Halo: Feet First

Prologue - (Exordium)

"'Ut est rerum omnium magister usus: Experience is the best teacher.' These words, purportedly spoken by the first Dictator of Rome, Julius Caesar, were fitting not only for his time but also for ours. Though he spoke to an ancient yet strong people in the Latin language, today the Roman Empire no longer exists, and Latin has been declared a dead language. And I am of the opinion that, given sufficient time, UNSC Standard English and all other languages spoken by humanity will also become dead languages for the same reason if we do not consider the lessons of our predecessors.

Over the course of many centuries the Roman Republic-turned-Empire eventually expanded to the degree that it had reached critical mass, then fragmented into an endless spiral of rising factions, civil war and external incursions until it was reduced to little more than an ember of its former glory. 

As for the present, it's been over half a millennium since we first reached our hands out to space and four hundred years since we began our interplanetary expansion. While the United Earth Government has found colonization profitable, the truth that we are in danger of overreaching our current capacities is apparently not an immediate consideration. As the ages-old idiom goes: "We're biting off more than we can chew."

Akin to Rome, it won't be long before we also wear through our glory days of expansion and face a new crisis whose onset was brought about by an over eagerness for more colony worlds. Even now the UEG's management of these outer colony worlds is subpar when available resources are taken into account and anti-UEG dissent is becoming the prevalent ideology in these regions.

It comes in high recommendation by prominent sociologists that the United Earth Government cease its extension and development of extrasolar human territories primarily beyond the Orion-Cygnus Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy. (See my reference to Articles of Stagnation by Dr. Deborah Marshall in Appendix A). Instead, action should be taken to consolidate resources and influence over pre-established and currently developing colonies.

In doing so, future opposition and impending rebellion against UEG control over these planets may be abated. However, as we learned from the Romans, ignoring such precautions will leave humanity standing on the precipice of civil capitulation and extended military interventions on the part of the United Nations Space Command to stabilize systems likely attempting to break away in pursuit of independence from colonial authorities. In such a situation, only two possible outcomes can occur according to historical patterns of societal progression and regression. In the first scenario, internally antagonistic forces in the form of local insurrections will fester to the degree that all efforts will be redirected to addressing these new domestic threats, bringing about a forced end to extended colonization. However, the second scenario is far more disturbing. Like the incursions by Germanic tribes into the Roman Empire that slowly ate away at its borders, an external power beyond humanity may arise. There is no liable prediction as to what this outside force may be, but should it move from a possibility to a reality then it will lead to only the bleakest outcome. A local insurrection can be quelled overtime. However, an outward force beyond our control poses the potential to roll us back from the stars all the way to the beginnings of our evolutionary origins in the continental heart of Africa.

Action must be taken now to preserve order and long-term sustainability within the current colonies. Should preventative measures be avoided then future internal rebellions may have the capacity to end the United Earth Government's influence as an inter-system authority, but under the more extreme and more unlikely condition, intervention by a previously unknown and unencountered external force may foster the potential to bring about our very end as a species."

-An excerpt of "The Viability of Extended Colonization", an essay paper by Preston J. Cole to his English Teacher, Ms. Alexander (Written 2485).

Exordium: Preamble