Chương 4: What Humans Call Overkill

"Human methods have always been particularly noteworthy for being overkill."

Admiral Talon flipped through several pictures on the large projected screen behind him,

"The battle of Yavon-5, Humans called it light bombardment," The picture behind him depicted 5 battlecruisers in orbit all simultaneously firing orbital artillery toward the terrorist stronghold known as the keep. "Over 2 Megatons worth of ordinance were dropped on a 50 square mile area. When questioned about the severity of their methods, Human ambassadors frowned in confusion and stated, that's just the nature of orbital fire support."

A screenshot of a Human news website flashed behind the admiral,

"The bombardment was so trivial that it was little more than a footnote under a footnote titled, HUMAN VOLUNTEERS AID IN PEACEKEEPING OPERATIONS. For those who were not alive 100 years ago, the Keepers of the Sacred Word, as they called themselves, were the most dangerous terrorist cell the galaxy had seen in over half a century. To the Humans, they were little more than a fly to be swatted."

One of the most infamous pictures of all time was the next to be presented, a Human soldier looking at the ruins of the entire city of New Calanty, a small armada of frigates lingered over the city smoldering corpse while blasting autocannon fire at anything that dared peek its head out of the rubble. Despite all of this destruction, the soldier appeared to be entirely relaxed, her rifle was swung over her shoulders and she rested lazily against a tree.

"It is reported that this lone Human soldier had been part of the first wave of Drop Troopers to make landfall around New Calanty. According to both Human and independent reports, the soldier managed to kill at least 57 enemy combatants single-handedly before being evacuated from the surface. Shortly after this photo was taken, the entire city of New Calanty and everything within a 200-mile radius of it was turned to glass by Nuclear Warheads."

A picture of a human lawyer in court appeared on the screen,

"The galactic council tried to try the Humans for war crimes, the Human lawyer pointed out two things that were enough to get the trial dismissed immediately; One, the galactic council themselves called upon Humanity to deal with the Calantian issue, and second, several deadly viruses were released from the New Calanty Biological Research Facility in an attempt to drive off Human forces. The lawyer put it best, arguing that Humanity was faced with the prospect of losing a city or losing an entire planet, we chose to destroy the city before it could destroy itself."

Admiral Talon took a long drink of water before continuing,

"I'd like to remind all of you that Humans glassed New Calanty as a concession. Humans originally claimed that they planned on glassing the entire continent and quarantining every system in a 15-light-year radius to prevent the spread of whatever diseases the Calantians had cooked up. Not even that plan was considered overkill to Human command."

It was at this moment the crowd began to rustle, one young officer even raised her hand to interject; After a quick nod of appreciation from Admiral Talon, the officer began,

"If 15-light-year quarantine wasn't considered overkill," The officer audibly gulped and faltered slightly, "What was?"

Admiral Talon let out a chuckle as he changed the slide behind him,

"If only we knew." Once more the room fell into disarrayed whispers of disbelief, the Admiral looked around the room while still chuckling, "Quarantine of a hundred light years was proposed as an extreme but reasonable course of action."

Instead of mutterings, the room fell into a stunned silence, sensing that he'd recaptured their attention fully the admiral continued.

"This exchange served as a warning to the galaxy at large that Humanity would see taking ludicrous courses of action as perfectly sane and reasonable; because of this we ramped up our surveillance on Human projects substantially in the following years, decades, and as of now centuries. What we have revealed is certainly insane, but also incredibly revealing."

The pictures changed rapidly and varied wildly in scope and scale; Photographs of diplomats, engineering projects, battlefleets, corporation logos, government insignia, backroom deals, the whole nine yards.

"What you are about to be informed of is highly classified, anyone leaking it will face court martial and very possibly execution, but you must see this information just to see the nature of the beast that is Humanity. "

Once more pictures swapped randomly until eventually a video began to play. The dim lights in the gargantuan meeting hall darkened completely. What was being displayed on screen was nothing short of monumental.

