Choice “There is always a choice.” I will never forget these words, because they were the first, last, and only words a Stargazer ever told me, six months ago. Niquan received two choices for her sentence: to accept being marked as a Grounded and leave Avos in exile, or to attempt her rite of Ascension to prove her faith and love for Kluex. I hate Stargazer Tohil. I hate him with all of my bones and feathers, but I respect him nonetheless and I find truth in his words. No matter what has happened to you, you always have a choice. It may be a difficult choice, it may be a choice that leads to two bad outcomes, or it may be a choice thrust upon you mercilessly. Or, alternatively, it can be something as simple as choosing to make a text log instead of an audio log to practice your typing because your adopted son wants you to learn. Regardless, it is a choice you can make. Katune fell by Max’s choices. He came to me for advice, Sunborn only knows why me of all sapients out there. I offered him two opportunities: to learn to lead by respect, or to continue to lead by fear. He attempted to lead by respect but fell into his old habits once again. I had a choice to continue to try to help him or to abandon him altogether. I stuck with him several times until he proved far too damaging for us all. Katune was falling. Everyone knew that already. Dexter’s Gardens used to be a hideout for us Grounded. It would be a proper place for us to grow and expand while keeping the location a secret. The Warren was underground in an arid planet that would make expansion difficult, and as such was hardly appropriate, hence our moving. Max’s choice to bring in people to the Gardens instead of to Katune led to its location be compromised. I thought I had no to abandon it, but with Katune quickly falling, I realized there was actually something I could do. My friends and I would no longer hide. We would take to the Gardens and plant our talons there. We would no longer be akin to mice, but be akin to dragons. With that, we opened up, made our presence known. We accepted refugees who no longer wished to live in Katune. We started to expand, we started to look for investors and potential buyers, and with that, I have become colony owner of Dexter’s Gardens. Max chose to become a feared leader. I choose to become a respected leader. He came to me a few days ago. First, he demanded I return “the hacker”; in other words Sol, to Katune or there would be consequences. I asked him if he were truly willing to start a war over it, and he said it was not a war if one side is wiped out entirely on the first assault. That is certainly rich coming from someone whose colony was falling faster than an Ascendant during his or her attempt, so I simply told him ‘no’. After that little exchange, he actually had the audacity of trying to bribe me. Give me all of his money and assets to have his home back and living in it. Considering all he’s done, and the fact that he was bold enough to come in brandishing his Floran katana and making demands to me, it looked like an act of incredible childishness of his part. Accepting his offer would in fact solve all of our money problems… but I refused. It would mean to lose the respect of everyone who is counting on me to make Dexter’s Gardens what Katune was not. Respect comes with a price, and I choose to have my peers respect me over recieving that Glitch's money. Max has proven to be far too unreliable and volatile, and his loyalty is questionable. Lastly, he actually said I have no chance against the Flightless and that I have no allies other than the USAF. The nerve. I had a talk with Stab-Dancer just the other day and confirmed our goals are aligned still, in particular when it comes to the Flightless, and of course with Dionaea comes the Knights of Ill Omen. We just established a trade route with Uwajima as well. Max is a reminder to me. I must tread carefully now that I am a colony owner so that I may always be respected instead of feared, and that I may never take the wrong path as he has, or I will end up like him. Hated, mistrusted, and in his record a colony that fell due to his own deeds and mismanagement. There is always a choice. And I choose to be a leader others can place their trust upon. - Glauen Moonseeker.
Devi Yesterday was a difficult day. Devi has been a problem since our very first day in the gardens. Without asking for any permission, she took the nearest mountain, claimed it for herself, and started to build a bunker. A plucking bunker. In our rural farming colony. In the nearest mountain. Sunborn help me. Alo and I tried to reason with her. We really did. We tried to be stern, we tried to be soothing, we tried to be rational. I eventually pointed out how building a bunker at the top of the nearest mountain actually made her a prime target for a thief or kidnapper to swoop in and demand her non-existant valuables. When they eventually find out she has nothing... well, they would not be happy. She did not care. At all. Nothing we said made her change her mind. Nothing. She eventually found out about Max's underground laboratory for hazardous material... somehow. She wanted to build an elevator shaft down from bunker to access it. I told her not to. I told her there was no reason for it, she was not a researcher, and for all that was good and holy I wanted to forget Max ever built that thing. She didn't care. She said she wanted it, acting once again irrational about her desires. I should have caved in that laboratory right there and then. She ran out of money mid-way through. Her lack of foresight gave me hope, and I told Luke to let her live in his home, seeing as the bunker was still exposed to the elements. Perhaps a nice wooden home and a warm bed would comfort her and make her forget her ridiculous plan altogether, especially when she had run out of money. To my horror, she once again went behind my back and sold Max's home back to him. She did not own it - it was Luke's. Max had been exiled altogether and I had done all in my power to keep him from living here once more. She conned him out of his money, and why? To finish construction on that plucking