Civilisations don’t fall apart on their own. Not really. On their own they crumble and fade, rescinding into ruins, relics and reminiscences. It takes force for it all to fall apart or implode, it requires a sledgehammer to the very foundations.

The consequences are devastating.

Total.

Instant.

The cracks appear quickly and everywhere. Some visible. Many hidden to the eye.

A traffic jam. A lack of patience. A wave of rage. Chaos. Silence. Building and emboldening everything and everyone.

That’s what happened to their home. That’s what happened to them on that very day.

In other places, in the times before, their world would have disintegrated with a bang.

This whimper would be a humiliation that would echo for generations, if there were to be future generations. Recounting the tale of that day would be an act of the upmost self-flagellation, forcing an admission of choices. Of what had been done. What would have been done. What could have been done. What should have been done.

What wasn’t done.

Instead there was simply what was, and what was left.

The worst thing about that day was what it meant and what it revealed. The day that changed everything exposed something few that realised or had wanted to admit – self gain had triumphed over compassion, greed over empathy, single-mindedness over any semblance of unity.

Hope is the most powerful thing in the galaxy. In the entire universe. But, like a fire, it needs a spark and it needs fuel to keep burning brightly.

With one announcement, it spluttered.