The Disputation of Prophet Vattal and Treads in Place

Recorded and Edited by the Minister of Open Discourse

Treads in Place was a Hanar missionary who preached the Enkindler doctrine in the Terminus Systems before the Covenant conquered those worlds. For most of his career he was publicly known under the "face name" of Attiret, but under the Covenant he was compelled to acknowledge his "soul name" for the sake of transparency and bureaucratic convenience. Treads in Place was asked to argue in defense of all parts of the Enkindlement doctrine before Prophet Vattal, that Prophet Vattal might admit the strengths and refute the errors of Hanar religion.

TREADS IN PLACE: Based on their kindness to the Huragok, this one supposes that the Forerunners were most likely virtuous in much the same way as the Enkindlers. But this one is Hanar and is obligated to venerate the Enkindlers because the Enkindlers were kind to the Hanar and gave us the ability to speak in choruses of color. This one is not confused by the desire of others to venerate the Forerunners, and in fact this one would expect it of a Huragok. Likewise, when they haven't felt watched, Huragok and other members of the Covenants' lower castes have told this one that they think the Hanar faith makes good sense from our own point of view. But this one cannot comprehend why the higher castes of the Covenant display no interest in such mutual understanding and compel everyone to worship the same way regardless of their different histories and their independent wills.

PROPHET VATTAL: In the first place I must draw your attention to the obvious: the Forerunners lived one hundred thousand years ago, whereas the "Enkindlers" or Protheans only fifty thousand. Does this not suggest that your Enkindlers themselves drew on the accomplishments and relics of the Forerunners? Indeed, if the Enkindlers were a dutiful people, as they must have been for you to admire them so, they would have followed the Forerunners, and they would assuredly want you to do the same. They would certainly have wanted you to fully participate in our Covenant. The parallels between our Covenant and the Prothean Empire are very clear. Your own Citadel xenoarcheologists admit that the Prothean Empire was a militaristic agglomeration of peoples united by righteous force and conviction, just as we are.

TREADS IN PLACE: This one is not one of the Citadel xenoarcheologists you speak of. You will not understand, but outside of the Illuminated Primacy academic cultures of the Citadel are usually secular or even iconoclastic. This one finds it ironic but not surprising that their mentality led them to misjudge the Enkindlers' character in precisely the same way as the Covenant. The Enkindlers gave their gifts out of utter selflessness. They were a people who brought peace and love wherever they went.

PROPHET VATTAL: Is that why the Xalanyn killed them all?

TREADS IN PLACE: This one does not know where you are going with that line of thought.

PROPHET VATTAL: You imagine that the Prothean Empire was like your Illuminated Primacy, and I imagine it was like our Covenant. That is natural. But we can both agree that the Prothean Empire was destroyed by war. What conclusion should we draw?

TREADS IN PLACE: Simply that everything comes to an end, eventually. Actually, this one is very open to the view that the Xalanyn were not literally real, and that they are a metaphor for the passage of time.

PROPHET VATTAL: What? No, that's silly. The conclusion we should draw is that the Prothean Empire, while greater than any Citadel government and even possibly as great as our Covenant, still can't have been quite as great as you make it out to be, because it lost. Whereas the Forerunners never lost. They always won every single war, right up to the Great Journey, the greatest victory of all.

TREADS IN PLACE: This one feels that you are abandoning the intellectual spirit.

PROPHET VATTAL: There is nothing anti-intellectual about war. It is the only real test a political religion might have. The Forerunner record is one of perfection, the Prothean record is admirable, but it is not one of perfection. Perhaps it is harder for Hanar to understand this, as when you jellyfish attempt to fight above the water as other peoples do, you inevitably seem simply ridiculous. But how well has the Illuminated Primacy done for itself with its state religion?

TREADS IN PLACE: It is peaceful and prosperous, and it saved the Drell race from extinction when no others would.

PROPHET VATTAL: And yet despite numerous applications to join the Citadel Council, the Illuminated Primacy has always been denied. Why? Because its military is insignificant, and therefore it is not respected. How utterly unlike our Covenant, and what's more damning- how unlike the Protheans, your own Enkindlers!

TREADS IN PLACE: The Illuminated Primacy had a very small military, but it has more than decupled its defense budget since the Covenant invasion of the Terminus Systems.

PROPHET VATTAL: So, you admit that when our societies came into contact the Illuminated Primacy very shortly became much more like our Covenant, while the reverse is not the case? How then, you missionary, can you deny that our evangelical system is superior?

At this moment Treads in Place understood that his entire worldview had been utterly overcome by a superior theology. His mesoglea glowed many colors, and his tentacles flew in all directions, and as a sign of intellectual submission he began speaking in the first person.

TREADS IN PLACE: I cannot. You have proven that a peaceful nation will never be able to overcome the disorder of the galaxy to impose singular truth. I see now that my soul name is more appropriate than I ever realized, for in error and passivity the entire Hanar people have been treading in place, and only by acknowledging the special superiority of the Forerunners can we instead move forward together on the Great Journey.

This disputation was conducted under the fairest of circumstances and Prophet Vattal was surprised and gratified to achieve such an unambiguous victory.