this mission. As in, the entire moon mission, everything leading up to the kill protocol being issued. Anyways, it’s quickly becoming clear that the mission was… for all intents and purposes, a shitshow.” Evina expressed with what she previously described as a ‘cope-laugh’. “You would imagine the moon base to be composed entirely of interloper worshipers or whatever right? Or at least staffed entirely by people working for interloper worshippers in varying degrees of indoctrination?”
“Yes. As we discussed in the briefing, that was one of the running theories prior to the discovery of the two distinct groups that had been engaged in some form of a skirmish both around and within the interloper’s chambers.”
That little reminder of our previous findings prompted the felinor to nod as she tapped the rubber-stamped document once more.
However, before Evina could continue, I quickly added my ‘two cents’. “I imagine the Kill Protocol solved that mystery then? The reason as to why there were two distinct groups in the skirmish.”
“More or less!” Evina began. “The skirmish probably was part of the Kill Protocol. I don’t really think big firefights like that happen without some serious ramifications to the whole lunar mission. However, to circle back to what I said, this kill protocol basically confirms that the people staffing this place weren’t all just varying degrees of mind-controlled. The evidence here indicates that there were layers to this operation. A complex layering of security clearances, hush-hush money, nepotism and private connections. But basically, what’s quickly becoming clear is that there were at least three parties here. One that worked for the International Space Exploration Initiative with no ulterior motives or pretenses.” Evina paused, before turning towards me with a shrug. “Someone had to be keeping the lights on, cooking the meals, and cleaning the life support systems or whatever right?” She spoke before diving back deep into the thick of things. “The second group, if this document is saying what I think it is saying, was composed of exactly the sorts of people you’d expect — people in-the-know or at least working for some deeper conspiracy whose ultimate goal was ‘communion’ with a ‘benefactor’. The document doesn’t go deep into who or what this benefactor is or was… but context clues alone are enough to give us an idea, right?”
The felinor went silent unexpectedly, her eyes scanning the documents once again, just prior to jumping off onto her third point.
“And the third?” I prompted.
“I was just double-checking, because this shit is some spy-thriller nonsense.” The felinor replied emphatically. “Right, so, the third is simply anyone and everyone who’s either in-the-know, or not, but who all are ultimately working against the second group.”
“And how could you tell—”
“Because the kill protocol was an order sent by the intelligence agencies of at least ten countries back home, explicitly ordering all agents — combat ready or otherwise — to outright ‘eliminate’ any and all personnel connected to the second group or who exhibit signs of harboring sympathy for the second group.” The felinor paused, before tapping at a specific order on the document. “It also says to take care of something called the renovators. Though … don’t recall anything from pop culture or any other form of colloquialism that could neatly fit the meaning.”
I paused at that reveal, taking a moment to process everything Evina had to say as she began pointing out each and every codeword, symbol, and hidden insider slang that tied the content of these documents back to their originators.
It was at this point that I was once again reminded of just how vital a local-guide truly was.
Especially one who had first-hand insight into the bygone era.
“Now do you see why I had to double-check?” Evina spoke through another exasperated breath. “This is some Tem Clency-grade spy-thriller triple-layer espionage crap right here. A coalition of not just allied nations, but unfriendly and outright hostile nations, cooperating together in order to take down a common enemy. Or at least, that’s what these documents imply anyways.” The felinor shrugged. “There’s a lot of gaps in this. Most of these are pretty dry, albeit kinda funny, command receipts. It’s alluding to a lot, like the benefactor and ‘communion’ thing I mentioned. However, it’s more like it’s referencing stuff that these agents probably already know.”
“It’s a good thing we managed to come across those very terms from the bunker then.” I offered, before jumping right back into the thick of it. “Regardless, this… kill protocol drastically changes the context of the circumstances behind your people’s situation prior to the war.”
“I still don’t see how that’s all too relevant.” Evina shrugged. “Don’t get me wrong, it warms my heart to know that not everyone back home was a corrupt mess or a mind controlled drone.” The felinor spoke in a way that seemed almost half sarcastic. A fact that she quickly realized as she shifted her tone soon after. “Sorry, I wasn’t trying to be sarcastic. It’s just… I’m probably way way too used to clowning on our old governments because of their obvious… failures. So giving a genuine compliment to those bastards that probably only partially ended the world is something I really need to get used to.” Evina chuckled darkly. “In any case, yeah, I don’t really get the big deal around this particular aspect of things. Sure, we now know for sure that some of us were aware of something going down. And yeah, some agencies did manage to try to stop the interloper’s subterfuge. But how does that relate to what we have going on now?”
I allowed those questions to hang in the air for a moment, just as I gestured for the felinor to follow.
“I understand how a lot of these findings may seem almost accessory to the final confrontation we’re working towards. But these details are more important than you think. These series of events and the circumstances surrounding them provide us with more vantage points of your people’s actions which might’ve been congruent, or completely counter to the interloper’s interests. By extension, this starts to paint a clearer picture of the interloper’s own plans. So the fact that we now know that there were three distinct groups operating towards two opposing aims, grants us some insight into the interloper’s ultimate goals with your civilization, and the unconventional means by which it was attempting to achieve it.”
I stopped right in front of the administration center where more documents sat idly, waiting for Evina. “We had initially believed that the interloper was the cause behind the nuclear war, yes? That it probably did so in order to accelerate whatever plans it had for inheritance?”
“Yeah, but you also said that the interloper hinted at the war being a setback or something right?”
“Correct. However, we refused to really take much it says at face value, and thus that claim was considered somewhat questionable.” I paused, as I leveled my eyes toward the felinor. “Evina… I believe that the interloper probably didn’t intend to start that nuclear war. From what we’re seeing, I believe that it was some form of a last ditch self-defense attempt, against what it perceived as a potential threat not only to its ‘project’, but itself.”
The felinor paused, turning away for a moment as if to process all of this. “So you’re saying it’s our fault for attempting to kill it—”
“No.” I interjected. “I’m not casting blame. Moreover, if there was ever blame to be cast, it would more than certainly land on the interloper’s head, and not your people. What I am currently attempting to do is to determine the sequence of events leading up to the war, and how the moon base and its enigmatic fate factors into all of this.” I took a moment to pause, before jumping right to one of the most pertinent questions on the list. “Evina… exactly when was that kill protocol given?”
