We Shall Fight

Spoken by UFPF President Dorin Relithys via live vidstream on 241/12/27, 20:00 SCT+1.

People of Agathos,

Tonight I speak to you, directly, for the first time since my inauguration. The upheaval we have endured these past years has led to the rise of heroes, and I have been happy to see them take the spotlight. I am a President, an enforcer of laws. What am I to inspire in you that Reiko Eleythos and her rangers could not? But the laws I preside over are clear - I am to protect the rights of our citizens. When your Liberty is under dire threat, I would be negligent in my duties were I not to warn you.

Tomorrow, as many of you know, several governments will hold votes on whether to seek terms of peace with the USC. This will, if passed in any of them, effectively block the coalition's work to liberate the western provinces. While some have offered legal maneuvers that could be used to override the votes, I can tell you they will not work. If the people of Agathos wish to cease their fight, then no clever trick will prevent that for long.

And so, tonight I appeal to you, The People, to show you the choice before us. While it may have started over a simple case of espionage, this war has changed into something else. It is no longer about diplomatic complaints, or even territorial gains. I do not exaggerate when I say that this war is now to protect our very way of life.

Do not misunderstand me. I do not mean our free markets, our entertainment culture, or even our social tolerance. At a basic level I do not even mean our republics or political independence. No, I mean the very root of the tree our civilization has grown up from. The seed that was planted in days of legend. The thing that the religious and secular confess in unison - Liberty with Law. In it we state that we are no angels, and so must be ruled by government. But also that we have the capacity for great virtue, and must be left free to pursue it in our own ways.

The USC, they are built on another foundation. They showed us this as they flattened the Grand Cathedral in Artheniapolis, and rebuilt it to their liking.

The USC says the world must be united and fair; we say we must be divided by self-determination. That we are equal only before the Law and in the inherent value given by our nature. They say they will conquer death, and transcend to immortal beings; but in that cathedral they taught that we are even now eternal in spirit. That we should treat the weakest among us as the immortals that we already are. They say you can be designed and molded to serve the group; we say that there is no greater service than to speak the unpopular Truth. If the USC is to succeed, they cannot allow who we are; they cannot allow people to believe like we do.

And this perfect world they offer? This paradise in the machine? How is that anything but the lie of the tyrant made larger? When you are but a mind in a simulation, what meaning do your accomplishments have? What faith can you put in your memories or your experiences? What horrors must the people left in the real world endure for your membership in such a place? If the bloodshed we saw simply to raise up only the ninth immortal is any indication, there is a mountain of skulls upon which this system is built.

And to this system, we will negotiate? We will sit at a table with a machine made up of simulated people, and have them promise to leave us in peace? For how long will such a peace last? For how long will they tolerate our lifestyle just across the border. Will we tell our children, when the constructionists come again, that at least we delayed their evil for a time? Will we negotiate a second time, a third? Will the light that Agathos has given to free people in the south, and in the east, grow ever dimmer as payment for a meager bit of comfort? Would our souls allow us rest if that were to pass?

Providence has fallen to us to carry the burden of war. Free men at various times and places have been called to do the same. They have given their lives in the millions for our sake. Will we abandon the duty they handed down to us, will we doom future generations to bondage?

No. We shall fight. We shall answer our callings. The soldier will kill the enemy, the factory technician will supply the lines, the IWAR specialist will guard our networks, the mother will pass on our sacred values to the next generation. Diverse individuals, bound together in the Great Cause of Liberty, shall fight as one in a way the divine machines can never understand or predict.

And with Reconciliation as our watch-word, we shall fight until a united republic, renewed and reformed, stands bright atop the hill again. Until Sector Zero flies a flag of a free ally, the ziggurats are abandoned, and the constructionist dream is seen the world over for the folly it is. We shall fight until uncontested Victory, and tomorrow we shall send that message straight to Lucius Titus.

But for tonight, sleep well, God bless, and may we all live long under Liberty with Law.