The soft sound of droplets falling from the roof onto the cold stonefloor of the aetherplex is the only relief of the otherwise deafening silence surrounding me. I'm not alone though. A sister of my kin has been standing here as well for a while. Neither of us say a word to the other, as what is there for us to say? However, the silence lingers, and nothing interrupts us, nor do either of us do anything. I find myself studying her more intently, as she does me. Finally, she speaks. "Gaudiguchan?
"Yeah." I respond and flex lightly. "And you are Hallifaxian? Not often to see a prissy featherbrain with the guts to talk to someone like me."

"Ah yes, for why would I desire to speak to a thoughtless barbarian?" She responds sarcastically. "Please cease to represent your city so well. It is tiresome and I'm in a less than forgiving mood"

I growl lightly down at her. "You aren't exactly disproving the common view on Hallifax either."

She looks up at me with an unreadable expression. "Is that what you want? Do you want me to show you what Hallifax is?"

I roll my eyes and glare down at her. "That has to be the worst threath I've ever heard. Look at me sister. Do you think I am one that accepts threaths?"

"Not a threath." She responds, before she beckons for me. "If you wish to debate, then let us, but not here."

"Why? Do you have things that cannot be said out loud?" I look at her, though I fail to make my tone as acidic as I had hoped and I deign myself to follow her motion and leave the main chamber of the aetherplex itself. She leads me into a neutral aethermanse, and though I remain on guard, I do not notice any traps. I give her a nod as I plant myself firmly on the ground. "Okay. We're here now. So what exactly did you want to discuss?"

"You wish to know why I choose to live in Hallifax correct? Then let me first ask you, how do you view Hallifax?"

I smirk to myself. "Always begin by debunking claims huh? Well, allow me to be "extreme" for you. Hallifax as a nation is a nation of slavery. The art it produces is pretentious and shallow, its technological achievements are worthless as they hold no grounding in the daily life. What's worse is that they are usually reckless and endanger the world around them. Temporal paradoxes have become dangerously commonplace it seems. But recklessness, unsound science and terrible art I could forgive. People should be free to waste their time on whatever they like. But in order to to do that, they control others. Hallifax is a nation of slavers. And calling it indentured servitude does not change it from what it is. Slavery."

"And what of the collectivism? What of the concept of a whole? Isn't one large nation of a unified purpose far more powerful than any single individual?"

"Smoke and mirrors." I growl. "You can talk about collectivism, but do you practice it? What part of your collective takes care of the whole? The lower circles work for the higher circles, so that the higher circles can spend their days in sloth."

"And yet the collective can construct incredible architechtural wonders. Yes, the pyramids of Gaudiguch are grand to look at, but are they that impressive from the point of view of an architect or an engineer? They are nothing compared to the constructs of Hallifax."

I shake my head. "But what is a construction compared to a living being? I highly doubt your crystal spires can dream, hope or want."

"That is true." She nods slowly, as if gathering her thoughts. "But they are still signs of what a collective can create. And all societies need to be collective to some degree at least. Would you want to live in a society where position is not determined by merits, but by popularity?"

I wince lightly from it, the words hitting far too close. "No. But a collective still needs to focus on the individual. It is individuals that inspire greatness. Individuals that create the truly incredible things. Great people are not made by castes. If you do not care for the individual, your "collective" will collapse on itself for lack of people to keep it going."

She looks thoughtfully at me, before she nods. "We will speak more of this at a later date. For now, I am called away."

And with those words, she leaves.