Winning Peace 10:
2143 – Five Years After The 'Short War'
Altan scowled as he looked over the rocky outlands of his homeland.
Mongolia had not changed overmuch in the decades of modernization, being as it was on the furthest outskirts of both China and the Russian heartland. His nation had never had many people, and those numbers had been further culled by the pogroms of the Communists first and the Imperialists after that. Now, beyond the poisoned mountains and the depopulated cities, his people had returned to their roots as tribal herders while it seemed the world passed them by.
The barely-functional television his drunken father had possessed while he and his siblings whiled away their early years had given him a glimpse into the wider world.
It was a world of things, not people.
The works of artifice that moved across the glowing box were not alive, this he had known almost since first looking upon them. They had plastic faces with fake smiles who wore artificial clothing and spoke of nothing borne by the natural world. Even the food they ate was crafted by false-men in white coats with needles and computers rather than a butcher and a cook.
This was the world of the beings who had so impoverished and destroyed his homeland.
"Altan, have you fed the animals yet?" His sister asked, stepping out of the hut she shared with her husband.
"Yes, Delbee," he replied with a sigh, "I've also milked the goats and made sure all of the herds are accounted for and seen to their water."
His sister hummed. "Alright then. What are you doing out here, it's almost dark?"
Altan shrugged. "Just sitting and thinking, sister. The stars shine so much more brightly now that the military camps have gone dark."
Delbeee sighed. "You've always been a strange one, Altan. If you're to stay out and watch the stars, though, I'll let you take my turn watching the fire. I'd rather be in bed with my husband."
"That will be fine. I intend to stay up for some hours yet," Altan waved her off.
"Thank you, brother," Delbee replied, stepping closer to give him a momentary hug. "Thank you for keeping the children busy today as well. You'll make a great father one day."
Altan scoffed, but patted his sister's hand before she released him. "Go to bed already, you have an early morning tomorrow sister."
"Alright then, good night."
Her warmth disappeared from his side and, caught in a momentary void of thought, he threw a piece of scrap wood on the fire. The collapsed house they'd found was good for something at least. After they'd buried the dead, it seemed the least they could do to honor the people who had lived there.
What had he been thinking of...
A look down at the small device at his side reminded him. The size of a book, it was loosely bound in leather with a long strap that could loop over his shoulder. Beneath the binding, though, there was a mess of salvaged components and wires with a broken screen he'd pulled from a discarded smartphone. As he flipped it open, it flickered on to a blank black screen. Removing a small case from his pocket, Altan sighed as he slipped the glasses on and the light from the device resolved into words and images.
His thumb moved in a familiar pattern, unlocking it. Distantly, he heard the sound of a small motor aiming the communications laser he'd reprogrammed as it bounced off the planet's atmosphere.
After a long moment spent staring up at the void of space, he sighed as the secure uplink finally went through.
A series of forum pictures were his first stop, mostly long-distance shots of various settlements. Some were more palatable than others. The ones with American flags, in particular, were always a hair's breadth away from shattering in civil unrest. There was never enough food these days, old stockpiles having long run out by this point and many people were arguing their positions in the previous society should guarantee them a commensurate level of care in the here and now.
Foolishness.
If they wanted food, they should farm, hunt, or fish. If they could do none of the others, they should either condemn themselves to death to free up more of the world for proper humans or kill and devour each other until they managed to learn the skills to subsist on the land.
In the early days of his childhood, he could remember helping his parents butcher an unwary group of travelers. It was not something to be done lightly, but when one's life and the lives of one's family was on the line, you did what had to be done. You did not sit in front of a screen all day laughing at the suffering of others while imbibing drugs to ensure your body continued to allow you to do so instead of failing as nature intended.
More concerning were the areas centered on large boxes where he could see trash, rock, and other things being thrown in one side and refined products being dumped out the other. Often there were conveyor belts on either side to carry the materials, along with someone standing nearby working at some kind of interface.
"Intelligence reports indicate the material processors, known as 'nano-fabrication units,' were dropped from a decaying orbit in extremely primitive and layered re-entry vehicles." Altan nodded, flipping through more images and stewing in his dissatisfaction.
Where had it all gone so wrong?
Although... he shouldn't dwell entirely on the problems. The world was getting better. Much of Asia, Africa, and South America had returned to the proper order. A great many people had died, yes, but that had been understood as a necessary evil. With them dead, the world could begin to heal. True, there would be more suffering in the short-run, but that too was a necessary evil.
People died, that was the truth of the world.
The civilization that kept so many who should have died alive, that was the lie.
"The problem is those who have escaped this world, as no person ever should have." Altan's declaration was caught by the wind and torn away into silence.
Yes, that was the most pressing issue. His Last Dogs had dealt a mortal wound to society already. In time gangrene would set in and the old world would die properly. The problem, to belabor the analogy, was the life support system. He had thought his connections within the Sinoese Empire would have managed to destroy the lunar colony. Without it, the remainder of the space colonies would have certainly died out.
He looked back at the void above, dotted with flecks of light.
Departing the world humanity had been born from was utter madness and, ultimately, one of the things that had forced Altan's hand. While it was always going to take a major shock to the system, many of the Last Dogs had, under his direction, tried to slow the privatization of colonization. By limiting the proliferation of humans across the solar system to space stations and a few easily-targetable colonies, Altan had hoped that he would only have to induce a few cascading problems into such a centralized system to snuff out the flawed dream of a life in the stars.
Ezekiel Lopez had forced his hand, though.
The moment a single individual was allowed to build a self-sufficient space colony, Altan knew he had to act.
