This is the full video transcript provided to The Lawbreakers' Chronicle by the video recorder herself Umi Quinones-Kaneko, the wife and assistant of the Tassel Sedge’s manager-elect Victor Quinones-Kaneko:
*Definitions of certain terms used in Reservation 6’s Rez Speak are at the end of the transcript*
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0:01 – 0:10
(Camera operator Umi Quinones-Kaneko records, as manager-elect, Victor Quinones-Kaneko stands in the center of a large open space, surrounded by the talkative audience of patrons, in the middle of the oxygen bar, with Rhett Orkhan and Wong Kyong sitting in chairs beside him on opposite sides. Victor gesticulates in a manner to quiet the crowds.)
0:05 – 0:10
Victor Quinones-Kaneko: Lěng jìng! Oi now, lěng jìng, everyone!
0:07 – 0:13
(Audience falls silent.)
0:14 – 0:21
V: Full disclosure, my miss and offsider Umi, will be recording this whole event for posterity.
0:22 – 0:24
Umi Quinones-Kaneko: G’day, y’all!
0:25 – 0:34
V: If anyone’s fidgety around the cam for identity worries, we’ll keep the swivels at a minimum but stay behind Umi, tafaham?
0:35 – 0:39
(Random Patron speaks.)
0:35 – 0:38
Random Patron: Just keep the oxygen and additive pods coming, benny!
0:39 – 0:45
(Audience burst into laughter.)
0:42 – 1:03
V: Okay, okay, lěng jìng. Right, mates, we’ve got a ripsnorter for y’all tonight. Two of the biggest lōks to be smuggled to and fro from reservation to reservation, are here blessing this bar with their presence. With all the other vads I’ve heard about them having at every other place, I was beginning to think we weren’t important enough.
1:04 – 1:06
(Audience chuckles.)
1:06 – 1:20
V: Well now, if this ain’t history in the making for humankind, it certainly is for this ole hole-in-the-wall. Please give a warm welcome to our old friends and hometown heroes, Rhett Orkhan and Wong Kyong!
1:21 – 1:34
(Victor and audience applaud, and Rhett and Kyong wave to everyone around them. Victor turns to both Rhett and Kyong and pulls out a coin, flips the coin, catches it, and slaps it onto the back of his opposite hand keep the coin’s face covered.)
1:35 – 1:37
V: Alright ya two, head or tails?
1:38
Rhett Orkhan: Tails.
1:39
Wong Kyong: Heads.
1:40
(Victor lifts the covering hand and looks at the coin.)
1:41 – 1:43
V: Heads! Kyong goes first.
1:44 – 1:50
(Kyong stands up from her chair, as Victor sits in a chair behind Rhett and Kyong on the sidelines of the open space.)
1:48 – 2:16
K: Gracias, Vic. Let me catch y’all up on the situation if y’all ain’t already. The wormhole to the Minare reopened a while back and none of us humans knew what the bloody hell was going on. Then, just yesterday, a Minare spacecraft came out of the wormhole and landed at one of the colony’s cities here in District 6. What filed out were an assortment of hybridized humans called the Huwaty.
2:16 – 2:21
(Audience murmurs amongst themselves.)
2:18 – 2:38
K: Since humanity started ramping up our resistance against the Apiary, our gadbad has grown to become disruptive enough to strike a raw nerve on those in power. Now, they’ve struck up some sort of deal with a planet of abductors to ship over an alien community. I don’t know about y’all, but their arrival stinks of il crumiro.
2:39 – 2:45
(Audience murmurs increase in intensity.)
2:38 – 2:52
K: Not necessarily out of callous opportunism mind ya, but if we hold a strike, declare a boycott, or sabotage machinery, these hybrids can in effect take our places and continue business as usual, should they choose to do so.
2:53
Random Patron: She’s right!
2:54 – 3:03
Random Patron 2: Bloody oath! I saw them, and some were muscular and almost two-stories high! No doubt created for the sole purpose of doing the kho work!
3:04 – 3:07
Random Patron 3: Imagine how many of us could be replaced by just one of them in the mines!
3:08
Random Patron 4: Or the warehouses!
3:09 – 3:19
(Audience erupt into full out loud discord. Victor loudly whistles.)
3:16 – 3:21
V: Lěng jìng! Lěng jìng! Lěng jìng! Let her bloody finish!
3:20 – 3:24
(Audience quiets back down.)
