by Allen Stroud
It is my supposition that life in its future more advanced form, cannot exist without a similar occurrence to disturb our current position of stagnation.
Genetic Research
It is perhaps, considered ironic, given my own physiological state, to make such observations regarding evolution and genetic transition. However, I consider my position to be one of unique qualification. The nearest thing available, save the Thargoid or some rumoured rogue artificial intellect, to offer an outside perspective on the human condition.
I confess, much of my knowledge concerning genetics built on the work left by my mother. Her advancements in stable clone micro manufacture during the first century of the fourth millennium could have been the commercial impetus to reinvigorate Lave, if sold to the right populace, namely the people of Achenar and Quince. However, her work was suppressed in what I have come to believe was, an intentional process.
My own advancements in this area have been in application and development. The inducement of mutation by artificial means is mostly a process of chance that offers little in the way of means tested benefit. An exploration of this methodology took up seven years for me and provided only an impotent conclusion.
Ultimately, artificial selection cannot replace the Darwinian model. If commercialised, the choices made by previous generations will lead to further evolutionary paralysis as they seek a refined superficial physicality. If retained as the exclusive tool of intellectual gatekeepers, given control of breeding programmes, you rely on the minds of those gatekeepers to direct our future physiological needs.
I am not so arrogant as to believe I can determine the future requirements of our species. However, I am arrogant enough to assert the stagnated condition we find ourselves in now will not suffice to overcome the dangers we will face. I believe that—
[Editor: Again, this fragmented document has been retained and reconstructed from Walden’s encrypted database. Further testimony is impossible to recover. There is a standing reward posted in the Central Ashorian Archive for further Walden writing. This is released only after stringent testing. We can only hope that the writing of this most influential figure in Lavian history still exists somewhere, out there.]
The Speeches
[Editor: Included here are a collection of speeches made by different incarnations of Doctor Walden during his reign. The origin of these works is not known, nor can we clearly determine which of his incarnations gave each performance. Often, sections would be edited and used for different audiences, particularly with works designed to appeal to a viewer’s known tendency.
When reading these sections, it is worth contrasting the tone and content with that given in The Rationale. The Speeches are intended for public consumption, The Rationale, quite clearly for a more intimate explanation to disciples and committed students.]
The Indoctrination
[Editor: A popular speech featured in many of Walden’s public broadcasts. The paragraphs below were often cut and edited into different works. Using our exclusive access to the penal facility database established on Lave Station, we have attempted to reassemble this speech in its complete form.]
Ask yourself a question. What makes us free? Truly? Societies teach us conformity to their rules, morals and limitations. In exchange we are given commodity and resources that preserve our homeostasis, food, warmth and shelter at first, then material wealth. Eventually, we learn to accept our lot and forget the hunger and ambition which drove our predecessors to build our world.
Empires are built on strength. Strength is borne from fear of failure, a hunger for a better life and a better way, but strength dies when we lose what motivated us.
Those with strength lead society and guide the weak. Often they must stray from conformity to find this power within. These individuals do not mistake the temporal trappings of societal position with this inner core. For indeed, the assumption of the divisive, bureaucratic, mantle can and will inhibit the development of an individual’s inner self, thus disabling their path towards making a meaningful contribution to the world around them.
You, who have strayed, have done so for good reason. Such wilful deviance is essential, that you might take up your proper place and execute your duty. I cannot promise this process will be easy. Nothing worthy is ever obtained without arduous effort. Correction is necessary, sometimes with pain; else we lose all to apathy and fear. We reach through the curtain of terror and mythology to hold the hands of our brothers and sisters, to guide them through the darkness and give them light.
Together we are strong. Only together can we follow the path back to the stars. Billions of people on countless worlds do not know the right way and remain ignorant of the plan. They follow false kings and queens and lead lives of indolence. If they persist in this course, they will be among those who perish during the great tribulation.
This planet is part of the only truly united multi-national organisation in the galaxy. We hold true to the ideals of the Co-operative and we do not cry out for some miraculous salvation from a Creator, nor bemoan our legacy! With your help and support, we follow a plan to return and populate the vast ocean of stars.
In your time empowered, you have found part of the great enlightenment. You have experienced life unfettered, your mind, calculated and established its worth. It is this part of you, the best of you I wish to ally with, not the conformist, but the wilful protagonist, the part best capable of discovery and attainment. It is this part that will focus on a goal, rather than a rule, framework or parameter. It is this part that will achieve. It is your best part, your empowered soul and individuality.
Technology has helped to make the loud voice of our unity even louder. The thrones of Earth and Achenar shake at the mention of Lave!’
Now, your sweat, your toil, your commitment, propels us to our manifest destiny. In the past, people pledged loyalty to meaningless icons; a flag, a symbol, a piece of paper or their long dead martyrs. Now, we pledge to purpose, a tangible goal that will bring humanity to its rightful place as the inheritors of all things material.