- SUBTITLES DISPLAYED -

*A large grouping of Human military assets is seen amassed near an anomalously large hypergate, the camera zooms and pans for a better view. The number of visible Human warships is 11,127.*

GIA OFFICER 1: "You ever see a battlegroup that large?"

GIA OFFICER 2: "In a history book."

*The hypergate begins to activate.*

GIA OFFICER 1: "Holy shit, you seeing that?"

*The star the hypergate orbits begins to darken as its energy is drained, and the camera begins to zoom into the center of the hypergate.*

GIA OFFICER 2: "Zoom the camera more in on that... That can't be right..."

GIA OFFICER 1: "I've already run the diagnostic twice, what we're seeing is real."

*The gate is connected to a galaxy, analysis confirms it is not the Great Band galaxy.*

GIA OFFICER 2: "Get Overlord on the line now, the situation's changed."

- END OF VIDEO -

Admiral Talon didn't delay in elaborating,

"Humanity has always been alien in action, belief, and capability, but now it is known that they are truly alien in origin. Further intelligence gathering reveals that Humanity is an intergalactic force of nature, they exert total control over at least 27 galaxies; they are present in at least 1,722 galaxies in some form; some estimates place them at over 10,000 galaxies under their influence."

Picture after picture of a galaxy, megastructure, super-fleet, megacorporation, politician, and scientist flashed on the screen. There was so much information that several officers in the crowd were growing lightheaded.

"What we are dealing with is a type 3 civilization a hundredfold, to them a million stars are little more than a drop in the bucket, a hundred light-year quarantine isn't even an inconvenience, it's just business as usual."

The next slide that came on made everyone in the room, the admiral included, wince. It was a map of the aptly named Great Rift of Althor.

"Just 10 years ago the Great Rift opened, and it swallowed with it an entire star cluster; It took the combined efforts of 157 species, Humans included, to stop the lethal radiation from sweeping across an entire grouping of 15,000 stars."

The next slide sent the room into a state of pure uproar, Admiral Talon had to wait an entire minute before his calls to order were even registered by his officer's panicked minds,

"SILENCE," The room fell into quiet terror at the sight before them, "You are looking at what the Humans consider overkill, this is the last picture received from Althor itself before the rift consumed it. A hypergate channel, from Human space to Althor."

The officers lost all professionalism and began to roar in outrage at once,

"Why would the Humans do this?"

"We considered them allies!"

"We're doomed."

"God help us all."

"How could it be possible?"

The uproar was quenched instantaneously upon the arrival of the next image, a horribly disfigured being, obviously screaming in unimaginable pain, was plastered on the projected screen.

"Within the Althor Sector was a plague, all it took was one carrier of the disease to decimate an entire planet. The council monitored the situation for months, in the span of the last 10 days preceding the rift's opening, 273 planets went entirely dark; the Humans saw the problem, and even they feared it. We begged them for help, and that was their response."

On display was a quasar, an active supermassive black hole, with gargantuan constructs channeling its energy into a beam of pure annihilation.

"This Human hyperweapon is the most destructive device the universe has ever seen, they've harnessed the power of the quasar; focused it further, and used it in times where overkill is truly necessary."

More pictures and information about the disease appeared on the screen,

"Humans call it the Scourge, a disease they've unfortunately encountered in galaxies other than our own on several occasions. I say with great certainty that it is the only thing I've ever known to make a Human admiral queasy with 100% certainty."

Admiral Talon surveyed the room for a good long while before concluding his brief,

"I'm sure you are all now wondering what to do with this information, unfortunately, I can only say that this information is purely useless to all of us. We exist at Humanity's whims and could be eradicated just as easily. My final wisdom to all of you is this; Humans have proven time and time again to be nothing if not helpful. They show no signs of undue aggression, form treaties, broker peace, they check all the boxes of a civilized species. What I'm telling you is under no circumstances go against the grain with Humanity, they know best and have enough firepower to make us see or blind us with it should they see fit. Standard practice to them is apocalypse to us, overkill to them is annihilation of the whole universe. What I'm telling you is don't bring a cruiser to a quasar fight, in short, don't piss the Humans off."

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