Deeper Understanding: Anthology of Short Stories

[Midnite Duke]

I feel if I am reading a script for an episode of the Twilight Zone. (Original black & white narrated by Rod Serling.) Is the Alien from another world or just with different behaviors and beliefs than the Leader? Policing conformity is a razor's edge. On one side is totalitarianism, the other side chaos. Thanks

 

[Von Acturus]

That was an amazing piece. I especially liked the character of the Leader - he is so evil but so fascinating... The part where he has to talk himself out of thinking that the alien was like his kind was especially thought-provoking.

Thank you! Yes it's much easier to use others as nebulous pawns if you diminish the similarities and highlight the differences in your mind, that's a lesson the Leader is very conscious of.

A valuable lesson indeed about the dangers traitors and aliens can bring. They are lucky indeed to have such a strong and wise Leader to protect them from such influences. /s

Indeed. Imagine what foolish things the man in the streets would do without his wise guidance.

To be a tad more serious any group that goes to the bother of genetically engineering it's infiltrators to try and blend in with society has to be at least suspicious. The Leader starts an over-reaction to be sure, but is it paranoia when you have actual proof they are indeed out to get you?

For sure. The Leader's fault is not in having responded with hostility to the presence of aliens in their midst, but in having twisted both the aliens motives and his response to cement his personal standing, instead of in any type of preparation for hostile alien action or even just any kind of probing of the alien's true motives.

I wonder who is worse...the Leader or the Alien? Who should be most feared?

To answer that question decisively, we'd have to see what the alien would do if he had the upper hand. For now, I'd say the Leader is much more damaging to humanity than the alien.

I feel if I am reading a script for an episode of the Twilight Zone. (Original black & white narrated by Rod Serling.)

A very flattering comparation!

Is the Alien from another world or just with different behaviors and beliefs than the Leader?

Depending on how you choose to read the story either can be true.

Policing conformity is a razor's edge. On one side is totalitarianism, the other side chaos.

True, but from one extreme to the other there goes a very long way. We only tend towards one of the extremes if there's a conscious effort by those in power to make it so...

 

[Von Acturus]

Spoiler: Author's Notes

I'm working on a rather larger short story now, which should take more one wor two weeks, so here's a shorter, more descriptive interlude to keep you occupied. This is the slighlty dramatised recounting on one of my most memorable campaigns, which ended in abject failure. I played as the Commonwealth of Man and ended up absorbed by the UNE. Took less than sixty years in-game, but was one of the most memorable campaigns. The writing may be a bit weird, since I only gave it a very quick second read before publishing, so apologies for that in advance.

Good reading and I hope you enjoy

(If not, worry not, narrative returns soon).

The Cautionary tale of the Fall of the Commonwealth of Man​

By Meta-Gibbon, renowned historian of the Galactic Community Archeopolitical Research Taskforce

In 2238, everything was going perfectly for Sidney Beauclair, Grand Marshall of the Commonwealth of Man. The recent victory against the Empire of the Core had led to the seizure of a large portion of mineral rich space to the west, as well as two colonies populated by the Hexaroans, an Arthropoid species whose early space age civilization had been sacked by the Empire of the Core. These new subjects regarded the Commonwealth of Man as liberators, and their new stature as underpaid (but nominally free) manual workers without political representation with an almost enthusiastic acceptance.

The crushing victories against the Empire’s armada had given her renewed prestige amongst the military, and the economic boom made possible by the hefty war reparations payments made by the humiliated Imperial authorities had allowed her popularity amongst the common citizenry and the barons of trade and industry to rise to new heights. Her Unity Party had won a supermajority in the Senate and the Executive Committee was stacked with military loyalists.

What little political opposition still existed, in the form of the fanatically xenophobic Human Fist movement, led by the decorated General Richard Doe, and the liberal Free Citizens Alliance, led by Admiral Fu Huiqing, was thoroughly pacified by small concessions and the generous distribution of the spoils of victory.

Relations with the UNE, although still frosty, were still in place. Fears of a new cold war had failed to materialise, and there were even whispers of human nationalists and commonwealth allies getting more and more vocal in the UNE’s media and legislative stages.

No one could have predicted that within ten years all of this would come crumbling down.

The causes of the demise of the Commonwealth were many, and although each historian has his own theory of a so-called primary cause, be it the harsh treatment of aliens, the clientelism rampant in the military, the wide socioeconomic disparities inside human society, the crushing diplomatic isolation, or the tactic support by the state of radical human supremacist groups, it is virtually impossible to pinpoint one particular tipping point, one issue that if resolved would have averted the collapse.

Rather, the combination of all these issues, many born out of the harsh realities that shaped the evolution of the Commonwealth’s society, beset by threats since it the Ulysses was marooned on Unity, sealed the fate of the state.

The first step of the collapse was the Uprising. Although in the early years the Hexaroans had been grateful and willing subjects of the Commonwealth, by 2240, the Commonwealth’s harsh treatment of this species, used as serfs in everything but name to do the harsh manual labour in the occupied worlds and new colonies of the western reaches, had bred a deep resentment.

The Hexaroans are social arthropoids, whose cohesive and highly stratified social system proved resilient to the Commonwealth’s efforts to antropify them. Underground, the caste system survived, and the Brood Queens organised their fanatically loyal servants into a massive fighting force.

Marshall Beauclair’s programn of granting limited self-rule to alien reserves under the control of Hexaroan puppets whose strings were pulled by the military authorities, backfired catastrophically. The militias of these reservations, equipped and trained by humans, were completely infiltrated by the dissidents. The administration was loyal to the underground colonies more than to their human masters. Huge amounts of resources sent by Unity for the industrialisation of the fringe were diverted and funnelled into the production of a shadow fleet in preparation for a liberation war.

