Some quotes from a world 600 years after Nikke

You can enhance the mood with this song or this one.

"If I known we would have ended up how we are now, I would have screamed on Royale Road from dusk to dawn. 'Forget going up! We must stay right here!'"

- An excerpt from a recently published memoir of an Arkian Commander from the Final Surface Liberation War

"Oppression is a quite nasty disease, brothers. The silver lining is that no one will ever be immune to it."

- Golan "Devourer" Terryson, Rimmer general of the Alliance of the Two Bears

"War between humans is constant, that'll never change. What is more concerning is the vanishing of Queen Marian all those years ago. That is the real threat, a threat which we have forgotten in the name of all this jingoistic rubbish. I would wager that one, no, maybe two million people will be killed in this war at most. Could you tell me with a straight face that the Raptures, if they began to kill again, would kill only that many?"

- Excerpt from an opinion piece in The Neumontanan Daily, dated to the second day of the Arker-Rimmer War

"I love you."

- Final utterance of popular video: "DISTURBING WATCH: DarkBomb ANNIHILATES city of Frostia!!"

"Goddess of Victory my rotund butt! We've been back up for god knows how long and they're still not finished with us! What does 'victory' even mean to these people?"

- Nikke T57-1A7YR ("Fireball"), MISSION LOG 555A-60

"Have you ever wondered just how artificial we really are?" "...That's your biggest concern right now?"

- A conversation between two "Syntha-2B" android units

"HUMANITY SHALL BLOOM AGAIN."

- Motto of the International Accord of Peace

"The figures show, Martha, that as the years go by people just get tired of living. That's why all these people stop taking Evergreen or worse. You can check the statistics, it's true. I had a colleague say to me once something I can't forget. 'We might've conquered age, but eventually, time will conquer us all.'"

- Dr. Jacob Enzel of the "Golden Sands Life-Completion Association", interviewed by journalist Martha Lightsmith

"Kill those fuckers! All of them!"

- Sergeant of the Reclaimian Army, video recording of the 629th Light Infantry Battalion, Company D encountering surrendering Rimmers

"He was the best Commander the Ark ever produced. To the citizens of the Ark, he was their Last Hope. To me, he was my-"

"...O-of course, I didn't love him or anything!"

"...Well... maybe a little..."

- Interview with Privaty, 280 years after the liberation of the surface

"The toll of sovereignty is blood." - Gabriel T. Dwiskus, President of the Cornucopia Rim Republic

"We ask all citizens of the Ark to not be alarmed at this announcement. All potential threat vectors have been accounted for. Thanks to the tireless work of the Commander and citizen Raptillion, we have complete and total confidence in the strength of the Surface Pact. No abnormal activity has been detected at any Rapture Preserve. There is no threat to human life now or in the forecoming future."

- Document PLC-62883, "Disappearance of Rapture Queen 'Marian'"

"TIP: Make sure to keep up morale!"

- Game tip from Defend the Ark!, set during the Rapture Invasion

"WERE NIKKES NOT ONCE TOOLS TOO?"

- Protest sign at the "Rally For Synthetic Life" in the city of Counters, Columbia

"Now the planet we stand on is broken and ruined... again. All of you in this audience have lost friends and family to the endless violence. It has ripped you apart, mentally and physically. We, as people, are all wounded and deeply, deeply hurt. Those scars will remain for at least a quarter of a millenia. Most likely more. I, too, am broken. My family home inhabited for ten generations was destroyed by a missile. I put flowers on three graves every year. I will never see my sister's face again. These are the consequences of our sins. Our collective sins, as a species. This is the result of taking the wishes of our predecessors and squandering them.

We must atone. For atonement, there is no price too great and no effort too much. To atone, we must put everything we have into restoring our surface once more. The Revitalization Project must continue. The new international order must hold. Most importantly, we must all work together. We must unite; we must stamp out any threat to peace. The end of war is long overdue. Though it may be daunting, even ludicrous, we must accomplish it, lest we all perish. I will not allow the memories of those who perished defending and reclaiming Earth's soil to be in vain. I will not!"

