The Ascension //The day had come. At exactly three in the afternoon, Lloyd, to the cacophony of a thousand different cheers walked from behind the entrance to the Comitium in the forum that had been laid weeks prior. The day was bright and sunny, the sky framed with emerging skyscrapers and the skeletons of old structures. The camera that broadcasted the event hovered freely in a semicircular radius of the stage that the soon-to-be emperor stood on. It panned, displaying the Olympian forum, it was abounding with proposed citizens. The masses resembled peoples freshly removed from war-torn countries, not of the typical ‘urban’ look present in other cities. The commonalty was held back from the front of the forum and the Comitium by lines of Atlas heavy-variant war drones. Each stood with a laser rifle in its grasp. The camera circled around and centered on Lloyd, who had just stood behind the podium that bifurcated the stage, activated the microphone, sending a pop across the crowd produced by the loudspeakers that framed the forum. He’d wait for the applause to die down before speaking.// “I stand here as a result of a promise I made to the man who lead you all to settle this world. Never did I intend to take his place, but when I took the oath to our people when Matthew Endfield himself welcomed me as a brother of the federation when I went against my belief of commitment to serve, I fell into a series of events that ends with me here today.” //He paused, inhaling through his nose.// “Over the years, I watched Matt struggle with hardships unending, building a military, dealing with Fringe powers, pleasing the people, the pixel crash.. It deepened my loyalty to him and to our cause, I found comradery with the people from my unit, forged friendships that were only broken by time. Eventually, things became too excessive for Matt. The economy failed and we lost control of the cities. I remember being deployed in these streets to quell rioting for free. The military began to evaporate, those who found Atlas as a job and not as a calling vanished and left the rest of us to pick up the pieces. We lost. We pulled back one last time, with promises to come back the next day, but it never came. The rioting on this world had stolen Matt from the rest of us.” //Lloyd spoke with remembrance, recapturing his time as a soldier and the days of the Atlas Federation. Many of the commonalty remembered as well. To them, it was the time their society had fallen.// “One day, I remember all seemed lost as Endfield stripped himself of his rank and passed his title on to Regala, my best friend. Things deteriorated and our home fell to anarchy. I cannot speak of the horrors you, our people, endured at the hands of the powers that rose in our absence, but after both Regala and his successor, Shawn Rhodes failed to take this world back, I found it in myself to give my shot. For you, I have thrust myself into politics, borrowed money, built monuments to our leaders on worlds you can only dream of, taken recognition from powers far bigger than ours was.” //He pauses again, the crowd waits.// “I fought for our right to exist, and slowly, the Fringe began to follow. I became ‘we’, and we fought together to establish a capital city from which we could coordinate. Lost in those endless clouds, I wrote the first pages of the plan that would cause this ‘we’ to become an ‘us’. In Calypso, the plan was laid. We ventured to worlds forgotten and clawed them from the sands of time. We created bases around our cluster and moved in tighter until we reached this planet. In February of last year, we made first contact again. An unmanned pod filled with drones. They were attacked by the people who held many of you in servitude. February of this year, we mounted a full-scale assault, set the skies on fire to free you from injustice, and today I am here to tell you that you are no longer alone, we are no longer lost. We are together. We have always been Atlas, and we are your protectors, not your capturers.” //He pauses one last time.// “We are the Atlas Empire.” //Drones whirled from out of the Comitium, each carrying a roll of white cloth. They flew the entire vertical length of the building, and along two straight surfaces, they attached and unraveled two massive white banners adorned by the ensign of the now Atlas Empire. The crowd’s emotions of remembrance and sadness were channeled into an intense interlude of nationalistic cheering and chants. Those who had survived the anarchical hell-world The Fall had produced were now saved. Lloyd takes the microphone again and begins to speak, louder, and without waiting for the crowd to calm. He was channeling their energy, yelling out with dignity, satisfaction, and pleasure over the culmination of years of stress.// “You are no longer the disenfranchised souls belonging to only your warlord! We are no longer the ghost of what Enfield built on the foundation of faith! I am no longer the enterprising mime of a man who died defending his honor! May our Empire stand eternal as a monument to perseverance and loyalty to ideals. May your fathers look down on you and rest easily knowing you are safe! May your children live better than you did, without fear of instability or disloyalty! May your futures tower with radiance and optimism! May we never again fall because of negligence.” //The crowd screamed, Lloyd began to pound a closed fist on the podium periodically as he spoke, his voice rising powerfully.// “I swear to serve our Empire until my bones turn to dust, and that my replacement and his after will do the same! May all who join our fold or enlist for our service take the same oath that we did the day we joined Atlas, and may they serve with renewed vigor, knowing they are the present and future, living above the past. May the belief in our abilities remain ever firm and may the confidence in our sovereignty endure, steadfast facing any quandary. We are Atlas and we stand eternal!” //The plaudit continued as Lloyd finally backed away from the podium. He had begun to sweat as a result of his exertion. To close his speech, he placed his feet shoulder-width apart and turned his body slightly, extending an arm, his hand flat with the palm facing downward, out and parallel to the ground. This could be assumed to be the salute now adopted by the Empire, and was mirrored by many members of the commonalty.// //The new Emperor held the salute for fifteen or so seconds before turning to walk back inside the Comitium. The broadcast continued for forty or so minutes after the speech concluded, the camera drone showcasing the crowd that had begun to return to their temporary camps and those who supported the movement enough to cheer. Eventually, the war drones began to peacefully escort late stayers towards the exit of the forum.//
//Rose would have attended the event personally in formal attire, recording the speech herself through her minibracer.//
//Artyom had attended the event personally in military dress uniform and stood near other military officers at attention. Sofia did the same but stood with lower ranked military personnel in a much more casual stance.//
