“We’re all shocked by what’s happened,” the no-longer-anonymous Anonymous continued, stronger now that love’s threat had been diffused, “and our instinct is to want shocking solutions, to destroy the system that’s gone so wrong, to purge the guilty, and make something new. We mustn’t be so rash. Before you listen to Sniper, or Tully Mardi, telling you a bloody revolution is the only way to make a new world, think about what you’ll be giving up: utopia! Don’t let one Hive using it as a name fool you, the Mars colony they’re building, their space fantasies, those aren’t utopia. This is utopia, right here! Right now! We have everything past generations worked for. Human history consisted of exploring, inventing, struggling, progressing inch by inch through toil and sacrifice to achieve what? Longevity, prosperity, safety, family, liberty, culture, art, the leisure to pursue happiness, the end of plague, the end of famine, peace: we have it all!” He gestured at the pseudoancient Senate house behind him. “If I had a time machine I could go back in time and find a king, any ancient king who ever lived, and bring them here and they would weep with envy for what the most modest of us has: a bash’house, warm in winter, cool in summer, comfortable clothes, appliances that do the work of a thousand servants, a bash’ we choose, a spouse we choose, laws we choose, a job we choose, and enjoy, and only have to work at twenty hours a week, while the rest of the time we can listen to music at the touch of a button, read any book we want, travel the world in safety, dine as well as kings could, better!” He smiled to himself. “If I were Charlemagne or Julius Caesar I’d abdicate for that. This world is not perfect. It’s scarred by mistakes, past and recent, but this is the utopia past generations worked to make for their descendants, not a perfect world, but the best one humanity has ever had, by far. This is the better world that history’s future-builders dedicated their lives to making. We cannot throw away, because of two thousand deaths, the legacy which billions died building for us. This world is a utopia, not perfect, not finished, but still a utopia compared to every other era humanity has seen. Calm, slow change is what we need, to make this good thing better, not war, not revolution, not tearing it all down. If we all dedicate ourselves to saving this good world, and to improving this good world, we can preserve the good, and make the bad parts better.”

The cheer woke slowly from the crowd, like dawn’s incremental chorus. Such a speech deserved a cheer, acceptance, thanks for this benefactor who charged unwilling into the limelight when we needed him. I cheered when I heard it some hours later, though at the moment of its delivery the surgeon’s anesthesia held me still. The live crowd around the Senate house was too shell-shocked to burst into anything warm or lively, but applause did come, hollow at first, but it swelled steadily until even Brody DeLupa found himself applauding.