The empire I built… I was proud of it. I expanded my family's holdings from a single continent to a dozen systems, pushing my regional rivals back and forcing concessions and tribute from defeated foes. I never thought that it was the biggest or strongest empire in the galaxy. I knew that there were larger foes out there; I welcomed them! Fighting people weaker than you are encourages weakness and lassitude, and I refused to allow that in either myself or my people.
It's better to be second place, because it keeps you sharp. Second place works harder to hold on to their place from those below, yet lacks the fatalistic certainty first place ends up with as they realise there's only one way for them to go...
I fought on the front lines whenever practical. My palaces were not gilded; they were fortresses and places of administration first and foremost. I did not indulge myself with erotic pleasure of any kind. On those few occasions I thought about it, I assumed that I would die fighting and that my strongest general would take over from me.
That was not what happened.
Naturally, or you wouldn't be
here, after all.
Two fleets nearly reduced to scrap, and an infantry battle I could not refuse. And then, not only was I defeated due to the disloyalty of my auxiliaries after the enemy focused on killing my most loyal soldiers first…
But I lived.
Still, if you live, you can
return. And this time, you'll have the power to take back what you once owned.
I lived, and was paraded before their people as a war-prize. Some… Cousin of mine took control of my empire and rather than rallying our military himself… Gave most of what I conquered away. And I was forced to sit in a prison, visited by anyone who wanted to stare at me for their own entertainment.
I don't feel that I owe Vril Dox II for freeing me. He made a decision based on his own interests. I will say that he had sound judgement. I agreed to fight this war because it is the war in front of me and I refuse to step away.
Well, at least you're
dedicated.
I didn't care about the Reach.
But as I look down on one of their worlds, seeing what they build when they are unconstrained by the needs of war…
To some degree, what their idea of a peaceful life looks like tells you a lot about a species.
Now I care.
Drusa's eyes glow as she looks where I look, no doubt trying to decipher what exactly has me so worked up about it. She won't be able to. Her practical utility is considerable but she is almost entirely free of moral virtue. It won't offend her, and she will overlook it as a result.
And that's one of the reasons she hasn't progressed as a Lantern. She can't understand any
desire but her own...
It's disgusting.
I can see clearly where Grayven's ships entered the system. I can see where his smaller ships hunted down what I first took to be small cargo transports, but which my ring's analysis claims must be 'pleasure vessels'. I can see the likely angles of attack, where his capital ships struck at the orbital structures. Not his own flagship, but a considerable number of battleships of the type used by the Citizenry.
And all the while, those on the planet would have been hearing the signals die down, the screams of terror cut short... Those
allowed to know about an invasion, anyway...
The Darkstars are no doubt reconstructing the event it precise detail.
I know enough.
So, walk us through it, then...
The people here died because they were soft.
Pleasure craft, when you know that your enemies can strike your interior at will? The orbital defence network would shame a newly spacefaring civilisation! I cannot even detect ground to orbit weapons. The garrison fleet appears to have given a reasonable account of itself, but they had no reinforcements and nowhere to fall back to.
They probably
expected to be able to call in larger fleets, but found themselves cut off.
The planet's surface has industry, but their structures are light. Easy to build, but fragile. I can see only a handful of fortifications across the entire world, and none of them are particularly large. Minimal anti-air defences.
I can see landscaped continents and not a single place of safety.
Perhaps this was simply a holiday planet, never expecting to be targetted?
And now their failure of planning has gotten every single one of them killed. It can't happen to the rest soon enough.
How dare they? How dare they be so careless with so much?
And that's what offends you, isn't it? You would have been more aware of the danger, more defensive?
I can't help but feel there's something wrong with that point of view too...
"Sensors, any sign that they've noticed us?"
I nod to myself as Darkstar Colos asks. Regular checks are wise, though with a crew this capable in a combat zone I don't think that he really needs to check quite so often as he does.
Still, better than letting bad habits or complacency set in.
"No, sir. All enemy ships still on established patrol routes. No new ships arriving. Non-combat vessels acting within expectations."
"Good. Carry on."
Good to see their stealth systems holding up, then.
Rebuilding a planet. I wonder if the Reach will lie to their people and say that it never happened? In truth the Citizenry did little damage to the infrastructure when their giant flying snakes attacked the people down there. It's mostly cosmetic, though they seem like the sort of people who would care about such things.
"Do you think they'll clone them?"
...An entire planet? Why waste the resources? Just offer places on 'a newly completed colony' or something, and lie about the name.
My sneer grows at Drusa's comment.
"Do I think they will clone the citizens of an entire planet so that they can lie to their own people about their deaths?"
A town, maybe. But not a whole planet. It's unlikely they'd go any further than retconning their history to 'revise' the planet's origin.
"I doubt that they care enough about their people to bother."
"They've never seemed particularly callous to their own people to me."
Only because it isn't
profitable. And not necessarily in a
monetary sense. Just in a resource-management way...
"Then how was this allowed to happen? They should have been able to destroy the snake-harvesters in the skies even if they could not stop the fleet. We move slowly through the periphery in fear of their fleets, yet they had nothing here."
"He misdirected them."
Not that difficult, with access to Boom Tubes...
"The most charitable interpretation. I suspect that the admiral was simply slow to respond, and now seeks to absolute his guilt by taking his fleet on the offensive."
"Without orders?"
Never underestimate emotional responses. Logic can have very little to do with them...
"We know nothing of the Reach's high level command structure. Besides, if he was assigned to protect this world then he is hardly abandoning his responsibilities when there are no citizens left to protect."
"I'm surprised you're taking it this hard."
And there's the
difference between you. Billions died here. Because they had poor defences, poor leadership... They thought they were
safe... That doesn't offend you in
some way?
"What do you mean?"
"We were going to have to kill them anyway. Probably not with flying snakes-."
That would be a stupidly inefficient way, given you don't need what the Providers... provide...
"Before you joined the Lantern Corps. Did you ever steal something from someone who didn't care that it had gone?"
She thinks for a moment.
Sadly, I don't think she was the kind of thief who stole for the thrill of seeing their victim's lamentations...
"Yes. It made it a lot easier. Are you.. saying that you don't think they'll acknowledge you fighting against them? Because they haven't reached to having a billion or so of their people dying, they…"
"I've lost fights before. Even before the battle that saw me cast down. There is no particular shame in losing to a stronger opponent, and much glory in defeating one. But to decide not to fight at all… It disgusts me."
So that's what offends you? Their
laziness? An interesting view.
"Because they're saying that you're so small a threat that they don't need to."
"They're so indolent that they would rather lose an entire world than lift a finger to save themselves. I am profoundly offended that they've been able to expand as much as they did. I assumed that an empire of this size would… Better."
Who's to say
your empire might not have become the same way if it had kept growing?
"It is surprising. How would you defend against it?"
"Planets don't have to worry about their mass. They can build massive force field generators guarded by laser turrets all over the surface without ever leaving the ground. They could stop almost anything that could be fired from space. They have enough industry here that they could build it themselves without troubling any of the Reach's other worlds. And yet, they clearly did not."
Probably because they weren't told to. Who knows?
"I wouldn't assume that was their reason just yet. This is just one example."
"I've seen enough already. Colos! When are we leaving?"
Hoping to see something more to your tastes? We'll see, we'll see...
