Winning Peace - Chapter 51:
"And it is with great honor and gratitude, that we award Dr. Ezekiel Lopez the highest tier of Hierarchy Citizenship for his immense service to the state as a whole, the turian people, and our struggle against the New Prothean Empire!"
Edgar leaned back in his sim, watching the full panorama of the opulent Palaven ceremony in all of its military splendor.
The entire affair made him vaguely queasy.
And reignited his disappointment with the galaxy at large.
One of his friends, Telmarine Starry Sky, had put it best, he thought. Absently, he cued up the memory and let it play in an inset window as he continued watching humanity's greatest genius accept honors from an alien stratocracy.
"Okay, so we're us, right?" Telmarine asked, floating upside down relative to his own position, their body bathed in the pleasant glow of the artificial sunlight streaming down on them.
"That's a truism if I've ever heard one," Edgar replied, rolling his eyes.
"Work with me, I'm going somewhere with this," Tel enjoined and Edgar sighed as he shifted more attention towards his friend. It helped that they were nude, as usual, and that they pulled off the intersex look better than most people who attempted it. "Alright, so... we're us. Humanity. Pre-contact we imagined ourselves as one of the most insane, violent, dangerous, and culturally-backwards species that could possibly make it to the level of an interstellar civilization."
Edgar sighed and started thumbing the controls for certain neurochemical boosters to their maximum safe levels. Tel was always kind of a self-absorbed ass when they got philosophical, but at least it usually presaged great sex. "Are you saying we aren't?"
Tel laughed, sending their breasts quivering in an enticing way. "No! See, that's the thing, though. We
just had a war that killed off half our species! Rumor is that we still have wanna-be terrorist cults on our homeworld out in the boonies. In reaction to that, we basically let a mad genius remake our entire society with technology inspired by cartoons and shot into post-scarcity because it was our only practical choice. We really are the crazy barbarians everyone makes us out to be, even if everyone in charge seems to want to paint it as some kind of trauma-fueled enlightenment."
Edgar hummed, pulling at the elastic of his pants to scratch himself. In more polite company, he would have constrained the crude impulse, but Tel was... well, 'libertine' somewhat undersold their mindset. "So what's your point?"
That was how the game was played with Tel. For all that they were, genuinely, one of the most intelligent people Ed personally knew, that manifested in a desire to only exchange high ideas in discussion. So unless you wanted to chew your way through a few terrabytes of data in an attempt to prove them wrong, it was best to just lean back and hand them an open-ended prompt question that let gave them the illusion of a dialogue while allowing them to maintain what was, in truth, a long rambling monologue.
"Thank you for asking!" Telmarine giggled, weaving a hand through their long smart-hair as it shifted through various shades of low pastel light interspersed with tiny twinkling stars.
They always through the effect made them look otherworldly, especially with the slitted pupils set in pink eyes and mock-tribal tattoos glowing across their body.
It was with a mix of emotions that Edgar actually agreed, loath as he was to feed their already-inflated ego.
"If we're
that bad, what the fuck does that say about the rest of the galaxy?" Tel asked bluntly.
Edgar opened his mouth to respond instinctually, but found himself tripping over the logic of that argument.
What did it say about the rest of the galaxy?
The turians and krogans, the two species that were shaping up to be their closest allies were at least as violent as humanity was. He was sure he'd ignite the mother of all flame wars on the forum of his choice if he posted his opinion, but... the turian Unification War had killed ten times as many people as the Short War, the nuclear fallout, famine, pestilence, the Last Bark, the Rabid Years, and all of the minor conflicts around the world that no one remembered during that time.
The krogans, at least, hadn't managed to get into space before bombing themselves back to the medieval era. In fact, it probably said something completely absurd that the krogans had the kind of reputation for violence and bloodshed that they did when humanity had killed more of their own species than the krogans had of theirs during their respective apocalypses.
And on it went throughout the rest of 'civilized' space.
The asari were apparently quite happy to suffer under a highly stratified corporatocracy where roughly ninety percent of the wealth was controlled by the top ten percent of their society. The salarians' government was run by a hyper nationalist series of cults devoted to their style of nobility with an ongoing blood feud against the krogans and anyone who could be perceived as having a technological edge over them. And the batarians... fuck, he was too sober to think about them.
The New Prothean Empire was at least a nominally meritocratic assimilationist empire in the face of the Hegemony's forty-percent rate of their population being chattel slavery.
Edgar frowned as the rows upon rows of uniformed soldiers all in their finest dress saluted Lopez as he took the old-style documentation and certificate of citizenship.
It wasn't just disappointment in the galaxy, really.
It was the realization that... for all of humanity's many, many flaws as a species and civilization... no one was starving anymore. Or, at least, the number of people facing food insecurity was a micro-percentage of their population. It was the same for education, civil rights, and housing. To think that there were billions of aliens out there who didn't have something as simple as four walls and a roof! As much as the fogies bitched about their GODs (the 'Good Old Days'), things were better now than they'd ever been in human history.
