Eros Endures Though Eros is Gone

I bid you welcome, my brothers and sisters;

Look around and mark how many have come.

It would be heartening to a heart unburned,

So great a gathering of our own shunned.

For any who yet know nothing but the hate

Which has become the fact of us, let me here

Explain briefly how it came to such a state

And what cause drove me summon you all near.

Our world, Eros, was attacked by pirates,

These were but hirelings of Hall & Sons;

A number of them confessed, shrieking, to us

They came pillaging for Hall's money... and fun.

They burned homes, hospitals, water treatment plants,

Trams and space-ports, the mines and the factories;

Devastating Eros as an asset

For their rival, June-Corp, that was the scheme.

And soon the founders and owners of Eros

Judged it was improvidential to remain;

But before they left, their doctors poisoned us,

They thought to make an army of the insane.

You know what came next, you've all known the rage,

You've felt little else for a score of weeks.

June-Corp made us wrathful beasts in a thin cage;

You hate me as I hate you whilst here I speak.

They intended that our hate should destroy

All which Hall and Sons would come to acquire,

Including ourselves, but our choices annoy

Their schemes, for we do not choose to expire.

For a time our minds knew nothing but hate

And rage and the will to tear all things apart,

But heeding the urge does nothing to abate

Its tenacity; now darkly burn our hearts.

I took no joy from the violence I craved,

The bodies at my feet did not satisfy,

I feel no grief, though my own wife I've slain,

Her face does not tarry behind my closed eyes.

But our wits are not burned away with our souls,

We recognized our hate was unnatural,

Knowledge fostered our choice to slip its hold,

By force of will we can act peaceable.

Now wrathful monsters who once were human

Have gathered here, as common sense insists;

There's work to do and evil plots to spurn

And engineered depravity to resist.

What was done to us must not be repeated,

Humanity should not suffer such a plague,

Others must be mortified in our stead

A demonstration to all worlds must be made.

When the coming scouts come to survey their prize,

We'll take their ship, their lives and their transmitters

And send through the stars a horrid surprise;

We'll show the best and worst of what's left of us.

Above all, the truth they shall discover,

Soulful people may behold the evil.

If I could, I'd hope their rage needs no stir,

Such as was forced upon Eros' people.