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Return to Oz
Jun. 15th, 2010 07:26 pmOur parents' histories say that they fell upon us like shadows in the dark. The stories told — for there are no surviving written records of the encounters — say that they came upon us and demanded land, resources, and finally, when we gave them all we could, our obedience. The elders speak in low voices and look around them with darting, furtive eyes, and say that the Others came in advanced ships with advanced technology and never gave humanity a chance. They say that the enemy destroyed much of the planet in anger before forcing us to become their chattel.
This I have seen with my own eyes: in the middle of the Amazon, there is a trail — a scar — that cuts across the rainforest, where the land is absolutely barren. The greenery flourishes on both sides, rising above the dead land like the parted waters of an olden sea, but it never comes together to close the gaping wound. It is a sign of their power, a testament to their victory. When it rains, the ground absorbs the water far more quickly than it should; when the seeds fall over an unmarked line, they shrivel and die, never to sprout. No animal ever crosses the barren divide, a place where we may never learn to reverse their actions, where nothing looks as though it will ever grow again.
But the stories told exist to do more than inform us of places where they first walked across our land, leaving death in their wake. They sustain the resistance and feed the flames of anger that keep our will to fight alive; they nourish the youth that never knew anything but the occupation, and they create dreams of a time when we still controlled our own destinies. It is a powerful need, that one; our stories from before the time of Them are filled with myths and legends of those that break free from oppression and fight for freedom at any cost.
But much like all myths and legends — and absolutely true of all propaganda — the stories we are told of the first war are not the absolute truth.
-
The shallow mischaracterizations and deeper lies had always been there, but a man dying of thirst in the desert does not care if the cup that gives him water is cracked. Our thirst was for vindication of our wrongs and a promise of a different future, and so we eagerly ate up all the stories that quenched that deep belief. As children, we were raised seeing the hatred that our parents directed at the 'official' speeches on the television — they had assumed leadership positions as the human governments more or less collapsed under their own impotence, and from time to time, broadcast messages about peace and certainty, along with making general policy changes. We ate up every story about how we were wronged, and most especially about how our armies had attempted to fight damned cowards that never engaged us on the field of battle.
But the truth has a way of asserting itself, and from time to time, there would be an incongruities in the diatribes against the occupation. One of the adults would mutter, "It all started with the Tarkin incident," and there would be muted agreement, a grudging acceptance of a statement that differed greatly from the righteous anger that the other stories instilled. The elders, when pressed with questions on why the Others took over but never annihilated us, could never give any reasons — though they speculated, of course, that they wanted to 'play with' us, establish us as their slaves, or more malignant or nefarious reasons. Some answers were so flimsy the questions became quietly discouraged: why they had chosen to give us medical technology that lead to a better quality of life all over the world, for example, was explained by their wanting to keep around as many of us as possible to 'experiment with'.
"They're controlling everything, isn't that bad enough?!" was common the rejoinder to someone that asked too many questions about the past. And if that didn't do it, the ugly accusation of being a traitor was enough to discourage even the most curious from peering behind the curtain. But as time went by, it became more and more obvious that there was something ugly behind it, and myths and legends were no longer enough to sustain us. Or perhaps, more bluntly, lies and propaganda will never outlive the desire for truth.
The Others simply watched as the curious started to unearth the past and properly judge the future.
-
Twenty years after their victory, there was a study published by the census organizations of various world countries, all over the world. It showed that on average, lifespans were longer, people earned more, and violence was down. In every single quantitative measurement, people were doing better than they were before the Others had come down.
The only negative finding was this: people were more unhappy. They lived longer, were more successful in their endeavors, and learned more than any generation before them; they were healthier and better read, they were less violent and more skilled... and they were, without a doubt, more dissatisfied.
The Others had come in and changed a handful of policies in a handful of places and brought what would have been judged before their coming as amazing achievements, ones that presidents and kings could not imagine doing in centuries of power. They had brought peace, prosperity, and health to millions that would not have seen it.
And in the end, they were hated for it.
This I have seen with my own eyes: in the middle of the Amazon, there is a trail — a scar — that cuts across the rainforest, where the land is absolutely barren. The greenery flourishes on both sides, rising above the dead land like the parted waters of an olden sea, but it never comes together to close the gaping wound. It is a sign of their power, a testament to their victory. When it rains, the ground absorbs the water far more quickly than it should; when the seeds fall over an unmarked line, they shrivel and die, never to sprout. No animal ever crosses the barren divide, a place where we may never learn to reverse their actions, where nothing looks as though it will ever grow again.
But the stories told exist to do more than inform us of places where they first walked across our land, leaving death in their wake. They sustain the resistance and feed the flames of anger that keep our will to fight alive; they nourish the youth that never knew anything but the occupation, and they create dreams of a time when we still controlled our own destinies. It is a powerful need, that one; our stories from before the time of Them are filled with myths and legends of those that break free from oppression and fight for freedom at any cost.
But much like all myths and legends — and absolutely true of all propaganda — the stories we are told of the first war are not the absolute truth.
-
But the truth has a way of asserting itself, and from time to time, there would be an incongruities in the diatribes against the occupation. One of the adults would mutter, "It all started with the Tarkin incident," and there would be muted agreement, a grudging acceptance of a statement that differed greatly from the righteous anger that the other stories instilled. The elders, when pressed with questions on why the Others took over but never annihilated us, could never give any reasons — though they speculated, of course, that they wanted to 'play with' us, establish us as their slaves, or more malignant or nefarious reasons. Some answers were so flimsy the questions became quietly discouraged: why they had chosen to give us medical technology that lead to a better quality of life all over the world, for example, was explained by their wanting to keep around as many of us as possible to 'experiment with'.
"They're controlling everything, isn't that bad enough?!" was common the rejoinder to someone that asked too many questions about the past. And if that didn't do it, the ugly accusation of being a traitor was enough to discourage even the most curious from peering behind the curtain. But as time went by, it became more and more obvious that there was something ugly behind it, and myths and legends were no longer enough to sustain us. Or perhaps, more bluntly, lies and propaganda will never outlive the desire for truth.
The Others simply watched as the curious started to unearth the past and properly judge the future.
-
Twenty years after their victory, there was a study published by the census organizations of various world countries, all over the world. It showed that on average, lifespans were longer, people earned more, and violence was down. In every single quantitative measurement, people were doing better than they were before the Others had come down.
The only negative finding was this: people were more unhappy. They lived longer, were more successful in their endeavors, and learned more than any generation before them; they were healthier and better read, they were less violent and more skilled... and they were, without a doubt, more dissatisfied.
The Others had come in and changed a handful of policies in a handful of places and brought what would have been judged before their coming as amazing achievements, ones that presidents and kings could not imagine doing in centuries of power. They had brought peace, prosperity, and health to millions that would not have seen it.
And in the end, they were hated for it.