3:25 – 3:29
K: We can’t allow them to undo what progress we’ve made against the Apiary.
3:30 – 3:33
R: Oh, and how do ya propose we do that?
3:34 – 4:55
K: Aplos. We find a way to reach out to them, learn about who they are, and why they’re here. They may’ve been created to be some sort of obedient slave race or they’re victims of unfettered greed and bigotry like us, trying to find their own place in the universe. The only way to find out is to talk to them and I’m sure none of us tried to do that. If we can feel them out proper, we can convince them to join us in resistance efforts. I’m confident though, the worst we’ll likely encounter, will be misinformed and we’re going to have to dispel their misconceptions. I remember when I came back to my parents, after some years escaping the educational/behavioral institution, and confronting them about sending me there. They had no idea of what that place did to me and the other tackers, since they thought they were sending me to a place that would improve my life’s prospects. Any hard feelings between us were patched up, and they’ve been grouse as supporters to the cause since. A lot of information is still tightly controlled, despite the Big Break. Might even be Apiary subjects who don’t fully agree with what we all must go through daily under the colonial administration.
4:56 – 5:11
R: Brilliantly aplos and straight forward for the first step, but what if they turn out to be worse than what ya expected? What do ya propose we do then? Ya don’t believe in hisā, even for self-defense, so this ought to be interesting.
5:12 – 5:36
K: That’s right, I don’t believe in hisā, which is why I propose we find nonviolent ways to isolate them from both colony and reservation should they choose to go against us. Like denial of services, or a boycott. Doing so could apply the right amount of pressure to them to reconsider siding with the Apiary and realize that we’re vital for the entire colony’s survival.
5:37 – 6:39
R: Pig’s arse! If they’re in the same boat as we are but choose not to join us, we’re not going to be of much help anyway, since they’re going to find out services like corpse collection, and junk scavenging, are all do-it-yarself jobs arising from the Apiary not giving a shite. If they are made full subjects of the Apiary, the colony jobs we could strike on to possibly make a difference, like sewage, refuse, and hazard removal, will be replaced by them anyway since, il crumiro are going to be il crumiro. It’s not even taking into consideration the utilization of robots. They’re the more exy option for them, hence their continued limited usage to this day, but it’s still an option should the Apiary choose to stick it to us. As for this, “boycott,” ya’re talking about, what does it entail? The participation of businesses?
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
6:40 – 6:44
(Audience angrily grumbles, and Rhett stands up from his chair.)
6:43 – 6:48
R: Sorry to break it to ya, but nearly all business owners are loyal to the Apiary.
6:49 – 6:51
K: Are ya including Victor in yar count?
6:52 – 7:04
R: Don’t be ridiculous, of course not! First thing, he’s not the owner of this establishment, the neighbourhood it services directly owns it, and this neighbourhood has no loyalty to the Apiary, am I right?
7:05 – 7:09
(Audience confirms their repudiation of the Apiary.)
7:10 – 7:19
R: Second, as members of this community, folks like Victor and his wife are elected to manage such places because they’re a couple of dardy hard workers.
7:20 – 7:25
V: I don’t care how much ya try to flatter us, ya ain’t getting any extra oxygen on the house, mate!
7:26 – 7:33
(Audience burst into laughter, while Rhett jokingly acts like he failed and his feelings got hurt, and Kyong rolls her eyes and shakes her head.)
7:33 – 7:43
R: But seryoso, y’all remember what happened the last time we tried getting our local so-called “small-business entrepreneurs” to participate in a resistant effort, right?
7:44 – 7:48
(Audience angrily grumbles in agreement, and Rhett begins pacing about the open space.)
7:47 – 8:04
R: We tried creating a community hydroponics farm with seeds and thingos we all scrounged up over the years. Bloody hard to come by. Some only found if searched nuff out in the woop woop. Everyone, except for the business owners, were for the idea. Remember some their whyfor?
8:05 – 8:11
Random Patron: They said we wouldn’t want to work no more! Just because we’re getting a slightly healthier diet? What bullshite is that?
8:12 – 8:21
Random Patron 2: I remember one saying that it would hurt the local economy! How? If the economy depends on me eating only protein bars made from boitopi, count me out!
8:22 – 8:44
R: Right, and we got enough lōks to get the plan approved anyway. It took much resources, but we finished building and began farming. We showed we didn’t need to play the Apiary’s money games to live. The Apiary didn’t even incorporate money into their own economy, so why did we have to? Y’all know what ultimately happened soon after?
