Mission Log:
The following statement was recorded and played before the Chesarn Nebula Galactic Tribunal on Sector Date: 8081-326 GTP. The witness has been verified to be an acquaintance of the being known as Essmay Ra, an inhabitant of Kamarat Three. The name of the acquaintance has been redacted for security reasons. The transcription reads as follows:
I grew up with Essmay. She was kind, thoughtful, loving. She’d go out of her way to help someone. Even if it meant putting herself behind. I remember one time, when we were in school, years ago, when Essmay didn’t eat lunch for a week. When I found out she wasn’t eating, I said girl, what are you doing? Turns out, she was giving her credits to a local homeless family every morning. She said it wasn’t much, but they needed it more than she did. The next week, we both gave them money. After a while, the family was back on their feet, but not before Essmay had somehow infected us all. Her charity and kind-hearted caring for others had caused a group of us to raise money for the family and get them back into their home. To be honest, most of us passed that family every day on our way to and from school, but only Essmay saw them. So, I guess what I’m saying is, Essmay wasn’t just kind, thoughtful, and loving. She made you more kind, thoughtful, and loving.
The following question was asked by the prosecutor: Was Essmay well-liked?
Testimony continues as follows:
If you knew Essmay, you liked Essmay. By that, I mean, if you took the time to know her. She was different from us, and she was the same as us. Her skin wasn’t like ours. Her eyes and ears were not like ours. So, we were different in several physical ways. But we were so much more the same. We all laugh, we love, we run, we play, we wear similar clothes, we love to shop. Still, we cry, we hurt, we feel.
Yes, there were many who did not like Essmay, simply because she was Talarian, a race of beings that our people, the Karmarians, once enslaved. Some Karmarians think themselves superior to the Talarian. Some still see Talarian’s as slaves. Some believe that the Talarians should be grateful that they were released from slavery, and still there are others who think that because the Talarians were released over two hundred galactic cycles ago, the cruelty of our race should have been long forgotten by now. And, of course, some do not understand the nature of being in the minority, as they have been a part of the majority all of their lives. And although I have no right to judge anyone, I can not help that my heart goes out to Essmay for the injustices and oppression that I saw placed upon her.
It hurt her. She didn’t really talk about it, but I knew that it hurt her. People would look at her and instantly judge her without a word being spoken. Once, as we left a convenience store on our way to a holo-concert, a person in the vehicle parked next to us, looked at Essmay, and as if Essmay was some kind of threat to her, she screamed out ‘activate locks.’ Or the time when the two of us were at the mall trying on clothes. They stopped Essmay and looked in her bags to see if she had stolen anything, never looking at mine. Or the countless number of racial slurs, even once when she was just helping a Karmarian who had dropped their identification card. And I still don’t know what the school’s security guard did to her the year we graduated. [Witness paused] She would never tell me. But she shook with fear every time he came near us. [Witness wiped tears from her eyes]
I can’t imagine what Essmay went through or what other Talarian’s have gone through. I can not fully fathom their heritage or their brutal history. Taken from their homeworld, forced to work in our fields and our mines. Beaten, locked up, and killed because of the color of their eyes, the shade of their skin, and the shape of their ears. Still, I know that we, as Karmarians, sometimes think that those trials are in the past and that our world is not that way anymore. But the truth is easy to see if you open your eyes to it. That level of oppression hasn’t faded away yet.
Still, even with all of the hurt piled up on her. Even with all of the pain she endured. To look at her or to have a conversation with her, you wouldn’t even have known it. She didn’t care if you were Talarian or Kamarian, she would treat you with respect. Talarian or Kamarian, she would give you her credits and inspire others to do the same. Talarian or Kamarian, she would pray for you regardless of how you treated her. God first, she would say. God first, then your family, then others, then yourself. It was something she would often say.
I don’t know if you saw it, but I just happened to see the interview, a few nights ago, with the spouse of the man accused of killing Essmay. As they interviewed her in their home, the camera happened to be framed so that a painting could be seen on the wall behind the spouse. It said: God first, then family, then others, then yourself. The irony here is that if that particular Karmarian had just taken that saying to heart, instead of just placing it on the wall, then he would have placed a Talarian before himself, and Essmay would still be alive today.
End of Transcript
Log forwarded to the Agents of ACTS with the rest of the tribunal documents on Sector Date: 8081-357 GTP.
Tools used to create this week’s render:
- DAZ 3D Studio
- NVIDIA Iray
- Adobe Photoshop
The E7 Prophecy Universe 