The Earth-That-Was got used up.

Five hundred years agone, the great powers took their people - and a few million close personal friends - and took to the sky to escape their mistakes.

But you can't get away from being human. No sooner do we have a new home - a hundred fresh new worlds with room for everyone - but we've got the privileged few living high and mighty on the nice planets in the Core and everyone else scratching out what living they can manage on the Outer Rim's dirt.

Six years back, the Core decided to share their culture - and their Law - with the Rim. And 'cause the Rim were happy enough as they were, they gave a war, and everyone came.

Independent or Alliance, we all fought, like it or not; tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, we were drawn into the Great War. We had all our noble reasons, but nobody was innocent. Even if they had been before, ain't nobody came out of that holocaust unscathed. Folks always have the most beautiful reasoning for their most horrifying crimes.

But end it did, and life went on, except for them that died. Life went on for those that stayed walking, even though they'd died inside.

Now we're all supposed to just forgive and forget. Well, forgiving is easy enough, but forgetting...?

Some of us are out here just hoping we can lose ourselves in the black, forget ... and rest.

...but you can't get away from being human.

-- Dr. Marion Call