Diana Rivera's Diary

[Frostpfote]

Title: Eyeopener

Date: 28/03/835

Subject: A fruitful conversation with Tia Stormclaw

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I knew there was more to come. Barely a day after meeting Kris for the first time, I came across him again which had us take a little tour through Bretonia, the Taus and Kusari. We took a quick stop in Galileo, which was when the star of this entry showed up. One mysterious Freelancer called Tia Stormclaw.

It was an awkward conversation at first, as I was in the middle of mocking Kris when she arrived. It turned even more weird when we introduced ourselves, as she claimed to have been a Nomad hunter who only put her profession aside temporarily, given some sort of personal vendetta against someone. She rememberd the Oracles from the very first second, which wasn't exactly a good sign given her past. However as luck would have it, she's the type to ask questions first and shoot second, or at least she was in this case.

We went over various topics, until a Liberty Navy Captain rolled up from out of nowhere. His presence was quickly followed by a Rogue, which then caused a gunboat to appear, which eventually lead to a seemingly well known Outcast capitalship to appear. I don't recall the name of its captain, but both Kris and Tia knew about her. Not to mention that I decided to take my leave when they lingered around and had a pleasant chat with Kris. I'd rather chew on a grenade than indulge in an Outcast's presence.

Long story short, it ended up with Tia and myself on yet another lanetrip. We seemed to share opinions about their kind which got us off on a good path. It was inevitable that her and I would have to clear the air about our views on the light. What could have been destined to end in a fight, ended up being a thoughtful exchange of ideals, experiences and metaphors. A strongheaded personality like her wouldn't listen to a preacher, so I adjusted my approach. There was a constant balance between finding common ground, being the senseless slaughter of life on both sides, and challenging her views on why this war was even started. Our exchange proved to me that Liberty's government would never willingly admit that the Nomads acted in self defense as a response to the excavations that were being done on planet Manhattan.

Despite her past, Tia continued to listen to my points with an open mind. It's a far cry from how I remember these kinds of conversations to go way back in the day. Perhaps not everything has changed for the worse, eh? In any case, I'll attach audio recordings of our conversation below, in case it'll be useful in the future.