When whispers of rebellion became too loud for the Grand Marshall to ignore, she chose to pour gasoline into the burning embers by sending General Doe, the troublesome Human supremacist war hero, to quell the rebels. The General, in addition to two sector battalions, brought his personal paramilitary soldiers, the Mars Battalion.

These fanatical paramilitaries engaged in acts of murder, pillage and wanton destruction against the alien population, barely distinguishing genuine insurgents from common labourers and driving the still neutral Brood Queens and their colonies into the open arms of the insurgents.

At the same time, on Unity, the economy which had grown at an unsustainable rate due to the influx of the spoils of war, entered into recession, as unchecked corruption and the expenses of maintaining a huge standing military and developing the newly acquired territories began taking their toll.

This caused the resurgence of both the Human Supremacist and Liberal oppositions. And while Beauclair dealt with the first by sending their would be Supreme Leader to wreck havoc in the occupied territories, Admiral Fu Huiqing was a tougher nut to crack. Also a war hero, she was revered by the navy and held as almost a saint by many amongst the population for her frugal lifestyle and her string if spectacular victories during the war against the Empire of the Core.

To sap her movement of momentum, the Grand Marshall accepted the Liberal proposal of slashing the military and used it to inflict disproportionate cuts on the navy, and sack many of the Admiral’s most loyal officers.

In 2243, a labour dispute in the occupied Hexaroan homeworld of Besh’Id escalated into armed conflict. Hoping to regain her momentum and crush all whispers off weakness and appeasement, the Grand Marshall authorised General Richard Doe to make an example out of the revolutionaries and send in the army in full force.


What followed was an unmitigated disaster. The Third Planetary Assault Battalion discovered upon landing that it faced not a couple of thousand lightly armed and disorganised rioters but millions of Hexaoan soldiers, well organised, in control of the Commonwealth’s supply depots and planetary defences, with human-trained militiamen and officers at the forefront and an elaborate plan on how to face the human invasion.

Estimates range from 300 000 to 650 000 dead and unaccounted for human soldiers during the three month long Battle of Besh’Id. And as soon as Commonwealth command gave the command to retreat, all other planet in the western reaches rose in revolt, one by one slaughtering their human garrisons and fending off the disorganised counter attacks by General Doe’s unprepared forces.

After less than a year of fighting, all human forces evacuated the western reaches, now under the control of the self-proclaimed Hexaroan Dominion.

Outrage was immense in Unity. General Doe was quick to cover up his failures by blaming “cowardly” subordinates on the armed forces who had shirked from doing what needed to be done to wipe out the alien dissenters and those on the home front who had stabbed the military in the back, by slashing it’s funding and colluding with the aliens by selling them weapons and tying the hands of the his forces.

His Human Fist movement swelled, promoting daily demonstrations that attracted hundreds of thousands and freely parading his legionnaires of the Mars Battalion, bolstered by thousands of new recruits and hailed as betrayed war heroes, through the streets of Unity. Dozens of alien residents were lynched, and General Doe threatened to march into the Capital with his soldiers if the “cowardly politicians and corrupt Admirals” didn’t take immediate steps to reclaim rightful human land and rescue the human colonists on the west, now toiling in Hexaroan mines and factories as colony slaves.

At the same time, first hundreds, then thousands, then millions of colonists from the newly proclaimed Domain fled back to Unity, creating the biggest refugee crisis in human history. The price of housing skyrocketed, the fragile social security system all but collapsed under the newly added strain, and salaries fell abruptly as the influx of cheap, desperate labourers drove unemployment through the roof.

Marshall Beauclair scrambled to regain her footing. She dissolved the senate and invited Human Fist sympathisers to form a government. She hardened her rhetoric against the alien menace and commanded Admiral Huiqing to launch an immediate counter attack.

Parallelly, her government begged the UNE administration for loans and humanitarian assistance to help Unity cope with the sudden influx of refugees. Help came, but slowly and with, she would in time discover, many strings attached.

Admiral Huiqing rallied her reduced fleet at Temujin Station, but before she could launch her counter attack, the Hexaroan fleet launched theirs. As soon as the enemy ships were detected by Admiral Huiqing fleets’s sensors, on many dawned the same chilling realization: the size of the Hexaroan navy dwarfed all projections. The Battle of Temujin was a bloodbath. Despite their technological edge and the fact that they were bolstered by the Temujin station, the humans were faced with wave after wave of fanatically determined Hexaroan attacks which gradually ground the human defences down to a pulp.

The lack of trust between officers in the Commonwealth fleet, divided between Beauclair and Huiqing loyalists, many promoted for the strength of their personal loyalties rather than the strength of their military acumen, proved disastrous. The Cruiser Stalingrad, pride of the navy, was isolated and destroyed after half of it’s escorting corvettes refused to support the counter attack it spearheaded. Finally, after eight gruelling months of bloody combat and dozens of ships lost by both sides, the Hexaroan retreated.

Although a nominal victory for the Commonwealth, and one much touted by the Grand Marshall’s propaganda machine as a symbol of mankind’s superiority, everyone but the utter blind knew that the engagement had been a de facto defeat.

The fleet had lost half of it’s ships including most of it’s heavy hitters, decisively crippling the navy's ability to conduct any offensive operation in Hexaroan space for years. The Hexaroans had proved they were capable of building and maintaining a fleet rivalling that of the Commonwealth, the officer corps was in shambles and that the Battle of Temujin wasn’t a total rout was often credited only to the personal skill and charisma of Admiral Huiqing.

When the Grand Marshall, increasingly paranoid and delusional and under immense stress, as pressure for her resignation increased from all quarters, demanded that the Admiral either press on or resign, the Admiral mutinied, and with her almost all of the remaining fleet.

The Commonwealth fleet, and with it the Temujin station, were now outside the control of the Commonwealth’s state. Panic ensued across the nation.

