- Location
- Tamaki Makaurau
Our history was destroyed in the Unpleasantness. We are a people without roots; tumbleweed in the wreckage of this land. We grieved, and then our grief became the piece of grit around which our new culture has begun - gradually - to accrete.
In Moon 256, we found a disc. It was scratched, caked in mud and pecked to buggery by swallows, but it shone and glistened - even when there was hardly any light to reflect. First we thought it was magic, then we thought it was a sort of jewellery, and then we thought it was a metaphorical construct representing the idea that our new society, however tarnished, could still reflect the inherent glories of the Universe. But we knew that it had been made before the Unpleasantness, by people who knew more than we would forget in a lifetime.
Eventually, our technicians, working day and night for dozens upon dozens of Moons, managed to crack the code of the tiny, microscopic markings inscribed upon the grooves of the disc. Discovering that there was a coded message at all was enough of a breakthrough to inspire no fewer than four different religions, each claiming that the message was from some deity and that they knew what the message was. In three of those cases, the purported message involved killing a specific category of person - the fourth religion soon joined suit when they realised that they were the specific category, and the Lovelian Church was therefore Reformed to be mainly about genocide.
As it transpired, the message was from no deity - not one of the four hypothesised deities, at any rate. The two surviving religions merged together upon the Revelation of the Translation in order to worship the one called 'Uhura's Mazda', but they died of their wounds fairly quickly. The message was no religious commandment; it was much more precious than that. All that could be deciphered between the cracks and the scratches was - well, it was a fragment of the history we had lost so many Moons before.
You may read our history now. I, the Guardian of the History, read it every day and weep for what we have lost, for I am the oldest man we know of. Born before the Unpleasantness, my mind was warped by it and I lost all the history I had in my head. To read the message of the Disc is to meet an old friend upon the road and almost - but not quite - recognise him. You do not know my friend, but I shall introduce you to him, and I hope that you will feel, as I do, the precious, tenuous, lithe link with our forgotten past.
List of Prime Ministers of the Punited Kingdom
1945-1951: @Lee Danes (Labour)
1951-1955: Snowball Directline (Conservative)
1955-1957: Tony Paradise (Conservative)
1957-1963: Godwin Randomhouse (Conservative)
1963-1964: Guinness Donald-Roem (Conservative)
1964-1970: William Volleyball (Labour)
1970-1974: Paddington Moorland (Conservative)
1974-1976: William Volleyball (Labour)
1976-1979: The Other Jim Callaghan (Labour)
1979-1990: Marge Straw (Conservative)
1990-1997: Big Jack (Conservative)
1997-2007: Lionel Broadway (Labour)
There were footnotes, but they were so damaged that all we can make out is that Prime Minister Randomhouse enacted Godwin's Law, a piece of legislation that allowed the Government of the day to pass any Bill without a vote. The Law was triggered whenever a member of the Opposition made a spurious comparison to Nazi Germany. Our analysts have spent many Moons arguing over what any of this might actually mean. But to no avail.
This is all we have of our story. And although I am very conscious that I have dedicated my life to protecting such a tiny relic... fundamentally, I can think of no more worthy or useful way to spend a life.
In Moon 256, we found a disc. It was scratched, caked in mud and pecked to buggery by swallows, but it shone and glistened - even when there was hardly any light to reflect. First we thought it was magic, then we thought it was a sort of jewellery, and then we thought it was a metaphorical construct representing the idea that our new society, however tarnished, could still reflect the inherent glories of the Universe. But we knew that it had been made before the Unpleasantness, by people who knew more than we would forget in a lifetime.
Eventually, our technicians, working day and night for dozens upon dozens of Moons, managed to crack the code of the tiny, microscopic markings inscribed upon the grooves of the disc. Discovering that there was a coded message at all was enough of a breakthrough to inspire no fewer than four different religions, each claiming that the message was from some deity and that they knew what the message was. In three of those cases, the purported message involved killing a specific category of person - the fourth religion soon joined suit when they realised that they were the specific category, and the Lovelian Church was therefore Reformed to be mainly about genocide.
As it transpired, the message was from no deity - not one of the four hypothesised deities, at any rate. The two surviving religions merged together upon the Revelation of the Translation in order to worship the one called 'Uhura's Mazda', but they died of their wounds fairly quickly. The message was no religious commandment; it was much more precious than that. All that could be deciphered between the cracks and the scratches was - well, it was a fragment of the history we had lost so many Moons before.
You may read our history now. I, the Guardian of the History, read it every day and weep for what we have lost, for I am the oldest man we know of. Born before the Unpleasantness, my mind was warped by it and I lost all the history I had in my head. To read the message of the Disc is to meet an old friend upon the road and almost - but not quite - recognise him. You do not know my friend, but I shall introduce you to him, and I hope that you will feel, as I do, the precious, tenuous, lithe link with our forgotten past.
List of Prime Ministers of the Punited Kingdom
1945-1951: @Lee Danes (Labour)
1951-1955: Snowball Directline (Conservative)
1955-1957: Tony Paradise (Conservative)
1957-1963: Godwin Randomhouse (Conservative)
1963-1964: Guinness Donald-Roem (Conservative)
1964-1970: William Volleyball (Labour)
1970-1974: Paddington Moorland (Conservative)
1974-1976: William Volleyball (Labour)
1976-1979: The Other Jim Callaghan (Labour)
1979-1990: Marge Straw (Conservative)
1990-1997: Big Jack (Conservative)
1997-2007: Lionel Broadway (Labour)
There were footnotes, but they were so damaged that all we can make out is that Prime Minister Randomhouse enacted Godwin's Law, a piece of legislation that allowed the Government of the day to pass any Bill without a vote. The Law was triggered whenever a member of the Opposition made a spurious comparison to Nazi Germany. Our analysts have spent many Moons arguing over what any of this might actually mean. But to no avail.
This is all we have of our story. And although I am very conscious that I have dedicated my life to protecting such a tiny relic... fundamentally, I can think of no more worthy or useful way to spend a life.
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