It had been too late, though.
Ezekiel was a clever enough man, it must be said, but he was so terribly misguided. His influence would have to be neutralized, one way or the other. For now, their struggle over the fate of humanity was ongoing, and the next moves would have to be planned carefully to remove the more functional large-scale communities putting themselves back together.
Thankfully, many of his Dogs still held influence in the pockets of civilization under governmental control. They would need to be his primary weapons, he knew, if he were to challenge Lopez at this point. While it would be far simpler to induct a member of Armstrong City or one of the space stations that still ringed Earth the high orbitals and order an assassination, their entire organization was hamstrung by a lack of reliable communication between the surface and the colonies.
"What is the phrase, 'I am suffering from too much success?' Something like that." Altan sighed, shaking his head. He would order the cells to cease their attempts at recruiting in Armstrong for now and make a determination whether Lopez was purposefully curtailing communications or if it was merely a function of their too-successful attack on the satellite infrastructure.
Either was equally-likely at this point, but the former would strongly imply Lopez was consolidating power on the moon and beyond or that he might even know of the Last Dogs' survival and continued threat.
Altan considered that unlikely, but it was a potentially critical issue should it be true.
He would have to be wary, now that he had slaughtered so many of the fat, stupid, and lazy fake humans that had populated the world. Those left would begin to remember the truth of humanity in its wild savagery. While death was something he had long come to terms with, it was an eventuality he would prefer to put off until his mission was accomplished. Once humanity had been restored to its right and proper existence, he would leave what knowledge he could as the new history with his disciples, who would pass down the new laws to a new humanity unburdened by dreams of sloth and idleness.
Looking back up to the sky, specifically to the rising moon still low in the sky, Altan considered the stellar body.
What kind of man was this Ezekiel Horus Lopez, who wore the name of a god between his given and family names? He had seen the fool who danced across the internet like a strutting bird proud of its plumage, but he'd long-since deduced that was an act. The knowledge bequeathed to him by the soul of humanity had not led him astray yet, after all.
Still, it was worth considering a scenario where the remnants of the world's governments were not enough to surmount whatever wonders Lopez was constructing on the moon.
Perhaps it was possible that Lopez would poison humanity among the stars to the point where it was neither recognizable nor worth saving.
In that event... was it worth destroying?
A humanity that was no longer human...
Should it come to it, and should Lopez prove himself worthy of the offer, Altan would make an offer of mutual peace. He had heard the man speak often of the promise of space, one of the few areas he was truly honest in his speeches. It was the only reason he had put off making an attempt on the then-boy's life. Even if he was a complete fool for walking the path he'd chosen, Altan would respect the choice he'd made as an honest belief in what was right and just.
It was the corrupt pigs who wore the masks of men and the pliable flocks of sheep they governed that deserved his wrath.
No... Lopez was an interesting puzzle, someone who was not an equal, but could be fascinating to observe in how fundamentally wrong he was.
Looking down, he noticed a small blinking icon on the screen and cued it up.
Australian Shepard: Lord Dire, I bring important news.
Altan sighed and properly entered the cryptographic key for their server. He idly wondered how long before these vestiges of the previous civilization ceased to function. Already, they had messenger hawks at the ready for such an event, but...
It was terrifyingly easy to see how the world of fake humans had grown so indoctrinated and weak.
Dire: Speak.
Australian Shepherd: The Stellar Council has held a vote to determine the legality and rights of cloned individuals.
Altan felt his eyes widen.
Dire: Are they lunatics? They will impoverish their own blood! In but a few generations they will be inbred mongrels!
Australian Shepherd: I do not know the specifics, Lord Dire, however I believe there to be an element of genetic 'fixing' in the process which will randomize specific key genes to prevent such a thing.
Dire: Then they make a mockery of the natural processes of life and death.
Australian Shepherd: It is as you say, Lord Dire. How do you wish us to respond?
Altan contemplated this latest mistake of the man who might be his rival for the soul of humanity.
Dire: Instruct our facilities to manufacture more biological weapons. We will cease attempting to recruit agents within Armstrong for now. They are clearly far too gone to understand reason and logic. Instead, we will wait until traffic between the Earth and stars opens once again. Then we will strike.
Australian Shepherd: Of course, Lord Dire. I will inform the others.
Dire: See that you do.
As the Dire Wolf, Leader of the Last Dogs, looked out over his homeland's countryside and pondered the madness of the moon-dwellers, he resolved that should things come to it, he would just as soon cut all ties with those who committed such atrocities in defiance of the natural order. Yes, he would destroy them if possible, but ensuring that they never stepped foot on Earth again was his new highest priority.
He would speak to his American Shepherd and have him disseminate further orders.
Those among the survivors who would side with such madness would need to be culled.
Dire Skill List:
Survival 1-5
Stealth 1-5
Herbalism 1-5
Tactics 1-10
Strategy 1-10
Cryptography 1-10
Mathematics 1-10
Espionage 1-10
Social Engineering 1-10
Propaganda 1-10
Psychology 1-10
Eugenics 1-10
Evolution 1-10
Spycraft 1-10
Human Physiology 1-5
Salvaging 1-3
Programming 1-3
Repair 1-3
Sinoese Imperial Bureaucracy 1
UNAS Bureaucracy 1
European Union Bureaucracy 1
CCP WMD Locations 1
English 1
French 1
German 1
Spanish 1
Portuguese 1
Japanese 1
Chinese 1
Russian 1
Arabic 1
Hindi 1
Bantu 1
Swahili 1
Zulu 1
Hebrew 1
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