The Book
of Oarnn states clearly, my fellow Damosians, my fellow Schadites, "From
beyond the sun come the forces of Evil, from beyond the sun come they.
Evil dwells beyond the moon, in the dark firmament dwells she."
We have
seen the aliens, this embodiment of Evil! Oh day of wrath for our poor
planet! Oh, day of wrath for Damos! Their heads, covered with fur like
that of the beasts that we eat at table! The aural appendages that make
them so terrifying! Their skin, not a soft green like ours, but displeasing
shades of brown–the very color of Evil!
We have
seen the aliens, who have come from the land of Evil to tread the hallowed
soil of Damos! We have seen the aliens appear and disappear in shrouds
of ice! And we all know the prophesy: "You will know Evil when you sense
its presence, for it comes in ice and steals the warmth of the land! You
will know Evil when you hear its voice, for it speaks in strange tongues!
You will know Evil when you smell it, for its odors are as of the beasts
of the fields! You will know Evil when you see it, for its skin will be
the color of the soil and the sand and the bark of the ingrot tree! But
you will know Evil when it comes, for the people will embrace it!" So wrote
Schad in the Book of Oarnn.
We have
seen the aliens, and they are Evil.
Evil must be destroyed!
Their spaceship, in which our civil leaders have been, which many of our of our citizens have visited, to which indeed some of our fellow Schadites have been seduced, hides above the clouds. These emissaries of Evil, we have grown accustomed to them! My fellow Schadites, we have become accustomed to Evil itself! Its very presence disturbs us no more. If you do not believe that these aliens are Evil itself, consider how they eschew the thought of teleological purpose in Oarnn's plan for the Kolok. Schad writes, in the great Book:
And Oarnn spake unto me, and he said: "I have made you from the reeds of the fields, with reason to think. I have made you a world over which you are to extend your dominion. I have made you a sun to give its warmth to you. I have made you a firmament, so that you might enjoy its beauty. Behold all that surrounds you, all the creatures of the sea, all beings that soar in the heavens above you, all the things you see about you that walk or crawl on the face of Damos; I have made all this for you. From all eternity have I created them, and for you have I created them, that you might know my glory.In our schools and in the halls of government, we hear blasphemy! "The Book of Oarnn is a book of poetry, a book written by ignorant people in days before people knew how the Kolok evolved from the rapid-running lizards of many eons ago." They say again, "There is no discernible purpose in the world, and none in life. Life evolved by random unions of atoms, and we evolved not as inevitable beings created with all of creation by Oarnn, but as perhaps accidental growths, mere accumulations of genetic material, no more worthy than the others!" And they say again, "Perhaps the universe is a monstrous entity, begun inexplicably in a great burst of undirected energy at a time so distant in the past that we can scarcely imagine it. Perhaps we are all monsters, all the trees and the reeds, the soil we stand on and the water we drink, the air we breathe and the food we eat." Can we tolerate such blasphemies any longer? Can we tolerate such blasphemy in the presence of the aliens? Will not Evil incarnate spawn yet more evil in our midst?
Evil must be destroyed!
These
emissaries of Evil, these excretions of Evil, agree with the sacrilegious
words of so many of our leaders. Using the prestige of their technology,
the aliens have drawn our youth, our teachers, our scientists, our industrialists,
our workers, into the ways of error. In six short months our temples have
become deserted, the word of Oarnn is ignored, the writings of Schad are
treated not as sacred texts but as the ravings of a mad poet.
The future
of Damos is in danger. The darkness predicted in the great Book will soon
fall upon us unless we act.
Evil must be destroyed!
I see, my fellow Schadites, that many of you wonder what we can do. We must dedicate ourselves to serve Oarnn and to obey the dictates of Schad, even if this means that we must rise and stand fast against these aliens, these ministers of Evil, even if this means that the moral death and destruction they have brought to Damos be matched by the physical death and destruction of those who would fall in their thrall, even if this means that the wise teachings of Schad, who has made us live in harmony despite our disagreements, who has made us see that wisdom comes not from the emotions but from our divine faculty of reason, not from the heart but from the mind, even if his teachings, say I to you, be set aside in order to better protect the integrity and to honor the sanctity of those very teachings.
For Evil must be destroyed!
The aliens must be destroyed, and their allies and friends among the Kolok, these poisoned souls who would lead us to perdition. In this we must forbear tolerance. For as Schad has written, "We must praise Good with Good, but we must fight Evil with Evil." It is not enough to excoriate those who oppose truth and justice, it is not enough to drive off the emissaries of Evil, it is not enough to turn the minds of our people back to the words of our holy Founder, nay, it is not enough to re-indoctrinate them in the way of Oarnn.
Evil must be destroyed!
