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*prognotes – Vektor’s Terminal Redux

Wikipedia has this to say about space opera: “Space opera is a subgenre of science fiction that emphasizes space warfare, melodramatic adventure, and often risk-taking, interplanetary battles, as well as

8 years ago

Wikipedia has this to say about space opera: “Space opera is a subgenre of science fiction that emphasizes space warfare, melodramatic adventure, and often risk-taking, interplanetary battles, as well as chivalric romance”. While this definition is certainly accurate, it also downsizes one of the grandest, most expansive sub-genres of science fiction out there. Beyond the insane amount of terrible space opera (see Sturgeon’s Law for why this shouldn’t bother you), it has some of the most memorable and well thought out settings in science fiction literature (and beyond, but we are not getting into this discussion). Funnily enough, it also has some ties to metal: several albums draw on the space-oriented themes of the sub-genre to create their oppressive, rust-tinged settings, replete with beasts from beyond space and time, sentient spaceships and more.

However, this year we were treated to the best space opera setting in the history of metal with Vektor‘s Terminal Redux. If by some insane reason you haven’t listened to this album yet (seriously, go listen to it RIGHT NOW), let me by way of an introduction tell you that it’s everything that progressive thrash should have been and wasn’t. It’s truly diverse, with choirs, technical tricks and much more to vary up the huge amount of riffs, and focuses on delivery and composition rather than just blistering displays of technicality. And, on top of all of that, it’s a concept album. It tells a classic space opera story: an outcast finds great (internal) power, returns to claim dominion, achieves stellar success, literally, only to realize that it all means nothing in the wake of the vastness of space and time. Along the way, we are treated to some of the most fleshed out characters in a concept album, complete with competing, interstellar empires, brutal enforcers, uncultured masses and a technology that changes everything, for better or for worst. And so, this album basically begs for a *prognotes post and here we are!

Small note for this specific post: it is highly recommended to listen to the album while reading these lyrics. Some of the sounds, instruments and progressions on the album only make complete sense when experienced via the lyrics (you’ll get a good example for this very soon, on the first track) so while it’s always advised to listen and read at the same, it’s doubly true here. Let us begin!

Terminal Redux doesn’t really bother with an exposition or an introduction. From the get go, “Charging the Void” lands smack in the middle of the story. It’s not even the chronological beginning; our hero is already facing his initial predicament. The very first few lines however, give us all we need to know about him. Exiled from whatever society he was in, he was sent in a basic craft into “the Great Divide”. Whether this is the blackness in between galaxies or just an area devoid of stars, we’re not completely sure. Future events lead us to believe it is the latter, since some sort of phenomena exist within it, something which can’t be said about the space between galaxies. In any case, our protagonist is doomed to die, with no control of his ship and a future in isolation until, one would assume, he goes mad and dies. However, our hero is determined to survive in any case and, to that end, he overrides the ship’s systems, bringing them under his control:

“Blasting forward through a filamentous sky
Beckoned by the flash of exploding light
My soul crosses over the Great Divide

Charging the void
Isolated, I’ve been redeployed
A rider on the crest
Carry forth or plummet to death

Autopilot function has been overridden
For Isolation subjects, choice has been forbidden
But death and destruction are what I’ve been given”

So, he sees something on the horizon, “beckoned by the flash of exploding light”. After taking control of the ship, he moves closer and what he finds is nothing short of miraculous. Before he reaches whatever it is, or maybe during his arrival to it, his mind considers the world he had left. In it, he finds only foolishness. Regimes rise and fall, blind to their inevitable fate. Unable to look past the confines of the mortal life, they are unable to truly plan ahead and create a lasting power structure. Our hero, even though he lies in the throes of distress, resolves to return and change all of that (“I charge the void/ I’ve found the purpose/ Immortalize this life/ I will return to the surface”). What gives him such boldness? Why, it is that selfsame miracle we had just mentioned. Apparently, within the void of space, he finds both a place and a power, a power made of new particles which give him the power over life and death themselves:

“Stargazers have made the claims
Of enocules bursting from Alshain
Deep within the serpent’s spire
I forge a path that takes me higher

I’ve crossed the Great Divide
Now I peer into the depths of death’s door
Through the rippling veil I acquire
The dust of life that Cygnus obscures
To the other side, I have done it
I now command the draw of death’s door
To the relic Alshain, now I’ve got it
A molecule like nothing before”