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AudioLog.mp3

[28.03.2025 20:34:12] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: If it wasn't for your past, I'd make a delicate point now.
[28.03.2025 20:34:29] Tia.Stormclaw: I can't be insulted that easily.
[28.03.2025 20:34:36] Tia.Stormclaw: Feel free to speak your mind.
[28.03.2025 20:34:46] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: Well then ...
[28.03.2025 20:35:36] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: There's no justification for what happened, going back as far as the Nomad war. I don't advocate for people to put down their
[28.03.2025 20:35:40] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: weapons against them.
[28.03.2025 20:36:09] Tia.Stormclaw: You think I am doing the wrong thing by falling back from Hunting Nomads?
[28.03.2025 20:36:12] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: However, calling them monsters while engaging in the exact same conflicts within their own species is ... hypocracy.
[28.03.2025 20:36:48] Tia.Stormclaw: I may have misunderstood...
[28.03.2025 20:36:58] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: It'd be beyond me to judge you for what you did, whether it be those actions or the end of them.
[28.03.2025 20:37:35] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: I just find it idiotic to blame their kind for everything, while humanity engages in the exact same wars.
[28.03.2025 20:38:04] Tia.Stormclaw: It is not unusual for humanity to throw the blame at someone else all the time.
[28.03.2025 20:38:05] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: Once again, I don't ask you to stop hating them, you and millions of others are more than justified to do so.
[28.03.2025 20:38:41] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: Sometimes I'd just like to hold a mirror up against humanity, and show them that they often are the exact same monster that
[28.03.2025 20:38:45] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: they portrait them to be.
[28.03.2025 20:38:45] Tia.Stormclaw: Our predecesors fought in the name of God or whatever they believed in.
[28.03.2025 20:39:26] Tia.Stormclaw: I mean. You do have a point in what you say.
[28.03.2025 20:39:47] Tia.Stormclaw: My need to kill nomads is no better then another's need to pirate or generally kill another human being.
[28.03.2025 20:40:43] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: I appreciate you being open minded about this.
[28.03.2025 20:40:57] Tia.Stormclaw: But I believe that it is also in human nature to kill anything from the root if it attacked first.
[28.03.2025 20:41:23] Tia.Stormclaw: Hence we got the "nomad" situation.
[28.03.2025 20:41:29] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: Would you allow me to add some context to that?
[28.03.2025 20:41:34] Tia.Stormclaw: Sure.
[28.03.2025 20:41:57] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: As we've said earlier, a war does not need to be fought with guns, missiles or torpedos necessarily.
[28.03.2025 20:42:05] Tia.Stormclaw: I agree.
[28.03.2025 20:42:26] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: For example, if I were to take all your savings, all your posessions without ever laying a finger on you, that would not be any
[28.03.2025 20:42:31] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: better, in my opinion.
[28.03.2025 20:42:56] Tia.Stormclaw: True. You don't need to throw a punch to hurt someone.
[28.03.2025 20:43:14] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: We've made ourselves at home where they had already lived, tasked with protecting what their creators held dear.
[28.03.2025 20:43:29] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: Humanity perhaps did not know better than to take the boon that was granted to them, and I cannot blame them.
[28.03.2025 20:43:50] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: Given violence, they did throw the first stone, if records are to be believed.
[28.03.2025 20:44:04] Tia.Stormclaw: I get what you are saying.
[28.03.2025 20:44:26] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: Am I sure that what I know is the one and only truth? Oh hell no.
[28.03.2025 20:44:27] Tia.Stormclaw: I wouldn't be the person to shoot a man for stepping on my grass, though.
[28.03.2025 20:45:02] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: You speak the same language as the masked man entering your lawn, though.
[28.03.2025 20:45:21] Tia.Stormclaw: I agree.
[28.03.2025 20:45:32] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: Imagine someone who's not even made of what you're made of, does not speak your language nor can in any way communicate with
[28.03.2025 20:45:33] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: you.
[28.03.2025 20:45:43] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: Do you risk letting them into your house or ... do you shoot?
[28.03.2025 20:46:07] Tia.Stormclaw: Oh, good point Miss Rivera.
[28.03.2025 20:46:11] Tia.Stormclaw: I like our conversation.
[28.03.2025 20:46:36] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: It's been a long time I've had such a pleasant talk, too.
[28.03.2025 20:46:39] Tia.Stormclaw: But what about the first hosts?
[28.03.2025 20:47:11] Tia.Stormclaw: Given what we know about nomads taking over human bodies, they could've communicated differently.
[28.03.2025 20:47:26] Tia.Stormclaw: Yes, you kill a few people to get your point across, but I would have done it better.
[28.03.2025 20:47:56] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: Apologies, give me a second. Kris just hailed me via private comms.
[28.03.2025 20:48:03] Tia.Stormclaw: Take your time.
[28.03.2025 20:48:03] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: I'll pick up our conversation right where we left it.
[28.03.2025 20:50:26] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: It seems he's also caught up in a conversation, let me continue then.
[28.03.2025 20:50:45] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: What I'm about to say is the way I view it, very subjective.
[28.03.2025 20:51:03] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: Are you familiar with the stories that once happened on Earth, all those centuries ago?
[28.03.2025 20:51:20] Tia.Stormclaw: Yea... Some blame Coalition, other speculate Nomads.
[28.03.2025 20:51:31] Tia.Stormclaw: Only two versions I know of.
[28.03.2025 20:51:48] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: If records are to be believed, there once was a situation. A ... cold conflict of sorts.
[28.03.2025 20:52:07] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: One side picked up missile alerts, hundreds if not thousands of them.
[28.03.2025 20:52:41] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: A warship of some kind of the opposing side was within range of launching a counterattack.
[28.03.2025 20:53:02] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: Everyone aboard agreed, most likely. To fire, two keys were needed.
[28.03.2025 20:53:33] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: One key was inserted, yet the other one was not. The captain acted against what everybody thought at the time.
[28.03.2025 20:53:51] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: Mutual annihilation was ... swayed. Because cooler heads prevailed.
[28.03.2025 20:54:11] Tia.Stormclaw: If I am not mistaken...
