rickgriffin

A Vast And Endless Sky 9

Added 2022-03-24 23:29:11 +0000 UTC

Endless Sky 8

I've poked at this before, but this is probably the most difficult part of this story to really convey in a way that's simultaneously honest in how unlikely this is, but is also clear that the ssarith invasion is a best-case scenario. I probably didn't adequately explain it!. But in any case, comments appreciated!

The stateroom door snapped shut behind Rees. The place looked structured to be cozy, less like a room in a spaceship and more like a sitting room one would find at a hunter’s lodge, with (presumably false) stone and wood facades, along with tall, fake windows overlooking what Reese could only presume was a view on the lio homeworld. Bright, white buildings with towering ziggarauts and skyscrapers shaped like fan blades cut the morning (evening?) sky, towering over forests and parks. The place looked beautiful, far moreso than most montrose cities that Rees had ever visited personally. A fireplace took up the other end of the room, projecting a false fire in the same manner, and seven red chairs encircled a dark wood table, atop which some implements had been set. Reese could not divine their use save that some of the things were drinking cups.

Trying to keep his breathing in the helmet normal and casual, Rees stepped forward, but didn’t see anyone in the chairs surrounding a sitting table. He swallowed nervously. “Uh… Miss Ambassador?” A device on the table repeated his words in the lio language.

A dark-furred lio with a thick, black mane appeared from behind several shelf units, and nodded to him. “Raar Rees,” he said with a bow, the device translating back to Tannic.

Rees perked his ears. He had to check to make sure, since the lio males and females were quite similar in their size, but the ambassador was, to Rees’s relief, male.

“I am Ambassador Karno,” the lio said, taking a seat across the table. “Please, have a seat.”

Rees took up the chair next to the ambassador. He waited to be offered tea, then remembered he was wearing a helmet. Wow, these things are comfortable…

“I take it you’re surprised to see a male in charge?”

“Just a little, sir,” Rees said. “I mean, I’m familiar with science fiction reversing classic gender roles, but actually experiencing it is kinda weird.” He perked his ears again. “Is that… normal, for you?”

“Males and females are roughly equal in prominence in lio society,” Karno said, pouring himself a cup of whatever it was that lio drank—Rees could not smell it through the mask. “Though it is not, and has not been, without its flaws. Thousands of years ago, lio societies were largely male-dominated, but attitudes change. We didn’t think there would ever be one world emperor back then, either. But unification is borne out of necessity.”

“The krakun?”

Karno nodded. “The krakun have done perhaps more for world unity than any other force in the galaxy.”

“I saw a movie like that once,” Rees said. “The villain’s plan was to unite the entire world by creating a fictional enemy so that everyone would have to work together for the sake of planetary defense. It ended on the ambiguity of whether or not this would actually work, because there wasn’t really an enemy…” he blinked. “Is… that what’s happening here?”

“I can assure you, more than most, the krakun are very real. If you are certainly unconvinced, I could bring you to observe the front lines.”

“But it doesn’t make any sense,” Rees said. “I was shown a projection of krakun. They’re really twelve meters to the shoulder?”

“That is correct.”

“But how do they stand up under their own weight?” Rees asked. “Is their homeworld tiny, to reduce gravity on their frames?”

“No, their gravity is not much different from the gravity on your planet,” Karno said. “Krakun physiology is well-known. Their bone and muscle structure—and indeed the structure of most high-growing things on their planet—are high in tungsten, and employ dense crystal networks for alarming strength in what’s considered an old, evolutionary arms race. They are also fiercely intelligent—a krakun, who is at least paying attention, will remember nearly everything they see with near-perfect recall. A krakun can memorize books worth of material in moments. They are rather slow in their movements, but not as slow as you might expect, since a generous portion of their nervous system goes toward predicting and reacting to everything around them before they’ve even consciously registered it.”

“They’re big and super intelligent?”

“Wait until I tell you the best part,” Karno said. “The average lifespan of a krakun, not prematurely killed, is around twelve thousand years.”