A hint of where this “Alshain” lies can be found by going to the original Perso-Arabic term. Aš-šāhīn (“the falcon”) is their name for the star Beta Aquilae (also referenced later in the track as “star fields of Aquila set ablaze”. Aquila is the name of the constellation). Around this name, much of the amazing complexity of this album can be revealed. Alshain gives our crazed astronaut, driven mad by his isolation, the secret to life and death itself. Perhaps, it is hinted, he died personally and it brought him back to life (“Oh Shahin-i-tarazu, now my flesh is born anew”. The form mentioned here is also from Perso-Arabic and adds astronomical terms to Alshain). This is where that tie between instruments and lyrics becomes abundantly clear. Listen to when the choir, such an odd and fantastic choice for this kind of track/album, comes in: it is exactly after he praises Alshain and returns to life. Now that choir, so upbeat and rejoicing is clearly understood as a resurrection, maddened jubilation at having cheated death. And so, our hero now holds the “sands of time”, the ability to halt aging and even death itself.

The way in which this control is symbolized is nothing short of amazing; see if you can spot all the images at play in these next few lines, before we expound on them later:

“Within my hands, I hold the sands
A sky of pillars gives life and land
The blackest night unveiling death
One inhaling, exhaling breath
Of the swan with blackened wings outstretched
A path unseen unfolds for me
I charge the void and ascend the tree
To the bird of morbid mastery”

So many references here. “A sky of pillars” could refer to the Pillars of Creation nebula, an iconic photograph of the Eagle Nebula captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. Notice that name, the Eagle Nebula? The ties to the falcon of Alshain are clear but it gets better; Alshain’s sister-star is Altair, which means “eagle” in the Arabic (it’s shortened from “al-nesr al-ṭā’ir”, or “the flying eagle”. The Space opera connotations should be clear). On one side, these pillars stretch giving life and dominion. On the other, blackest space is the “swan with blackened wings outstretched”, promising only death. The avian metaphor comes full circle with the protagonist grasping the secret of life and death, “the bird of morbid mastery” being Alshain itself. Here, the star, the particle and the location blend into one, representing power and the immense ego and pathos of our deranged hero.

That was one track. Luckily for us, while the rest of the lyrics are just as amazing, they’re not as rich with references as “Charging the Void” (although the last two tracks defy that statement). In any case, our protagonist now returns to the “Cygnus Terminal” referred to in the first track. This is the place that had originally exiled him and most of the track focuses on their surprise upon seeing him return from isolation. However, at the tracks opening and closing, we learn that our protagonist wasn’t just some random criminal; he had a prominent place in the society of Cygnus, a society which seems obsessed with social experimentation:

“I was served an injustice as head of the Guard
Unbalanced and covetous was my charge

I have returned
With malice that can’t be unlearned
I have arrived
Like the rise of a massive tide

[…]

Policies of my decree
Once again, are enforced by me
Epsilon, Pteropticon
Failing now because of my leave
LCD, at full capacity
This is where I’ll restart my work
Take the names of those who caused me shame
Be silent, swift, and deft on your search”

True to the tropes of space opera, such societies embody the ultimate fallacy of the do-gooder, the belief that in the pursuit of balance and an ultimate good, all means are justified. This can seen not only in the ominous names of our protagonists projects, once abandoned and now restored with his return, but also with the way that Cygnus describe themselves when communicating with him. These lines and the psychology of those in charge of Cygnus work so well since they give us a glimpse into the egotism and self-aggrandizement of the protagonist himself. We can see how a society which views itself as eternal (here we must remember the musings from the first track about governments who falsely believe themselves immortal) give birth to such a power-hungry egomaniac as our hero:

“Iso Subject 5, where were you?
Gone for 13 years and only aged 2

We deal with the terminal, we deal with death
We are the bringers of balance; we are the lungs of the cosmic breath

Iso Subject 5, your tracker was damaged at take-off
How could you survive?
We thought you were gone

Cygnus Terminal

Iso Subject 5, you say that’s not your name?
Isolation must have twisted your brain

We deal with the terminal, we deal with death
We are the bringers of balance, we are the lungs of the cosmic breath

Iso Subject 5, you’ve strayed from your tests
You must have lost your mind
Why don’t we just kill you now and put this all to rest?”

