HAH! (Heavenworlders Against Humans!) stated as an small movement which mutated into an organisation that had only 3 "simple" demands/ goals
1 Rid Alliance space of humans
2 Restrict Greater (and lesser) Deregulations to their own space and strictly guard and monitor their borders
3 Return to the peace and safety that was pre Human Alliance.
the Alliance was at a loss as to what to do with this steadily growing absurdity, as Heavenworlders had never recorded instances of *rofanticising past civilizations.
*Rofanticise: the romanticised and fanticised way people look at past civilisations (living or dead), without taking into account the hardships, shortcomings, small mindedness, and general crappiness those ways of living or societies generally contained. see; 1940's/50's America, Hunter gatherer tribes, Ancient Rome, Ancient Norse, medieval Europe, Victorian England, and on and on and on.
(please note Rofanticise, Rofanticised and Rofanticising is a word group I came up with to describe this phenomenon, as simple romanticising and nostalgia did not adequately define what it is humans do, and i couldn't find any word that fit so i made one in urban dictionary to cover it.) -- Adam in Darwin
[AN: Rofanticise is a perfectly cromulent word. I fundorse it entirely]
"Back before things were ruined," they whine. "Back in my day..." or, "Things were better when..." Always beware those who long for an era they weren't an adult in. Those pining for a time long lost, when things were allegedly better because time has eroded many signs of the inherent flaws.
They don't actually miss the entire era. Just aspects of it. Chiefly, the aspect that they imagine would give them everything they believe they miss out on now. When they would take their rightful place by the alleged natural mechanics of the cosmos. Havenworlders against Humans is just the latest iteration of the phenomenon.
All civilisations have had things like it. Vocal groups protesting the loss of an advantage they never possessed, fighting to gain it 'back' without fully examining the downsides of everything they seek to restore[1]. Never at any time understanding that, in their goal era, there were those who longed for even simpler times, when things were easier for them. Hindsight may be twenty-twenty, but Nostalgia adds rose-coloured glasses.
The Havenworlders at Edge Trade Station were rowdy. Specifically, those who wanted to revoke Humanity's general acceptance into the Galactic Alliance and put Humans back onto the planets they had already 'infested'. It's language like that that lets a casual observer know that they're not welcoming all of the facts.
It's quite a thing to see small fluffy creatures carrying placards that say things like, Deathworlders Go Home! or, Do Not Want! or the classic, My Choice! Which is always favoured regardless of how many others that choice effects in the long term[2].
It had been almost twenty years since the last Vorax raid in the area. Many memories are much shorter than that[3]. Given certain species, entire lifetimes can be shorter than that. They didn't fully understand what they were asking for.
Human Lif skirted around them. Head down, hands lax, keeping a certain pace that was Not Trouble. Purposefully ignoring the thrown objects that deflected harmlessly off her livesuit. Confronting them would only make her more of a monster.
She was just here to pick up supplies for her ship and get going again. No need to cause anything more than what was happening already. Lif didn't want trouble.
It found her anyway.
The investigation never did reveal the source of the explosion, though theories abounded. Some say the H.A.H. set something off. Some say it was an ancient anti-pirate device that malfunctioned. Some say it was a small flaw in an ill-maintained system that had a near-fatal error. Some say the Humans did it, but there's no evidence for it. The fact that there's no evidence against it remains a sticking point for the remaining members of H.A.H.
The important point is that Human Lif leaped into action without thinking. So too did many other Humans in the area. Some working to extinguish the flame, some blocking the breach. Some pulling wreckage away from the stricken protestors. Some gently extracting the Havenworlders from their position of peril, handing them off to the arriving ERT's.
In some ways, it was the event that just about killed off the H.A.H., even though all the Havenworlders involved survived to give their testimony and beyond.
The Humans literally had no motivation to do what they did, but they did it. They could have easily played into anything the H.A.H. said they were and let them all die. They could have run away, but they didn't.
They did "what anyone would do" according to them. They helped.
All the counter-arguments in the universe couldn't stack up against evidence like that.
Havenworlders Against Humans is little more than an obscure fringe group. A situation not helped by the fact that many Humans would also prefer that the Dereggers be constrained for the benefit of all.
[1] Looking askance at the "tradwives" who long for 1940's domesticity without fully understanding that those 1940's women were not allowed financial freedom or the ability to decide for themselves what happened to their own bodies.
[2] Smokers, for example, are perfectly within their rights to choose how they pollute their own body. Not often figured into the equation is anyone downwind.
[3] Insert your own intensely focussed group here. Everyone can sail the hypocri-sea when it suits them.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / Oakozhan]
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