8:45 – 8:47
Random Patron: They burned the farm down!
8:48 – 9:25
(Audience angrily grumbles in agreement.)
8:48 – 9:38
R: Right, and we lost everything! Of course, they denied any involvement, giving platitudes of how much they care about the community. Instead, they had the gall to blame us, the ones who fought so hard for the farm’s creation, for being responsible for its destruction. Then to add insult to injury, they used the tragedy to get the Reservation Council to ban hydroponic farming without licensing and permits. Documentation, which lōks like us can’t handily acquire and continuously pay to renew. And we listen to the grubs humukot for what? Short-sighted, careless greed, hoping to be one day accepted into the Apiary as its subjects. Then, there’s the botches.
9:39 – 9:44
(Audience lightly boos and jeers.)
9:41 – 10:24
R: At least the reservation’s small-business grubs have the damn courtesy to live close to the degradation they encouraged, but that’s mostly because they don’t have the guts to go that extra step like the botches. No, they revoked the right to call themselves human once they agreed to literally renounce parts of their humanity to assimilate into the Apiary. They assist the big nobs in leeching off us from a distance, from their comfy casas and offices in the zhímín. It’s guys like these who seized upon the unaffordable requirements for hydroponics, and cornered the market ever since, with their damn bloody exy prices on fresh produce and remedies.
10:25 – 10:32
(Audience boos and jeers intensify, and Rhett stops near his chair.)
10:26 – 10:49
R: On top of all of that, both the botches and small-business grubs help spread Eas-Enerang’s loyalist propaganda. The most flagrant being that fucking iihana, Colonial Heroes Day. Colonial flags, Cetacean Pride songs, loyalist posters, but not one damn thing about all the humans who sacrificed their lives at the Battle of Antarctica.
10:50 – 10:54
(Audience falls silent.)
10:55 – 11:03
Random Patron: Didn’t most of the lōks from that battle attempt to betray the Apiary, placing us in this situation on the reservations to begin with?
11:04 – 11:07
R: Not all of them, and that played little to why we’re here.
11:08 – 11:15
Random Patron 2: I don’t get it. Why should we want inclusion in a day that commemorates Earth being conquered by an alien empire?
11:16 – 11:29
R: It’s not the human betrayal or conquest of Earth that’s the focus here. It’s the fact that they’re deliberately minimizing our role in the battle! They don’t care about our sacrifices in general, they want to sweep us under the rug, period.
11:30 – 11:38
(Audience murmurs in slightly confused, reluctant, and uncomfortable agreement.)
11:39 – 11:43
K: Ya quite done? I’d like to continue talking about the Huwaty, por favor.
11:44 – 11:48
V: She right, mate. Ya went off on a bit of a tangent there.
11:49 – 11:51
R: Right, sorry, adelante.
11:52 – 12:02
K: Gracias. My question is, if according to ya nonviolent methods are useless, I assume hisā will be the answer, per usual?
12:03 – 12:13
R: Only if they mean us harm like the rest of the Apiary. Even then, being willing to choose hisā doesn’t mean being in favor of playing fun-buggas with others’ lives.
12:14 – 12:25
K: Ya mean like the recent restaurant bombing? What does bombing a restaurant do? It’s not a strategic pillar for the ruling power, it just makes us look bad for attacking noncombatants.
12:26 – 12:40
R: It seems random if ya didn’t get the full story that is. Some of my trusted connections with the SAA informed me that the restaurant was a hotspot for higher profile subjects, who were involved with lots of doka in the region.
12:41 – 12:45
K: They blew up an entire edificio to get to them, hurting others in the process!
12:46 – 13:12
R: They took advantage of the intel, weighed their options, and acted after careful deliberation. The fact the Apiary doesn’t give actual names to locations but a series of numbers and letters, could’ve easily created a major misstep. Lōks like the SAA never take collateral damage lightly and always try their best to avoid unnecessary casualties, principally the young, which I was assured were rarely seen at the establishment.
13:13
K: And that makes it better?
13:14 – 13:19
R: In comparison with much other high-value targets that involved collateral damage in the past, yes.
13:20 – 13:26
K: There might have been victims there that sympathized with us! Some victims may haven’t been fully aware of the Apiary’s activities!