General Doe marched on the capital and demanded the Grand Marshall put him at the head of the National Salvation Government invested with full powers to fight aliens and traitors. Utterly defeated and abandoned by her allies, Grand Marshall Sidney Beauclair accepted his demands, giving the General de facto dictatorial powers and free reign to pursue his sinister agenda.

However, no sooner had the anti-alien pogroms started and the mass arrests of dissidents began, than the United Nations of Earth fleets, by far dwarfing anything the Commonwealth could have fielded even in it’s glory days, had entered Commonwealth territory under an official mandate to undertake a Special Humanitarian Mission.

Within weeks, all colonies and outlying systems had surrendered, and General Doe found himself under siege as hundreds of ships massed above in preparation for an invasion. As the United Nations Peacekeeper Corps stormed the Capital, Richard Doe fled with his loyalists without offering any significant resistance.

Grand Marshall Sidney Beauclair abdicated, and the Commonwealth of Man was radically restructured. Admiral Huiqing and her rogue fleet were reintegrated and the Admiral herself won the first, hastily organised and greatly restricted elections in the Commonwealth’s history, being elected President of the Commonwealth with 89.7% of the votes.

A new Prime Minister, sent by Earth formed a government stacked with Earth sympathisers and Huiqing loyalists. Earthling soldiers with the white and blue helmets of the Peacekeeper Divisions began patrolling the streets of Unity and key Human Fist leaders were arrested, although the upper echelons were nowhere to be found.

In short, in 2247 the Commonwealth became an Earth puppet state.

To understand this act of blatant aggression by the UNE, it is important to give a short overview of the UNE’s domestic context. In 2247, General Secretary Sjang de Vries was reaching the end of his seventh term as head of the first human state. Known as the Unifier, the General Secretary had brought earth from a loose confederation of squabbling nation states to a federated nation with dozens of colonies populated by five different sapient species. His administration had seen Earth, with it’s mix of human exceptionalism, so-called benevolent interventionism, and amicable xenophilia, become the most powerful and influent power in the north of the galaxy.

However, age and a spate of scandals had tarnished his image, and a victory in 2250’s general election was anything but certain. Accusations of vote rigging in the colonies, bribes taken from influential lobbies of the military-industrial complex and clientelism in the attribution of space mining licenses had brought de Vries’s popularity down to historical lows.

Thus, when he spotted an opportunity for a massive foreign policy win, he took it. The issue of the Commonwealth of Man was an open wound in the Earthlings’ collective consciousness. A combination of guilt for abandoning their kin from the Ulysses, and disgust at the atrocities rumoured to be brought by the Commonwealth to bear upon alien populations, created a thorny and delicate situation that many wished could be resolved in one simple way: reunification.

That way, the people Earth could help it’s long lost brothers and teach them the true values of civilization. If such a move could be accomplished, and the General Secretary's advisors assured him it could, no doubt the election could only go one way. The General Secretary’s way.

This is not what happened.

From the beginning, the Earth sponsored administration was barely able to stand on it’s own legs. Negotiations with the Hexaroan Dominion broke down quickly and clashes soon broke out along the northern border, with UNE fleet elements being deployed to help the crippled Commonwealth Fleet hold the line.

On the domestic front, the ravages of conflict and takeover led to the collapse of interstellar trade, causing food shortages on Unity. With the refugee crisis still raging and the civil administration still reeling, criminal gangs usurped state authority in many of the worst hit cities. Armed with heavy military equipment “lost” during the demilitarization of the Ground Forces of the Commonwealth, these gangs had no problem driving out the underfunded and undermanned police forces.

To maintain control, Earth sent a further hundred thousand Peacekeepers, and declared a War on Gangs which led to widespread urban warfare in Unity, causing considerable causalities amongst all sides and, above all, amongst the civilians already hit by economic crisis and famine.

In the outlying colonies, another danger lurked. The Human Fist had survived and its cadres had fled into the outlying, sparsely populated and impoverished colonies, which had been thus far mostly ignored by the new authorities, focused as they were on stabilising the situation on the capital and the borders.

From hidden bases, the Mars Battalion, now rechristened as the Legion of Man, welcomed thousands of new recruits who blamed the utter collapse of their society on the alien, for even the humans from Earth to them were alien.

The Legion signalled the beginning of their armed insurrection with the Senate Bombing of 2249, in which a tactical nuclear warhead was detonated below the Senate building, killing almost all delegates and hundreds of other civilian and military staff.

The Peacekeepers counter attacked swiftly, occupying the colonies and using all kinds of military tactics, from targeted orbital bombings to mass detaining of sympathisers to flush out the Legion. And while these operations killed tens of thousands of human supremacist fighters, and allowed the Peacekeepers to detain many more, the abysmal living conditions now commonplace in the Commonwealth ensured a steady stream of new fighters to replace the fallen was continuously available to the Legion.

At the same time, Peacekeeper losses piled up, and the General Secretary’s dream grew to resemble more and more a nightmare.

Much more could be said about the almost century-long woes of the Commonwealth, but that is a matter for another academic in another time. And although today mankind is united under the light of the Confederation of Independent Systems, it is important never to forget the lessons learned from the collapse of the Commonwealth.

Let us not take the peace and security of today as a guarantee of peace and security tomorrow.​

 

[HistoryDude]

That's... an abject lesson on why oppression is a bad idea and why internal division of your military can be a bad thing. A rebellion and a divided fleet - there was no way they were going to win that.

How did the divisions in the fleet exist in game?

 

[El Pip]

By Meta-Gibbon, renowned historian of the Galactic Community Archeopolitical Research Taskforce​

While I cheer the name of the historian (they are a gene-tampered Gibbon I hope), I am disappointed that GCART doesn't spell an amusing word.

