The Thousand Year Fall

Preface Time is a hammer. First it shapes and then it breaks. Plans were composed in the heat of the war when it started to become visible that victory was not possible, and defeat had to be considered. The plans threw a lifeline unimaginably far into the future and required a commitment from generations not born for centuries. The hammer of time beat constantly on the plans, shaping and breaking then shaping and breaking again and again. An organisation that had been singular became a multitude of competing entities all swearing loyalty to the ancient objective and bitterly divided in how to achieve it or what it really meant. The silent, secret history of the bottle born continued to unfold, the fears and hatred of the natural born increasing as their dependence on the bottle born grew greater and greater. When the very fewest possible bottle born gained the status and rights of free citizens, the fearful shouted for a return to the old ways. The hopeful saw a pressure valve that would stop bloody revolution and retribution with the smallest discomfort or disruption to the status quo. The hammer of time shaped and broke those plans too. The bottle born have taken a place at the table of power and will not be moved. The spoils of war still wait to be claimed.