Dyssia doesn't answer right away, which is her first victory.

It's like, intellectually, there must have been a time [i]before[/i] the Azure Skies, right? It's not that she hasn't thought about it, right? Or like, what it would be like if the Skies were different.

But it's in terms of eons, if that makes sense? There was a time before the Skies in the same way that there was a time before the planet existed. There was a time when the Azura lived in the oceans, before they surfaced and looked at the sky. It's ancient history--it happened, yeah, but nobody's old enough to remember it or for it to be relevant.

[i]He[/i] was there. He's over five hundred years old, which--

It's like, you're immortal, I'm immortal, we're all immortal here. 

Unless you're a servitor race that's been created with a short lifespan. Or created to be fodder. You know, things that are, again, [i]heinous shit[/i] when aging has been eliminated and the only reason for their suffering is to optimize for the betterment of the empire.

But five hundred years just-- it's like, it refuses to fit in the mind. Stops being a period of time that is understandable and devolves to just a number.  What do you even do with that much time?

What do you do, knowing that you have infinite resources, can build whatever you want, create whatever you want?

"That's insane," she eventually says, horror struggling with--no, actually, yeah, just horror. "That's not an argument for the Azure Skies to keep being around. That's-- That's hundreds of thousands of millions of people, all playing a never-ending game, all suffering in the name of pleasing the neurotic psychopaths who want to paint the galaxy blue.

"That's not justification for an empire. That's justification for the empire's destruction--for breaking it down so entirely that the name loses meaning, and replacing it with something--

"Infinite resources! Infinite time! The ability to go anywhere, do anything, with anyone! Get as good as you can at anything you want!"

Oh fuck stop talking before he--Dyssia, you're shooting your mouth off and you don't know--why can't you--

She can't bring herself to stop, staring at the night and hoping against hope that he gets--

[i]Please[/i] understand her.

"There's [i]got[/i] to be a better answer than 'everybody dedicate themselves to this one idea that's hurting everyone,' hasn't there?"