[true_writers] 23.B.1 - "The art of war is simple enough..."

[arrow_of_apollo]

23.B.1 - "The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving on." - Ulysses S. Grant

"Simple" and "war" aren't words that belong in the same sentence.


At least not when you're talking about the war that I've known and fought and am still surviving. There's nothing simple about one side trying to eradicate the existence of the other, and there's nothing simple about one side wanting to hurt and punish the other for the things they've done. And there's nothing remotely simple about what happens afterward, when the guns are silent and you have to live with what you've become.

Did the war start when the Cylons struck as hard as they could, decimating the Twelve Colonies and reducing the human race from billions down to about fifty thousand? It was certainly what got me into this particular fight, what put me into the seat of a Viper in real combat and ultimately to where I am today?

Or did it start when the Cylons first rebelled against the human race that had been their creators, decades before that? Even though those battles came to an abrupt end, you can't help but understand how they were just the first part of the story.

Maybe it began when humanity originally decided to create robot laborers to do the things humans couldn't or wouldn't do. Without those first Cylons, the machines would never have developed intelligence and sentience, and with them, the capacity to hate and fear.

A lot of people say that the war is over, now that we have a truce and a common destination... now that we know that neither of us would have been able to find Earth without the other.

But now that we have found Earth, and seen the barren and glassy rock it has been made into, what now?

Will the Cylons decide that the truce is pointless, and that there are other planets to inhabit? Will they take that knowledge and destroy what's left of humanity, finish the job and move on?

Or will it be us that does that?

And why do I feel that nothing is over yet?


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Comments

[number-eight.livejournal.com]

Because nothing is, yet.

[arrow-of-apollo.livejournal.com]

I was afraid you'd say that.

[burnandrave.livejournal.com]

She said it first.

[cylon-prophet.livejournal.com]

Because nothing ever ends, Lee.

Will the Cylons decide that the truce is pointless, and that there are other planets to inhabit? Will they take that knowledge and destroy what's left of humanity, finish the job and move on?

That is not my intent, but of course, we Cylon no longer have a unity of purpose. But I do not think God brought us here to destroy each other. The time for that is past.

[arrow-of-apollo.livejournal.com]

Because nothing ever ends, Lee.

Well, that's frakking comforting.

So what do you think we're doing here? Surviving? That can't be all.

[cylon-prophet.livejournal.com]

We survived in space, because that is all you can do. Earth--it is where we live. Wasn't that the struggle? Isn't that enough?

You don't find the eternal cycle a comfort? I do so, very much. Perhaps in time you will.

[arrow-of-apollo.livejournal.com]

Live? Here? There's no life here. New Caprica, at least, was just a rock. Here, everywhere you turn are reminders of how life was taken away.

[cylon-prophet.livejournal.com]

Of course there's life here, Lee. You're just not looking deep enough. You must look beyond the death to the life that waits beneath.

A cycle, you see.

[arrow-of-apollo.livejournal.com]

You're welcome to wait for the wheel to turn, then. I have people to feed.

[cylon-prophet.livejournal.com]

My point is that it is turning now. You don't need to wait, Lee. It's doing it as we speak.

[arrow-of-apollo.livejournal.com]

Right. Well, I guess we'll all just have to enjoy the ride, or something.