The Legion of Bronze

by Sixes_And_Sevens

Know Thy Enemy

Ditzy rushed to the TARDIS as soon as the cell door had slammed shut. “Doctor?” she asked, tapping frantically at the timeship. “Are you in there? Doctor, let us in, plea— WHOA!”

That last part came as the doors opened inwards, sending Ditzy falling through and sliding along the floor of the ship, gravity shifting as she fell. The Doctor ran over to her. “Ditzy! Are you alright? You haven’t been hurt, have you? How did Hurricane know you were involved with me?”

“I’m fine, thanks for asking,” Scootaloo called. She was too short to reach the TARDIS door, turned as it was on its back, and had to content herself with pulling herself up to the ledge and peering in as best she could. Ditzy hurried back over and hauled her inside. It was an odd sensation, like she was being pulled in four directions at once.

“We’re both fine,” Ditzy said. “A little… distressed, maybe, but fine.”

“Right. Thank heavens,” the Doctor said, relaxing slightly. “But, right, how did Hurricane know to bring you here?”

Scootaloo and Ditzy exchanged glances. “Hurricane who?” Scootaloo asked.

“Wait.” Ditzy said frowning. “Silver said you had some kind of beef with Commander Hurricane. Is that who you mean?”

“Well, it’s more he has a beef with me. I'll explain later.”

“Yes, you will,” Ditzy said, raising an eyebrow.

“Now, who exactly is this ‘Silver Pallas’? Hurricane mentioned them, but didn’t really specify.”

“Oh! That’s right!” Ditzy lit up. “Doctor, we met another Time Lord!”

“Time Lady,” Scootaloo corrected.

“Semantics,” the Doctor said, staring at Ditzy intently. “Least as far as us Gallifreyans are concerned. But Ditzy, you’re sure about this?”

“She told us herself! She said she knew you. Um, she doesn’t seem to like you much.”

“That really doesn’t narrow down the list at all,” the Doctor said flatly. “Well, not much.”

“She said her name was ‘the Rani,’” Scootaloo said. “What’s a Rani?”

The Doctor's face sagged. “Oh, you’ve got to be joking,” he said, running for the door.

“Doctor! Wait, remember the—”

“Clouds? Don’t worry, I’ve got cloud-walking boots now!" He wiggled his hooves at her. "C’mon, we’ve got to go stop the Rani! Allons— WAH!”

Ditzy winced. “Gravity. I was going to say, remember the gravity.”

“Ah,” said the Doctor, face buried in the clouds. “Thank you, Ditzy.”

---

The metal pegasus was closing in on them fast. Romana lit her horn and dove. A moment later, a wall of light slammed Applejack and Twilight to the ground. The armored assailant swept harmlessly overhead, turning to circle around for round two as Romana released the other two mares. “Scatter!” she shouted.

Scatter they did, Twilight to the left, Applejack to the right, Romana right back for the table. The leg hopped after Romana and the rest of the body soared for Twilight, apparently thinking to take out what they perceived as the biggest threats. However, in doing so, they left the door unguarded. Applejack doubled back and raced for the door, slamming down the button that controlled it. Slowly, the crystal door rolled upwards. “C’mon! Everypony out!” Applejack shouted.

Unfortunately, she was the only one in a position to escape. Twilight was backed up against a table of test tubes, and Romana was standing on the bloody dissection table, while the disembodied leg hopped around angrily. “You know, I’m not sure this thing actually has any capability to harm me,” she observed.

The dismembered limb lashed out at one of the table legs, making the whole thing quake and putting a dent in the metal. “I stand corrected!” Romana shouted.

Twilight grabbed a flask off the table and hurled it at the approaching robot. The pale blue liquid inside hissed and fizzed on contact with its shiny metal coat, but had no other effect. It slid over its body to the ground, mingling with the blood that was continuing to drip slowly from its leg socket.

Twilight bit her lip, grabbed a test tube, and splashed its contents up the gaping wound. The creatures eyes went bright, almost white with shock, and Twilight took the opportunity to push past it and make for the door. It stumbled after her. The leg, too, fell to the ground, writhing. Romana leaped over it and raced for the door. “Applejack, start closing it!” she yelled, picking up the leg in her aura and beating the robot over the head with it.

