Jack Stocker
I do a lot of stuff. Mainly though, I write.
Attrition
Ladies and gentlemen, assorted species, thank you. I’m humbled to receive such a warm welcome on an alien homeworld, so far from my native land. A special thanks to my fellow humans among you, and the Greater Martian Council for the hospitality that makes tonight possible.
As I stand before you today, I do not see humans. I do not see Martians. I see no divisions, no enforced arbitrary lines that would cut our societies down the middle. I find myself in this bastion of Martian culture, a magnificent symbol of union between our two races. A construct of human and alien origin, pooling collective knowledge to build a dream our forefathers would barely have thought imaginable.
Yet above and around us, a war rages between Men and Martians. A war of ignorance, intolerance and injustice. Countless billions on both worlds are kept to ransom for the actions of the fraction in power. I see parents lose their children, and children lose their parents. Brothers, sisters, uncles and aunts, grandparents and cousins. None are safe as the Darkest Wars descend upon my planet, consuming all like a living thing, a manifestation of the greed that befalls sentience.
Those who do not die are radicalised. Grief begets blame, blame begets violence. The eyes of planet Earth turn to Mars with a vengeful hatred, and the recruiting stations overflow with the widowed and orphaned. Mirrored in kind, Martians flood in droves to their armouries and their hangars in a final, desperate attempt to end the threat of the human menace.
Tonight, here in this room, we are something different. We are the people who recognise right from wrong. We are the people who will stand up and cry no, and fly in the face of a ubiquitous fury that suffocates both our races. We realise the scope of the opportunity that faces us – through some slip of fate, some freak accident of chance, we find ourselves occupying two planets in the same small corner of this infinite universe, against the vast and arbitrary rules of time, space and evolution. Our species would waste it, and spit in the face of the benevolent mechanisms of the universe, in spite of the wonderful gift it has given us: the knowledge that we are not alone.
We may be persecuted, and we may be hushed, but we will not be silenced. We have an idea, my friends, and as the idiom goes - ideas cannot be killed. We must throw off the primitive shackles of hate and bigotry, and embrace the mantles granted to civilised societies. We stand stronger together than we do divided, engaged in senseless conflicts based on twisted prejudices. The proof towers above us – a building beyond the realms of the wildest dreams of those that came before us, resisting forces that they could not even conceive.
Together, we know what we can accomplish – with peace, friendship and an extended hand, we can conquer the overpowering forces of Nature itself. Our ancestors looked to the stars and wondered what the future held. And I come tonight to tell you that it is us.
We are the future. War is destitute, and it is obsolete. We are the vanguard that will bring peace to this tiny corner of our universe, and usher forward a new era, in which Martians and Mankind are a single entity, marked by our bond for one another.
And on that day, my brothers, our voices will be heard across the stars.
On that day, my brothers, unity will reign.
On that day, my brothers, WE WILL BE CAPABLE OF ANYTHING.