The Slabs: The Revolution Revisited, Part 2

Yesterday, we saw Rome trying to explain the amazing coincidence of Rei's Ark being recovered just as MASAL's plan was nearly complete. Today, I am presenting to you the second half of the conversation showing Rome's complete grasp of the irony:

Rome stifled a laugh. “Poor MASAL, Rei and his people couldn’t have come at a worse time. Just nineteen more years and the bulk of the halfway-intelligent mandasurte would have been gone. The Onsiras would have reached critical mass and taken control. The Vuduri would be helpless by then. But the Ark was on its way to Deucado filled with Essessoni. Not just their physical selves but their ideals. So they had to be destroyed.”
     “And yet they were not,” OMCOM said. “Because of you.”
     “I had help. Remember the Overmind awakened. Before I was introduced, he thought his charter was to suppress the mandasurte and to destroy all the Essessoni with a single blow. That is why he did not attack them at the enclave. He knew that if he flushed them out, he could eliminate them all at once. Failure was not an option. Not one Essessoni could be allowed to survive.”
     “Why?” asked OMCOM. “A few stragglers could not be dangerous.”
     “I do not agree,” Rome countered. “Once the war against the Essessoni was declared, if the Overmind didn’t wipe them out in a single definitive strike, a guerilla war would have begun. Look at Hanry Ta Jihn. He fought against impossible odds against the Erklirte and yet, in the end, his side won. The guerillas always win in the end. Ideals always win.”
     “Also, they did not account for you being on the inside. So I must agree. You already had your ideals and your ideals defeated them.”
     “It was not a defeat,” Rome said. “It was a victory. For sanity.” She sighed as she thought back to the trials that the Vuduri and the various Overminds put her through.
     “Enough reminiscing,” she said, shaking her head. “Let us get on with it.” She inserted the next slab and watched the entire history of mankind before the Great Dying flash by. As she watched the images explode on the screen, she realized the reason the Overmind of Earth suppressed this information. In its own way, it knew that general knowledge was dangerous. Particularly this knowledge.

To be fair, when I wrote Rome's Revolution, I didn't know any of this was going on either. It was until I finished what was then Book 1 of the VIRUS 5 trilogy that the plot became apparent to me, too. I had to lay it out but then I got to review it again with Rome.