Homeworld Conflict

by Lily Lain

Questions Best Left Unanswered

We have decoded the Griffin psychic wave radio technology and are receiving their broadcast.

“Play it.”

“... that all the insurgents are traitors, and should be considered as such. No door may be opened for them, no house be their shelter. For the country’s stability and freedom, we must remove them from our lives, our memories, and our land until they repent for what they’ve done. Furthermore, all trade between the Islands and the Capital is to cease. Everyone traversing a ship toward the Capital will be considered a traitor...”

There has also been a repeat message sent with the same technology straight to the Mothership.

“Play that one too.”

“This is the Ambassador. Our speaker is indisposed at the moment, we suspect a psychological shock. No permanent damage has been noticed as of now though. We had a crash landing, had our ship vaporized for it not to fall into the enemy hands. Of the escort, five soldiers are here with us, two were shot at the landing. Ammo’s getting low. Both of the escort ships were returning to base when we last saw them.

“The situation is dire. We’re holed up in the castle, but we’ve managed to receive all the required permits. It would seem like most of the country’s population is insurgent. Either we’ll manage to convert them fast, or there’ll be a mass genocide. Other islands of the archipelago are overrun with rebels and are sending ships at the capital island. We insist on taking these ships down before the castle can’t defend itself anymore.”

Transmission over.

The Ambassador is right. We need to cut the supply lines from the adjoining islands. They are marked on the radar now.
The castle is currently in a very bad tactical situation. It requires assistance

“Are the units at the crash site finished with removing the debris?”

All of the detected ship debris has been removed.

“Move the units from the crash site to the castle. Give me the report of the action.”

Displacing units.

Report is as follows:
All personnel weaponry retrieved.
126 soldiers lost.
Over 740 enemy casualties and growing
257 soldiers remaining aboard the Carrier.
2 Fighter class Interceptors lost.
6 pilots on board the Interceptors lost.
2 pilots remaining from the crashed Interceptors returned to the Mothership.

We don’t have enough units to wage a successful war against the Griffin insurgents.
Activation of the Cloning protocols advised.

“Activate the Cloning protocols. Devise a way to speed up the cloning process.”

A sufficient technology will be researched.

“All right, what were the figures of all that happening, given our data?” asked a sociologist in the Fleet Intelligence room.

“Of some kind of organised resistance, pretty high,” a mathematician answered him. “Around seventy, seventy-five percent. Of an uprising, they dropped to somewhere around thirty. For a country-wide levy en masse? Almost none. This wasn’t even an option we considered.”

“Then an outside influence we didn’t take into account could’ve influenced the outcome,” mused the sociologist.

“Well, that would explain a few things...” muttered the mathematician.

“What, do you presume, was the influence?” asked a historian.

“Perhaps the Dragons?” offered the sociologist.

“Because they and the Griffins love each other so much...” The historian chuckled.

“What we’ve picked up from the Equines seems not too friendly either.”

“They had a war a few weeks prior,” the historian countered matter-of-factly.

“Well, under some circumstances, a unification against a common enemy might be—” added a psychologist before he was cut off.

“Perhaps there was some other, external factor.” A smug grin could almost be heard in the historian’s voice.

“I know where you’re going, and let the whole Fleet Intelligence know I don’t support this claim,” the sociologist snapped.

“Perhaps there was indeed an external factor,” the historian continued. “Perhaps those who occupied the ruins weren’t vanquished thoroughly. What if they hid? Donned disguises?”

“Gentlemen, we’ve seen the ruins. We’ve seen the corpses. Now, before you interfere,” the sociologist glared at the historian, “there aren’t that many corpses in the ruins because, as our archaeologists may tell you, the corpses are actually quite hard to preserve. Perhaps we haven’t found their burial place yet too.”

“Don’t teach me my craft, sir!” the historian snapped. “Why the negative response? It is quite possible. You see, it’s rather hard to remove a whole population altogether, and you must yourself admit that the animal population models don’t quite fit with a fully developed society.”

The sociologist groaned in as dignified fashion as he could muster. “Let’s, for a moment, pretend it can be true. What does it imply?”

“Why, a number of things.” The historian straightened up in a boost of confidence at the acceptance of his theory. The sociologist chuckled at the gesture. “For one, it would imply our enemy might have advanced all the way from where we were on Kharak, having hyperspace drive and a quite modern society to live in.”

“Well, there isn’t much of that advancement left now, is there? They’re fighting us with sticks and stones!” The sociologist’s voice rose by a slightest of margins at the end of the sentence.

“You forgot about one more device they fight us with. Psychic powers, or, as they call it, magic. However ridiculous that sounds, we are faced with a reality we remembered only in mythology. This bears some serious implications.”

“What implications?” asked the sociologist impatiently.

“We’re not seeing starships and guns. What if our survivors’ field of science was the exact opposite: magic? What if they’ve gone far, far further than we expect?”

“All right, let’s not go too far. You’ve just invented a possibility and then purely speculated, having no scientific background whatsoever on psychology, that we have a powerful enemy that is hidden for some reason, and that will destroy us if we do something against their, once again speculated, will.”

“There is a possibility—“

“There is a possibility that the white alpha Equine will throw the sun of this world at us and we will all die.”

“Now, that would be impossible for the reason the sun does create a gravitational pull here and is quite hot, which—“

The sociologist rubbed his forehead in exasperation. “I was giving a random, just as likely example. Your hypothesis is not even falsifiable. Until it becomes so, it’s useless.”

“We must take such possibility into account, and prepare ourselves even to leave, shall too much losses occur. We must also consider the Elements the Equines possess, and not only the artifacts. We are yet unsure of the extent of power the magic has, and yet we’re eager enough to start a war with it in full confidence that we’ll win.”

“How swiftly you’ve retreated from your former claims? Still, it doesn’t matter. Magic is a force to be reckoned with. Let us adjourn this conversation until further information on the artifacts’ nature is known to us.”