章 50: - Unified Way Rally

*Issued Mission: Security at the Rally*

As soon as the clock struck noon, the rally officially began.

People had been coming into the dome for hours by now, and finally, their patience was rewarded with the start of the rally. There would be multiple guest speakers who believe in the core tenets of the Unified Way, aiming to both convert new people to their way of thinking while reinforcing the belief in those who already agreed.

Once the pleasantries were out of the way, with the rally's organisers thanking people for attending, and directing the attendees to various stalls that had been established around the area, stalls that Gus had not seen previously, the rally began. The first thing that happened was a presentation of sorts. In this presentation, the organisers hoped to point out the reasons against the war and for unification with the Bloody Dawn.

Soon after, the lead speaker came onto the stage. She was a well dressed woman, who looked to be in her sixties. However, thanks to groundbreaking strides in medicine that were made after humanity left Earth, she could easily have been double that. Both her light, white hair and her skin, coloured like a dark sand, showed some signs of age. She was the primary President of all organisations related to the United Way, Mileena Aliti.

"I've lived quite a long time," she said, beginning her speech. "And I've seen a lot of things. But there is nothing that I have seen that has been as pointless, and as futile as this war. While I obviously am not old enough to remember the times before we left Earth, a monumental achievement we managed as a collective centuries ago, my family is.

When I was young, my parents, like their parents before them, and so on, filled my mind with all this information about human history. They had wanted me to follow in their footsteps and take a career of politics, and they believed that it was important to understand the decisions our ancestors made in order to be a successful politician. As you can tell, I did, just not in the way that they had expected me to.

You see, when I studied the time of humanity's ascension to the stars, I learned something. Although we think of large scale conflict within our species as trivial and impossible by today's standards, they happened not long before we began our galactic journey. In fact, it was only when we chose to stand together, shoulder to shoulder, and allow our compatriots to stand on our shoulders, did we reach the stars. We had to stick together to make that dream a reality. And there were two main drivers behind that choice.

As I mentioned, people began to realise that we needed to work together to reach the stars, not compete. Suddenly, work became unified, rather than fractured between different things.

The second thing that people began to understand that pushed us together was the fear of the unknown. Many people realised that there might be extra-terrestrial life in the galaxy, maybe as close as our nearest planet. And, if they were united and we were not, them we would be exterminated.

Eventually, over time, we grew closer together. We sent colonies out to different planets in our system, and invested plenty of resources into them in order to grow them from fragments of humanity into thriving, flourishing civilisations, seeking no profit from the transaction. We built huge stations in the stars, like a wall that surrounded the borders of our system. Our fear made us come closer together, and us coming together made us strong.

Now, you might ask why I am speaking about all of this. Well, we are in a situation much like our ancestors were. We fight among each other for land, and for principle. Ask yourselves this. What is out there, beyond the boundaries of the Milky Way. Just as our fear pushed us together as a species, we should allow ourselves to join together with the Bloody Dawn, out of necessity. We can not, and should not, expect to face the threats outside our galaxy alone!"

"That's a joke," Commander Amuti muttered. "What does she expect? We ally with them, and then what? Prepare to fight a force that, when the time comes, someone will insist we don't fight because we allied with the Bloody Dawn? We do not fight alone, either. We allied with the Trellior when we met them, we attempted to ally with the Shen'na when we encountered them, too. There will be others that we will ally with. They have killed many of our people. Why should we ever agree to peace with them?"

"Couldn't have said it better, my friend," Mykolos said, putting his hand on the Commander's shoulder. The Commander glared at him, but said nothing about the gesture.

"I mean, while I would like to think that, I'd also rather lose as little people to this war as possible," Gus said.

"So you think we should submit to them?" Amuti said.

"Of course not," Gus said. "But, I don't think we should throw away lives for little more than principle."

"Well we can agree on that, at least," Amuti responded.

"There are other reasons to do this. Why should we throw away more lives into this war?" Mileena continued. "Why should we make more parents who will never see their child again? Why should we cause only more suffering across the galaxy, instead of striving for a brighter galaxy, a brighter universe, and a brighter future?"

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