That way at least, everyone will see that the reactionaries are losers.

But then, maybe some humans would think the savages are secretly amassing an army in Souff Koral, and sneak out there only to fall prey to land sharks on the way, and then sooner or later humans would think the land sharks are that secret army, and … well. Humans really are shit.

I agree with the rest of your analysis, but if human affairs are governed well, the loss of privilege humans felt over other races could be offset by gains in real privilege for many humans who’d had their mobility limited by the Heads-of-Houses system. Economic inequality was a feature of life in Gastonia. In Newlight, many humans could have a chance to do better for themselves, or at least the hope of doing so.

One obvious fault line for this would of course be the narrative that humans lost their privilege (which they definitely had, and now they don’t), and there will be people who find that more important than not being assailed by a “savage” army, especially because most Gastonians probably didn’t really notice much about the war until it was at their doorstep, and over a few days later. So in their mind, the problem avoided there will look way smaller than the status they had held for decades and lost seemingly over night.

Thinking about the years and decades coming up, I think both Byron’s main task (and most others would be wise to support him as they can) is to drive home, to everyone, how the new situation is a huge improvement to what would have happened otherwise — and to do so without bending anyone’s truth, including the personal experiences of those who objectively lost something in the process.

I recently read a thing about well-off white (former) inhabitants of South Africa feeling as if the country has taken a turn for the worse since the end of Apartheid. Racist tendencies among them are increasing, because they never had a sense of the life of everyone else in the country who suffered bitterly to enable their good life during the Apartheid years. Most things are much better now *on average*, but white people are now getting a larger portion of their fair share of bad things, which would feel like a loss to almost anyone. It’s just, it absolutely needed to happen, but it also needs to be acknowledged (and put into context), or else it creates more conflict down the road.