whereas winners make it into legend and apocrypha --

Oh, yes. The contrast between the Earth and Pegasus narratives was tremendous, and there's the sense in the former that the future is foreclosed on--that all that's left is to figure out what happen, and no question of moving forward--but the latter, even in looking back (and this is probably also a function of the perspective of the reader) opens up possibility, this huge scope of tradition that develops and changes and looks forward.

And I can't express my love for that adequately at all. This bit of poem and commentary is really the closest I could come.