For in truth, it is our design, to become shapers of all things material. The process or evolution has manifested no greater image than humanity. We of Lave understand this, we celebrate it as we work toward attainment.
Indeed, the plan brings us to triumph soon. Nothing so glorious can be done quickly, but the work and patience of our forebears brings us fertile ground. The majority of people living today will journey to the stars as we bring our truth to the galaxy. Be ready, for you might be called to serve at any time, raised into the circle of Interstellar, to shape the cosmos for your descendants and those who will follow them.
We cannot know the future, but a man who does not plan to shape it and puts faith in fate or chance is a fool in denial. Our children rely on us, just as we relied on those who went before. It is our responsibility to provide the foundation for their growth after us, that they might fly further and faster than we have, in each turn, to raise our created image to the pedestal it deserves.
Those beyond our world cannot understand the true work we have begun. In time, each will be given a choice to raise themselves. But, do not mourn them. In some part of their past, they accepted their lot and chose the swift route of apathy, they accepted less than their worth. The worst of these people cannot comprehend our great work and will resist us. In that end, brothers, sisters, I will need you, sorely I will need your words as swords, your bodies as shields. Your mind, the arrow, your heart its bow.
So I ask you now, good people of Lave, are you with me?
Are you with me?
The Inauguration
[Editor: According to public record, this is the speech given by Walden at his investiture in 3174. It was a closed ceremony, with forty invited guests. None of the attendees survived more than four years. The posted archive record of the speech came from 3188.]
There is no sinister power controlling humanity; only people. Emperor Hengist Duval is a man. The Pre
sident of the Federation, the same, a mortal descendant of the same genetic code that sets us apart from the animal.
The very fact that individuals can hold such status and stand atop vast pyramids of sentient life is a testimony to our generosity. We grant power to others, that we might be reassured; we abdicate responsibility without even questioning those who we trust. In some cases, we will never meet or see those who have the power to influence our lives.
Self-interest, apathy and ignorance have created these imbalanced bureaucracies that seek to dominate worlds. They are disease to the empowered. Those pledged to their allegiance, sold into a slavery of the mind. The bars of their cells become even more invisible when these citizens accept, become passive contributors and stop looking for alternatives.
But we are privileged. Lave stands as a mark against apathy. We lead a world nation that raises empowered children, self-aware of their worth to us all. We welcome the empowered and enlightened from other nations, amongst our society, they will find places that stretch them and help them grow.
We reject the impersonal dynasty of heritage. Our world grants privilege to worth and worth alone will grant success. We encourage the innovator, so she might quest, succeed, return, share and be rewarded. Such innovation is pumping blood to us all, but only we, of Lave truly understand its value.
My word to you, people of Lave, is a transparent pledge. We are the embodiment of an enlightened age, harbingers of new destiny forged in a glorious past. We will bring triumph to an ignorant cosmos and hold stars in the palms of our hands.
To each of you lies ahead a destiny above the sky. You will be the new travellers, the new heralds of a glorious age, bringing the twin beacons of light and hope to all who are willing to listen.
You will be greatness and I salute that greatness, growing within each of you.
The Prescience
[Editor: A popular speech given by Walden when visiting different locations on Lave, particularly the farm regions of Neudaal. There are several variations. We have included the earliest found in the public archive record.]
I am asked often, what does the future hold for us? Who can know?
Writers of consequence have always looked toward prophecy and prediction as a mark of intellectual status. Whether approaching a reading through experimentation and data, or the mystic’s crystal sphere, humanity is obsessed with learning what will occur, before it occurs.
In the third millennium, thinkers derived an epiphany from relativity, deriving a false consequence from the writings of those before them. If space and time are one, then travel to future and past can happen.
Such thinkers failed to consider the prime directive of time; its relationship with the individual. Whilst mechanisms exist for measurement, an insect perceives time far differently to a man and in turn, each person can perceive the same time differently owing to context.
There is a means to travel to the future; the very means by which we all travel today, through each beat of our hearts. There is a means to travel to the past, through memory, archive and reflection. We cannot change what was done, we can only harness recollection to change what can be done and only at the speed our existence permits. To rely on others to tell us what will happen, denies our own empowered will to shape events as we wish.
I will not tell you of your individual future and claim some false insight into tomorrow, but I will promise, the future I strive for is one where each of you can be what you have the potential to be. I seek humanity’s peak, its optimum and opus. I yearn for the attainable utopia, made form by the possibility living in each of us. We can make what is, better, greater and more fulfilling for those who come after us, so they too might fulfil the promise of their mind and body.
Those who do not understand this vision and still seek guidance, must look to their own hearts, else they become adversarial to what we strive to build. The cynic’s road, a mantra of nihilism and ill considered language, abrogates the prime responsibility we have to the universe that made us self-aware. We must understand what we are and through understanding be empowered to act.
