The Price of Concealment and Institutional Amnesia
Frontios’ ruling class enforces silence around disappearances, hoarding artifacts like Revere’s map and fabricating a false state funeral for Plantagenet. This policy of concealment—spearheaded by Brazen’s interrogations, Revere’s buried records, and Plantagenet’s executive decrees—erodes trust until an outburst of conscience (Norna’s accusations) ruptures collective denial. The physical landscape mirrors the psychological: crumbling caves and falsified graves collapse under the weight of suppressed truth. Turlough’s ancestral recollections act as an emissary of the concealed past, forcing characters to confront the lethal consequences of institutional memory loss before the entire colony follows Plantagenet into the abyss.
Events Exemplifying This Theme
Range and Norna stumble upon a long-lost map belonging to Captain Revere, its markings hinting at a deeper knowledge of the treacherous cave system on Frontios. Their discovery shifts focus …
Turlough enters a trance-like state in the caves, voicing the predatory hunger of the Tractators as an ancestral memory. His fragmented, horrifying visions reveal the creatures as an 'appetite beneath …
In the State Room, Brazen’s deputy interrogates Range about secret medical records documenting disappearances on Frontios. Range insists the records are factual and warns of an ancient intelligence buried alive …
The gathering in the state room fractures over Turlough’s revelations, exposing long-buried failures of leadership. Norna seizes the moment to question Captain Revere’s omissions, shifting blame from Turlough’s fragile state …
Brazen and Range examine a false grave in the Research Room after Plantagenet’s supposed State funeral. Their discovery confirms Plantagenet was kidnapped by the Tractators and forced into servitude, not …