maskormenace | 7th Oration // Video

[The opening shot is exactly the same as Dooku's interrupted last post. Same bookshelf, same lighting, same Count Dooku casually brushing some dust off his shoulder as he addresses the camera in his deep voice. It is as though he is continuing the previous post without missing a beat, refusing to be disrupted by the Porter, which is exactly the impression he wants to convey.]

Now then. As I was saying, before I was so rudely interrupted...

[Something is subtly different now, though. There's a touch of strain in the Count's smooth voice that wasn't there before, a note of tension in his face and the way he carries his body. Nonetheless, he carries on as though nothing has changed.]

It appears that the Porter's vengeance against imPort inquiries has ended, for now. But do not make the mistake of thinking that we are now safe. We remain bound by mysterious and cruel entities.

Many of us wish to be sent home. But at the same time, how many of us fear to be Ported out at any moment? Hurled away from our lives here and the friends we have made, sent back to the grim fate that may await us: conflict and humiliation, betrayal and death?

[Dooku's voice rises a bit on those last two words. He maaaaay be projecting a little here. He takes a breath.]

So let me ask you this: what does freedom mean to you, my friends? What is the heart of that word? Is it choice? Is it the ability to command your own life? If so, can we truly be called free today?

A new year is about to begin, with new challenges and opportunities. I urge you all to think carefully about what freedom means to you... and how you will seek to achieve it as we move into the future.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Precisely.

['Impossible' is a word for little people. Not Sith Lords.]

Great. I can't see how that could possibly go wrong.

[Dooku spreads his hands.]

The way things are proceeding now can hardly be called 'right', now can it? We must be willing to choose between different forms of trial we will face. One offers only more of the same, but the other may hold the promise of progress and change.

Some of us are only alive because Lachesis wants us that way. We were fine until imPorts decided to go fuck with shit.

I am fully aware that many of us live only by the grace of the Porter. But are they truly fine? Or are they only living on borrowed time, that could be taken away in the blink of an eye by the same machine that granted it?

Living on borrowed time doesn't mean we'd rather cut that time shorter by disturbing the beast. If Lachesis favors us, then pissing her off should be the last thing we'd want to do.

I sense great fear in your words. Do you imagine that Lachesis will spare you or your friends their ultimate fate because you allow her to intimidate you into accepting her will?

A contrario, I'm afraid some well-meaning idiot will fuck things up and set us off the course of our collective destiny. There are people who've put a lot of work into dying at the right moment, in the right place.

[The Count wrinkles his nose slightly, not entirely hiding his confusion.]

Far be it for me to interfere with anyone's plans for a... proper death. But I would say that many more of us have put great work into living in means and places of our own choosing, and on our own terms.

Not a proper death. An essential one.

[Several, really.]

And it looks like you think you've got a right to make the decision for the rest of us. Doesn't really make me feel free, does it? Though, granted, you wouldn't be the first to use the word "freedom" when you really meant "opportunism".

The chance to write your own fate, huh. People think that's talking about the future. But fate always is, always was. Thread's a good metaphor because it starts to unravel if you mess with it too much. Are you following me? When you imagine freedom from fate, you might as well imagine freedom from gravity. Everything will go in every fucking direction.

And you would not be the first to equate freedom with chaos.

Thinks of this, my young friend: there was a time long, long ago when it would be unheard-of for a human to reach my advanced years. [He holds up a wrinkled hand as though to illustrate that yes, he is quite old.] It might have been considered 'fate' that my health would have failed and my life faded decades ago. Yet now here I am, thanks to the wisdom of those who challenged that boundary and expanded their knowledge: alive and strong.

We stretch the boundaries of gravity every day, when we fly through the air in technology we created. In my Galaxy, we even fly beyond the gravity of planets to travel between the stars. So it is with fate. We cannot allow doubt to rob us of the chance to truly soar.

That's a lie. You fly because of gravity, not in spite of it. The creation and execution of all that technology depends on it. You can't even imagine what the universe would be without it. Or whether the universe would be at all.

I can't blame anyone for trying to change the course of history. I'd be a huge fucking hypocrite to condemn anyone for altering the past. But time isn't the same thing as fate.

I find your views on aviation science... troubling. But I did not make this address to discuss the finer points of starship engineering.

Consider this, instead: we agree that time is not fate. Do you believe that Lachesis is truly fate, rather than a particularly powerful and irresponsible entity?

[If Dooku is suggesting that the laws of physics aren't fundamental to non-magic-based flight or that life itself could have survived without gravity then Ronan's got nothing. Also, he doesn't really care.]

She's provided some compelling evidence in bringing us here, don't you think?

[Someone who can shoot lightning from their hands by thinking really hard about how angry they are is always going to have a strained relationship with little stuff like 'the laws of physics.']

She has demonstrated she has the strength to defy space and time, certainly. But a hyperspace drive can display similar traits, and I will hardly submit my life to a starship engine.

However powerful Lachesis is, I believe she does not represent some irresistible will of the cosmos.

Oh, well, as long as you don't believe it, that's totally worth risking our entire existence.

I am hardly alone in my views. And I question whether anyone's sense of safety is worth abandoning hopes of freedom.

7th Oration // Video

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