The time is coming my friends, when many such actions will be needed. I hope you will do what is right. The only guidance you need lies in your steady heart.
Conclusion
Here ends the public archive of Walden Writings available on request. Should you wish to obtain more information regarding any of the documentation mentioned here, please do file a request with the planetary administration. However, please be aware that all such requests are monitored for security purposes and the Lavian authorities reserve the right to keep your details on file in perpetuity.
Appendix C: The Missing Files
The Missing Chapter
‘Name?’
‘Watt Tyler.’
An uncomfortably hot mid-afternoon in Admiralty Hall on New California, Alioth. Recruiting Sergeant Kerrik glanced up from his dataslate a man stood in front of his desk unlike any other he’d seen that day. ‘Thanks for waiting, Mister Tyler,’ he said. ‘Aren’t you a little old for a career with the Alioth navy?’
Watt smiled, a gap-toothed gesture bringing fresh wrinkles to his weathered brow. Thick white eyebrows and small wispy colonies above his ears were the remains of his hair. ‘Only too old if I can’t perform,’ he replied. ‘I got three wives on Valhalla who’ll testify that ain’t a problem.’
Kerrik’s eyes flicked past Tyler to the long line behind him. ‘What job do you think you could do for us?’ he asked.
Gnarled fingers seized the collar of his shirt; quick strength hauled him from his chair, up close to the old man. The dataslate tumbled from his hands as he struggled, but Tyler’s grip was iron and his eyes cold. ‘You ain’t asked the right question,’ he said.
‘What should I ask you?’
‘What job can’t I do,’ Tyler replied. ‘There ain’t nothing on your list I can’t do better than every person ’ere, ’cept wait. I ain’t good at waitin’.’
Kerrik swallowed. He heard the sound of an energy pistol powering up and raised a hand. ‘At ease, gentlemen, I have this.’ Old fool’ll never get through training, he thought. The grip on his collar loosened, he pulled away, straightened his shirt and sat back down. ‘Okay Mister Tyler, what job would you like to do for us?’
Tyler grinned again. ‘Better,’ he said.
* * *
‘Get a trace on their hyperspace destination! Power up the engine to follow, quickly! Before the window closes!’
‘With respect Proctor, in a ship like this, that’s not possible.’
Cuthrick Delaney sighed. With one fluid motion he drew a pistol from his belt and aimed right between the eyes of the man who’d spoken, all the while trying to remember his name. ‘Kinoss, isn’t it?’ he said. The man nodded. ‘Being correct doesn’t make you popular,’ Cuthrick said. ‘Get the shields back online and a repair team to the cargo bay. Activate the hyperspace waver. I want a secure link to the Lavian ambassador.’
‘Yes Proctor.’
Cuthrick strode from the bridge to his quarters. His irritation wouldn’t abate. The whole situation stank. Kidnapping Federation spooks and retrieving corpses wasn’t a job for an agent of the Imperial interior. Inside, he sat and activated the terminal, keying in his personal access code. The comms light next to the screen flashed. ‘Wave request accepted,’ Kinross said.
‘Put her through,’ Cuthrick instructed.
Ambassador Martha Godwina’s face appeared on the viewscreen. Female, waspish thin and of advancing middle age, she’d played senatorial politics and been rewarded with retirement to a backwater in the Old Worlds sector. A post she hadn’t accepted gracefully. ‘What’s the emergency?’ she asked.
‘Ambassador, there’s been a complication with delivery—’
‘Complication?’
With an effort, Cuthrick kept his expression neutral. ‘We no longer possess the assets,’ he said.
Godwina’s eyes became chips of ice. ‘I see.’
‘Yes, your debt remains standing,’ Godwina said. ‘We will need to move to an alternate arrangement. Without a favour owed, the prefect of Ashoria becomes useless.’ She looked off-screen at something, then back. ‘Frankly, I’m useless, stuck here. I think it’s time I overplayed my hand. In the meantime, you need to come up with another strategy.’
Cuthrick scratched his chin. ‘It is possible we can engineer something more direct,’ he said. ‘The plan will be crude, but may provide a similar result.’
Godwina frowned. ‘What do you have in mind?’ she asked.
* * *
‘Ready for inspection, ma’am.’
‘Thank you Lieutenant.’
Captain Dena Pierce returned the stiff salute from Saul, the engineering officer. Military precision became difficult to observe in zero gravity, but she appreciated the effort.
Her first visit to engineering since taking command of the Yamorro three days ago. The promotion was a surprise. Previously the senior lieutenant on the battle group flagship, the Furnace, when old Captain Trask had taken ill, she’d been reassigned. The muster room was a large space by comparison to the other compartments, but remained claustrophobic. Workspace on any ship came at a premium, but on a Cadence-class destroyer, where weapons and engines took priority, the premium notched up.
