Heavy is my heart, and rightfully my reason. When my civilization of Greek men began, we had decided that our desire would be for peace. Harmony was our faith, and we strived for it. We bagan humbly, but quickly learned lost technologies through exploration and thusly became the 'most enlightened people in the world'. Our sole skirmishes were with the French, who threatened out borders and tried to inflintrate our lands. But, technology leads to military strength, and we were able to defend ourselves, even capturing cities in order to keep their numbers low. We became a democracy, and gazed longingly at the stars.

Years passed, and our further neighbors moved closer. They were India and Egypt. We met with them and traded skills and cartography. We showed them the ways of railroads so we could trade freely, and later, automobiles so their cities might prosper and become rich with our steady stream of freight. We allied with the people of India, and were at peace with Egypt by the year 1660 AD. Even France has calmed in it's desire for conquest in our lands and turned it's attentions elsewhere. For over a hundred years, peace reigned supreme.

What a bitter thing envy! What more jealousy! For we had learned how to construct the ship that would carry up heavenwards. And we kept this information from our neighbors so that they could not compete. But they knew... One night, a spy from Egypt crossed our borders and stole the technology. War was considered briefly, but there were factors keeping us at peace. For one, our people did not desire a large military force. Another was that our cities were committed to manufacturing parts for our spaceship. Eventually, we decided to let it slip. Egypt did not have the skills of Plastic to form the needed sections regardless, and war would only divert needed energies from our spacefaring efforts.

Imagine our suprise then when we learned that India was forming spaceship structural components! They had traded with Egypt for the skills and had shot ahead far faster than we would had thought. Still, we worried not. We traded with India, knowing that we were far ahead of them in manufacturing the starship, having a large head start.

In 1820, our ship took off: the stars would be ours. Built to contain 40,000 Grecians, and having the maximum thrust and fuel, it would still be 20 long years to reach Alpha Centuri. We waited paitently. But then, in 1822, India launched a ship. Obviously, it was a rush job, for it only held a mere 10,000 Indians. But, it's asset was speed, and it's expected arrival date was in 1838.

This is where shame comes to me. Knowing that we were destined to fall to the side of history, our space race a failure, a drastic measure was decided. We came to our allies in the night, and planted a device within their capital. The ensusing blast tore apart the world. Next, we sent armored units along the same tracks we had used for peaceful trade to conquer the torched city. India collapsed into civil war, and their ship was destroyed. Suave tatics at the United Nations led to quick peace with the French and Egypt. And through our shameful deeds, in 1840 AD, we were the first to colonize Alpha Centuri.

But was it worth it?

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Jophiel - edamoth@inil.com
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