Moondancer moved slowly through the corridors of the ship, leaving the cockpit and her father behind her. As he'd promised, he'd told her all of his plan, what he'd done to attempt it, what he intended in the future...and she didn't know what to think. After hearing why as well...she had to see some things for herself.
"The Geeg are superior because our logical thought and emotional thought are not tightly intertwined, and thus our emotions cannot rule us. This is Fact we know from our first day. By this Fact, we bring our greatness to other races, enfolding them into our empire in service of the Geeg, that they can achieve their greatness to add to our own. This is our way. Before we enfold a race, we find a way to study them, to learn how they work, so we can know what place they belong."
Giegue's words made sense from the Geeg perspective, the one Moondancer had been raised on. And yet, some part deep inside her mind and heart declared that the words were...wrong. As she turned the corridor, her thoughts followed the explanation once more.
"The study of humans was different, because they were a very unusual race. Their history was rife with both violence and compassion upon their own people. The Geeg could not understand this, and so they sought to map the human mentality upon the Geeg mentality, to find the translation. A child was sent, to interact with humans. This is how I met my mother and father.
"When they found me, I was under attack by a creature of the world. They did not hesitate to leap to my defense. However, their defense did not drive the creature back. I acted. They were confused, but they cared for me. Seeing this, the other Geeg brought them and I back to this ship, so communication and study could be opened, so understanding could be reached.
"A great deal of time passed. I played with Mother, and learned from Father...but something went wrong. Father found the PSI amplifiers, tools for young Geeg to develop their abilities more rapidly, and to enhance the latent PSI capacities of those that serve the Geeg. And then was the betrayal..."
Moondancer stepped into the hidden storage chamber with the PSI amplifiers, looking them over carefully. There were not as many of them as she expected, suggesting that most of them had been utilized in one way or another. She wasn't surprised, from the rest of the story.
"My own memory of the events is unclear. Niiue speaks of...losing his tail, and when he does he always looks to the double X mark on his own pink tail, which does not make sense to me. All I know from my own recollections is that Mother vanished, and Father abandoned me on the ship, running to Earth. The Geeg tell me he sought to use me and the PSI amplifiers to create a weapon against the Geeg. I had no reason to doubt...and I still do not have enough information to dispute.
"As I grew, I came to certain conclusions based on what I had learned. Whenever Father or Mother discovered something, they got very excited. They displayed their emotions to an extent Geeg would consider rude, and they seemed incapable of holding them back. From this, I deduced that emotional and logical thought are completely intertwined in humans, that their emotions can dominate their thinking, or be suppressed. This is something that is new, and why we could not make sense of human history. I concluded that this is why Father enacted his betrayal...because his fear blinded him to the logic of humanity joining the Geeg. And so I began my project to separate emotional and logical thought within humans, to evolve them to be more like the Geeg, and thus better able to serve the Geeg.
"I modified the engine of this ship to be the primary PSI engine of this endeavor, and chose an isolated section of the planet to experiment. However, the engine's range wasn't strong enough to have the effect I desired...so I buried the PSI amplifiers throughout the region, keyed to resonate with the engine. Admittedly, this caused some...unusual side effects upon the regions, depending on what PSI energy the environment had naturally. Some animal hostility, randomly flying objects...things of that nature.
"But it didn't work how it was supposed to. Instead of separating the sides of thought, those affected had their emotional side amplified, making rage and aggression the predominant mental state until they were consumed by it entirely."
Moondancer paused as she hovered before the engine that had done all this, careful not to touch any of the controls. The massive construction filled her with a nameless dread...but Giegue had given her a name for that dread.
"This is why it is now called the Nightmare Engine.
"I attempted to tweak the engine to create the effects I wanted, trying to change what was going on. However...four individuals began to battle against the very effects I was creating. I watched their endeavors, trying to learn both how they were able to do so and why. This was especially of interest because two of them had potent PSI abilities. In my study, I learned that the boy who led them, Ninten, was my father's great-grandson.
"When they confronted me, only three arrived. I tried to explain to them what I was doing and why in a way that I thought they would understand. Since Ninten was family, I invited him to come with me, to be treated as Geeg rather than servant race. I can only assume there was a miscommunication, because he refused my offer and denied me. And when I decided I had to destroy them to complete my mission...
"The melody, the one I have sung to you...it was one Mother sang to me. It...it...I cannot explain the effect it had on me that day. But ever since, the separation of my logical and emotional thought has...suffered. I found myself susceptible to the Nightmare Engine's effects, and so I shut it down. ...I regret I did not realize it sooner. If I had...no, I cannot let myself linger on that..."
As Moondancer floated down to the other end of the ship, to the nursery area she had never seen before, she let herself think about what Giegue's plan was. Humanity in its current state was a danger to the Geeg. They feared the Geeg, and some had access to powerful PSI. If they could not be brought into the fold of the Geeg empire, they had to be destroyed as a threat. The plan was to use a device based off the Nightmare Engine to drastically increase his PSI reach so he could grasp every mind on the planet at once, and alter them to either be clear, submissive, or dead. Moondancer understood that this was necessary from the Geeg perspective...but she also knew that Niiue was drastically against the plan, and the conflict over this between Giegue and Niiue was coming to a head.
As she entered the nursery, she looked around for something, anything to give her some hope. Eventually, her eyes fell on an old music box. Curiously, she opened it.
As the notes played, Moondancer felt as though maybe, just maybe, things would work out after all. For a few brief moments, she felt at peace and believed in her Father, believed that there would be a happy ending.
As she felt the ship shake and a distant surge of PSI - the pair of sensations damaging the music box to twist its notes - she felt that hope fade.