It'd just kind of sucked getting to this point.
Ed shook his head and resolved to call Tel up after he took a quick nap. Which was, idly, another thing that he couldn't imagine having to put up with fifty years ago. Needing eight full hours of sleep? A third of your day? It was bad enough losing four... or six if you were completely exhausted, but still!
"What was that quote? 'The optimist believes this is the best of all possible worlds... and the pessimist fears they're correct?' It kind of feels like that, these days," Ed yawned widely and rolled over in his hammock.
The violent shaking of the planet underneath him made him blink and sit back up, even as alarms began to blare.
…
Telmarine Starry Sky blinked, looking up from the wild boar they'd just begun feasting on, their mouth red with blood and viscera as they swallowed the last bit of meat in their mouth. Cocking their head as they licked their lips, they hesitated a moment before shrugging and mentally logging into Eden Prime's subnet and logging into the hidden shadow network hiding behind that.
TSS: Hey, I've got an anomalous seismic event about twenty-kay from my position. Can I get a scan?
Blockhead: Those are usually called 'earthquakes,' dood. Thought you'd know that after you went all Anprim on us.
TSS: Oh, fuck-off. I'm just going camping for a few months. I wanted to disconnect from the network, remember? Because of assholes like you who are
constantly shitposting.
Blockhead: [USER TEMP-BANNED]
TSS: Wait, we finally got MODS?! And no one told me?! What the hell?!
HexMex: GOT BACK FROM STG MONITORING DUTY AFTER THEY GOT LOPEZ'D. REVIEWING REQUEST. REQUEST APPROVED. RUNNING-SYSTEM OVERRIDE! CODE TRIPLE RED!
Telmarine pulled off another hunk of raw meat and shoved it in their mouth on automatic as they felt the network suddenly spring to life in a way they'd never seen before. Even when they'd checked in during the general alert that had gone out when the salarians had pissed off the most powerful man in the galaxy, they'd never seen-
They blinked.
GENERAL WARNING: HUMAN COLONIES UNDER ATTACK. CLEAR IMPACT ZONES FOR EXOTIC COUNTERMEASURES.
Mentally burrowing into the link for further details, they spent a microsecond reviewing that.
Then they turned and ran on all fours with an explosive speed that surpassed a cheetah by a factor of five.
Behind them, physics temporarily stopped working.
…
I loaded up the many-times faster virtual reality environment.
"What the fuck." Those were the first words out of my mouth as Thonis-Heracleion manifested beside me. As the de facto oldest student I possessed, she'd taken the role of senior staff in the loose organization of transhumans and posthumans that had slowly grown up over the past decade.
"One of our junior members called in the first hit. Sensor sweeps judged it to be a stray capital-ship slug from one of the long-range batarian frigate contingents that have been poking the long way around the relay."
"It wasn't flagged?" I asked, despite already looking over the logs myself.
"It was, but it was also low-priority. The target area was well outside Eden Prime's settlement envelope. It was judged that involvement would raise our profile unnecessarily," TH explained.
The others began phasing in as our conversation continued.
Mesonoxian Sky was transitioned in a way that could be best described as 'glittered.' In direct contrast to TH's old favorite of the giant steampunk spider-sleeve she'd been wearing, Msonoxian Sky actually took a semi-physical form... for all that we were in a virtual environment. MS looked the part of a creature of flowing water, adopting an asexual appearance as they reclined against nothing, essentially hovering in the sunlit forest clearing I'd quickly loaded as our setting.
"We're still getting readings back from a few of the human colonies. If this was the work of Harbinger like we think it is, he's really pulling the gloves off," MS stated, scowling.
"We're expecting a Plan 17 Scenario at this point, broadly-speaking," TH notified her fellow cohort.
Finally, Hexidecimal Miasma dropped from the sky to float over his 'seat' at the table, his plain black orb body giving no emotional cues despite the mood of the meeting. "The school is in full mobilization. Permissions have been upgraded across the board and data containment is in full swing. We're shutting down the broadcasts before they can run. No one's seen them."
"No one in human space," MS muttered foully. "We don't have the kind of security over the Hierarchy, Citadel, or Empire that we do over the Systems Alliance."
That pronunciation hung in the code for a long moment.
Hex spoke up, finally. "Are we sure it isn't them?"
"It's not," I replied firmly, anger I never thought I'd feel bubbling up. If the STG's attempt on my family had enraged me, this incident was already provoking the kind of incandescent rage that could only manifest in utterly chilling serenity. "In the wake of the Last Bark, I turned the Sol System into the kind of surveillance state that would have made Stalin or Mao green with envy. You've all seen the files, run the probabilities on even a single cell, a single member surviving my purge."