But, of course, Cygnus cannot kill he which now controls the very secret to life and death. Thus, our hero reinstates himself in control of Cygnus and begins to reinstate his machinations. This time however, he obviously has the ability to think bigger, fueled as he is by his power over death. He turns towards “Epsilon”, a planet which Cygnus has struggled to control for a long time without success. Not only that, before his isolation he was informed that control of it was impossible. Perhaps his insistence on trying nonetheless led to his exile? Regardless, those who are well versed in the tropes of space opera can already guess which planet we’re talking about, although it will only be revealed later in the album:

“On Epsilon, 14 billion strong
Cygnus has always struggled for control; they told me it could not be done

Lies!
All they need is a technogenic disease
We supply for free

Parasites of technology
So easily moved in line
Addicted to the use of our
Exclusive rights”

The idea then is to tap into the addiction of the planet’s denizens to technology, a technology one might assume is being distributed by Cygnus itself. This also recalls to mind the Pteropticon mentioned earlier, an obvious allusion to the famous “panopticon”, a prison system designed to police a prisoner by the ever present, yet invisible, presence of potential guards. The comparison is clear: under our protagonist’s supervision (quite literally), Cygnus becomes that invisible guard, always present and yet unmarked. However, Vektor astutely point out that such mechanisms will inevitably be turned upon the guards themselves, policing even those who believe they have power:

“I turn the screens on Cygnus
The cameras reading their eyes
Affixed to every device
They can tell no lies

Freedom of choice within
What you are given
No choice outside the small
World that you live in

They have led you astray
While I’ve been away
I can quiet the noise
I can give you a choice

I see Cygnus now as it truly is
They claim to bring balance, but they cannot to this”

So, in place of the befuddlement which Cygnus’s failed attempts at bringing balance created, our protagonist promises everlasting life and an interstellar grandeur. However, as we have said above, he is nothing if not a product of Cygnus itself. Just like them, he believes that a few eggs must be broken if one wishes to make an omelette (“Cygnus always thought this planet was unbalanced/ I’ll do what they could never do. A full-out cleansing by a thought out annihilation”). After a brief respite in the form of the instrumental track “Mountains Above the Sun”, the story continues with the motions being set in place for the annihilation. “Ultimate Artificer” sees a rejuvenated and self-secure protagonist begin to establish his claims to Epsilon and set in motion the ultimate sacrifice, the ultimate unchaining of society:

“Low orbit power grids
Placed by the Cygnus Creed
Were used as a docking point
That I now oversee
Lightning ignites the air
A glimpse of the grand design
Cumulonimbus cloak
Sprites explode to the sky”

What exactly is this project which is being worked on here? The rest of the track once again uses double duality (that is, two dualities that mirror each other) to paint an interesting image. On one hand, there is the duality of the projects itself. First, our protagonist creates the “Reapers”, super advanced drones/planes that can hook directly into the Pteropticon and automatically hunt down all dissenters. They are invisible and everywhere, thus encapsulating the first mirroring act: they are the ever present power of our protagonist’s control made manifest. This control, as we have said before, justifies all means by the ultimate end of total control. Second, the project also includes an obelisk, an all powerful artifact which we can’t help but tie into the powers of Alshain. This obelisk pierces the sky and radiates outwards towards the rest of the galaxy, expanding what our hero calls the “Sanctioned Spheres”, probably the area of influence of Cygnus and Epsilon:

“And the Reapers fly in
Soon, the cleansing begins
And no longer we crawl
Before we rise, many must fall

Obelisk to the stars
Your shadow splits the graves
Of the ones who lived for you
They have died in vain
Obelisk to the stars
Your shadow meets my eye
You are obsolete because I am
What you symbolize”

What more do you need than the last four lines? They embody the entire album as well as our second mirror; if the Reapers are the hero’s outwards desire to control, than the obelisk is the hero’s inwards conception of himself. Like he sees himself as singular, the obelisk is one. As he sees himself as a bridge to the stars, infused with the power of Alshain, so too the obelisk symbolizes that abridgment. And lastly, but most importantly, the size of his ego is once again made manifest, the conception of himself as towering above everyone and everything. Perhaps her, as well, we see the first signs of doubt. By his own admission this obelisk is obsolete because he is its embodiment. Why then venerate it so? Whether our hero is the one who built it is unclear, but his awe when speaking of something that is no longer necessary hints at the despair and self doubt already clawing inside of him.