In the Annex to the great Book, Schad says:
And how will my people know you, oh Oarnn? For never have I dared to look upon your face, never will I dare to look upon your face. By what sign will the Kolok know Oarnn? And he said unto me, "You will know me by the Truth, for I am Truth." And I said, "But I know not Truth, I know but my truth and my neighbor's truth, and her truth is not mine." And he answered, in his voice of thunder, "I am Truth, there is no Truth but me, no Truth but mine! Those who wish to know me must seek Truth in the writings I have inspired in you. I am Truth and Truth is me. Those who know not me know not Truth; those who know not Truth know not me." I saw that we must seek Truth not in the ways and the words of the Kolok but in the ways and the words of Oarnn.We know, my fellow Schadites, where Truth can be found; our leaders, blinded by the aliens' false truths, have forgotten the ways of Oarnn, despise the very words of Oarnn. There is no truth but Oarnn! Those who deny Oarnn deny Truth! Those who embrace the aliens embrace Evil!
And Evil must be destroyed!
In times of peril, we must find the courage to act with decision, knowing full well that in our brief lifetimes, the mere moments that our 150 years are compared to the many eons of the life of the universe (for does not Oarnn tell us that the universe exists from the beginning of eternity?), we will not see the end of the kingdom of Evil. But we must begin the long journey to salvation, we must bring our people back to the footsteps of Schad.
Evil must be destroyed! We must destroy Evil!
Schad
and Oarnn will not tolerate these emissaries of Evil. We must drive them
from our world, for the salvation of the Kolok people, for the future of
Damosian life!
To do
this, we must form mighty hosts with the weapons of terror that control
the criminals who would rob and kill us. We must begin by destroying all
contact with the aliens who walk amongst us with the face of Evil. We must
kill the aliens and all those who wish to befriend and defend them.
We do
not yet have the power to overcome our enemy, so we must seek another means.
There is but one other means: dread, terror!
We must
dedicate ourselves to the destruction of the forces of Evil, wherever they
can be seen: in our cities, in our academies, in our market places, on
our airfields, in our trains, in our sports arenas, on our farms, in our
fisheries! We must spread the Terror of Oarnn! The Dread of Schad must
reign!
Evil must be destroyed!
We must pledge our finances to this holy task, our minds, our hearts, our lives, our souls.
I know that some of you might be thinking how different this is from the behavior of Damosians, a people whose culture is based on the cultivation of reason. How can we justify the use of force, the stirring of long-suppressed emotions, the violation of the commandment to respect life? I answer that a sailing ship has need of sails to capture the wind as well as of a rudder to steer it. Without the rudder, the ship has no direction, but I say to you that without a sail the ship cannot move forward. Our mind is the rudder which will direct us; our heart is the sail that will enable us to move.
We must always remember that Evil must be destroyed!
I propose to you, then, Sisters and Brothers of Schad, mystical Daughters and Sons of Oarnn, a great Pact of Terror, a Pact that will in the end restore the great beliefs of our past and make them live in the future. A Pact that will necessitate the sacrifice of innocent lives for the greater good, for the future of Damos and the Kolok! I propose that starting today we establish semi-autonomous Tactical Units to spread out over the entire planet and to begin to spread Terror in the world. May the very name Schadite be looked on with Dread, as the Scourge of Oarnn! May a Leadership Council be formed to direct the Tactical Units of the Schadites. May its first task be to study means of procuring arms and equipment necessary for our holy war.
Evil must
be destroyed! Look around you: you will see the collective face of the
Destroyer!
The audience,
despite the strange feeling of emotion and hatred that Ogatrac had stirred
in them, sat for long minutes in silence. Finally Nilreb the Head Bishop
arose, went to the podium, and addressed Ogatrac and the assembly.
"We have
heard your thoughts, Ogatrac, and you speak clearly. You describe the aliens
as emissaries of Evil, and you call on us to destroy them. You wish us
to go further still; you wish us to begin a period of Terror in the name
of Oarnn and of Schad. You give us no option that does not violate a law
of Oarnn or a principle of Schad. You know that not everyone can agree
with you. And yet if we do nothing, perhaps we will call down the wrath
of Oarnn upon us.
"I do
not know what others wish to do. I propose, however, that we do indeed
enter into a Pact against the presence of these aliens. I propose that
we authorize those who would follow you to do so. I propose further that
the Holy Fellowship of Schad tolerate Tactical Units which you and your
group will establish, and that we preach against the invasion of Evil in
our lives."
The assembly
heard other speakers, and in the end agreed to adopt the strategy of Nilreb.
Approximately
one quarter of the assembly, women as well as men, scholars as well as
clergy, became the Leadership Council of the Schadite Tactical Units dedicated
to spreading the Terror of Oarnn throughout the land. The STU had been
born.