Kara made an angry noise. 'What I find most odd is the way it has become popular for people to bemoan the dying of the Old Word, the way people romanticize the days of the kings and queens. The truth of the Old World for the average person was grinding poverty, waves of epidemics for which there were no cure, having to watch half or more of your children die, social repression, a double standard that favoured the rich, no matter the injustice, and worst of all having to endure the lie that an accident of birth accords sacred privilege!'
'So?' Anana said teasingly, tired of this line of conversation and trying to get a rise out of Kara. 'Let's organise the peasants and have a big revolt, like they did in France. We'll lop off their heads, and that will be the end of the problem.'
'Ha-ha!' Kara said distinctly, not rising to the bait. Then, sombrely, she said, 'The last time I heard my father speak, he and his friends were talking about the next war.'
'What next war?' Anana asked with alarm.
'I'd forgotten,' Kara muttered bitterly, almost to herself. 'It used to really bother me. They're planning another war, one that . . . how did that fellow put it? ". . . will kill off half to three-quarters of the world's population, giving us plenty of room once more. And there will be no more trouble from the workers, because this war will give us the power to put to death and imprison any who make the least trouble for us."'
Anana was prepared to laugh, then stared in shock as it dawned on her that Kara was serious, and yet more ominous was her certainty. 'What fellow? Who said this? They can't know what they were talking about! The Great War ended and they all signed a peace agreement-'
'I'm sorry!' Kara said contritely, seeing that Anana was genuinely upset. 'Let's talk about something else-'
'No!' Anana said firmly. 'Tell me! This was just talk, wasn't it?'
Kara looked away with a pale, sick expression. 'We should really talk about something else-'
'No!' Anana demanded with more force. 'You've started. Now finish it!'
Kara swallowed. 'Anana, to begin with, they signed an armistice at the end of the Great War. An armistice is not the same thing as a peace agreement. It's an agreement to stop the killing- for now.
'But the situation is a powder keg waiting for a seemingly errant match tossed by would-be tyrants and war profiteers to set it alight. Revolution has become something of a habit in the minds of the masses these days, and they eagerly rush in under the banner of idealism, only to unwittingly replace one tyrant with another. But the New World tyrant is merely the political face of modern mechanized warfare, and the only protection that exists against such despots is democratization and the separation of the state, the church and the military.'