"I shall give thee fire and ruin. From the jumpgates my armada shall descend upon thy system. I shall call down the wrath of the meson upon thee, and thy children shall curse thy names as they burn, ye who dare to defy me.
"Yea, I shall scourge thy cities with the meson weapon, so that not one granary or hovel stands, and all that remains of thy palaces shall be clouds of hissing ions. Thy flocks I shall incinerate, and thy fields, and thy servants and slaves. Thy oceans I shall boil in thy beds, and thy mountains level to plains, and thy forests shall be made anon into hills of ash. But ye I shall yet spare, so that ye may look upon my work and despair.
"And when all is ended, and thy world is as lifeless as the Malignatian Belt, to the meson I shall condemn thee as well, so that ye will know full well the power of the Gesar kings."
speech of King Borijov van Gesar VI, from the Canticles of the Longest Dark
