Entry 18: 5 Poråkol 1865

Epiphany

The Galasu Knowledge Foundation is more impressive than the library in Menarka, but Galasu was not completely burned to the ground during the Taritit Invasion. The thing that struck me most when I walked in today was the size of the building and the thousands of well-lit reading pods inside, acoustically isolated and stacked one on top of the other like egg sacks. The Menarka Document Cluster must have something like this beneath all of the scaffolding and noise, but I hope that the pods use some other material than composite. Wood, especially fruit wood, could brighten the entire space. It was so dark and 1840s before.

The librarian offices are past the Great Room in Paradise Atrium, a set of small rooms built around towering trees that have stood for millennia. The librarian I needed, Deohårañi, works from the mid-afternoon into the evening. We met in the shrine vestibule to the left of the offices before le brought me inside and closed the door.

Deo smiled elegantly at me, which I will always remember because le smiles like Kelis did. But Deo is not Kelis. Deo has a wig made of shoulder-length, rainbow-colored cords ranging from red to orange to yellow to spring to green to indigo and to violet, all coiling together like an iridescent sea-beast, and le has henna on ler face because le is a married member of the Galasuhi version of the Yilrega cult. Deo calls limself Galasuhi and not Shiji, le knows Liga, and le immediately warned me to use ler formal nickname — as if we were already close colleagues.

We talked for some time about the Daybreak Movement, and le teased words out of me like water. Originally, I thought that I just needed basic definitions, but my uncertainty about the origins and disposition of the movement (yes, you were talking about it yesterday, Liga, but I don’t trust you, and you pissed me off) showed after only a few of ler pointed questions. Le brought me to the archival documents section, where we spent three-quarters of an hour using a handheld scanner to put all of the relevant works on my drive. There was more on tape backup offsite, but that would take two weeks to get with the backlog, and I don’t know that Liga and I have that much time? I didn’t request it. I should have. Who knows how long this will take? Anyway.

Deo bit ler lower lip on occasion and smoothed the corded braids away from ler face, looking at me. I wonder if le had questions that le considered imprudent. O Salus, does everyone who works with Liga feel like this?

We joked about ler husband and ler young daughter. I mentioned Kelis, and I felt less hollow than usual. It could be Aneti’s influence.

The Daybreak Movement’s motto: “We live in the IGNORANCE of NIGHT. We wait for the DAYBREAK to ILLUMINE us.” The emphasis is theirs.

The most succinct description of Daybreak I found was uncovered towards the end of our meeting.

The document “A Short Primer on the Tveshi Daybreak Movement from: Briefing, 43 Poråkol 1838, Morning, Before the Senate Investigation on the Murders of Several Prominent Tveshi Cultural Coalition Members,” written by Nikoa Talesu-Likhesau Jitaso, Senior Assistant to Senator Komañi:

The Daybreak Movement spans all three continents, helped in a large part by comm band technology and networked digital forums. Its motto graces all of its publications, seemingly innocuous, yet obscuring a sinister network of conspiracies and out-of-touch plots against all political movements, all countries, and all human leaders. It arose following the end of the Occupation, when the mob murders of Occupation collaborators and their families pushed many who survived to flee to Atara. Those collaborators too low-profile to be threatened assimilated into mainstream political factions, but a small fraction of the other collaborators looked elsewhere for political representation.

Daybreak began as three grassroots organizations working independently out of urban centers affected by the rapid recession of Taritit forces. Daybreak itself began in late 1826 and was formalized throughout the year 1827. Gradually, it cannibalized the membership of the two other founding organizations, also anti-government.

The Daybreak Movement uses a cell structure, with nodes communicating up and down the chain of command. In some countries, as in Tvesh?, the Daybreak Movement has split into semi-public and semi-private arms. The public side of the Daybreak Movement maintains itself here as a fringe political party. In the Leissi Federation, they incorporated as a religious group called Dhéuk and received their permit four years ago.

Regardless of regional differences, all members hold to the same basic tenets: (1) Humanity needs help, and nonhuman High Wilds imperialists, with their advanced technology and millennia of experience, are a gift from Enahari to shepherd our childlike civilizations into our best selves. (2) The tesekhaira are corrupt, the name of that corruption is the Captain, and their influence must be driven out. (3) The International Congress and regional governments have no authority and should cede any claimed authority to the most powerful alien entity.