On the next track, “Pteropticon”, all doubts are once again pushed aside as this ego finally begins the first step towards achieving its ultimate goal. While in “Ultimate Artificer” the Reapers were conceived and first implemented, “Pteropticon” sees them finally utilized to cleanse both Epsilon and Cygnus. In amidst the exaltation in (finally) executing the plan, our hero also reveals to use the full identity of Epsilon. During the chorus, he refers to it as “Earth Epsilon”. As we said before, those well versed in the genre of space opera could have seen this one coming from a mile away; the idea of Earth or a colony of it as a twist near the end/middle of the story is often used within the genre. Which one is it here? Are we talking about Earth’s future or a distant colony? The name would have us choose the latter as will the album art, depicting a quite un-Earth like system of bodies (with Cygnus burning at the top, by the way).

Regardless, “Pteropticon” gives us one, final, justification from our hero as to his rise to power, before he turns his eyes on the zenith of his life and then decline. Here, we can see writ large the ideas which we had gathered from hints earlier, of the end justifying the means and the disdain the protagonist feels for mortal empires and their short time spans:

“I have gained the trust from all the peoples within the Sanctioned Spheres
Epsilon and Cygnus: you have much to fear
Neither of you could maintain the natural order; you’ve become unbound
Like a weed that has to be plucked, I am breaking ground

[…]

Everything falls into place
As I cure the plague of falling empires
Balance restored
Cygnus is in contempt of my desires

[…]

The population will be halved through our cleansing: every defect razed
Cygnus V.2 is now in command; your future will be safe”

Now with what he calls “Cygnus V.2”, a more capable and Alshain-powered version of a body seeking ultimate balance in life, his plans for perfection can finally be realized. In our hero’s eyes, he is of course no villain. Instead, all he wants to do is to share his gift with mankind. The steps taking him there are bloody indeed, but the end goal (as he sees it) is not dominance itself but the paradise which it could give humankind. Now, with his machinations realized, it is time to enact that utopia. “Psychotropia” describes all of that, as our protagonist now has the perfect society to forge under his will. The lyrics once again point to an interesting duality, this time between the body and political upset. Within it, our protagonist again and again conflates between the need to control the body and the desire to control society:

“Balance attained through stability
We must eliminate change
Change is the force that brings down regimes
Balance must be maintained

[…]

Sterilize the population
The ageless have no need to procreate
Genetic banks have my hand-picked genes
If misfortune on someone awaits”

These are ideas which should be familiar to anyone who has studied the ties between the body and political power throughout history. The mirroring of political control in the bodies of its subject is well researched and quite easy to understand: if you have the ability to control someone’s body, you are able to subtly dictate their facts and routines of life. So too here. Once our protagonist has that ability, through LCD and Pteropticon (coupled with the Reapers), he can now completely stall change by sterilizing every body. This means that all citizens of Cygnus V.2 remain the same, that is connected to his screens and his central power. He of course injects them with the dust of Alshain, making them ageless and, in the process, enabling him to finally control the perfect empire he had dreamed of in the Great Divide.

And what is such an empire to do? Spread, of course. It is time to ride the path of the obelisk to the galaxy, not only for the simple cause of conquest but also because Alshain is out there. Seizing control of that stellar monument would be a true victory, making sure there is complete control of the greatest power source yet discovered. Of course, our themes return once again as, in the effort to reach the stars, the planet this new regime is on must be completely harvested in order to fuel such expansion:

“We are aligned; we’ve bound our minds
A new regime: what will it glean?
What will we find with endless time?
Unleash the hive

Raze the land to construct a new beacon
That will shine out from every surface
We are Cygnus V.2
We dictate balance and purpose

In our time we have seen
A new light of liberty
Now we spread our cosmic law
Through the skies over all

Trudging through the heaps of waste
An abstract world outside the screens we embrace
The air imbues a film of scum
The city’s center rises above the slums”

So, the very planet which he had thought so hard to control is now nothing but a waste, a means justified, once again, by an ultimate end. And what is this end? As we have said, the perfect, timeless empire forged on the sands of Alshain. And, finally, it is time to witness this empire. “Pillars of Sand” is a brilliant title as it references not only the sand in the proverbial clock, now upended and broken completely by immortality, but also the fragile pillars which prop up political regimes in classical and Early Modern thought. These are referenced in the track itself (“With Reaper Squads still dispatching/ You place your hopes on pillars crashing”).  This empire’s main pillar is the dust of Alshain itself; the promise of immortality. By partaking of this substance (references to “Dune” should begin cropping into your heads right about now), the denizens of the now-galactic Cygnus 2.0 enslave themselves to our protagonist’s will, still the sole control of Alshain:

