Crisis of Conscience
05 Dec 2022Iridium Nova
There can be no doubt. The Thargoids are intent on the destruction of humanity. I was lucky to discover the truth behind the first Thargoid war before I encountered the Thargoids themselves. Having learned that truth, I vowed not to fire upon them unless I had no choice. I couldn't hold them to blame for simply defending themselves from greedy, xenocidal humans. I had to grow up fast when I left home, and I learned early on that the monsters we feared lurking in the depths of space, eager to devour our souls, weren't horrible aliens from another dimension, they were us. Greed, jealousy, power: these are the demons that will suck the soul from your body and turn you into a human monster. Knowing this, how could I blame the Thargoids for anything they've done?
But that was then. We won the first Thargoid war, but we were more united back then. We had the Galactic Cooperative, and we had fantastic technology that doesn't exist today. Galcop took a lot with them when they went down, and probably doomed humanity in the process. The thing is, the Thargoids aren't unstoppable, even though they seem like it now. They bleed, and they die, just like us, if you hurt them enough. But the last time we beat them, we were strong, united, and dumb. The superpowers had everyone in line, believing their lies, and Galcop tied it all together in a vast, impregnable authority that nobody could stand against. Criminals were marginalized, economies were stable, and wars were small, aside from the big war that everyone could agree on. Needless to say, my opinions were not popular. I got called everything from a bug lover to a coward. So, I learned to keep my mouth shut and my hardpoints deployed.
Fortunately, I didn't have to live through the worst part of the war. I grew up in Fomalhaut, far from the war, and by the time I had my own ship, the war was soon to be over. Didn't stop me from being hyperdicted by destiny, though. Most of my spacefaring career has been spent in a time when the Thargoids were thought to be bogeymen, a story told to keep children in line and excuse costly mistakes on the frontier. Nobody really believed that they even existed after Galcop went down and the superpowers spent a good century burying the facts and rewriting history.
But I knew. It felt strange, knowing what I knew in a universe where nobody else did. Like that black hole had sent me into an alternate reality. Imagine growing up in a time of war, where every day the news has some new atrocity to report, and people talk about it over dinner. You see the recruitment propaganda and watch your few friends go off to war, never to hear from them again. Patriotic entertainment is ever present, encouraging people to do their part. And then one day, you wake up and it's as if it never happened. Nobody remembers, and they think you're crazy because you do. Because several billion people died to defend us, and nobody remembers them, or they think they died in the nameless uncountable wars that forged the petty factions that still bicker and skirmish over dusty rocks to this day.
Every time I question the morality of my life, I have to question the morality of my entire species. Even a mass murderer can see themselves as a saint compared to the regular atrocities committed by our esteemed and righteous leaders. Who are we to judge when we ourselves have committed crimes worse than those we judge, even if those crimes were justified? And, does justifying a crime, in this universe of tarnished honor, make it better or worse?
But I guess none of that matters now, because the big bugs we were told didn't exist now want to make sure we don't exist for much longer. Sure, we could fight them, we could even win, just like we did before, but back then we had unity, and a magic sword of sorts in the form of INRA. We don't have that anymore. INRA is gone, Aegis pissed off too many powerful people, and Salvation was just plain wrong.
A quick tour of the bubble (the part that's not on fire) shows what it always shows: hundreds, maybe thousands, of petty wars, conflicts, and skirmishes. People bickering over who gets what, screwing each other for a margin, and generally lying, cheating, and stealing their way to a top that's so filthy, it deserves to be on the bottom.
Kinda makes you wonder what we're fighting for.