The “Corruption is Captain” idea originates from an oracle given in Essoda in 1648, when Taukha held the oracular seat. Some have pointed out that the oracle anticipates the Taritit Invasion: “In the year when all hope seems lost and humanity ceases to rule itself, a great family will rise under the aegis of Elaukha [Likhera] and Elapua [Enapuata]. Its daughters and sons will restore humanity to the stars. When the people govern themselves once again, its descendants will catapult the tesekhaira into a bloody conflict: Its Captain will be the end of everything we know.” The 1648 Oracular Utterance is commonly held to describe the Taritit Invasion, and the nascent Asynch has speculated on the identity of the family and ethnic group referred to in the remaining sentences.

The local incarnation of the Daybreak Movement has developed a suite of more palatable political positions. These include the modernization of formal grammar rules to reflect changes in the Tveshi language, namely the addition of a character to represent glottal stops; relaxed rules governing the incorporation of new families and the process of applying for a non-family apartment room; the yoking of colonies such as Laseå, Mntaka, and Atara; execution for practitioners of what is known (borrowed from the Narahji nebzestu) as nepasetu, or marriage mingling with those descending from the other Six Gardens; preservation of old forms of documents to deter tesekhaira censorship; the re-criminalization and systemic execution of the nuamua; and criminalization of the Karatha, all in direct opposition to preferred policies. Their most controversial position is their desire to limit the power of the Tveshi monarchy, which they have identified as the family in the oracle.

While the International Watch, Radicals for the High Wilds, the Tveshi Cultural Coalition, and Cradle have all performed assassinations — and some of these groups are considered mainstream political fashions — no deaths have yet been attributed to the Daybreak Movement. Given that most members are already on watch lists for their involvement in the Occupation, it is far more likely that the murders came out of Cradle or International Watch, which share some of Daybreak’s views.

“What is Asynch?” I asked.

Deo laughed. “It’s an old Tveshi term for the boards and forums on the Network. They called it the Asynchronous Agora until the mid-1850s.”

“Thank you, it’s not a term I know.”

I thought about the text for a long time after I left the Galasu Knowledge Foundation. No one truly taught me about the Daybreak Movement during my political education, and I had overlooked them — just as everyone else had — until they turned violent. This piece was written in the late 1830s, which is before most of the radicalized groups became problems for states. That happened in the 1840s and early 1850s, and perhaps up until the monarchical protests in Narahja. If the Shiji and Galasuhi must consider all of these extremist groups, it is no wonder that they suspect all of us in Narahja so strongly when we claim things that are simply our right.

Their position on nepasetu bothers me. I have worked for the Progressive Movement since I joined a youth group at the age of eleven.

My grandfather is Atarahi.

Of course I should be legal.

Cradle and I agree on the Uncovering Ritual. Daybreak and I agree on combatting the stigma of living without family and about deterring too much tesekhaira oversight. I wouldn’t have agreed with the individualism piece before moving to Galasu and starting a journal. It is nice to have one’s thoughts and know that they are private to almost everyone.

I don’t know about the nuamua. It is a Progressive Movement policy to tolerate them, and the one who visited me seemed fine, but Namgyatzi did spurn Seh?nta. My parents told me to avoid them, and I know that they bring families to ruin. Professionally, I can cope. The Karatha abandoned us during the Occupation and did little, if anything, to help the resistance. The nuamua and the Kohjenya did help — the nuamua on all of the Gardens, the Kohjenya on Madhz and Ameisa. The Kohjenya gave the International Madhzi Congress the keys to their orbital fleet. If these groups did everything and the Karatha on Ameisa did nothing, the Ameisi Karatha should not have been welcomed with open arms after the Occupation.

Daybreak has killed so many people since the 1830s. I was a girl when most of the assassinations happened. They must have lost popularity after those came to light.

Liga, is this why you have such distaste for them?

I can sympathize with some of their platform, but the Taritit subjugation was never for our benefit.