bunker. I was too full of other things to worry about it, however, and Alo was in charge of internal affairs nonetheless. However, Luke called me and hoped to speak to me. About Devi. My heart dropped. She cemented Luke's entrance to Max's cave and built her elevator shaft. The only way to access the cave was from her bunker. And she did it all behind my back. Again. She apologized to me again and again, but didn't want me to close the access to the cave. Naturally, for she finally had all she wanted. She had her bunker, she had her private cave, and got her money out of conning someone else. Sunborn have mercy on my soul. I took my crystal tech bow and brought it to her bunker. I fired one crystal arrow at the shaft, ruining it. Of course she could have it fixed, but it was symbolic. She had crossed the line far too many times in far too little time. I planned to blow up the base of the shaft with C4 later with the help from Cygnus, but she finally snapped. I didn't care. Had it been anyone else she would have been exiled a long time ago. I let her get away with most of it because of who she was, and the fact that she was a survivor from that Grounded village, but when she was building the bunker she told me to stop treating her like a child. Very well, then. She drew her tazer on me. I didn't care, I had done what I wanted to do. I left. I had to get my mind out of things. I went to the fishing hole. It is the one place no-one bothers me - I don't even put any lure into the hook and just toss the line into the water to indicate I am not to be bothered. Well, Luke and Sarah came by asking for permission to arrest her. Permission why? They are security. They should not feel the need to ask anyone permission for an arrest. Alo came back and told me Devi was leaving. I write this mostly to convince myself that my actions were justified. Max, in a fit of rage, burned Alo's tapestries. I, in a fit of rage, destroyed Devi's elevator shaft. No, it wasn't correct of my part, but I had endured her antics for far too long. I must be ever-vigilant from here on out. Perhaps... perhaps it is for the best. I don't have a heart to exile her, in spite of everything. I am worried sick about her, however; there is clearly something wrong with her state of mind, but in the end she went behind my back far too many times, far too often. Her behavior is unexcusable. If she were to return... Kluex I would accept her back, on the condition she live in a normal wood and brick home and never again go behind my back. But perhaps it is too late. Sunborn have mercy on my soul.
Money and Influence It always boils down to money, in the end. Our income comes from our farmers primarily, and secondarily from the bar, the inn and our carpenters. We need to provide housings to the workers here, so they are more inclined to live with us and help our income; after all nobody wants to spend a chunk of their money on fuel to travel between their home and their workplace. So we need to spend our money on housings first, so we can increase our funding, so we have more money to spend on other things such as expanding our healing room, Twitch's irrigation system or other entertainment units. It is a sad state of affairs, but we have little money as it is, particularly after we lost forty thousand pixels to Alo's ransom. Said ransom could have gone better, but it could also have gone a lot worse. Alo is fine if with a broken arm, Juubei is wounded but alive, and me and Ziggy escaped mostly unscathed. The exchange mostly went well... the problem was we chose Sundew Station as the location - a lawless bar full of mercenaries and other unsavory types. Juubei did not want to stun the perp and leave him alive, and chose to kill him right after the exchange. The gunshots attracted a mercenary who said he would sell his services to whomever paid the most. Juubei's life on the line, he had no choice but to offer all the pixels in the bag. I do not blame him, and I wouldn't do it any different myself... except I would have requested us do the exchange someplace else. We need to expand. We need more homes and we need more gardens. Still... while we are limited by money, but our greatest asset is still influence. We don't have the greatest military, we don't have incredible assets, we don't have grand technology. What we have... is simply very good standings with most of the major factions and settlements. USAF, Uwajima, and New Tetanus in particular, let alone all the minor settlements and cottages asking for fresh produce. Besides, attacking us would be a despicable act. We have little money, we mostly work to sustain the rest of Antares. If Dexter's Gardens should be raided and fall... we will have to rely on small farmers in small settlements once again, and their supplies are horrendously inconsistent. Greg is working right now on New Tetanus. I still don't understand naming the place over a disease even if the name has some history, but I like the ideals behind the settlement. He showed me around and we struck some trade agreements, as well as the meeting room. He said we should call all the faction leaders for meetings whenever needed. It gives him the home advantage, of course, but I can hardly give the same security measures in the Gardens. I suppose there is a lot to discuss still. I had been weighing it over, but a few USAF soldiers have given me hope that the marines do in fact have competent soldiers amongst them. We struck an agreement - our crops for their protection. They are allowed to do operations in our grounds and use lethal force without permits. It should help bolster our security that way. I actually had an amicable conversation with Joshua the other day after he was saved by Ziggy, Tenshi and one of his own marines. Looks like Ziggy and Tenshi were instrumental; a good example of how our own security force can handle our affairs. Let's see... Everything else is on a more personal matter. I don't want to bog this journal with my personal life, now. Even if it is to my eyes only, I want to focus on the more pressing matters of the colony. And learn to type. Kallah would be proud of his adoptive father.
