Excerpt on Fate

Fate is a funny thing. It pairs with misery with fortune and hope with coincidence, while it lays the tracks for the determinism express. Was it fate or cruel coincidence that as the moon of Sofra was plummeting into its gravity well, and the not yet spacefaring civilization of Sofrites were facing their extinction, that several newly minted Gar-a-bone transport ships were being towed to pick up fresh colonists meant for the Broch-Gar system only two days away? The date on the manifest for the transport ships was printed nearly two years prior to any plans by the Sofrites to bomb their own moon.

Unfortunately, upon learning of the devastating news from his long-range sensors, the admiral in charge of escorting the freighters and then colonists chose to violate his oath and attempt to interject where existed a fork in fate. The admiral knew nothing of the Sofrites, of their fearful, xenophobic, and aggressive nature, nor did he stop to debate the ramifications that should take their course following his decision. The fleet altered course and began to prepare to take on the entire population of the planet, over fifty million Sofrites.

The admiral took much pleasure in his decision and once his task was complete, he watched the Sofrites crowd around the viewing decks to watch their moon crash into the only home they knew. To his surprise and fate’s amusement, the Sofrites’ fear, confusion, and despair evolved into anger and suspicion. They blamed the aliens for their misery, stating conspiracies drawn up in maniacal spurts of debate that accused their benevolent saviors of orchestrating the entire situation as a ruse to kidnap them for forced labor. To an outsider, these statements would obviously mirror the actions the accusers were possibly guilty of, but the Sofrites had not yet evolved individually to be unified into a flourishing civilization that rules by logic. They were rushed into an extinction-level event slightly sooner than it would take them to spread their likeness beyond their cosmic nursery and learn from those with differing instincts and nature. To the dismay of the admiral and the transport ship captains, the Sofrites overpowered their captors and took control of the fleet, mercilessly disposing of the admiral and his colleagues upon learning everything they could about the galaxy and its political and power structures.

Does fate hold precious that which is destructive as it does all that is good and fair? Some would agree that fate smiled on the Sofrites, shunning the countless worlds and species that the Rites, as they would come to be called by those forced to submit to their reign of terror, eventually came to dominate and destroy until they imploded from the same selfish interests that toppled every great aggressive conquering state— unrelenting ambition. The philosophical questions posed by logic and reason would question the power behind allowing only the good to exist. Do the bacteria that kill their host to survive not deserve to exist? Subsequentially, if the killing of a host or simply the act of killing is the basic requirement, then that eliminates most of life, which continues its perpetuity by consuming that which has already existed and dies to clear the way for the new by a subconscious sacrifice, from the contest. Creature eats creature, then creature eats plant, etc. The Kingdoms, the phyla most species eat each other by nature. One could reason that the only eligible deserving form of life would be that which consumes waste energy without directly competing for the source with others; akin to how a solar panel absorbs sunlight. As the Sofrites burnt through the galaxy like a forest fire, perhaps fate was balancing the scales for the purest forms of life to emerge without being a side thought in a species’ dietary requirements.

I guess you would like to know more about the Sofrites, although there is not much to tell. They were aggressive and obsessed with conquering others for whatever pleasures one pretends to desire lest he admit being blinded by ambition. They say ride the dragon once, it rides you forever. The Sofrites eventually burnt out like the ultimate end of a candle; there was nothing left to conquer as there was no more wick to burn. Both flames rested in a pool of their own metaphorical blood.

A thought, if one decides to form it, must be dragged out to its fullest. Otherwise, beliefs form on loose ground. Take every logical, reasonable, and dare I say philosophical measure to involve all possible propositions and oppositions into a search for truth and do not reject the exploration of any possible breadcrumbs leading to a complete and clear picture. The senses are unreliable, memory is weak, and above all the Id is impulsive. It is part of the human experience to seek truth, therefore it is our duty to avoid being tempted into investing emotion and ego into a possible truth before the exercise and uncensored picture is complete.