"Sleep Now in the Fire"

When we look at the world around us, we don't just see the present, we also see our past, the integral over the set of humanity's decisions. But not all were made equal - you and I have to band together, build community and structure, endlessly struggle against the system, and strategically rage against the machine to achieve something, anything that makes our lives better. The powers that be, on the other hand... even their whims change lives and their decisions the course of history.

If you dig deep enough into that history, you end up on old Earth in the 21st century. When humanity couldn't make up its mind whether it was reaching for the stars or grasping for them - for straws to escape the world they made barely livable. Threatened as they were by a burning climate, political turmoil, and what we now call early-stage corporatism, they still had a chance.

Back then, nations still held much of the power, and the most powerful that ever was, before and after it, was teetering on the brink of success. The American States of America had the scientific understanding to cool the heating climate, the economic leverage to distribute both health and wealth, and the political power to send citizen to the stars instead of corporations.

Yet, the people were tricked. Told that there was no other pill to take, they swallowed the one that made them ill and followed a charismatic leader down the wrong turn of the fork in the road. He took them from where they had a chance to change the course of history to what they were told was its logical conclusion, where it's caged and frozen still.

The stranglehold of corporations, the maxim that a human life only counts if it benefits the bottom line, a system that forces us to indebt ourselves for life to modify our bodies and get shipped to a hostile mining outpost only to dig up Blue Silver until we die of radiation or toxic fumes - all these were undercurrents of the 21st century, but it was the decisions that a cunning elite made back then that turned them into the immutable structure of the present. And one of those decisions is the reason why I'm giving you this history lesson: starting the trade wars and border skirmishes that weakened the nations and only benefited those who needed workers, not citizens.

Because while out here on Kepler-609c, I was sent out to establish the boundary around Neotropolis, making sure that those living outside the soil-controlled area are at least aware of it. And guess what I found there? Remnants of the 21st century.

Of that time when the few made decisions that would make life worse for the many.

How did those border posts between the American States of America (from its last years of being named the USA) and its neighbor survive the centuries? Make it to the stars and eventually all the way out here? Beats me. But I know history when I see it, and we need to understand it if we want to have a chance at changing its course.

Against the powerful few, the many must realize what the elite knows so well: That this isn't the only way humanity can be. That our present is the consequence of decisions past and that, likewise, the future is the consequence of decisions present. They tell us not to struggle against the inevitable, to sleep now in the fire.

Fuck them! Don't believe them when they say that our actions don't matter. They do! And eventually we will find the ones that break their power over us.

Until then - keep fighting. ✊🏾