Rees’s jaw hung open, mitigated by it squeezing against the underside of the helmet. “This is ridiculous!” he exclaimed. “I mean, I guess I don’t have any reason to doubt you or the ssarith, I mean, you’re the ones with the massive space ships and everything, but… how is anyone supposed to believe this? Who could possibly just take anyone at their word that this is the case?”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Karno said, sitting his cup down on the table and crossing his arms. “The ssarith take it for granted that they are truth-tellers and make no attempt to conceal it. Lying, while in their capabilities, is not something that comes natural to them, and so they perhaps underestimate the amount of effort necessary to convince your people that the threat they face is real.” He leaned forward. “But they do know their shortcomings. That is why they are staging this operation, which in better circumstances may be a peaceful union, as an invasion.”

Rees blinked. “Wh… they… aren’t exaggerating?” Rees asked. “Thassiter was awfully diplomatic about it.”

“They definitely would not conceal their true nature to individuals,” Karno said. “Like I’ve said. Ssarith are not liars, they are not two-faced, and they mean what they say. But political policy is another beast entirely. I mean, think about what I just told you about the krakun. You said yourself, no montrose in their right mind are going to simply take it at an invader’s word that these enormous, power-hungry monsters are simply waiting in the wings.”

“Well, it certainly would help if I could see them,” Rees said. “See what sorts of things they do…”

“That is certainly a plan,” Karno said. “So, suppose they do just that. Your world leaders are taken on a tour to show them the terrible things the krakun have done. Then they come back, and the leaders will be able to report that such things are true to the people. Do you believe that will work?”

Rees’s ears wilted. “Well… no. For one, it’s clearly a guided tour. The leaders themselves may believe they’re just being shown what the ssarith want them to see. And even if they did believe it, it doesn’t make it any more convincing to anyone who didn’t witness it firsthand. Because it’s still unbelievable. Many people would be more likely to believe their leaders were replaced with obedient duplicates.”

“You’re very perceptive, Rees, I will give you that. There is simply no satisfactory way for the ssarith to simply convince your people that they need help, except perhaps to let the krakun conquer your planet and allow things to go on such a course for some decades.”

“I don’t think I’d want that to happen, either… I mean, assuming that Thassiter is right and they’re going to try very hard to minimize casualties… but even if they didn’t, it’d have to be preferable to a species that’d make slaves of us…”

“So you see the issue here. The ssarith have two ways to go insofar as the invasion of your planet is concerned. The first would simply be to establish a foothold and initiate contact for trade. I believe they will attempt this first, and if their projections are correct, this will go sour within four weeks.”

“Why?”

“Because the existence of alien life is going to be a shock to your people. It is not going to go away soon. Your entire culture—all of your world’s cultures—will quickly undergo a radical shift. Leaders who fear change will quickly attempt to poison minds against the ssarith, it will immediately pick up steam and spread to conservative factions all over the globe. And to the ssarith, allowing this fomented resentment to gain momentum is simply not an allowable outcome.”

“But what’s the other option?” Rees asked. “I mean… Thassiter said it was going to be an invasion…”

“Exactly. They will quickly and immediately replace the organs of every government on Ar. The planet is going to be divided into one hundred and twenty-eight dominions, each ruled over by a ssarith lord. And then they will allow things to operate as normal.”

“But… that’s not normal. There’s going to be riots everywhere. Dissent. Uprisings.”

“There’s going to be riots everywhere anyway,” Karno said. “It just depends on whether the ssarith take control before or after. And when their AI gets hold of your internet and media broadcasts, then this dissent would be much slower to spread.”

“You mean, suppressing speech?”

“Yes, that is what would happen.”

Rees felt a sick turn in his stomach again. “I… but… that’s not what the good guys do.”