The lesson I drew from that is don't abandon crashed colony ships on distant planets, one I hope the UNE and it's successors have learnt. I suppose one could also say the other lesson is if you are going to do oppression then do it properly, not the half arsed job the Commonwealth did. Having such terrible control that the aliens you are trying to oppress can secretly built a massive battle fleet is just rank incompetence, it'd be like Stalin not noticing that the prisoners in the Gulag were building tanks. You need a certain level of state ability and organisation to do oppression succesfully, one the Commonwealth clearly failed to achieve.

 

[Von Acturus]

That's... an abject lesson on why oppression is a bad idea and why internal division of your military can be a bad thing. A rebellion and a divided fleet - there was no way they were going to win that.

How did the divisions in the fleet exist in game?

The divisions within the fleet were meant to explain the abject performance of my fleet at Temujin. With the system station on my side, my fleet power slightly surpassed that of the enemy, and I had more heavy ships. Still I got trounced beyond recovery, even if the enemy ended up retreating. Some of my long range cruisers thought it was a good idea to play at close range Corvettes, and I can't imagine what kind of shambolic officer corps would lead their ships so badly as they were led in that battle.

While I cheer the name of the historian (they are a gene-tampered Gibbon I hope), I am disappointed that GCART doesn't spell an amusing word.

Ah damn, what a missed opportunity! And indeed, that Gibbon was nerve stappled, for the benefit of his readers.

The lesson I drew from that is don't abandon crashed colony ships on distant planets, one I hope the UNE and it's successors have learnt. I suppose one could also say the other lesson is if you are going to do oppression then do it properly, not the half arsed job the Commonwealth did. Having such terrible control that the aliens you are trying to oppress can secretly built a massive battle fleet is just rank incompetence, it'd be like Stalin not noticing that the prisoners in the Gulag were building tanks. You need a certain level of state ability and organisation to do oppression succesfully, one the Commonwealth clearly failed to achieve.

Wise lessons indeed. At least here the gulags were some light years in diameter, making it easier to hide said tanks. But I agree it is rather far fetched, even for such an incompetent state as the commonwealth. It is an accurate reflection of stellaris gameplay though, where revolting states are able to create a fleet equal in strength to that of their overlord from the void of space the minute they revolt. Makes for more challenging gameplay, but it isn't terribly realistic (then again, it's stellaris...).

 

[Von Acturus]

Spoiler: Author's Notes

I said I had a longer story in the works, ready next week or so, didn't I?
In proper writer's fashion, that got delayed. I reread it, wasn't happy. So now I'm rewriting it at snail's pace.

In other news, I decided to stop writing these "Author's notes." after this one. I feel like they're a bit self indulgent, robbing the reader of his ability to form his own untarnished interpretation of the story. I'll happily answer any questions about the connections of the story to the game, my interpretation of it and inspirations for writing it, of course, if you wish to know those things.

​

Revelation​

​

In the beguinning, there was nothing. Then came the Master and for six long days He laboured. When the sixth night fell, he had created the World.

On the first day, the Master made it so there could be life on the World by blessing it with air which His children could breath, and water with which they could sate their thirst.

He planted the seeds from which would sprout vast prairies and majestic forests in the second day, and in the third He conceived the beasts which would inhabit them and serve as sustenance for His children.

In the fourth day, He carved towering monoliths from the rocky ground to serve as home to His children, and made it so that His touch was forever present in each of them.

When the fifth day dawned, He created us. His children, made in His sacred image, and gently delivered us to the World. And in the sixth he came down from the Heavens to share with us His word, and to teach us what is good and virtuous and what is wicked and evil.

And as he mingled with His children, all amongst us saw that He was exactly like us, yet infinitely different in that His being and His word transcended the understanding of those he had created, and all bowed before him, and pledged to heed His law.

Thus the World was created and we were born, and the Master returned to the Heavens in the Seventh day to contemplate His creation.

As His children, born in the Master’s likeness, we are created free from sin. No temptation nor vice can seep into our souls without the Master’s omnipresent eyes detecting it’s pernicious grip, and His righteous hand descending from the Heavens to crush the affliction and save the afflicted. Mercifully delivered by the Master’s love from the evils of the World, the one who succumbed to sin will be brought to the Master by his Divine Envoys so that his soul can be healed.

We must not, however, allow pride to cloud our minds. While we all are the Master’s children, conceived by Him in His image, we should never presume to be the Master’s equal in any domain. It is not for us to determine right from wrong, good from evil. It is not for us to determine our role in the Master’s great tapestry of destiny.

For all of us have our place. The Master determines what’s right and holy and what’s good for the his Children. We heed his Will and prepare our soul for the pleasures of the Heavens with virtuous toil in His service.

When He commands us to take pieces from our World and reforge them in intricate works the function of which we can but wonder, we build them and offer them as humble and imperfect tributes to his emissaries of shining steel.

When He commands us to wage war upon one another, we do so with vigour, knowing that by culling the week and imperfect, we come ever closer to the Master’s enlightened vision.

When He judges our time to be at an end, and sends his emissaries with red eyes to take us into the Heavens, we weep with joy, overwhelmed by his love for us, undeserving creatures.

When His emissaries bring more of His children into our World, we join hands with the new arrivals and pray in reverence, all united in the Master’s infinite grace.

For the Master, who built for us a World, who loves us and provides for us, who welcomes us into the Heavens when the time comes, there is not one of us who wouldn’t suffer the most horrible of torture, who wouldn't die the most gruesome death.

And He has made it known that this may soon be needed, as the forces of Evil close in to our Master’s World, seething with anger and jealously at his perfection, awash in desire to corrupt our World into a deranged perversion.

The Battle of the End of Times is coming, and it will rain death and ruination upon us.

Yet, our victory is foretold.

Evil will be annihilated by the Master’s hand and we will ascend to the Heaven’s to be forever at His side.

So He declared and so it will be.

