Let's Not Do That Again

“…to refer to the Consolidation as the Consolidation Wars, as is the practice of certain critical historians, is to do the period an injustice. While the foreign policies of the time were largely if irregularly driven by the Senate axis revolving around the Immanent Destinarians, the Sons of Liberty, and the Bellipotency – the forerunners of the modern Imperium Bellipotent – only one of these was a true “war party”, and the Consolidation also laid the groundwork for the modern Empire’s pattern of peaceful growth, ‘Consolidation Without Conquest’.

“We should never forget the examples, in our urge to draw judgments from history, of the free and earnest admission, by their own desire, of Cimoníë and the Travinth; of the wagers over daehain that brought Istalyn and Merianvard into the fold; of the peaceful revolutions of Crescenthold and Isahan; of the troubled, but successful mutual cultural assimiliation that created the Iniositac-Variasotec Commonwealth for autochthon and antichthon alike; of the simple bribery of the Veilyns oligarchs. Victory without blood, without tears, ultimately without loss.

“And if we are instead to draw our examples from the purely warlike aspects of the Consolidation – a minority of a period scattered over sufficient history that the so-called Consolidation Wars began with spear, shield, and phalanx, and ended with fusion bombs, autonomous orbital k-kill platforms, and scuttling tank-drones – let us not permit ourselves the luxury of selectivity. The Imperium Bellipotent reveres the conquests of Ochale and Breysvard, the annexation of Twingirt Deme, honorable warfare between daryteir, won and lost with grace and acceptance. Do they also remember with reverence the butchery on the fields of Indimór, the disaster at Lorai Vallis, the fall of the Talentar elevator, the naked annihilation of the Amynmahar and the Aictektep?

“The scars of these wars may have healed during the Aeon-Long Peace, but are the memories so lost to time that we would again inflict such bloody wounds upon ourselves, or those we would add to ourselves? The voice of history that comes down to us from the Consolidation is clear, and speaks – as does it ever – in favor of choice over coercion, however tempting a short-cut might appear to those who refuse to listen.”

– Modern Bellatrists: Why They All Have Their Heads Stuck Up Their Emergency Discharge Ports,
Academician Indis Ellestrion-ith-Ellerovyn