“It is always what people do,” Karno said. “It is exactly what your people would do, whether to protect themselves or suppress others. Unpopular ideas are suppressed by society, and unsafe ideas—at least to those in power—are suppressed by the government. Every other bit of speech granted is merely a release valve. Paranoid dictators squelch every last ounce of it, but the vast majority of speech is of little consequence to a functioning government apparatus, and so will not be affected. Once the government has been well-established, perhaps in five to ten years, critical speech will return, but all the paranoid thoughts will have passed once your people have seen, by immersion into their culture, that the ssarith are, really, nothing to be feared.

“But I see that you’re still uncomfortable about this. Surely, you’re thinking that a similar takeover by a montrose sounds like a grand promise by a fascist that will inevitably be broken. ‘The rights of the people will return when the period of crisis is over’, and then the crisis is never over. I can give you my assurance that you can trust the ssarith on this. But, I am only one lio. And again, most montrose are going to think along those lines.”

“So what’s the difference?” Rees asked. “What’s going to actually make montrose and ssarith trust one another?”

“That does take time. But it also takes cooperation. Your people will not simply be ruled over. Your world economy will be replaced by the ssarith one. Your people will find useful work that is well-compensated, and even montrose who cannot work will be given at minimum places to live until they are, and should they become, fit and in order. Montrose lives, especially the lives of the underclass, will be measurably improved, and it is very difficult to fight against or hate that which has become critical to your life. In a way, I wish that the ssarith could do for my people what they plan on doing for yours. Our society idealizes integration and cooperation, and we have not yet achieved that on our own. This is the most daring project on that front yet. Having people as honest and loyal as the ssarith in charge will be a boon to your society.”

“But that’s all just a presumption, isn’t it?” Rees asked. “You don’t actually know that this will work.”

The lio shook his head. “No, we don’t. It is still possible there are irreconcilable differences between your people and the ssarith. It is possible that your people might faction further, might never stop fighting the oppression of rulers who want to learn to love your people. Perhaps change is impossible. So this is what I have brought you here to ask you, the randomly selected montrose on the street. Do you believe people can change for the better?”

Reese didn’t answer right away. He was trying to fit it all in his head; even if this was a good thing in the long run, it was still terrifying. He could fall back on that fear that this was inevitable, one way or another, but that wasn’t the biggest problem. Thassiter was right: even if the ssarith simply gave the montrose all the technology they needed and left, that wasn’t going to be enough. Society as it was now was all too ready to annihilate itself.

But the interesting thing was, even though his people possessed nuclear weapons for nigh-on fifty years, they hadn’t yet. It was possible that his people could evolve into something like the lio society on its own as those who created avenues of cooperation, peace, and good sense lived on and dictators died.

But did all the montrose who now lived need to die in order for that to happen?

“I think,” Rees said, “if I can, then so can others. Maybe I’m mistaken, maybe I’m just a bad person who is pretending to be good. But I don’t think I’m unique. If I am good and can become better, then that’s proof that any montrose can be good and can become better. They just… need to learn how.”

“I didn’t mean to frame it as a moral question,” Karno said with a smile. “Good is relative to a society. No matter how ‘good’ a well-organized society might make you, your people will nevertheless have to adapt to a new way of living. And not everyone knows how to do that. Those people may be good, but they cannot change.”

“Then the ssarith will have to adapt,” Rees said. “Because they should not leave anyone behind. They want to be our rulers? Then they have to become our servants.”

“There we go,” Karno said. “You want the ssarith to adapt to your people?”

“They said they were trying.”

“And how well do they actually know your people thus far?”

Rees’s ears fell. “Uh… not… very. They’re trying, but…”

“Well, that’s why you need to become an ambassador for your people,” Karno said. “You need to speak up for them before the ssarith make a mistake, and they will be making many mistakes. Even if you believe in their cause—especially if you believe in it—you need to advocate for your kind, as early as possible.”

“But I don’t know anything about government,” Rees said. “Not really.”

“How fast can you learn?” Karno said. “Because your world has about five more months until official contact.”

Rees nearly jumped out of his seat. “Five months?!”