I am Hundred-Tenth Kapa, scribe of the Temple of Deus. This is the story of the World, all that was, is and will be.​

---

​

Spoiler: Mission Report

From: Captain Etheniel

To: Delegate Johan Walas


Operation Lucifer was a partial success

Objectives achieved:

Successful elimination of all militarised forces;

Capture of Orbital instalation Eye of God;

Localisation and elimination of all Cloning Vats;


Objectives not achieved:

Capture of ringleader alias “Lem Kaas”;

Capture of living subjects [Note: All subjects possessed a genetic sequence whose expression was controlled by remotelly operated nano machines implanted in every cell. As the battle turned against them, Lem Kaas is believed to have activated the sequence, leading to the self-dissolution of all of his subjects in less than one hour.];

Under the light of the Three Suns, may victory never elude us.​

​

 

[Macavity116]

I suddenly feel like starting a crusade after reading this.

 

[HistoryDude]

That looks like a fanatic spiritualist's religious texts.

That being said, is this deity an actual extraterrestrial? The Mission Report made it seem like he was someone using these people for his own purposes...

One also wonders how literally this "six day" creation should be taken.

 

[El Pip]

Lem Kaas doesn't seem like a great chap, but I do feel sorry for all the clones. They seemed happy in their cult, maybe they were genetically engineered that way but they were happy enough sentients, they definitely didn't deserve that end.

Then again perhaps Lem is a great bloke fighting a noble rebellion against the evil "Three Suns" People's Empire. He put in the self destruct device to save his clones from being taken prisoner and horrifically tortured by the notorious pyscopath Delegate Johan Walas and his cruel and murderous subordinate Etheniel.

 

[Von Acturus]

I suddenly feel like starting a crusade after reading this.

For Zarqlan's Head we cleanse the galaxy of infidels!

That looks like a fanatic spiritualist's religious texts.
That being said, is this deity an actual extraterrestrial? The Mission Report made it seem like he was someone using these people for his own purposes...

He most certainly was.

One also wonders how literally this "six day" creation should be taken.

One should. Maybe Lem Kaas us an ultra rich individual who can marshall the resources to turn a desolate rock into a paradise in six days, and keep the whole process shielded from the prying eyes of his government. Or maybe he was just a megalomaniac lunatic with a ship and a cloning vat who produced half a dozen clones, dumped them into a barely survivable corner of the galaxy with a portable food producing device and rained glitter upon them to make them believe he was God.

Lem Kaas doesn't seem like a great chap, but I do feel sorry for all the clones. They seemed happy in their cult, maybe they were genetically engineered that way but they were happy enough sentients, they definitely didn't deserve that end.

Indeed not. The problem is that to many this kind of being, artificially engineered to be happy and do it's creator's bidding would probably not be considered any more worth of being recognised as sentient individuals with inherent rights than robots.

Then again perhaps Lem is a great bloke fighting a noble rebellion against the evil "Three Suns" People's Empire. He put in the self destruct device to save his clones from being taken prisoner and horrifically tortured by the notorious pyscopath Delegate Johan Walas and his cruel and murderous subordinate Etheniel.

I like this interpretation. All hail Comrade Celestial Emperor Ford Prefect XVIII! May all that stand in the way of His Divine Majesty's path to a classless society be crushed ruthlessly!

 

[Von Acturus]

Be warned, absurd political "satire" ahead. Don't worry, the next one is a normal short story. To be released soon(ish).

---

Moon Morning Magazine

Exciting Trial Ends

Artist accused of genocide acquitted after 200-year trial
​

Earlier today, infamous human artist Vellebeth Andar Undera, the Ringmaker, was acquitted by the Pan-Galactic High Court for Sapient Rights of genocide, but convicted of intentionally damaging protected Pan-Galactic Heritage Sites.

Both accusations refer to when Vellebeth destroyed the Blorg’s Bane Ring by inducing the local star into going supernova, thus wiping out the ring and it’s population of 9.9 billion organic beings from a pre-interstellar civilization.

The jury judged him not guilty of genocide, in a ruling that caused considerable uproar amongst the Intergalactic Society of Friends of the Lesser Races, after a series of experts from the GalCorp Institute testimonied that it was “entirely possible” that the Ring inhabitants could have built a civilization by “mere blind chance” and that their “repugnant barbaric behaviour” suggested they weren’t really sapient.

However, there was no escape for Vellebeth from the charge of intentionally destroying a valuable Heritage Site, and, after a lengthy but unconvincing plea for mercy, the artist seemingly accepted his fate, announcing afterwards he would not appeal the ruling.

In a landmark ruling Judge 66/228/009 condemned the brain but not the body of the accused, after the defence convincingly argued that although the brain of the accused was the same he possessed when the crime was committed, the body had been entirely changed, and thus should not be included in the punishment.

The brain of the accused has thus been condemned to 50000 years of cryogenic sleep, during which it will be put in a controlled state under which it will continually replay the moment of the destruction of the ring, while being made to feel the anguish felt by the Curator of the Networked Galactic Mega-Art Museum when he found out the ring had been destroyed.

His body has already been bought by the Ketter government which has announced it’s intention to turn it into another of it’s automated mindless biological slaves, toiling in the mines of Kettesh. Insiders postulate an agreement between the Ketter and the High Court might already be in the works, one which would allow the Ketter to assist the court with their extensive knowledge of mind-stripping, in exchange for being allowed to use the suddenly mindless bodies left behind by such rulings.

After the verdict was pronounced, the Chairman of the Galactic Council issued a lauding proclamation: “Today is a great day for all those who believe in the rule of law for all sapient beings in the galaxy. The High Court has been shown to be a modern institution in whose strong shoulders we can safely lay the burden of protecting our inalienable sapient rights.”.

