The Great Game 🎲 Kollarum
Protectorate
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Any other diplomat would have rejoiced in his victory, yet not Farenn. It was Gral who had done all the heavy lifting: his meticulous scholarship had already proved the value of English as a lingua franca. Besides, Farenn was still bothered by his talk with Tarnar. These suspicions about the Baulians, and about the possible link between the Fractal Masters and Knifestream, made everything more difficult.
It was relatively easy to get the Council to agree on English as a lingua franca. But it would be harder to get a consensus on a matter of hard military and political power. As a result, the second week of the Conference, titled Protectorate, was getting extensive coverage in the press. Scholars and ministers from all over the Kraslika flocked to the Apex of the Matterhorn. The rulings of the Council could shift entire civilizations.
During Lingua Franca Farenn could see a few empty seats, yet now there wasn’t a single empty seat. Behind turquoise veils on either side of the Forum were over a thousand Aatari troops, ready to fly into action at a moment’s notice. In the thousand years that the Forum had hosted the Assembly, the Dalitian Guard had never been called into action.
Above the Apex, circling the great Matterhorn peak in the turbulent skies, were two dreadknot ships with more firepower than any known battle cruiser. One ship, The Veronese, was the escort for the Vicinese Bright Council. The other ship, The Bärwolf, was the escort for the Fallarian Demon Priests. Above both ships was an Aatari Stardust Point, which could evaporate either cruiser in a fraction of a second.
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The conference organizers had decided that Farenn would introduce the second week of the conference, followed by a similar introductory speech by the Vicinese ambassador Talfar. The first day would be dedicated to introductions, contexts, information, and negotiating procedures. The rest of the week would be dedicated to debate and reaching a consensus.
Farenn was a popular choice with both the Vicinese and the Fallarians. The Vicinese Illuminists had even given generous gift-baskets to the organizers to ensure that Farenn would be chosen. The Illuminists believed that Farenn’s open personality would appeal to the Vicinese, and that he was one of the few who could convincingly make them see the value of secrecy and keeping the Baulians in the dark.
The Fallarian elite also respected Farenn. He was neither a member of the Black Horde nor a Demon Priest. He was an advisor, a consultant, a wise counsellor, a contractor, a vizier, or a consigliere. That he kept changing his official designation was a sign that he wouldn’t stand for labels. While it infuriated the Horde that Farenn wouldn’t commit to their ranks, they also respected him for it. He was his own master, something each of them would have loved to say of themselves, if only they could resist the power that came along with their official positions.
Farenn looked out at the crowd, and thought to himself, Fools rush in. The wise cultivate patience, perspicacity, a critical distance that allows them to judge all the possible ramifications. They think deeply before they utter even a single syllable. What he didn’t think to himself, because he was Fallarian and it was taken for granted, was that the wise also have instinct, like that of the jaguar in a jungle, about to pounce.
Farenn of Caldemar was no fool. He knew that this week’s proceedings weren’t an abstract affair, but rather a concrete struggle over who held power in the Kraslika. The conference also came at a very important moment: the Baulians were on the verge of understanding that their Empire wasn’t the greatest empire time had ever seen. They were on the verge of realizing that they had been operating for millions of years within a cosmos they couldn’t even see. So far, they imagined themselves to be masters of all they surveyed. The explicit goal of the Assembly was to decide if the Baulians ought to take over the Milky Way. The implicit goal was to decide if the Baulians ought to be told that all they surveyed was already being surveyed by all.
The Fallarian Black Horde wanted to keep the Baulians in the dark, and the Vicinese argued — officially at least — that it was better to bring everything into the light. Farenn understood the Black Horde’s desire for secrecy, yet he also felt the Horde had no right to tell him what to think. The Horde knew sending such an unpredictable thinker was a risk, yet Farenn was a consummate diplomat and they wanted to see which way he would argue. It was worth it for them to know who they were dealing with. Would he openly agree with them and secretly betray them, or would he openly betray them and secretly be loyal to them? Either way, Knifestream, Gascitar, and Kaldriscat sat mesmerized in the front row of what the Fallarian Press called the Ebony Bank.