The real, hidden reason I'd been so preoccupied in the wake of everything. After the Last Bark, after the revelation of the Reapers' existence, I really had stopped playing games. A truly disproportionate amount of time, energy, and production capacity had gone into making absolutely sure the Last Dogs had their existence scoured from reality, along with all of their technology, organizational structure, indoctrination material, and everything else that made them up. I hadn't even found a trace of the memetic contagion in over ten years at this point.
"Point zero three, out to ten places." Thonis stated.
"Even a suitably real 'fake' group is going to inspire complete panic in all of humanity," Sky sighed gravely, shaking their watery head.
I made a snap decision. "I'll release my files. Not all of them, but enough. Including the orbital strike that took out their leader."
"You'll make them hate you all over again. Fear you, too," Hex stated.
"It doesn't matter, I can-" I began, only to be cut off.
"We'll frame it as a batarian counter-intel strike," Thonis stated firmly, overruling me in a way I hadn't quite expected. "We don't need your name dragged through the mud right now, Ezekiel, or the kind of introspective doubt that will generate. The galaxy needs you at your best."
I grimaced, then nodded. "You've grown up, Thonis-Heracleion."
Something warm filled me at the thought. This wasn't the petty argument of a child doing what they 'deserved' to do, this was the structured logic of an adult willing to put aside the easy solution.
And that's what it had been, looking back on it after a few moments of hindsight.
I didn't need to flagellate myself anymore than I already had. There was no true need for it. Taking it on the chin, at least in terms of my reputation, had been my modus operandi for so long that I'd simply resorted to it unthinkingly. "As an addendum, we'll notify the Prime Minister and I'll hand over the record of the orbital strike on Mongolia as well as the cover up. We'll let the previous administration take the blame and paint it as a fait accompli while she reaps the credit for it."
"That's workable," Sky chimed in, sliding into the place of a peer into the discussion in the wake of Thonis' quiet rebellion. "Should I take point or-"
I frowned, thinking it over for a few subjective seconds. "You'll be on-channel when I explain things to her and serve as the school's representative and liaison to the government-proper of the Solar Council. Pick one of the accosians we have and tap them for duty for their species."
"And the rachni?" Hex pressed.
"We'll present the Assemblage of Queens with the information on transhumanism and see if they have a volunteer or two. The studies I conducted pretty adequately explain why we weren't able to induct any of their species secretly," I stated.
Thonis's mechanical spider-sleeve took an unnecessary breath. "Limited Disclosure is finally here, huh? Well, we all knew it was coming eventually. You're sure this is the Reapers making their move, Ezekiel?"
"As sure as I can be," I stated, leaning back in the chair I'd manifested. "I'd say that this is an STG operation if they were still around, but they're not. The batarian agencies who could do this we have taps on, and they don't have the right mindset for propaganda that's aimed at disruptive instead of pacification projects. The Empire is too... blunt, even if we weren't listening in on them as well, this kind of chaos goes against the grain of their entire belief structure. Like the turians, they're too ideologically invested in meeting their opponents head-on. Still, we'll know soon enough."
"How so?" Hex asked, pulling up files as he did so to cross-reference the answer I'd be giving.
"Launching Grey Goo bombs disguised as mass accelerator shells at a dozen human colony worlds so far and producing propaganda claiming it as a Last Dog's surviving cell is about the heaviest blow he could deal to human society, but just human society." I paused, running scenarios through my mind. "If this is Harbinger, he'll target either the Hegemony or the Union next. Both of their societies also have easily exploitable trauma buttons that would cause them to reflexively curl into themselves to deal with domestic problems, even moreso than they are at the moment."
"Which would leave the asari as the only real military force garrisoning the Citadel picket fleet," Thonis stated.
"I'm ordering our fleet assets to move into watchdog positions," Miasma stated.
I gave an easy assent, even if I didn't think it would help. Should it get to the point where we needed to intervene, some mysterious third party showing up to pull their asses out of the fire would ignite just as much suspicion and panic as the attack in the first place, and likely result in the same surge of ships back from joint ventures to safeguard domestic holdings.
Glancing over the readouts, I sighed.
Sometimes I hated to be right so often.
"I'm seeing Collector vessels moving in-system on an attack vector towards Hegemony forces performing suppression strikes on our slave revolts," I stated, scowling.
The others at the table froze, exchanging looks of confusion and disbelief.
"Do... we... " Thonis began, uncharacteristically and visibly torn.
"I just said the outcome would be the same either way," I waved her off. "I'm not about to commit forces and reveal our strategic capabilities to the reapers in the name of maintaining the rule of slavers and despots."
Tension flowed out of the room at my pronouncement, and I clapped my hands, drawing attention back to me. "You all know what to do, we'll meet as-needed, but start putting out fires. The fate of the galaxy is riding on us."
Thonis nodded, her arachnid expression firming. "This is what we've been training and preparing for."
Hex spun in place. "Let's waste some fools."
"I'll start prepping for the meeting with the Prime Minister," Sky stated.
We disengaged with the simulation.