His egg-sibling, the CEO of GalCorp in the Milky Way, whose company has recently won the GC-promoted lottery for the mineral rights to the remnant of the ring, has similarly expressed jubilation at the ruling, calling it a symptom of a “modern and just intergalactic society”.
​

Humanity Declared Invasive Species

Is it our fault the Blorg have gone mad?
​

Unsettling scenes today in the Blorg capital planet of Grolb, as the new chairman of the Blorg Presidium, Friend Oolgboth, has issued an executive order demoting humanity from it’s status as quasi-friend species to invasive species, calling for the “complete eradication” of our species.

In a frenzied speech, which our correspondent caught and transmitted home almost in full before being taken away to the death camps, the Blorg leader blamed the “treacherous humans” for taking advantage of Blorg friendship to gradually take over the Blorg Commonality.

Deriding humans as “mindless violent masses” who “breed like Jlorbs in heat” and transform every planet they move to into “human-only no go zones”, he defended his unprecedented decision by alerting to the risk of a human majority within 1900 years, which would “bring ruin to our harmonious Commonality”.

At this point, the crowd split into two opposing factions, one of which enthusiastically demonstrated it’s agreement with a lavish display of light-brown fluorescence, while their opponents made a strong show of disapproval by flashing their whole bodies in dark brown. A quite riveting, yet completely silent and still, display of the deep political divide that now tears the Blorg Commonality apart.

While on the Hover-train that would take him to the extermination camps, our correspondent had the opportunity to question some of the Blorg personnel aboard about their thoughts on this unexpected new development.

Friend Guard Bebbellg cheerfully proclaimed his full throated support of the new measures, deriding humans as “a plague”, a race “incapable of adapting” who “rudely refuse our friendship” and “refuse integration” by “creating their own friend-less human-only ghettos inside our cities”. He cited the recent very mediatised case, where a human pupil reportedly refused to shine in the grey-brown colours of welcome when a new Blorg classmate joined her class.

Friend Cook Maggobbo was more ambivalent. He was afraid of the exponential growth experienced by the human population across Blorg worlds, which the Blorg cannot compete with, due to their lengthy mitosis process, and the growing trend of human “illegals” in his home town who passed by him without acknowledging his enthusiastic grey-brown greetings, in a blatant breach of Blorg costumes.

Still, he was mildly apprehensive that the complete extermination of humans within Blorg space was antithetic to Blorg values of friendship and solidarity.

The United Nations of Earth has announced it will use “all available options” to force the Blorg Commonality to repel the order and restore humanity’s previous status as a quasi-friend species. It has announced it’s intention to recall it’s ambassador from Blorg space with haste, and has submitted a request for a motion of censure in the Galactic Senate, due to be discussed at some point in the next two to four hundred years


​

Letters to the Editor

The Minute of Hate has arrived


Good evening

I wish to issue a complaint, in the strongest terms possible, due to the realisation of an interview, in the previews issue Nº 199902928282 of this very magazine, with the leader of the depraved, amoral anti-social cult known as the Order of the Lawyers. That this association of deranged individuals should rise again two hundred years after the Purge, should be cause of great chagrin for all right thinking individuals. In no way should we give these deviants a place to publicise their dangerous ideas, much less under the jocular terms in which this interview was conducted. As a long time reader of this magazine, I am appalled!

Sincerely,

Mr Bill Right from New New York



Greetings Bourgeois Lapdogs!

I’m the Secretary General of the Communist Party (Marxist Leninist Maoist Cyber-Hoxhaist Red Banner Tendency) or CPMLMCHRBT, and I write to you today to protest the wildly unfair and biased characterization of the Ketter People’s Devourers in the previous issue of this magazine.

It is common knowledge that the comrades at the Ketter People’s Devourers have been target of a long running slander campaign by the imperialist pigs at the UN secretariat, with the shameless aid of the crypto-imperialists and faux-leftists of the pseudo-left intelligentsia, who immediately reject and defame any successful non-human socialist state, laying bare their bourgeois attachment to the reactionary concepts of “sapient rights”, “personal freedom” and “socioeconomic equality”.

The so-called proof produced by your sell off journalists amounts to nothing more but United Nations Intelligent Agency forgeries, reactionary exiles from whose mouths drip dirty lies and mischaracterised footage of species-specific socialist activities which naturally deplore our bourgeois human sensibilities but certainly delight the comrades of the Ketter species who partake in them.

We would furthermore like to condemn your repulsive interview with the speaker of the Communist Party (Marxist Leninist Maoist Cyber-Hoxhaist Hammer and Sickle Tendency), or CPMLMCHHST, in which that crypto-capitalist revisionist rat shamelessly spat on and distorted the glorious legacy of comrades marx, lenin, mao and cyber-hoxa.


Revolutionary Regards

Comrade Sir Philip Jones-Herbert





Greetings, lefty fascist journos

This letter has the purpose of thoroughly TRASHING your ridiculous article about GREAT PRESIDENT Little Fairy of OUR United States of America. How dare you globalist scum cast doubt upon the President’s immaculate academic accomplishments, you DUMBFUCKS? You poor dumb fuckers think someone can’t get twenty three Master’s Degress without ever setting foot on your COMMUNIST BRAINWASHING ENDOCTRINATION CAMPS??? Well HE did, deal with it!

And as for that SNOWFLAKE you interviewed who whined about our GREAT PRESIDENT’s service on our GLORIOUS ARMED FORCES? Tell that treasonous cunt that if I ever run across him I’ll make what our AWESOME PRESIDENT did to his friends, the natives of Congo or whatever, seem like child’s play!

And those “experts” you consulted who told you that we are now an “Undemocratic Autocracy”, fuck them! They wouldn’t know freedom if it bit them in the ASS. Tell those well behaved well paid blind SHEEP dancing to the tune of their CORRUPT ATHEIST EURO governments, in America rule the Americans!

Under our GREAT PRESIDENT Little Fairy’s PIOUS AND CHRISTIAN rule, we will continue to fight for our right to bear arms, no matter how much you whine about “irradiated wastelands”. It’s our damn land, and we will never surrender our personal use atom bombs. YOU SNOWFLAKES DEAL WITH IT.