All three Demon Priests glowed with anticipation as Farenn stepped up to the podium and cleared his throat.
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On the gigantic screen above Farenn put a quatrain from the 12th century poem, The Conference of the Birds:
This, Farenn knew, was how the Kraslika saw the Fallarians, and so he left it on the screen throughout his speech.
Farenn adjusted the mic downward and began his opening address. As usual for a Fallarian, he dispensed with niceties and got directly to the crux of the matter.
“Greetings, fellow Kraslikans! As they say, We come in peace. Although it may be a surprise to some of you, Fallarians don't aim to control the cosmos. We understand our dark natures, our cut-throat instincts, better than others understand their angelic natures. Yet, contrary to what these angels might say, the fact is that we’d rather engage than destroy. We’d rather play with the mouse than keep it in a cage.
What would be the point of dominating every species in the Kraslika? We could do that if we pleased. Have you seen the speed at which a Derelectan can devour its prey, or a Thromantz can strike on an open battlefield or in the tight corners of an Aatari labyrinth? And yet, we were the first species to sign The Black and Purple Convention Prohibiting Absolute Control. As I hope to convince you, we simply don't desire to dominate. And we have no plans to use the Virgo Supercluster for our own expansion.”
Farenn looked downward, his eyes swirling in a chaotic vortex. He reined in the whirlpool and brought it back into order, a single current flowing from his mind.
“Where would the fun be in complete control? Once the battlefield was quiet, once the bodies no longer twitched, and once the captives were secure in their cages, we Fallarians would be left facing each other. We’d be left to deal with the only species we fear — our own! It’s for this reason that all Kraslikans can count on us. We mean the rest of you no harm.”
“All of which doesn't mean, however, that we have no interest in the rest of the cosmos. Far from it! It’s the only open field we have. It’s the only space on which our prowess can be judged, our respect can be earned, our fearfulness can be appreciated in full measure. It’s in our deepest interest that no one mess with this field or turn it into their own private playground. We are, and always have been, against absolute control.”
“So, no, my Kraslikan friends, you fundamentally and forever have nothing to fear from the Fallarian Empire. It is already an Empire, and it doesn't seek to become larger. What would be the point? To transform everyone into our own image? We have more than enough Fallarians already. There’s no species in the Kraslika that agrees more than the Fallarians do that it would be better if most of us didn’t exist. The depths of hatred between one Fallarians group and the next is unimaginable in worlds where everybody says they want to get along. The last thing we want is a cosmos full of the mirror reflections of our own brutal selves. On Earth, Jean-Paul Sartre might call that nausea, yet his idle philosophical nausea hardly compares to the harrowing vomiting nexus of nightmares that Fallarian self-hatred engenders.”
“No, banish your fears of Fallarian hegemony, for there is nothing Fallarians relish more than the diversity of the Kraslika. The main reason we insert ourselves into cosmic politics is to preserve that diversity. If the laughable Baulians ever suggested a danger to the life-blood of the cosmos, we’d be the first to mine their installations and defract their entire fleet of DNA sequencers. But they don’t pose a threat. We leave it to the adjacent dominions to deal with them. If, however, we see that the adjacent dominions are unable to control the Baulians, we will intervene. All of us, toghether. Or if we see that the Baulians are abusing their power — if hellfire forbid, they find the Soul Star and try to turn it into some sort of weapon — then we’ll put their home world into a state of paralysis which will leave them wishing they never crawled out of their sacred Pink Well.”
“The status quo works because it ensures the neutrality of the Middle Belt and its Soul Star. The less the Baulians know about the bigger picture, the less they’ll scheme to control the Star. They bumbled into 2.7 million worlds; they could easily bumble onto the Star. Or, they could bumble right past it. If we confront them openly and they somehow come to understand advanced fractology, they may very well learn of the Soul Star’s existence and have the opportunity to look for it. They may even find it, given that it almost certainly lies within the galactic cluster they’re in the process of annexing. All we need to do is watch over them. The less they know about it, the better.”
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The Demon Priest Gascitar turned to his colleague Kaldriscat and nodded in agreement. Farenn had toed the party line, just as they hoped.
Next: 🎲 Talfar
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