Fire and Ice

Theme: Places

Collection: Earth

Card: Fire and Ice

[European Dead Zone]

"The lunar assault--"

"Has failed. As predicted. I have this habit of being right at all the wrong times, it seems."

"Hundreds dead. We may never know the full count."

"Indeed."

"That's all?"

"Since nobody likes hearing 'I told you so,' yeah. I'll keep my peace."

"And sit here out in the wilderness, admiring the trees?"

"It's a glacial lake. Ten thousand years ago, an unstoppable wall of ice gouged this valley out of the mountains and left this lake behind."

"It is this sense of history that draws you? You wish to feel some connection to the past?"

"Must have seemed like the end of the world."

"You're projecting. Onto a puddle. A very large and very pretty puddle, I'll grant you, but it's still just water."

"Yes, but. Hush. I'm thinking."

"Ah. Of course." [silence] "And?"

"And what?"

"Any conclusions?"

"I was thinking what I'd do, if I was facing that wall of ice."

"You'd empathize with it? Very useful."

"No, Toland's wrong. You can't stop ice by becoming stronger or colder ice."

"Ah. So that's what this is about."

"Everyone gets it wrong. They hear 'survival of the fittest' and assume 'fittest' means 'strongest.' It's not the strongest that survives, or the most intelligent. It's the ones that adapt."

[silence] "Okay? This helps the current situation how exactly?"

"We adapt. Change the rules. Make their strength a weakness. They have leaders, a hierarchy, territory, goals. We will have none of these. A million leaders, and none. Pursuing a million goals, and none. If they want to encase the world in ice, then we will bathe it in fire."

"So. This is the way the world ends."