13:27 – 15:07
R: Gòule! Being largely uninformed and unsuspecting prior to the Big Break I can see, but not now with so much unrestricted information leaking out to the public like a sieve. It’s not as tightly controlled as ya make it out to be. Except for possibly the Huwaty, there’s no excuse now, but only that someone doesn’t care. Same with the optics ya so worried about. Proven time and time again, no matter how hisā or how nonviolent resistance actions are, those in power will bend the story anyhow to fit their narrative. Those who don’t care will search out such tailor-fitted furphy to reassure themselves they can continue carrying on their willful ignorance. I’m bloody sick of being told it’s our responsibility to go high. It leaves us more vulnerable to them going low and kneecapping us. It didn’t work throughout history when the colonialists were human, and it sure as shite isn’t working now that they ain’t. Frankly, anyone who was there at that specific restaurant, knew what the deal was and didn’t give two shites about the human struggle. If granted that there’s somehow the slimmest chance that place harbored someone with the slightest genuine sympathies for humans, it surely was no botch, with their track record of double crossing any human foolish enough to trust them. Arse lickers looking to make it as the tall poppies, exploiting the less fortunate and mutilating their own faces, are far too gone to give that possibility any legitimacy with a straight face.
15:08 – 15:10
(Audience angrily grumbles in agreement.)
15:10 – 15:20
K: Comforting to know ya can explain away why ya feel life is so expendable, as the ends justify the means. Giving the Apiary a run for the prize, I see.
15:21 - 16:05
R: I resent that highly unfair comparison! Ya insinuating that humans fighting for the survival of the species, is somehow no better than all the Apiary’s doka committed against us for subjugation and eventual extinction. Seems ya quick to forget an A.I. judge ruled that it’s lawful for a flip to punch a hole through the crying face of poor Willie Egerton. A child, who tried to intervene in the savage beating of a family member misidentified to be a shoplifter. I know ya’re not trying to somehow pacify humanity’s fight against tyranny by appealing to the nonviolence thing, but how’d ya like it to be implied as such by being unfairly compared to a ‘googlier’?
16:06 – 16:08
K: Listen, I… “googlier”?
16:09
R: Yes.
16:10
K: What’s that?
16:11
R: Ya know, like the story.
16:12
K: What story?
16:13 – 16:20
R: Did I tell ya that story? It was the ‘Society of Googly Eyes’ story, told to me by one of my fathers when I was an ankle biter.
16:21 – 16:24
K: No, sorry, I’m not familiar with that one.
16:25 – 16:29
R: Ugh, wǒ bù xiāngxìn! Remind me to tell ya that one after this.
16:30 – 16:33
V: Oi! Tangent, mates! Ya’re on tangent again!
16:34 – 16:37
R: Right, right! Ya about to say something?
16:38 – 16:49
K: Yes. I was being too harsh using such comparisons. Yet, one of my biggest concerns is that the use of hisā against the Apiary could lead to our immediate extermination.
16:50 – 17:17
(Kyong paces about the open space.)
16:50 – 17:40
K: We may have gone through a population boom less than twenty years ago, but we’re still effectively an endangered species. The current global human pop of almost two hundred fifty million, divvied up between seven reservations and a myriad of small scattered non-reservation communities within eight districts, still pales in comparison to what used to easily surpass over seven point five billion. To complicate matters further, the average life expectancy of a human these days is fifty to fifty-five years old, due to our overall environment of unhealthy living conditions, which brought about chronic health problems for many. What is the point of fighting for the survival of humanity, if we’re all dead from getting ourselves killed in battles, Apiary retaliation, or Eas-Enerang deciding to finally wipe us out?
17:41 – 17:47
(Audience murmurs in concerned and uncomfortable agreement.)
17:42 – 18:15
K: Going toe-to-toe with an alien empire that knows how to make weapons far superior to anything humanity had ever built is suicidal. They attack us when we resist nonviolently yes, but fear what they will do should they abandon all restraints if we lean into hisā. At least with nonviolence, we’ll be able to continue in a form of persistence, which will eventually break through to someone of importance and convince them that we’re deserving of sovereignty, not under Colonial Law, but by natural right.
18:16
R: Eventually.
18:17
(Kyong stops pacing.)
18:18
K: Yes.
18:19 – 18:22
R: Is “eventually” before or after extinction?
18:23 – 18:25
K: It’s whenever it comes.