- Part of the "Speech of Blooming", said by First Minister of the International Accord of Peace, Jacques Ferrot.

"Trailed o'er the sky, The lights of stars lie, If only we could be there, If only our team could go anywhere!"

- Chant of Welkins F.C fans

"It should be noted that since our last memo, we've had some complaints about our deviancy from the Ark's official historical records in the new edition of Alborea's World History for Students, Grade 8, particularly about certain events before the Rapture Invasion. We remind everyone that the Ark has segregated and degraded our people since its inception. It cannot be trusted with the historical record. Much of it, in fact, is classified to this day. Recent archaelogical discoveries as announced by the Department of Culture have validated new perspectives - more believable theories, if you will - proposed by fellow renowned academics. We always believe in giving our students the most truthful and enlightened education we can give them. This matter is closed for debate."

- Memo from the Board of Directors of the New al-Fez School District

"Why haven't we, y'know, built bases on the moon and stuff, if we're growing and all that? The Arkers are planning a lunar mission in the next twenty years."

"They've been planning a lunar mission in the next twenty years for the last two hundred years. You ask me, I'm sure they're just scared."

"Why? Aliens? The Raptures came from the old space elevator, but that was our thing, not aliens."

"Worse. They think we could win the race to Mars. Then they'd have to fight us all over again."

- Conversation between two Rimmers in the streets of the Arkian city of Red Hood, Reclaimia

"Wow, look at this! A map of the surface from before the Raptures!"

"Hey, are you sure? It looks kinda different. Okay, well, I see the Dazzling Mountains, I think... they call it the 'Rocky Mountains' here."

"That's a pretty stupid name. Of course they're rocky, they're mountains."

"Sez you. My pawpaw told me 'bout mountains of steel from dem Raptures causin' all the ruckus!"

"Oh... oh right. Those. You never... went near those ones, did you?"

"Nope! My great-great-great pawpaw went to one of 'em and weren't seen again! They's look all over for him but never found him. That's why we're told to never ever go to dem steel mountains!"

"Didn't they clean up all the horrors that could be found there, like, ages ago?"

"Really wans find out?"

- A conversation between a group of Arker boys in a museum

"To Pinne. A Hero. A Goddess. A Friend.

Humanity won't forget what you've done."

- Inscription of a memorial statue to Pinne, located near the Ark

"The glory of New Italee shall reign forever! Let the nations of the world know that it is our right to conquer, as this land's ancestors once did! Like our own ancestors, we started from nothing but we're now at your gates!"

- Ambassador Zybor Hernandez of the Kingdom of New Italee

"Being brave is harder than it looks, but easier than it sounds."

- Anonymous Arker proverb

"Why did we replace the Nikkes in our battalion with androids? Simple: androids don't suffer Mind Switches."

- Light Colonel J. Edgarson, Twinlightian Army

"I didn't believe in God until I realized something. It was my first step in seeking truth. After all we've seen and been through, we're still alive. And I thought, 'there's no way in hell someone big up there isn't watchin' over us.'"

- Preacher-Brother Samuel B. Alkov

"We, the unified people of Elada, hereby declare our goals and ideals as follows:

I. We are a nation of descendants of the Ark and shall strive to uphold the virtues of education, wisdom, curiosity, and exploration for us, our children, the children of our children, et c.

II. We sit upon a land of great prosperity and must care for it deeply. Nature must be balanced with habitation. Progress must not be held back by conservation, but conservation must not be restrained by progress.

III. Buried artifacts reveal this land, the home of the original Eladans, was once considered a place of great enlightenment. It is our duty as colonizers to inherit this mindset. We shall become a model for the world to mimic.

IV. The unique path of the warrior shall be maintained to those that wish to follow it. Tactics shall be their sword and discipline shall be their shield. The Eladan must strive at all times, even if they are not a warrior, to have the resolve of one.

