A Hostile Eurth

[Pentium]

12/SEP/2024, 9:57PM — Fortress of Whedon — Journal Entry #1

My name is Arnhem, I'm a journalist for PNA in the fortress-capital of the Republic of Pentium.  I've decided that keeping a record of notes, stories, and thoughts may be beneficial to my mental state.  There was an accident recently, during one of our broadcasts that, left a bit of a mark on my psyche that refuses to be forgotten.  I read online somewhere that keeping a journal can help you work through these kinds of problems healthily, might be bullshit frankly, but I think it might still do me some good.  At the very least, I might take my mind off whatever else is rattling around in here after what happened.  I guess we will see.

Eurth, is the cradle of everything that we have come to know.  Our home, is the light of civilization among the stars that we know to be real.  The calm, bitter air wafts through my room now as I rest in my home, I can see over the walls from here.  The sight makes me dour each time I look out past the walls of our little fortress home, curfew should be settling in soon.  The end of the hustle and bustle of everyday life, and the dawn of the patrols.  The Police, WLA and Citizen Militias roam across the entirety of the city all across Pentium.  There usually isn't much ruckus, the ancient walls of the past persist even after modernization efforts.  It keeps most of what lurks outside away, but it is not completely infallible.  This elevated security is what keeps us all safe, after all, even at the cost of the nightlife that other places may enjoy.  

Which reminds me, of what lurks outside those walls.  Nothing so terrible like giant spiders or eldritch monsters, but I might have just preferred that over what does.  It's a gaggle of semi-organized tribes and clans, which might sound like a regular civilization when you think about it, but these people have a singular mindset to destroy, steal and vandalize what others have so painstakingly put up.  Every language has its word for these kinds of people, it's not just a problem that we face up here in Yeetland, at least I would hope it's not just an “us” problem. 

The Warlords and Techo-Barbarians, as I'll call them for now, are ruthless, nomadic, and brutal.  They pick on unsuspecting people for the most part, even though you'd have hoped that we'd know better than to roam around dark alleys and the forest outside the walls.  Despite that, there are still a few cases that circulate every year about violent murders or disappearances credited to these groups, even with the downtick in the frequency, the brutality that accompanies any of these acts is readily apparent, and generally becomes the hallmarks of the investigators to work off of.  It's never clean at least, I don't envy the cleaners that have to deal with these occurrences, I've been to a few scenes to report on them.  I don't think to think about it.

This is what persists outside the tall walls of Pentium, and other civilizations around the Glube.  Simply, baseless brutality.  

But, it leads me to wonder what else is out there, the ruins of dead countries and civilizations.  How much are we missing out on, just because we can't leave the walls?  That's just, something that we have to live with, if it wasn't such a prevalent and constant issue I'd question the legitimacy of the government statements.  But, even as just a journalist, it's hard to comprehend such terrors, much less have to witness not only the aftermath.  But the real-time, moment-to-moment of it happening around you.  I don't think I'm ready to think about it at the moment, though.

END