When the Empire, like many others before them, came for our lands:

We fought back.

When they pillaged our homes, killed our families, stole our land, absorbed our culture and replaced with their own.

We fought back.

When they took away our children, future, pride, dreams, blood. Our lives.

We fought back.

The more they took from us, the brighter our fire burned. As if fueled by Mother Astra herself, we became the vicious enemy that destroyed their troops, supplies and mother-ships. For every life they stole, we took dozens.

We scrapped their equipment from their scorched corpses. We learned. We adapted.

Invaders. Ignorant in the ways of our scorched planet. Cut off from Her protection. From our knowledge.

The one thing we had left to die for was our dignity, and die for it we did.

But then one day everything was irrevocably changed.

When their latest ships landed onto our barren surface, and small, familiar figures aimed their weapons towards us.

Our very children. Wearing their banners. Their armour. Eyes void of any emotion.

And while we hesitated, they acted with military efficiency. With brutality no parent could teach a child. With the indifference and coordination of a cold machine.

On that day, something within us snapped. We no longer sought to survive and win the war. We had passed a point where we considered that a possibility.

We wanted the Empire to burn.

What once was a tired flame burst into a blazing beacon of death, and every one of us who could stomach to commit such crime as murdering our own children held tight their weapons.

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We...no...The others fought back.

Our experienced leaders assembled a planetary coalition whose sole purpose was the destruction of the Imperial dogs who had broken the minds of our little ones. To divide it asunder.

Meridian was founded.

And for years they fought. Never tiring. Never yielding. No longer fighting for our unknowingly long lost dignity, but for retribution.

Their best fighters would take over seized ships and head to Venus to sabotage their colonies, never to return. And yet, the effects of their actions were noted.

Months after their departure, a new fleet arrived on our orbit. Abominations of metal wrought unto flesh. Clones wearing the faces of our children.

Stronger, faster and cunning. They decimated our forces and fighting spirit. Shards, they called themselves.

After seventeen years of grueling conflict, it was finally over. We had lost.

Those who had fought even one of those wretched beings were rounded up and executed. They knew of every single one. They always did, regardless of witnesses. What one soldier saw, they all saw. The meridians had learned that lesson the hard way.

As the years passed, the few survivors who had remained dared not speak. What good would it do, after all? To insult our invaders was to suffer in blood.

The soldiers carrying the faces of our children became our wardens. No longer robotic, they now acted with measurable and calculated charisma. Smiles, kindness, selflessness. Their daily help a final spit in our faces. A reminder of what had been taken from us.

And yet when they quarried our surface for their secretive projects, we stood still. Docile and subdued. Broken.

And when weeks ago, I looked up for Her guidance... Tears wet my face as I looked in horror at the sight. The day our motherly Astra, our Sun, was first tainted by their machines.

Rings of plasma circled in her orbit, like flailing arms lashing out at the wasps that drained her of her life.

Our scholars and engineers, long taken, undoubtedly forced to work in that unfathomable monstrosity.

In that moment I decided not to lay idle anymore.To hide in the shadows like an insect. To be a shadow of my past self.

I started searching for records and coordinates for one of their precious Cluster Relays, near my home in Caloris Basin. I tortured officers for information on entry points, knowing that my time would be short after such action.

I could say that I would lose sleep for my desperate choices, but there's no point in lying to myself. By the day's end, I'll be long gone into the endless dream.

In a few hours, I shall enter the maw of the beast, and while I can't even dream of killing this giant, I can only hope to cause it at least a fraction of the pain it has caused us.

Melini, my angel. Mylana, my brave daughter. Olvert, my kind son. If the Empire ever sets you free, I'll be waiting for you in Her embrace.

But today, I fight back. For our people. For our guardian. And for our family.

Ad Astra.

--End of Log--