The birthday party continued to unfold.
Although the Microplanet seemed more like a theme park than anything, it at least did a good job of entertaining most of the guests.
Aurelia was happy that people enjoyed her birthday. She wanted people to come and have an excuse to set aside their burdens and remember that there was still plenty to enjoy in the Red Ocean.
The threat posed by the native aliens and the mutated voribugs did not magically disappear, but the guests could afford to add more levity and joy in their lives.
People became far too prone to losing their humanity the longer they became embroiled in a difficult conflict. They slowly lost their ability to regard people as individual lives and increasingly treated them as disposable numbers that they could shift around on a grand chessboard.