V. We must not concern ourselves with the fear of tomorrow. When an Eladan is asked "what is your future?", the Eladan shall answer with genuineness "What of it?" It is not our place in the world to worry of omens or destruction. The Eladan shall always move forward."

- Excerpt from the original "Founding Charter of Elada"

"Yeah, we've apprehended some real lunatics this time. Cult of Rapture worshippers. You know how they are. This one got their hands on some ground-penetrating radar and found out there was some big battle in the field outside of town during the Rapture invasion. We managed to uh, find some of their pamphlets. They're saying that all the skeletons and tanks and stuff had lots of holes punctured through 'em. Like lasers. 'Course, according to them, that's gotta mean there was this powerful Heretic here. So the field became this sort of holy site to them. Anyway, we closed off the area, made some arrests, yadda yadda. Those wackos can talk all they want about Heretics in the slammer where they won't hurt nobody.

Besides, nobody's cared about Heretics for the last six hundred years. We use the phrase 'fixed like the Commander fixed it' around here for a reason."

- Police chief presser in a small town

"The world's greatest secrets are found by you and me!"

- Motto of the "Red Hood Exploration & Discovery Club"

"Hey. Dude. I was thinking. You know Scarlet Farms? Big food company?"

"No shit."

"They named it after Scarlet the Pilgrim, right?"

"Aren't you smart."

"Shut up, stick with me here. Did they ever actually ask Scarlet if they could use her name for the company? Cause she's not the CEO."

"Wow, great question. Hey, why don't you go find her and ask her? She's only been missing for what, forever? You can do it, buddy."

- Banter between two friends eating a Scarlet Farms Nutritional Breakfast Pack™

"The Commander betrayed the Ark to save the LEADER OF THE RAPTURES, and then later they welcomed them back with open arms. All I'm saying is, if he can do that and get praised, then surely my wife can be grateful that I sometimes do the dishes."

- Excerpt from a stand-up comedy club routine in Biltmor, Columbia.

"Only the dead have seen the end of war."

- Common proverb whose author is now lost

"And you're probably asking yourself, in the wake of all this, of all the dead people and injured and the weeping families, why do we go on? I think it's 'cause we have to. There's no choice. Being miserable sucks. Being mopey is no place to be. Look, I believe that we control our destiny. You don't need to look in a history book to realize that we are not a happy-go-lucky civilization. We don't, um, all hold hands and sing 'Ring around the Core'. That's what makes us human. But what also makes us human is our ability to survive. Our ability to adapt. Think about it. Think back to the very beginning, where we evolved from apes. We beat out every other ape and became #1 on the planet. Why? Because we thought about how to survive against rampaging apes. Then we adapted and thrived.

Like, think back to when the Raptures pretty much destroyed everything. We fled underground. Somehow, we managed to hide out and hold out against a species that had killed 99.99% of life on the planet. Then we took the planet back. Then we screwed it up again. But that's the failures of the past, that we, uh, screwed up with.

I- I think that we can learn from them still. Our mistakes, I mean. We just have to believe we can unite together, or, at the very least, and probably more likely, we can make sure that whatever caused this terrorist attack, whatever real cause was behind this terror attack, is addressed, called out, maybe even fixed. And I- I... uh, I truly believe that we're making the world a better place. Slowly. I don't know if my old flabby self will be able to handle living long enough to see it happen. But I have to believe it will happen, because the alternative is just being a nihilist. And that's just a selfish mindset to have.

It's not what any of our heroes and idols would want. You think the Commander, God rest his soul, would say "well, guys, some fucking horrible terrorists blew up a restaurant and killed fifty people, I guess we have to give up on thinking everything's gonna get better?" No. Never. Not in a million years. He would probably order you to pick yourself up and move on, and do what you can to make sure it never happens again. And that's what we need right now.

My heart goes out to everyone affected by this horrific tragedy. It's my hope - however stupid - that it may be the last. Kevin, you can, uh... say your thoughts now."

- Excerpt from podcast host Jorge Berlicher after a terrorist attack in the city of Borea.