[28.03.2025 20:54:20] Tia.Stormclaw: I think I might know what you might be talking about...
[28.03.2025 20:54:23] Tia.Stormclaw: Hang on...
[28.03.2025 20:54:35] Tia.Stormclaw: This shit was in The Order database for some reason.
[28.03.2025 20:54:41] Tia.Stormclaw: Don't ask me why I have it.
[28.03.2025 20:55:22] Tia.Stormclaw: Wasn't that like... 300 years before the Sleeper escape?
[28.03.2025 20:55:31] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: Sometime around that, I believe.
[28.03.2025 20:55:53] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: However, let me get to where I'm going with this.
[28.03.2025 20:56:00] Tia.Stormclaw: Yea, sorry.
[28.03.2025 20:56:03] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: In this situation, the captain knew what was at stake.
[28.03.2025 20:56:28] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: He knew that if he was to insert the key, mutual annihilation and the end of our race was imminent.
[28.03.2025 20:56:52] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: He knew that a human, much like him, sits on the other side with the same thoughts, most likely.
[28.03.2025 20:57:07] Tia.Stormclaw: He believed it.
[28.03.2025 20:57:19] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: Point taken.
[28.03.2025 20:57:32] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: However, let's apply this comparison to our case.
[28.03.2025 20:57:45] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: Two sides, who knew next to nothing about each other.
[28.03.2025 20:58:10] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: One side, the Nomads, saw themselves going up against an opponent that used the gifts they guarded to expand far quicker
[28.03.2025 20:58:18] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: than could have been forseen.
[28.03.2025 20:58:44] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: What if ... in our case, colder heads did not prevail? What if that captain had launched the missiles, not knowing about what
[28.03.2025 20:58:59] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: most likely happened on the other side at that exact time?
[28.03.2025 20:59:22] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: The first hosts were a weapon, they were intended to be.
[28.03.2025 20:59:41] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: A weapon to sow hatred, begin wars and perhaps even end humanity.
[28.03.2025 21:00:19] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: Their best chance at ridding themselves of an enemy that would quickly become too strong for these creatures to deal with.
[28.03.2025 21:00:29] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: There's no justification in their actions, mind you.
[28.03.2025 21:01:15] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: For our race to still be alive, it took that captain the courage to feel empathy, and prevail. He could have been wrong, too.
[28.03.2025 21:01:23] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: Many things had to fall in place for it to end the way it did.
[28.03.2025 21:01:37] Tia.Stormclaw: Hmmm...
[28.03.2025 21:01:41] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: What if our case is simply the same conflict, but the outcome is different, because different decisions were made?
[28.03.2025 21:02:16] Tia.Stormclaw: Well... You are right about this being a needles conflict...
[28.03.2025 21:02:24] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: The nomads could not have attacked, not have used hosts to try and have humanity annihilate itself. Only to be mercilessly
[28.03.2025 21:02:35] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: wiped out, failing the sole reason for their creation.
[28.03.2025 21:02:47] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: Perhaps they were not ready to take that gamble.
[28.03.2025 21:03:16] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: It's a needless conflict, for one I would like a peaceful end. But I'm not naive enough to believe that this is a likely outcome.
[28.03.2025 21:03:36] Tia.Stormclaw: The only way this can end now if one side is wiped out.
[28.03.2025 21:03:43] Tia.Stormclaw: Sadly.
[28.03.2025 21:04:09] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: To give myself hope, I like to think that ... perhaps there'll be another bottleneck of sorts, where one decision defines the
[28.03.2025 21:04:10] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: way forward.
[28.03.2025 21:04:37] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: And for ... history to repeat itself. So that against all odds, different decisions are being made than the ones that are most
[28.03.2025 21:04:41] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: convenient.
[28.03.2025 21:04:47] Tia.Stormclaw: The only way, I believe that that can be done is by destroying the gates.
[28.03.2025 21:05:32] Tia.Stormclaw: Nomads can't enter the Human populated Omicrons and Humans cannot enter Nomad populated Omicrons.
[28.03.2025 21:05:52] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: Perhaps that would be the way to end this conflict swiftly, and ... relatively peacefully. One of a billion different actions
[28.03.2025 21:06:00] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: that could be the right one.
[28.03.2025 21:06:11] Tia.Stormclaw: You would have to colapse a few jumpholes.
[28.03.2025 21:07:10] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: I would have an easier time explaining myself to Kris, given he's working around gardens.
[28.03.2025 21:07:29] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: However, I see myself as the gardener that plants a seed. From which grows a plant, which eventually flowers.
[28.03.2025 21:07:39] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: If nobody ever thinks about peace, it will never happen.
[28.03.2025 21:07:54] Tia.Stormclaw: I am tryting to see your point, I really am.
[28.03.2025 21:08:04] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: But if the thought spreads, if conversations about it are being held, perhaps it leads somewhere.
[28.03.2025 21:08:16] Tia.Stormclaw: But keep in mind, I grew up looking down a barrel of a gun.
[28.03.2025 21:08:22] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: This ... in my opinion, is the task that my elders should have followed.
[28.03.2025 21:09:02] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: It's not my intention to stop you, Tia.
[28.03.2025 21:09:33] Tia.Stormclaw: Maybe my end goal won't be stopping the nomads...
[28.03.2025 21:09:48] Tia.Stormclaw: Maybe my end goal would be taking down those who profit from them.
[28.03.2025 21:10:00] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: You do have your reasons, and I would not put myself between your gun and a nomad, if that encounter ever happened.
[28.03.2025 21:10:25] Tia.Stormclaw: Well, thanks to you, I will make sure not to shoot first.
[28.03.2025 21:10:43] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: Just talking to you and perhaps finding common ground is more than enough of a reward I could ask for.
[28.03.2025 21:10:59] Tia.Stormclaw: Yea. I don't have any money on me, sorry.
[28.03.2025 21:11:05] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: Ah, shucks.
[28.03.2025 21:11:18] Oracle|Diana.Rivera: Perhaps I can invite you to a drink, some day.

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