18:26
(Kyong heads back to her chair.)
18:26 – 18:30
R: Between yonks after extinction and zilcho then. Momtaz.
18:31 – 18:36
K: Jō vī, I’m bout nackered. Ya agree we should reach out to the Huwaty at least, right?
18:37
R: Too right.
18:38 – 18:41
K: Bonzer. Vic, I’ve nuff of this.
18:42
R: Ditto defo, Vic.
18:43 – 18:47
V: Ottimo lavoro on ya both. Kamayan.
18:48 – 18:53
(Rhett and Kyong approach each other and shake hands.)
18:54 – 18:56
V: Give them a big hand, everyone!
18:57 – 19:12
(Audience applauds, then everyone starts to converse with one another as music begins to play in the background.)
19:13
(Recording ends)
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* Definitions:
* Adelante: Spanish for ‘go ahead’
* Ankle biter: Young child; see Tacker
* Aplos: Anglicized Greek for ‘simple’
* Benny: Derived from the Italian ‘staremo bene’ meaning ‘we’ll be fine’. It was shortened down to ‘bene’, which sounded close to the name Benny, so then it transitioned into its current form to jokingly address another
* Bloody oath: An expression of complete agreement
* Boitopi: Derived from the Vietnamese word for ‘bug’, (bọ) the Italian word for ‘mice’, (topi) and the Spanish word for ‘and’. (y) All three words eventually combined into one to mean ‘bugs and mice’, with ‘y’ being corrupted into ‘i’
* Bonzer: Excellent; First-rate
* Cam: Camera
* Casa: House
* Dardy: Awesome; Good
* Ditto defo: In complete agreement without any doubt
* Doka: Anglicized from the Vietnamese ‘độc ác’ meaning ‘cruelty; sinister’, but it later came to mean ‘atrocities’ as the original word changed into its current form
* Edificio: Spanish for ‘building’
* Exy: Expensive
* Fidgety: Nervous
* Furphy: False report; Rumor
* G’day, y’all: A greeting combining Australian English (g’day = good day) and Southern American English (y’all = you all)
* Gadbad: Hindi for ‘mess; chaos’
* Gòule: Simplified Chinese for ‘enough with that’
* Gracias: Spanish for ‘thank you’
* Grouse: Wonderful; Amazing
* Grubs: Derogatory for pre-assimilated human collaborators
* Hisā: Punjabi for ‘violence’
* Human pop: Human population
* Humukot: Filipino for ‘condescend’
* Iihana: Arabic for ‘affront; insult’
* Il crumiro: Italian derogatory for workers who take over the job responsibilities of striking workers
* Jō vī: Punjabi for ‘whatever’
* Kamayan: Filipino for ‘shake hands’
* Kho: Anglicized Vietnamese for ‘difficult; hard’
* Lěng jìng: Shortened from the Simplified Chinese ‘qǐng lěngjìng xiàlái’ meaning ‘calm down please’
* Lōks: A combined word meaning ‘people’, using both Punjabi ‘lōka’ and Australian English ‘blokes’ to play on the shared “lok” pronunciation
* Momtaz: Arabic for ‘excellent’
* Nackered: Derivative of ‘knackered’ meaning ‘tired’
* Nob: One who is rich or comes from a much higher social class
* Nuff: Enough
* Offsider: Assistant; Helper
* Ottimo lavoro: Italian for ‘good job’
* Pig’s arse: An expression of derision or disagreement
* Playing fun-buggas: Derivative of ‘playing silly buggers’ meaning ‘to generally act the fool, lark about, waste time or generally mess things up’
* Por favor: Spanish for ‘please’
* Ripsnorter: Something extraordinary
* Seryoso: Filipino for ‘seriously’
* Swivels: Turns of something on a fixed position
* Tacker: Young child; see Ankle biter
* Tafaham: Arabic for ‘understand’
* Tall poppies: A person who is conspicuously successful
* Thingo: An object whose name is unknown or temporarily forgotten
* Wǒ bù xiāngxìn: Simplified Chinese for ‘I don't believe it’
* Woop woop: A place in the middle of nowhere
* Ya: Derivative of ‘you’
* Yonks: A long time, especially a longer time than expected
* Zhímín: Derived from the Simplified Chinese word for ‘colonial’, which is used as a catch-all for any Apiary settlement, town, or city
* Zilcho: Nothing; Zero