“Time is a clock on the wall we command
And its hands made from pillars of sand
On our watch we don’t seek what we find
Left bereft by the passage of time

I have built an empire
On the dust of Alshain
Collection sails extract the Enocules
From vast mines in space

And so, we live as ageless men
From the time the reaction begins
The dispenser is strapped to your wrist
You are shackled to my every whim
You are enslaved by the promise of tomorrow
You’ve paid the price for the time that you borrow”

Once again via technology, our hero has chained the will of those around to him in a twisted dependance. Where the addiction of the screens enabled him to begin, the addiction to life now helps him finally realize his dreams. Now, we have truly reached the zenith of his hopes and dreams as he finally stands at the absolute pinnacle of the obelisk. But, as we all knew from the beginning, what comes up, must come down. Especially in tales of immortality and ultimate hubris, there must come the collapse and it must be self inflicted. Here, we begin to see the beginning of that shattering, as the sheer weight of years begins to weigh down not only the protagonist but the society he has created as well:

“Time moves like a crack in glass
Sometimes slow, sometimes fast
We all know the fate of the pane
But we move forth, piling on more strain
On the glass of melted sand
Forged by our greedy hands
On a path we choose to belie
It makes us feel alive

Pillars of sand fall down as gravity remands
The bones of the dead in a dusty mist
Pillars of sand cannot ascend
Such are we at the point of the obelisk

[…]

We have come upon the line
Where gravity intercepts with time
Time is without mass
And cannot exist in broken glass
The unrepentant nature of all
Everything falls”

This part of the album has so many good lines, it’s astounding. First, “we all know the fate of the pane” is remarkable, a truly original metaphor for death. That’s no mean feat, as death is perhaps the most imagined and conceived notions in human art and culture. We then move on to the conflation of the Pillars with the obelisk, both giant structures but on the first something rests (i.e, the society itself as well as our hero’s life) and along the other something races (i.e, the progress of that society or the rise to greatness of our hero). And, lastly, “Time is without mass/and cannot exist in broken glass” is a great way to describe a cliche way of thinking about time as a construct. It, of course, all leads to one point though and that is collapse. Not accidentally, that’s also the name of the next track, a rich and moving power ballad featuring the only clean vocals on the album:

“We don’t belong at these heights
Watching over all
We’ve come to the point of the obelisk
Impaled as we fall
Collapse under the weight of time
In this still life of our design
Collapse into a great resolve
Everything falls

A broken image reflects from a shattered surface
Its shards of truth cut clean their meaning, our purpose”

The metaphor of glass, of the shattered hourglass, is taken one step further. In light of that shattering, of the ultimate despair that comes with eternal life, the truth is finally revealed to our protagonist: pushing forward means nothing. The illusion of permanence and ultimate balance is just that, an illusion. There is no point in obtaining complete control only to then freeze frame that control to make sure it lasts forever; that only sucks all meaning and life from whatever you have achieved control over, leaving you with nothing. More than that, scale is just a matter of perspective and, as you push higher and higher, even the largest wonders become small and meaningless. Channeling space opera tropes once again, the story now shows us how the galaxy itself, when viewed from the zenith of the obelisk, becomes meaningless. This terrible understanding finally forces our hero to look back and see what he has become and what he’s done in the name of this control:

“We’ve bided time
We’ve traveled to distant worlds
On our quest for knowledge and power
We’ve traced the galactic whorls
And now full circle
Unfulfilled by what we’ve seen
This is it, one galaxy
Out of the shadows, my silhouette is torn
Freed from the darkness, I see my vile form
Bleeding out from a spiral clade
This is all I have
This is all that I have”

Here at the peak, there is nothing left to do. All is the same, forever; change, both physical and political, has been completely eradicated by immortality and the social programs which made it possible. Not only Epsilon or Cygnus but the entire galactic empire now lies in slumber. But, from within this nothingness, come to our protagonist one final course of action. What is there left for those who have accomplished, who have accomplished complete mastery over life unending? Why, to die, of course:

“To live, to die, to lose our pride
To accept our fate. Life is not ours to dictate

Stagnation is death in a constitution of progress
Now at the zenith there is nowhere left, nowhere left to go but down

Ruling in the present while the future eludes us
The further we push forward, the harder it becomes to look back

To struggle, to glean, to want, to bleed
To live, we must die. We live to die”

Naturally, however, our hero cannot simply disappear. Unlike other races in space opera history, he’s not just going to quietly wither away as his decadent empire decays around him. No, as usual for him, there must be a grander gesture. And so, “Recharging the Void” brings us full circle with where our story began, in order to make a symbol of the final crash of this galactic empire. Physically as well, we return to the source; after scaling to the zenith of the obelisk what better place to end than at its base, great Alshain? In the last few strokes of genius this album has to offer, we are given an insight to what exactly happened on that fateful moment where our hero discovered Alshain, even as he heads back to it for his final resting place:

“Follow me to Alshain toward a fiery grave
We have spun a web of worlds, spinning out of control

I crossed the other side
But I was brought back
The air sucked from my lungs
My hull was cracked
The dust sifted in
Like an hourglass
It sealed my ship
And I was in tact”

Our metaphor of the hourglass returns but inverted. The protagonist’s ship because the broken pane of glass, the shattered timepiece, sutured together by the dust of Alshain. In addition, the body is once again mirrored in outwards objects: as his ship is mending so is his body, making both him and his ship the vessel which brings Alshain to Cygnus. This also explains why he had such control over its powers and perhaps why he was able to outsmart the rest of Cygnus and complete his societal projects. Unlike his subjects, he doesn’t need a dispenser; he is made of Alshain, his body propped up by the immortalizing dust of the star.

Regardless, it is now time to let all of that go. However, as we’ve said, this has to be a gesture with meaning. Thus, the plan is to crash Cygnus into Alshain itself, the fiery entrance eradicating the entire region of space, Alshain and Epsilon included. This is the Terminal Redux for which the album is named; the return from an all encompassing, galactic empire, into a single point in space. Think also of the beacon metaphor contained in the lines below. A beacon is a single, well defined point in space from which light or another form of signal emanates. Thus, it is the complete opposite of the obelisk or of the society we had seen: instead of expanding outwards, a beacon lives by maintaining a very tight and powerful point in space:

“We’ve lived beyond our years
And now we hear our calling
We’ve outlived our pillars falling, falling
I must return to Alshain
To release our clutch
Terminal redux

Like our star at its end
Time will warp in the space we bend
As we burst to our stellar tomb
Its planets will be consumed

[…]
But there is one thing left: bring balance through our death
The Cygnus tide can be restored
To a cosmic state
Before man perverted it
Before we staked our claim
Ultimate sacrifice
To revive the flux”

The empire has been reduced into a powerful message, its demise serving as a warning to others. In addition, Cygnus itself now seems to contain more than just a desire for balance but also a force unto itself, a sort of flux. Looking back at previous tracks, this was always hinted at but never fully fleshed nor is the idea fully realized here. In any case, the sacrifice was not in vain; like all fallen empires in space opera, this one shall be a monument to hubris, the danger of extreme ideology and the disaster which befalls those who reach too far. In a way, our protagonist’s wishes have been met; finally, in the fallen Cygnus, he has found the ruler of which he dreamed. He has found a system of law that is eternal and yet not flawed like immortal man. Its principles are humility and a fierce reminder that all that is mortal, regardless of how long it lasts, is doomed to fail.

Thus, the album closes with the protagonist finally rid of his madness through death, reunited not only with his ideals, but also with Alshain itself, perhaps the only force still capable of ending him. Is this a good ending or a bad one? Is this story a tragedy, a farce, a comedy or a mortal tale? I leave that to you dear reader and thank you for sticking with me through this arduous journey to the stars (there’s a Latin joke here, if you care). Judge, finally, this last few lines and see what Terminal Redux, both album and concept, mean to you:

“Cygnus is calling
From beyond the grave
It rises once again
With balance staved we make amends
A ruler without plots or schemes
Of cosmic law, we could only dream

I heed the Cygnus call
A symbol for life and death’s resolve
Our fate implodes upon our crux
The Terminal is set to self-destruct

Relic Alshain
Oh Shahin-i-tarazu
I return my flesh to you”

Eden Kupermintz

Published 8 years ago