First Baffin Zoner Zummit at The Zenarch, Malaclypse Freeport

[Di'taraAlpha]

Achille shrugged, looking up from the impressively well-angled set of canines which Voncloud appeared to possess; doing his dammest not to smirk at the bipedal fox. Yet the break was only momentary as Achille returned his vision, equally impassively. “Yes…” He uttered; “…yes that is how many people ascend to glory in this universe, rising through the tiered pyramids we set ourselves; seeking glory that we do not deserve”. He sighed grimly before looking up again, eyes fixed and motionless; only the jaws bearing motion; “Yes my animalistic compatriot, I too have buried a few corpses on my way up to the Taus, but yet again such is normative in Gallia, as in Sirius… I tell you, we Zoners, we consider ourselves morally righteous and then we go seeking power as eagerly as the rest of the rabble. Even the great ethicists, the Neo Covenant, TAZ, e.c.t., all are tiered societies, geared around survivalism and isolationism as is the Zoner way. Such is the way of survival; you kill for number one, have your fill and then only give to the vultures, if appreciate my metaphor”. Achille grinned darkly, joviality dying from his face as his cane clicked into the ‘off’ position.

“You see…” Achille continued; “Most of the people who die in Sirius are little more than roadkill my dear Voncloud; standing still against the tide of progress until progress sees them only as an obstruction and then… poof… they are gone, flattened under the wheels of change. History does not remember them, history remembers those who are willing to adapt as history is written by the adaptors alone. This would be simplistic enough if everyone didn’t have their own opinion of what a reasonable corpse is to kill. Take a look at this crowd for instance…” Achille waved his arm around the room languidly; “If they weren’t all united by the term Zoner, whatever that means to anyone anymore, then they would be ripping each other’s throats out of this Gallic situation. Gallia this, Gallia that… Nothing divides people more than the prospect of a nemesis.” Achille’s eyes scanned the room, no longer fully focused on Voncloud. “Remember my friend..” He spoke quietly, “some corpses should not be buried. There are fools among this room who consider this… tenuous unity between our groups to be sufficient to begin a war of attrition with a house that has spent 800 years developing a fleet for the sole purpose of subjugating us all, purely from a mixture of xenophobia and distrust”. Achille looked back at Voncloud at this moment.

“Perhaps in the future people will treat Gallics as if they were human beings, and not heralds of the apocalypse no?”