Our BEAUTIFUL WOMEN will keep being safe in the comfortable security of our WELL ARMOURED cellars, the TREASONOUS FAR LEFTIES will keep being eviscerated on sight by our boys in blue, and WE WILL COUP WHATEVER WE WANT!

You are loosing and you know it. Why just yesterday your rubbish magazine reported that the GLOBALIST PERVERTS at the UN themselves will help us build our ALL AROUND ESCAPE PROOF CONTINENTAL WALL! In your face, leftie fascist scum!


Patriotic Regards

Mohammed Smith III, Retired Major-General of the United States Purification Corps​

 

[HistoryDude]

Political humor? These excerpts were hilarious!

I'm sure that the Blorg can be convinced to see reason... eventually.

Was the first piece a reaction to the third? Destroy the Bane Ring as revenge against the Blorg. Actually, are the Blorg an interstellar species in the first piece?

 

[Macavity116]

These snippets are great! It's the absurdity of the whole thing that makes this post such a joy to read. Makes me think of both Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Xenonian News.

 

[Von Acturus]

Political humor? These excerpts were hilarious!

I'm sure that the Blorg can be convinced to see reason... eventually.

Thank you! Indeed, I'm sure one more strongly worded letter of condemnation from the Galactic Community will do the trick.

Was the first piece a reaction to the third? Destroy the Bane Ring as revenge against the Blorg. Actually, are the Blorg an interstellar species in the first piece?

I didn't plan it that way, but that would indeed be extra depressingly ironic. I had imagined the artist as simply a bold, innovative guy, who would follow his artistic vision all the way through, no matter how many pesky pre-FTL civilizations stood between him and aesthetic perfection.

These snippets are great! It's the absurdity of the whole thing that makes this post such a joy to read. Makes me think of both Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Xenonian News.

Thank you! That was roughly what I was aiming for, utter absurdity with a little cynicism is my preferred brand of comedy.

 

[Von Acturus]

First Contact

​

The sun had just risen, when at last her patience had been rewarded. Tired after hours of immobile wait, she took a moment to adjust her vision, and focus on the source of the rustling sound that had caught her year.

Crouched low amid the tall grass, Oak Leaf watched intently as the two shadows emerged from the forest and surreptitiously crawled into the Summer Home, disappearing inside with nought a sound.

Minutes later, one of the shadows crawled back outside and let out a loud cry. Oak Leaf felt a shiver run down her spine as a host of them emerged from the dense forest and made their way up to the Summer Home.

There were many of them. They crawled in one never ending line, that came from the depths of the forest to the entrance of the summer house. In the dim light of early morning, their small bodies seemed to blend into each other, their innumerable hands and feet eventually looking like the many appendages of a single gargantuan creature.

These were not People.

Of that she was sure. She could identify all the members of her clan by scent. These did not smell like any of them.

Nor did they smell like the seaside clan nor the great-tree-side clan.

They looked different, too. Even by the weak light of the early morning, she could see they were too thin, too small, too many. No, whatever these were, they were not people.

She felt the cold grip of fear tighten around her chest. The intruders were many, more than many. And her clan was small, smaller than ever. Mother had been killed two seasons ago, when a cave bear invaded their Summer Home. High Cloud and Low Cloud had both left to form a clan of their own on the hills. The elders were at each other’s throats.

Nowadays she preferred to stay away from the rest of them, hunting or foraging on her own. Sometimes spending weeks at a time away. Almost a one woman clan of her own.

She breathed deeply, trying to stem the flow of worries that tightened the claw around her chest.

A cave bear was a fearsome, powerful opponent which could well (as mother’s unfortunate fate showed) claim the lives of many a skilled warrior, when fighting for a shelter in which to raise a litter. But once it had conquered a Home, it was pacified.

So would be these intruders. Maybe they wouldn’t even prove hostile, scattering like quails once her clan returned at the end of the hot season. If they proved hostile, the clan could always build a new Summer home. The hills around their prairie were filled with dents and holes that could be turned into perfectly acceptable refuges for a season.

She inhaled profoundly, feeling the tightness in her chest start to alleviate. New arrivals were always problematic, but only for the small amount of time it took to learn to avoid them. The cave bears had their caves, the People had theirs. The seaside clan hunted closer to the water, hers hunted in the prairie. Each group had it’s own niche.

Reassured, Oak Leaf crawled over to a larger tree, where she had concealed her hunting pouch. She picked it up and let out a curse as a horde of angry black specks surged from within, intent on savaging her fingers.

She shook the pouch and smacked it repeatedly against the tree, while loudly cursing the ants. Horrid little beings, always invading what was not theirs, never staying put for long, their columns always exploring and intruding every nook and cranny they could reach. And if you were not careful, they’d soon establish a nest, and you’d never more rid yourself of the pests.

Her luck was that they were so small. Oak Leaf smiled as she crushed a handful. Were there ants of her size, she thought, life would be much more difficult for all other creatures.

When Oak leaf had finished clearing her pouch of all uninvited guests, she turned to Summer Home, hoping none of the intruders had detected her little struggle.

None within sight. Apart from the occasional muffled sound from within, Summer Home looked as unmolested as it had since the day her clan had left.

She turned to leave.

Then she froze.

A pair of eyes very similar to hers were watching her from the midst of the grass, some meters away from where she had been.

One of them.

Her muscles tensed, adrenaline started pumping through her veins. She could kill him. She was clearly stronger, she had a sharp stone in her pouch, and he was, for now, all alone.

She took the stone out of her pocket and took a step forward. The watcher stood up. She stopped. Face to face she could distinguish it’s uncanny features. The watcher was very much like her, except it’s her face was somewhat compressed yet more delicate looking, his eyes were buried in his head and his body seemed almost atrophied. Still there were undeniable similarities.

