ReDawn (Skyward, #2.2)

by Brandon Sanderson

“At least people are still flying our flag,” I grumbled. “Yes,” Rinakin said. “But most of them have forgotten this is more than a sport.” “They remembered when they cast lots in the last Council balancing.” “That too is a sport,” Rinakin said. “They vote for their team, and some switch sides when their current team is losing.” He was right, depressing as that was. Even most of my own family had switched sides in the balancing, voting for Unity instead of Independence. “But that doesn’t make any sense. If enough people change their votes it causes the other team to lose.” Rinakin’s bone ridges arched. “That’s politics,” he said.

“We call ourselves Unity and Independence, but we all enjoy the benefits of both freedom and peace. The real enemies are those who seek to divide ReDawn, who threaten our peace, who put the prosperity of all denizens in jeopardy.” Unity was always calling us divisive for disagreeing, as if they weren’t doing the same by disagreeing with us. But of course, as they liked to say, the opposite of division was Unity. As if their choice of a name left us no other option but to fall in line with them. “She called us the enemy,” I said. “How exactly is that apolitical?” “That’s why I argued against this in the last session,” Rinakin said. “Who is to determine what is ‘overt’ and what is not?”

“Progress for ReDawn!” Nanalis declared. “May her enemies be swiftly silenced for the good of us all.” Hairs rose on the back of my neck as voices sang out from all around the stadium, joining in a great rumbling chorus. They were cheering for pretty words that would destroy us. Progress for ReDawn. It was what we all wanted, of course. But some of us thought it mattered what we were progressing toward.

A prisoner could be convinced that they lived in a paradise, if the prison was pretty enough.

“They think we are working with the humans,” Rinakin said. “And now they’ve issued an ultimatum. Turn over the fugitives—” “Or they will very politely destroy us,” I said. “Which isn’t aggressive at all, I’m sure.” “They’ll justify it,” Rinakin said. They justified everything. And more than half of my people would parrot the justification as if it made sense, simply because the Superiority said it.

There was nothing quite so frustrating as soft words being wielded like clubs. At least a straightforward attack was honest; everyone could see it for what it was.

Unity tried to suppress the history, but I’d read the books Rinakin had on the subject.

“Some forces can’t be reasoned with,” I said. “They can only be opposed.”

I looked down at the table. These people had been on the front lines, fighting people who wanted them dead. Our squabbles on ReDawn must look so easy to them by comparison. “I’m not trying to compare our situations,” I said carefully. “But the Superiority keeps us all in cages of different kinds. They control us and call it peace, but it isn’t peace when we don’t have a choice.”

I liked the way he thought about things. The fact that he did think about them, while so many people on both his planet and mine were willing to swallow the easy story without worrying about whether it was a true one.