"Know this: you are my children and I love you dearly. Behold, I have given you this world so that you may grow and live in peace. Love each other and yourselves, that is all I ask of you. But remember this, there are no gods, nor goddesses, nor any higher power than yourselves. Never seek to pin responsibility on anyone other than yourself. Never seek wisdom or morality or law from anything other than your own hearts and minds. That is all. Now go have fun."
Conclusion Speech, Corrina Blake
In the Beginning
By Merideth Chaffin
The drums pounded out a long steady beat that sunk into the blood and made the heart beat along with its rhythm. Over the drums came a rising hum from a hundred different throats. With flowing grace, two women danced between the two throngs of people. Following close behind was the Child. Dressed in soft blue she was, in colors befitting the Avatar of the One. Behind the Child came the priests in their solemn gray robes and tall flat caps. The Child was led to the altar, for she was shaky in her steps and her wide dazed eyes never focused on the ground before her. Those dilated blue orbs stared out into space, communing with the One. With great care, the Child was laid out on the altar. A dreamy smile crossed her face as the priest raised the curved steel of a ceremonial dagger. Then the little face went limp and the hands fell away, dangling from the altar. A great cry came up from the throng below.
You see, it was all undertaken with the best and purist of intentions. It was all going to be entirely for the good of things. The whole idea seemed so simple and so incredible at the time; so utterly perfect. It…it was never meant to end up this way. But…well… you know what they say about the best intentions.
It started with the children. The children, those wonderfully simple little kids that seemed to understand far more than we ever give them credit for, they were the ones that inspired it all. They never really seem to care about what you are or who you are or where you came from unless someone instills that need to care in them. See, it's once they start to learn that being different is bad, that's when everything starts going wrong. If you can just stop that from happening…
One day, they were all on the playground, and I watched them. These little imps were everywhere, every size, shape, and color dripping off the monkey bars, hanging from bars, swinging high into the air, reaching for some unnamed height. And I watched them, and I thought how malleable children are. If we could find some way to keep them from being tainted by the past, maybe the world would stop being plagued by bigotry and hatred.
I think now, maybe that was just idealistic thinking. Now I think that maybe hate is something engrained so deeply that not even isolation can take it away. I guess, no matter what, people will find some way to differentiate between Us and Them. You just can't do anything about that. But if I had known that then, there would be no tale to tell now, and perhaps things would have been much different. Or maybe they would be the same. With humanity, you can never really tell.
When I first announced my plan to my coworkers, they thought I was blatantly crazy. They didn't really understand, no matter how I tried to explain. It was like trying to explain blue to a blind person. Sometimes, no matter how simple the concept, you can't make it sink in. They called me a kidnapper. But I never took children from their parents, from their loved ones. Those little ones with happy homes and unhappy ones, I left alone. The ones left to fend for themselves; the babies left in dumpsters, the children beaten and thrown into the streets, the little ones who ran away to join some great dream in the city, the ones who had been abandoned entirely, those were mine to take. And I took them.
You have to understand now, I had only the best intentions, I truly did. I… I took them all away, in one privately chartered ship. And on the ship, I taught them things. I taught the little ones how to talk and the older ones how to read and write. It was a long trip. For months, we lived in that little ship until we entered orbit around the tiny planet I had selected. You see, in those days, the universe was largely unexplored, lying open to whomever chose to go and claim it. And I claimed it, this little planet, not a quarter of the size of Earth for my… experiment.
For seven years, I lived with these children, until the oldest were in their teens. With the help of the tools and electroaids I had supplied, we built a small village to house my fifty little subjects. I left them with computer systems and learning software, programs to teach them everything they would ever need to know. There were little med-unit robots designed to heal and teach. A security system kept the native wildlife out of the village. It was all designed to break down in fifty years. Then they would fend for themselves, teach their own children, protect themselves. Slowly, they would populate that new world.
And here is the gist of it all. While I taught them, I left out many things. I left out other languages; they all spoke English. I left out names for other races; they were all simply Human. I left out names for places and planets and countries; they all lived in the Village. I left out religion; they all believed in what they saw and what they could figure out for themselves. So there would be no language barrier, no race hatred, no bigotry for people who lived in other places, and no deities to order them to kill their fellow man. And I was convinced it would work. I left them with my Conclusion Speech, something I had worked on since the conceiving of the idea.
I went back home on my own, trusting that my little children would grow strong and healthy and form a new society.
But you should not trust in human beings. Human beings are fragile things.