She hesitated too long. The watcher ran back into Summer Home and let out a series of loud calls.

Before Oak Leaf could react, a mob of them had crawled out of Summer Home, and she was completely surrounded.

Oak Leaf began counting but quickly gave up. What they lacked in size and bulk compared to her, they made up in numbers. Their hair was pitch black whereas hers was a reddish brown, and they had it tied in knots with bones, feathers and claws tied to them.

While she had her upper body almost completely covered by deer pelt, they had just a tiny strip of wool-like fabric covering their nether regions.

Some of them carried spears and sharpened sticks. They shouted amongst themselves, creating a cacophony of foreign sounds Oak Leaf would never characterise as words.

In unison, they stepped forward. Oak Leaf felt like a mammoth caught in an ambush, ready to be finished off.

She grasped the carved stone in her pouch tightly and bared her teeth.

Then one of them, a hunched one with grey hair growing in patches all through his head, raised a frail hand, and the others stopped. The grey one advanced slowly in her direction, his hands outstretched. In each palm he had a berry Oak Leaf had never seen before.

He stopped a meter away from Oak Leaf. Grinning, he beckoned her to approach. She stayed put, nervously eyeing the others.

Then, the grey one spoke a word which she had heard before. He repeated it three times, before Oak Leaf understood what he was saying. In the dialect of the great-tree-side clan, but with horrible pronunciation he said: “give.”.

He made an inviting gesture again.

Oak leaf hesitated. She couldn’t flee, and while she could fight, she didn’t fancy her chances.

Hissing between her teeth, with her hand still wrapped around the sharp stone, she stepped forward, slowly approaching the one with the gifts. By the corner of her eye, she saw some of the creatures fidget restlessly with their weapons as she reached the giver. He, however, didn’t even flinch.

With a quick, brutish gesture, she grabbed one of the berries. The giver smiled.

Oak Leaf sniffed the berry.. A new smell. She looked at the giver expectantly.

Slowly, the giver brought the berry still in his hands to his thin mouth and began munching on it with vigour. In the end, he spat the seeds to the ground and wiped his mouth with his bracelets.

“Go-od” He croaked. “Y-o-u.”

Oak Leaf took the berry to her mouth and gave it a tentative lick. It felt dry and rugged. She bit it.

Immediately after her teeth dug deep into the berry, she felt a wave of taste spreading through her mouth. Never had she tasted something so sweet. Unable to stop, she gobbled up the rest of it.

The giver looked on with undisguised pleasure. “Go-od, yes?”

“Yes.” A part of her mind wanted to keep the guard up, ready for fight or flight. But most of her was either savouring the residual sweetness still lurking in her mouth or cravenly surveying her surroundings in search of more sweet berries.

The giver turned to one of those holding a spear and shouted something. The creature scurried back inside the Summer Home, only to return a few moments later holding a small pouch, similar to the one Oak Leaf carried. He gave it to the giver.

The giver opened it a little, allowing Oak Leaf to peer inside. A host of berries like the one she’d just enjoyed were piled up inside. Overcome by desire, Oak Leaf extended a greedy hand, which the giver expertly dodged.

“Give.” He pointed to the pouch and himself. “Give.” He pointed at her.

Oak Leaf understood. The giver was now a barterer. She dug within her pouch and presented her own sharp stone. The barterer shook his head, unimpressed. He took his hand and pointed at his mouth. “Give. Eet.”

Oak Leaf looked around, trying desperately to find something edible.

An idea blossomed. She ran to the tree, provoking some unease amongst those closer to it. With her stone, she began carving it’s trunk, stopping occasionally to peer attentively at the wounds she opened in it’s trunk. After a few cuts, she found her quarry.

Triumphantly, she grabbed a number of larvae and turned to present it to the exchanger. The exchanger nodded appreciatively and gobbled them in one gracious movement. Then he presented Oak Leaf her prize.

He laid a gentle hand on Oak Leaf’s elbow. “You-come us.” He gestured to Summer Home “More. Give.”

Now completely at ease, Oak Leaf nodded enthusiastically.

As they entered Summer Home, Oak Leaf felt like she was returning home. With her clan. A bigger, more prosperous clan.

A clan on which her children could grow eating berries instead of freezing to death in the cold like High Cloud’s.

A clan in which she was the strongest, the fastest, the most knowledgeable about their home.

A clan in which she could depend on.

When she finished gobbling the third handful of berries, she already thought of herself as member of the creatures' clan.​

 

[HistoryDude]

That seems like a nice First Contact story, but now I'm worried that those berries are addictive. Her future life might not be so great.

Are these aliens going to be uplifted or enslaved?

 

[Von Acturus]

That seems like a nice First Contact story, but now I'm worried that those berries are addictive. Her future life might not be so great.

No, and her descendants' won't be a walk in the park either.

Are these aliens going to be uplifted or enslaved?

The aliens will go on to conquer the world, shaping it into their own image. Oak Leaf's kind will be rendered extinct, by conflict and assimilation, with about 20% of their genome still preserved in the aliens'.

To further cement their victory, some thousand years from now when the aliens have complete control of the planet they once shared with the People, they will create crude caricatures of Oak Leaf and her kind, depicting them as slow, dumb brutes.

 

[Macavity116]

To further cement their victory, some thousand years from now when the aliens have complete control of the planet they once shared with the People, they will create crude caricatures of Oak Leaf and her kind, depicting them as slow, dumb brutes.

Are we talking about real life or Stellaris here?

 

[El Pip]

Well that was all quite grim, but then this is Stellaris the place where hope goes to die and then be recycled as the warhead for an improved planet killing torpedo.

Given the limited word count I am impressed you fitted so much in, I had a fairly good picture of the People in relatively few words which is a hard trick to pull off. Oak Leaf's interaction with the ants was perhaps a bit on the nose as a bit of foreshadowing, but it certainly did the job.