Speaker Five's Dilemma

① To start: The last truly enlightened being to join us ascended two hundred years past. Why is this? Do your worlds not stimulate the collective unconscious? Perhaps you have mistaken such a concept for that of instinct? We like to think that if you avoid the most obvious decisions then others will present themselves. No hero worth the name reacts without thinking - we call those beings animals.

② No-one writes sagas anymore. Cameras are too resentful to capture a hero's greatest moments - they're here to hold them liable. If you can't force your way into the history books - and let's face it, plead to our jury of self-loathing, post-barbaric revisionists and anti-intellectual iconoclasts, there's no room left for the names of anyone who can't kick a ball - then it's time for a more insidious approach.

⑨ Register scorn for speaker two; your race is too closely scrutinized for any subterfuge.

③ In any case, subtlety achieves little. Tragedy captivates us more than benevolence, so each of us will dare to be that little bit more reckless than the other and, through neglect, we'll participate in a grim roulette in hope of acquiring notoriety even of a regrettable nature. Performance, philosophy and science will be measured on the Richter scale and names carried and repeated by the human resonance will summon the apocalyptic riders one by one -

① Register scorn for speaker three; such rhetoric is not welcome in our council of peers. Secondly, remain anonymous. Thirdly, what of virtue?

④ Redefined as a regrettable trait. All possible opinions on the twin moons are aligned with a certain cause. Virtues have been evenly spread between them; now no-one can argue on behalf of true altruism.

② All you do is qualify the opinions of the unqualified. Spread the idea of muted fate and you won't be required to manage all sides of a debate.

① Your methods are oppressive, yet is it not true that we came to hold our positions thanks to our morality?

⑨ Register scorn for speaker one.

① I restate.

⑨ Scorn. You know that morality is a fable of guidelines, flimsy when met with temptation. All planets have replaced this inefficiency with a system of hard mental blocks. We can rely on these ineffable directives more than we can on your code of honour.

③ Attest.

⑤ The next to sublimate into our company will be one of your animals, speaker one, and to refer to one so is an underestimation of the power such a focused mind will bring to the cogence.

⑦ Not so fast, speaker five. You presume that one of your clones will bring benefit to the table when we already have one such advocate of mindlessness among us -

⑤ Scorn. Would that a battery drone replace your ego -

⑨ Cease.

④ Truly the twins are a fruitless experiment now that we know that all sublimations occur thanks to the agitation and bombardment of the psyche. The very idea that a race in full compliance and agreement could evolve into anything but an ants' nest is -

⑥ + ⑧ Ridiculous. And unsubstantiated by any research.

① Yet no-one is closer to achieving the harmony which a planetary awakening demands. Speaker seven, my hope rests in your success - tell us about your progress.

⑦ My world is young and its people are pioneers; each race reaches out to meet its neighbours. Soon a mutual network will be formed and the planet will work towards a noble goal. All this is achieved without my personal meddling, thanks to the basic spirit and health of my planet. You who cultivate negatively and deny the basic vitamin of ascendency will be harshly rewarded, no matter how cruelly you wield your powers.

① Attest.

④ Most naive speaker, the people of your planet are not of one blood; if you wish for success you will instigate a war between the landwalking races. Co-operation will occur in no other way.

⑦ Oh, idiot war god, embittered by the ignominy of the pit, do your wounds ache still, addling your mind?

⑨ Register scorn for speaker seven; value the experiences of your peers.

⑥ + ⑧ Symbiosis has been known to arise between races. We would have undoubtedly succeeded in this task were we to have been blessed with better circumstances; as it is, our world seems to be doomed to destruction before any can escape.

⑦ Sweet sisters, your humility never fails to charm. My companion angels mean to say that speaker three's expansionism has denied them the chance to unfurl their wings.

③ Ha! Ha! Ha! You share your precious planet so well that I inferred the invitation. Besides, you loathe the land and that's all we have mined. Of course, it is to be regretted that the core of your planet has become so unstable, but I will save your sweet race - I invite you all to inhabit our orbitals made of the materials we have come to possess thanks to your welcome embrace of the drill. It is the least I can do.

⑥ + ⑧ Register scorn for speaker three thanks to her unforgivable arrogance. We speak for our unity when we say that we would rather die than breathe of enslavement.

① Attest to your sentiments and regret for your predicament.

⑦ Likewise, sisters. Know that I intend to intervene -

⑨ Challenge.

⑦ Proceed, youngest speaker, but you face humiliation.

⑨ Your motives become malicious when you attest to non-intervention before hypocritically moving to damage the aquatic project. Know that the majority of the cogence would dissuade you from pride -

① Register scorn for speaker nine; must you squash the only heroism evident in the council?

⑦ Furthermore you ascribe some false motive to the charity I offer. Please clarify why the actions I intend to perform are malicious.

⑨ Call speaker five.

⑤ All deliberate acts are evil; only instinct is honesty. Also, acts of good will lead to a tragedy just as surely as any declaration of war, evidenced in the luckless periods of speaker two's domain.

② Recognised and adjusted, primitive friend.

⑤ If the goal here is to bring about fulfillment of our heart-forsaken prophecy by introducing a tenth member to the pantheon then we must test our subjects at all times; intervention is fruitless and damaging to our interests. Surely this is transparent to us all.

① Must we not rescue each other in times of concern? Only then do we have the greatest chance of success.

⑨ Register scorn for such fallacious attempts at steering the cogence.

① I restate and note your logical lapse concerning speaker five's argu-

⑨ Add speaker one to the challenge.

[great murmurings]

⑤ Philosophy prevents me from speaking in such a way that contributes to speaker one's removal from the pantheon. It would be an evil act.

⑦ Attest! We agree on more than you suspect, great hunter.

⑨ Then by your abstension my challenge succeeds. Speakers three, six and eight back my vote.

[great murmurings]

⑦ Surely there has been a misunderstanding. I merely supported the beast's honour; you realise that I am forced by protocol to vote against your challenge.

⑨ As lead speaker I support no such protocol. Recommend that you return to prime to associate with your doomed symbiotic race. Take the elder with you; having contributed to his deposition I suspect you owe him a great apology - grant your world to his rulership but know that you both report to me from now on. And silence their channels.

④ Challenge based on the sudden shift of power among the cogence; recommend instead that speakers one and seven be executed.

① Speaker four, have you abandoned the prophecies? And speaker three, do you already crack the aquatic whip? In doing so you have forced the sisters to vote against their own survival - by speaker five's own admission, an evil act! Is this what we have come to? You act to depose God?

⑨ I said silence their channels. Very well, speaker four, execution is best. Now logic is dead, who moves forward with the ascension?

② + ③ Earth does, my dear. We'll pollute the waters we swim, drop by drop, and when we're clothed in layers of filth we'll say we've adapted; surely any mutations that set in at this late stage would be sure to be beneficial, and so, by consensus, we'll approve of our exoskeletal arrogance that shields us from real understanding and, weighing on us so heavily, drags us slowly down into the deep murk.

⑨ And so on to the stars. Attest.