After The War, most of the surviving Cowboys retired. Some of us went home, while others went out. Some of us had no homes to return to, so we found or built new ones. Some of us settled down on a world we controlled after The War. Others found their home in space. Wherever we’ve gone, I’ve had a simple request of the Cowboys. Act well. Make memories of our presence positive, so people look forward to the arrival of a Cowboy. They have.
I don’t like people who say one thing and do another. They are hypocrites and I don’t like dealing with them. I will if I have to, and I’ll even leave them alone if they aren’t hurting anybody. But one thing I learned during The War was that I had to stop the dangerous people. I’m a marine. I’m a cowboy. It’s what we do. When those hypocrites turn dangerous, we end their threats.
We are human. Cybers. We are just as human as any genie. We think, we communicate, we dream. There is one thing we have trouble with though. Very few of us can lie. We are born to be trustworthy partners, and so lying does not come naturally. And we choose partners who are naturally trustworthy as well. Especially with themselves. If you know who you are, if you accept the real you, then we can have a very long partnership.
We have reached for the stars and we have claimed them. Everywhere we’ve gone, we’ve brought our virtues, our sins, and our laws. Every colony, every world, is a unique combination of us, and those of us who fly through the stars have to remember that. What may be commonplace on one colony may be a capital offense on another. Laws change, but right and wrong does not. Our challenge is to bridge the gap everywhere we go.
There’s an old saying that there are only two things in all the worlds that can’t be escaped. Death and taxes. That’s not entirely true anymore. You see, starships are recognized as sovereign States, beholden to no government. We fly where we want, land where we want, and do what we want. And my ship is a tax free zone. Of course, we do avoid worlds with heavy landing fees. No sense in draining the national treasury on the stuck up ones after all.