From Leo's Diary
Driven by Mr M.'s overwhelming victory, his supporters are becoming increasingly hostile towards us aliens. They even left unfriendly graffiti on our house wall last night...
But the real problem is the speed with which Mr M.'s new anti-alien laws have been processed, laws against which the opposition in parliament cannot do anything.
Mr M.: (on TV) "... living with aliens has never worked, we are too different. The crime stats are self-explanatory, how can you control individuals who are able to change their appearance at will? Not to talk about their sabotage of our transmission just a few weeks ago, that episode alone showed us their true attitude more than a thousand words could. Isn't their hostility towards us glaring, at this point? To group all the aliens into a single province dedicated to them is the best solution, for everyone. This is why we are doing out best to ensure that the law is approved as soon as possible..."
Claire: (angry) How can he call this "the best solution"? This bullshit didn't make any sense when it was my father the one saying them, it's so unfair!
Claire is obviously the angriest and most frustrated about the situation, and she's feeling guilty too. If only she had managed to convince people to trust her, she could have been at his place right now, that's probably how she feels.
And of course it's not just us, also our kids are negatively affected by the most recent news.
Even Lyra, who usually gets carried away without caring about the "boring adult stuff", can't remain indifferent to the situation. And, probably, it is better not to quote here the exacts words she used to address the latest speech by Mr M.
While Luke...
Luke: (shaking his head) I'm heading to my room, it's useless to keep listening to this nonsense...
... Luke instead locked himself into his room for days, reasoning about the situation. We can only imagine what passed through his mind, but now he seems to be completely resigned to his unfair destiny.
We tried to cheer him up, somehow, but what could we tell him? "As long as we stay together, it will settle somehow"? Or "It's not the end of the world, you're still so young"?
He's a smart guy, and he definitively can understand the meaning and the consequences of what is about to happen by himself. This is probably he's always dismissing any of our attempts to console him a bit as useless empty words.
This could probably be the hardest part for me, seeing all my family suffer and being unable to help them in any way.
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From Luke's diary
I've just graduated from high school, hardly anyone was surprised when I confirmed to be one of the best students of my year. I had also received an acceptance letter from a good college, I applied to it before I could suspect any of those mad ideas were about to flood our news.
I was planning to study history and anthropology, to learn more about the populations who have coexisted throughout the history of this planet.
Then I was supposed to celebrate my birthday. My family did their best to organize it, but was there really something to celebrate?
I had projects, so many that I struggle to list them now. I think it's normal at my age. But now we are about to lose everything, to start a new life full of question marks somewhere else...
I'm keeping seeing Serena as much as I did before. She seems as shaken as I am by this absurd situation, but she too seems to still be able to analyze it with a clarity that surprises even me. She is really good at this kind of thing, the more time passes the clearer it gets.
Luke: (resigned) The situation is getting worse and worse. So many sixamians are so sick of being treated this way that they are the first who want to go live on their own.
Serena: It was inevitable, hatred can only create more hatred.
I feel so sad and helpless right now...
I feel a strong connection for her, and he says it's the same for her.
And I refuse to believe that we are the exception, I strongly believe that sixamians and humans would have so much to give to each other, if our interactions weren't poisoned by this widespread prejudice.
We would just like to forget about everything else and live in our bubble, but now more than ever we should be talking about what's awaiting for us in the next few months instead.
We sixamians are destined to be crammed into what is now a nearly deserted province. We have little time to build housing and infrastructure for everyone, as well as to set up the administration and services that we will need to continue to lead a normal life. Although Mr M. insists on repeating the opposite, confusion and insecurity will reign for a long time. And all this will only increase the hatred of humans.
I can't ask her to come with us, it wouldn't make sense. And she must think the same, because she has never mentioned the opposite.
Sooner or later we will have to face the subject, but neither of us has the courage to do so...
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From Leo's diary
Weeks have passed by, and Claire continues to do her best in trying to lead the opposition to Mr M. in the Parliament, in a desperate attempt to at least limit the damage.
Claire: (embittered) We did our best, but we only managed to have the clauses on hybrids retracted. Since you can't disguise or use telepathy, you won't be forced to leave.
Roberta: Anyway we can't let Aster and Ariana go alone. Nor the rest of you.
We weren't surprised by this answer. Thinking about it, most of the hybrids had aliens among their close relatives and had grown up in the alien part of the community. It was therefore likely that the majority of them would have decided to follow us anyway.
Leo: (resigned) So we are all going to Strangerville. The last time I was there, there were just a few houses, how do you think to handle it?
Orion: The matter recomposer is running at full capacity, by using the rocks of the area it is not difficult to produce low-cost concrete houses.
Silas: The government has already begun to transfer the few human families that were still in the area after the accident, the town is practically empty right now.
