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Dear Misraaks,

With my own proper ireliis,

What if the Traveler abandoned you out of mercy? To give you a chance?

I won't pretend to understand what your people experienced during the Whirlwind. Nor do I ask
you to measure your pain against ours. I only mean this:

We know no Human settlements beyond this system. We are surrounded by Darkness, trapped
at the center of a cosmic war. The Traveler's presence draws the attention of every great power in
our galaxy and beyond. It protected us and gave us the Light, but in doing so, it doomed us to war
against its enemies.

There is a very good chance humanity will go extinct here.

But there are Eliksni who survived the Whirlwind. There are Eliksni alive around other stars:
alone and small in a dangerous universe, but free of any obligation to the Traveler. I believe that
the Traveler despises coercion. I believe it would not force the responsibility of defending it upon
one of its chosen species unless it had no other choice.

(Why then does it choose species to uplift in the first place? Why doom Eliksni or Humans to a
confrontation with Darkness? Perhaps it will not let the Darkness coerce it into abandoning its
purpose. Perhaps it doesn't value longevity the way we do; maybe it values a short, bright existence
more than a long, ordinary one. I don't know.)

When the Traveler left Riis, it gave your people a choice. Some chose to follow the Traveler. Some chose to go make new lives.

And you–you chose to stand with us against the night.

Ikora Rey


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