Issue 28, Page 27
Transcript
1: Jackson, determined.
Jackson: Okpara,
I swear, we will do everything in our power to fix this, for both of us.
If we share a common interest, then our people don’t need to be enemies.
2: Njeri, impassioned.
Njeri: We can help you, all of you, if you let us.
But for now, there are things we need to know.
We need to know who we can trust in this facility.
And anything you can tell us about how to contain the lunar situation, about the energy lattice, about the origin of us as a species…
3: A shot of all three of them. The two boys lean back. Okpara looks away.
Okpara: You don’t want that…
You don’t want every answer that we have.
4: Her sad, averted eyes.
Okpara: The truth would break your heart, Njeri.
Oh… that… oh, Okpara…
By “that”, do you mean the fact that all (anthro) Earthlings originated from the Black Mass, which I’m pretty sure they (i.e., Jackson, Njeri, Julia, Mellissa, Rhoda, etc., but excluding the general public) already know, or something else?
They know they’re the Black Mass. They don’t know what the Black Mass is though, and I think Okpara does and that’s what she means. I also think I know what the Black Mass is: It’s a tool, like robots are to us. In Lovecraft’s work there’s a group of amorphous beings made of black slime called shoggoths, which were made by the Elder Things to be their slaves.
I think something similar happened here. The dinosaurs created the Black Mass for use as a weapon or to do construction or for use as a building material or all of those things–or something else entirely; the exactly details don’t really matter. No matter what exact purpose it had, the Black Mass eventually became a threat to them. There was a war and the dinosaurs nearly lost, but they sent up satellites to bind it into a single, non-threatening form–the anthros. Meanwhile the Black Mass had already traveled offworld using their gates and now was tearing its way through much of the galaxy. Nearly extinct, the dinosaurs went into hibernation, planning to awake once their existence had faded into legend.
There’s definitely details I’m not getting. My theory doesn’t account for the role of the gods, who I’m sure had their part to play, and what I’ve just laid out is extremely derivative of the shoggoth’s rebellion against the Elder Things. I think Rebecca would modify it just on principle. But I’m betting that I have most of the broad strokes down.
And finding out that you, the Black Mass, were created to be used as slaves by the former dominant species on the planet would be a lot more existentially horrifying than just finding out you’re the Black Mass.
I’d rather have the truth than a lie.
I wonder.
“If it can be destroyed by the truth, it deserves to be.”
It’s a nice phrase. Very punchy. Very meaningful-feeling.
But it’s also, often, staggeringly naive.
Njeri’s heart’s already been broken, why not just rip the band-aid off…
then give him just one answer
Issue 27, Page 23: Tazim Talash said the same thing.
I’m thinking this truth will be found out eventually, one way or another. Might as well not delay the (probably) inevitable.