Darcia sipped her coffee with two hands, careful not to spill any on her notebook computer. It tasted just right, not too much sugar and just the perfect amount of cream. She set the cup down and took her fork and knife, carefully slicing her glazed donut into small bite sized pieces.
Mindful of the fact that the people here used their hands, she self-consciously glanced around to see if anyone looked her way. But the hour was so late that the shop was nearly empty.
She speared a piece with a fork and dunked it in her coffee, pushing it around just enough to let some of the sugars fall off. Carefully pulling it out, she let it drip over the cup and moved her mouth over to capture it.
She closed her eyes and moaned pleasurably as it melted in her mouth.
A meager reward for a job well done.
It had been several minutes since she had sent her report to Isaac for transmission home, but she decided to read it back again anyway. Perhaps there was something she missed, or perhaps a mistake in need of correction.
She had been Dharma Praeceptor for the majority of her life, and had learned from an early age that communication was the most important tool for a teacher. An idea was nothing if it could not be shared. Thus, she excelled in English, taking pride in her ability to understand indigena dialect and to communicate effectively with everyone here.
We believe envy and pride the main catalysts in triggering the anger outbreak sometime on or around the indigena calendar year 2009. A multiplicity of technologies developed by the indigena allowed subtle feelings of resentment to creep into our psyche and take root. These feelings were largely inconspicuous due to an intriguing characteristic akin to variable dormancy. Caelan to Caelan envy and pride has been and is negligible, thus irrelevant, and this being our norm we have more or less ignored those feelings, treating them as a non-issue since they are fleeting at best, on Caelus.
The problem arose because here on Earth the indigena do not share our ability of emotive restraint as it pertains to the negative. This led to a cyclical swing of their pride and lack of restraint feeding the seeds of our dormant discontent. As our comparative imbalance grew, so did our anger. Our false sense of immunity also played a vital role, as we missed the warning signs for years before finally realizing that something was wrong.
There may be additional factors which demand further study, such as subtle feelings that indigena are not dissimilar to us. The differences in our civilization gap felt decades ago have dwindled due to our prolonged time here on Earth. We have begun to get too comfortable with the indigena, and their recent explosions in technological growth have even further closed the gap. We now see them as not too different from us, leading to insecurity and doubt as to our level of advancement in comparison to theirs. With subconscious feelings of equality—or near equality—their lack of emotional discipline puts a significant strain on our ability to douse and manage the negative.
Another notable factor is that Caelan anger seems to spiral, like a dam bursting. Once thoughts of selfishness and greed are embraced, they grow. The mind always wants more. We see our indigena neighbors constantly embracing the mind's wants and needs, and we feel somewhat left out. Their greed is fed while ours is not. This has been a destructive path, especially within those of leadership positions.
To that point, it is my obligation to report that Regulus Lafaye has shown dangerous signs of greed and ambition. Those emotions coupled with his powerful psy are a dangerous recipe. This is new and dangerous ground for our people. Ever since the discovery of psy, we have not known anger like this. Lafaye is intelligent, powerful, and filled with anger over the death of his wife. He appears to have at least one tame—perhaps more—and has expressed a strong dislike for the indigena. It is my opinion that he be removed from his post here and that a new Regulus be appointed, immediately. I will include separate documentation detailing a handful of firsthand accounts and a disturbing number of secondhand accounts citing behavior completely out of line with our core beliefs.
