Tell Cho
Mar 17th, 2011, 08:29:09 PM
TO ALL GOSSAM THROUGHOUT THE GALAXY, LIVING IN BONDAGE, FREE, IN SERVICE OF ANY ENTITY OR ORGANIZATION, OR IN ANY OTHER STATE OF LEGAL STATURE:
I am Tell Cho. Some of you may know of me, others may not. To be as clear and forthright as possible, I will tell all of you who read this that I am the Auditor-General of the Corporate Sector Authority; for what it is worth. I have lived for nearly fifty years in this galaxy, and have seen us Gossam be, and become, nothing more than a subjected race and species.
Under Shu Mai, the Gossam were subjected to the Commerce Guild, and though corruption ran rife within that organization, there was no sense of camaraderie with her. She subjected us to the fullest extent one could be subjected: we were exploited without mercy, used until death, and we not only accepted it, but accepted it as something of fact, that the state of affairs into which we were led by her was nothing more than the trend of reality itself. All of us could only say that we desired to have been her, to do the subjecting rather than being subjected.
Under Shu Mai, the Commerce Guild, and us Gossam as their resource, were allied to the Confederacy of Independent Systems in what are now popularly termed the Clone Wars. I hardly need to tell you the outcome of that endeavour. The War continued for three years, wherein countless beings lost their lives for either cause, and either cause gave their utmost to see victory. The result was the destruction of the Commerce Guild as such, and the assumption of the Gossam as slaves no longer of the Guild, but slaves of the newly formed Empire.
Some lucky few, such as myself, escaped that fate. I served little in the Wars, and my record was not such to inspire any great legends. But my position was secure, and I became one of the members of the Corporate Sector, now quite under the control of the Empire, and finding that their lot was by and large better under its yoke than they would have believed at first.
I worked hard to keep from being subsumed into the great mass of non-human slavery that the Empire oversaw and continues to oversee even now. I earned a living and rose within the CSA’s ranks, due to my knowledge of the ships and machinery of the Commerce Guild, the Banking Clans, and the Trade Federation. I eventually became what I am now, the general of a private army and military police force which moves at the behest of great Corporations. In this position I have done a great many things; things of which I am satisfied to say that I have done them, and things of which I am ashamed and guilty. There can be no recompense for those I have wronged; no amount of money or words can bring back the dead, or return a planet strip-mined to its core back to its fruitful past. No apology can even be close to enough, but unfortunately, that is all I have to offer. That, and a goal that I may perhaps be fortunate enough to reach.
This sense of shame and guilt is not a recent development. I have felt it for most of my career. It was with this sense of shame that I began to buy the freedom of the Gossam that I came across, and offered them employment that they would not run the risk of being captured, and enslaved again without due process. Many accepted. Some did not. I continue to offer that choice to any Gossam I meet or am able to free.
We are a species who seem to have corporately lost the capacities for loyalty, trust, and even perhaps love, aside from the few individual accomplishments I have seen and heard. It is time that we regain as much of these as we can, and become a cohesive people whose character is no longer thought of in respect to a lacking, but a fullness. We can become a people and begin the long work of self-reclamation.
Come to me. Write to me. Send a message. I will buy your freedom if you lack it, offer you work, should you need it. You may join us then, and join our labour, or you may leave. I warn you though that the galaxy is not a friendly place to us. We will be unable to help you should you leave and be beset.
This message must be passed along. Do not worry over-much should you be overheard reading it, but this letter is meant for the Gossam, and the Gossam only. We will die if this goal is not met, or at the very least, not striven for.
I await you. Find your way to me, and I will buy you out of whatever bonds you may have, if I am able.
I am Tell Cho. Some of you may know of me, others may not. To be as clear and forthright as possible, I will tell all of you who read this that I am the Auditor-General of the Corporate Sector Authority; for what it is worth. I have lived for nearly fifty years in this galaxy, and have seen us Gossam be, and become, nothing more than a subjected race and species.
Under Shu Mai, the Gossam were subjected to the Commerce Guild, and though corruption ran rife within that organization, there was no sense of camaraderie with her. She subjected us to the fullest extent one could be subjected: we were exploited without mercy, used until death, and we not only accepted it, but accepted it as something of fact, that the state of affairs into which we were led by her was nothing more than the trend of reality itself. All of us could only say that we desired to have been her, to do the subjecting rather than being subjected.
Under Shu Mai, the Commerce Guild, and us Gossam as their resource, were allied to the Confederacy of Independent Systems in what are now popularly termed the Clone Wars. I hardly need to tell you the outcome of that endeavour. The War continued for three years, wherein countless beings lost their lives for either cause, and either cause gave their utmost to see victory. The result was the destruction of the Commerce Guild as such, and the assumption of the Gossam as slaves no longer of the Guild, but slaves of the newly formed Empire.
Some lucky few, such as myself, escaped that fate. I served little in the Wars, and my record was not such to inspire any great legends. But my position was secure, and I became one of the members of the Corporate Sector, now quite under the control of the Empire, and finding that their lot was by and large better under its yoke than they would have believed at first.
I worked hard to keep from being subsumed into the great mass of non-human slavery that the Empire oversaw and continues to oversee even now. I earned a living and rose within the CSA’s ranks, due to my knowledge of the ships and machinery of the Commerce Guild, the Banking Clans, and the Trade Federation. I eventually became what I am now, the general of a private army and military police force which moves at the behest of great Corporations. In this position I have done a great many things; things of which I am satisfied to say that I have done them, and things of which I am ashamed and guilty. There can be no recompense for those I have wronged; no amount of money or words can bring back the dead, or return a planet strip-mined to its core back to its fruitful past. No apology can even be close to enough, but unfortunately, that is all I have to offer. That, and a goal that I may perhaps be fortunate enough to reach.
This sense of shame and guilt is not a recent development. I have felt it for most of my career. It was with this sense of shame that I began to buy the freedom of the Gossam that I came across, and offered them employment that they would not run the risk of being captured, and enslaved again without due process. Many accepted. Some did not. I continue to offer that choice to any Gossam I meet or am able to free.
We are a species who seem to have corporately lost the capacities for loyalty, trust, and even perhaps love, aside from the few individual accomplishments I have seen and heard. It is time that we regain as much of these as we can, and become a cohesive people whose character is no longer thought of in respect to a lacking, but a fullness. We can become a people and begin the long work of self-reclamation.
Come to me. Write to me. Send a message. I will buy your freedom if you lack it, offer you work, should you need it. You may join us then, and join our labour, or you may leave. I warn you though that the galaxy is not a friendly place to us. We will be unable to help you should you leave and be beset.
This message must be passed along. Do not worry over-much should you be overheard reading it, but this letter is meant for the Gossam, and the Gossam only. We will die if this goal is not met, or at the very least, not striven for.
I await you. Find your way to me, and I will buy you out of whatever bonds you may have, if I am able.