[b]Dolce![/b]

"Civilization has two responses to Biomancy," said 20022, producing another set of beautifully painted powerpoint slides. He was ready for this conversation also. "Apollonian and Dyonisian."

He flipped the first panel, showing the Azura equivalent of the grey aliens, the icesnakes. Theorized to have evolved beneath the frozen oceans of a frozen world by a pre-spaceflight Azura artist, the icesnakes are cute with large yes, dark brown with attractive purple and blue patches, and with massive walrus tusks for cracking ice. There was a family of them, making thinking-emoji expressions.

"Until the discovery of biomancy, civilization is constrained by material possessions. It is an all against all contest between the citizens and nature to produce material possessions. During this period many great works of culture and acts of glory are performed and the gods reward the civilization with blessings and knowledge. One day, at the peak of the civilization's power, they grant it the ultimate secret: the power to create and sculpt life."

20022 flipped the page; it showed the happy icesnakes standing on a hill watching a legion of servitors with pickaxes smilingly proceed towards a mine.

"Suddenly there is no scarcity. Material abundance is conquered. Every individual can, if they choose, become the head of a civilization of their own, dedicated entirely to their own personal pleasure and satisfaction. Higher needs can be solved too; the perfect companions and lovers can be devised, art projects can be worked on a massive scale, an individual can wield a military, grant themselves immortality, clone themselves a trillion times. All of the logic of the old civilization breaks down."

He folded out the leftmost panel. Underneath a violet sun with the eyes of Dionysus' mask the icesnakes are partying, cups overflowing, eyes glassy mirrors. Some are meditating in satisfaction, others are embracing their servitors, others are shapeshifting into increasingly strange forms. The art is beautiful but unpleasant; the subtle implication that this was neither good nor healthy.

"To follow the god Dionysus above all others means to give the former civilization over to the feast," said 20022. "To embrace madness. To fracture from a single organized unit, beloved of the gods, into a trillion tiny tyrannies. Material abundance, infinite pleasure, and boundless love are solvable problems, and trivially so. The civilizations who follow this path, which are most of them, fracture. Collapse. Weaken and wither with nothing to drive them and nothing to unite them. In time they will drive themselves extinct as they drown in pleasure or assimilate into their servitor populations. The wreckage they leave behind can continue, self-sustaining, for many generations."

Then 20022 flipped the other panel; a line of icesnakes forming into the beautiful, sweeping structures of an Azura court, a great pyramidical structure up below a blue sky and radiant sun.

"To follow the god Apollo means rising above hedonism," said 20022. "It means recommitting to the ideals of civilization even in the face of infinite pleasure as a temptation. It means setting a new goal, a higher goal, than mere material abundance. With this new goal in place, the reborn civilization has secured both the love of the gods, a respite from madness, and most importantly [i]moral authority[/i]. Moral authority allows the Apollonian civilization to do the unthinkable - to interfere with, to constrain, and to bind a biomantically ascendant civilization. Where ancient governments would override the will of individuals in the name of the civilizational goal of greater material abundance for all, an Apollonian government can override the will of individuals in the name of a greater and more glorious galaxy. As the Apollonian government has moral authority it can wield techniques that seem regressive and cruel towards its greater end. The resumption of material scarcity has become not an unthinkable crime and civilizational struggle, but an incentive structure to ensure that everyone, from the lowest to the highest, acts in accordance with the virtuous ends of the government's highest vision."

20022 folded the panels down. "This is to say, the whole point of the Endless Azure Skies is to empower its agents to override the individual pleasures and will of its citizens. There are, of course, methods for petition and review; a citizen can demand an investigation be launched into any given decision. But the only way a decision can be assessed as good or ill is with regards to the greater glory of the Endless Azure Skies."

[b]Dyssia![/b]

They are taking the auguries. A rooster is being slaughtered, knife moving swiftly and carefully. Skin and feathers are removed with expert precision, keeping the heart beating. Gloved hands reach into bloody guts and read the future.

"The omens say we must prepare for war," said the oracle.

The bloody wreckage of the rooster collapses. Tiny crabs swarm in all directions, tumbling off the table, burying themselves in the rock.

"War?" said the Captain. "Here? Against [i]who[/i]?" She stopped herself, raised a finger. "Wrong question. When? How many?"

Another rooster is bought out. It is a glorious thing, raised and loved by hand for many years, the champion of many cockfights against its rivals, marked by Mars. Now its death is offered to him. "Hours," said the oracle. This one's death transmutes it into a blooming armful of wheat, heavy with seeds. The oracle sweeps it from the table and lays down the next sacrifice. The knife flashes. A hawk leaps into the sky.

"They are millions."

It is not dismay on the Captain's face.

It is elation.

She takes your hand. Raises it up.

"Dyssia of the Azura!" she yells to her command phalanx. In the distance relays repeat her words down and down through the line. "Has bought us to war!"

Fifty thousand spears clash against fifty thousand shields. A great roar goes out from the assembled legions. Not the howl of Ceron, but a vast cry of challenge. A glorious last stand against impossible odds. They were built for this.