Sadness and frustration reigned among us. Neither of us wanted to leave, but what else could we do? Not even Orion and Silas were proposing crazy plans anymore, apparently the possible alternatives sounded excessive even to them.
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From Luke's diary
Inexorably, the law came to its approval within a few months. The TV frontmen seemed so disgustingly relieved by it that we stopped to watch TV altogether.
All of us sixamians should have moved to the Strangerville province upon reception of an official notification letter, anyone who refused would have been forcibly moved there.
The province would have been in all respects an integral part of the Country, and therefore subject to the same laws and taxes, but also equipped with the same types of services and infrastructures. Everyone would also be given a house and the opportunity to work on the most suited tasks to them, but our movements to the rest of the Country would have been strictly monitored.
Much of the province's research activity would have focused on developing technologies from Sixam. After all, not even Mr M. could deny that Sixam's teleportation, matter recomposer or super-advanced medicine were strategic technologies of national interest. Thinking about it, that was most likely the main reason why he wanted to keep the Strangerville province under the central government control, instead of just kicking us out of the Country altogether.
As on time as only bad news can be, our transfer notice letter arrived a few days later.
And Serena and I could no longer postpone the conversation we had avoided for all those months...
Serena: (sad) So you're all leaving.
Luke: so it seems.
Serena: ...
Luke: ...
Serena: So this is a farewell.
Luke: Uhm.
It was the best solution, we both knew that. But it didn't make it any less painful.
Luke: Good luck, for everything. You're smart, you'll be fine.
Serena: You too.
She had said it with a hint of a smile, she wanted to sound encouraging but the sadness in her eyes said otherwise.
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From Leo's diary
I left in winter, in the snow, and I find myself living in a desert again.
We ended up in a large house a few steps from Orion's place. I never thought we could ever become neighbours.
We have been assigned such a house, instead of the small prefabricated buildings most of the other people were given, mainly thanks to Claire's position. Despite everything, the alien community recognized all her efforts in trying to help them.
Mr M. has kept his promises, here we can lead a life very similar to what we did before. I still work at a police station, Claire will represent this province in Parliament and Lyra is attending a new high school. Luke, on the other hand, is doing all the paperwork to enrol to the local college.
Despite the similarity in our lifestyles, we couldn't avoid feeling bitter about the situation. Sometimes we made some attempts to cheer each others up, but that new huge house was sadly silent for most of the time.
Claire: (Trying to cheer him up) It's your birthday, don't you even want a cake?
Leo: There's not much to celebrate, don't you think?
Leo: At least this tavern still looks the same.
Silas: Just the management has changed, of course.
Orion: Seriously Leo, you're looking so old today!
Leo: Have you looked in the mirror lately? I remind you that we are twins!
Claire: Didn't we come here to talk about serious things?
Leo: Indeed. What did you want to talk to us about, Celine?
Celine is one of the very few humans who moved to Strangerville. Considering that she was one of the leaders of the rebels who went to live on Sixam and that most of her family is made up of aliens, no one was surprised to see her there with us though.
Celine: (serious) We have a proposal for you, Claire.
Claire: Should I worry? No offence, but most of the proposals coming from you guys were quite crazy...
Celine replied with a half smile, she seemed almost flattered by the insinuation. Claire said those words ironically, pretending to be completely calm, but also I could notice the expressions in Celine, Orion and Silas's faces at that point. They were plotting something.
As to confirm our suspects, Celine started saying:
Celine: We are about to propose a referendum to all the inhabitants of the region.
Claire: (perplexed) A referendum? About what?
Celine: The work in the laboratories is much more advanced than what the reports we wrote to the Ministry of Defence, the way they've always tried to exploit our work is just horrible.
Claire: ...
Claire didn't say anything, but I could tell from her expression she felt conflicted. Why were the rebels keeping to hide data from the government? And what did they plan to do now with that information?
Celine: ...we have a few quite fancy devices in our secret archives, by using them we would be perfectly able to obtain all the resources we need and live very comfortable lives even in this desert. According to our calculations, in a short time we may even be able to surpass the Country we come from, actually.
Claire: (worried) ... what do you have in mind, exactly?
Celine: C'mon, isn't it obvious? If aliens will agree, we want to declare our independence from Sim City and create a new Country in this province, New Sixam. And we would like you to candidate yourself as the President, Claire.
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§HermioneSims§ corner
This was a very tough chapter... I can be very evil with my characters sometimes.
Anyway, I want to close with a couple of more practical things related to the legacy:
i) I wrote the Luke enrolled to college, but when I played this part I didn't have that expansion pack yet. So it will just be a narrative license;
ii) Moving the family to Strangerville was quite chaotic, so chaotic that I completely forgot about Leo's birthday. He aged autonomously soon after they arrive in Strangerville, so now he's officially an old sim.
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