“Hey, why are you hitting yourself? Huh? Stop hitting yourself! Stop hitting—”

The robot reached up and grabbed it leg out of Romana’s control, sending her reeling. The sensation was akin to expecting another step at the top of the stairwell and finding an abyss instead. She recovered quickly, but it was all the advantage the metal pegasus needed. It was on her in a flash, sending her sprawling back against a table. It raised a hoof, ready to deliver the killing blow.

Suddenly, however, it found that it couldn’t move its forehoof. Romana looked past the hippodroid and saw Twilight sweating, straining to keep a grip on the creature’s joints. The Time Lady lit her own horn and grabbed on as well. “I'll push in, you pull out,” she said through gritted teeth.

Twilight winced, but nodded. There was a faint but visible shift in the patterns of light over the robot’s joints, and a faint creaking sound filled the room. It thrashed about, desperate to get away, but the two mares kept a firm grip. Applejack trotted up to it. She set down her hat and bowed her head. “Ah’m right sorry ‘bout this. But y’all are dead. It’s time you acted like it.”

So saying, she turned and delivered a debilitating kick to its core. Its torso popped out with a sickening noise, leaving its limbs hanging in the air like some sort of bizarre, disturbing puppet.

Twilight let them drop, shuddering deeply and breathing erratically. The head bounced off the ground, and the lights in its eyes went out. This time, it was for good. She turned away, her face pale and her skin clammy. Romana said nothing. In the end, what was there to say?

“Did you notice,” Twilight said with false brightness, “that the leg was disabled when I attacked the rest of it? That might be an important clue to how this being perceives—”

She was interrupted by a knock at the door. Three short raps. There was a moment, and it came again, louder this time. Knock knock knock.

Applejack glanced at the other two. “Ya don’t reckon…”

“Why not?” Minuette asked, voice hushed. “If one of them exists and can get in here, why not more?”

Knock knock knock.

“Do we open it?” Twilight whispered, staring at the door, transfixed. “I— I don’t know if I can do that again.”

Romana drew herself up. “We’ve got to,” she said. “After all, we aren’t the only ponies in this building. Any of them could come under attack next.”

Twilight grimaced, but nodded. She gestured to the door. Applejack hit the button, and it began to rise again. They formed a loose semicircle around the door, preparing to fight. As the door drew up into the ceiling, they could all see the form of a pony on the other side. The figure stepped through into the light, revealing a cream-colored coat and a blue and pink mane.

Bonbon scowled at them all. “Well, it’s about time you answered,” she snapped. “Come on, you’re going to need to see this.”

---

Holiday trudged her way back up the drive and up to her front door. The lights were out. She must be the first one back. She fumbled in her pocket for the key and unlocked the door. Inside, everything was dark. The shelves of books and artifacts blotted out much of the moonlight.

She patted the wall blindly, searching for the switch. When she finally flicked it on, there was a brief frisson of blue magic overhead. This was an old house, after all. Not everything worked the way it ought to. She lay back on the sofa, finally letting the exhaustion of the day wash over her. Her eyes fluttered. Perhaps she could get a little rest before Lofty and Rainbow returned. They could all work out their next step then. Yes. Just a little rest…

---

After the funeral, Holiday had thought that Heat Wave would— would what? Propose to her? Leave her alone? Repent his adultery? [She wasn’t sure, even now, which one she expected [if she expected anything at all]][She wasn’t sure if she ever believed it.] Instead, he became more unpredictable, more amorous, and more violent.

[Danaë was a princess, the daughter of a brutal king who desired only a son. He kept her locked away in a cell, fearing a prophecy that spelled his doom; one that said he would die by the hand of his daughter’s son.]

She had long since worked out that she was far from the only mare he dallied with, but the one time she’d threatened to leave him, to reveal him, he’d laughed and told her that she would be the one who was remembered as the mare who slept with a married stallion, seduced him away from his frail and dying wife. [She felt a spark of fury at that -- Solar had been among the kindest of mares, clever and caring, and Heat had simply discarded her. Treated her like property [as Holiday was slowly realizing he was doing to her.]] Nopony, he told her, would ever believe she hadn't known.

She kept her silence.

[Danaë spent many long months languishing in her cell beneath the earth. But Jupiter saw her, and he desired her. He came to her in the form of a shower of gold [the old pervert], and nine months later, she gave birth [alone, afraid] to a bouncing baby boy. She kept him quiet and content for days, weeks, Jove knows how long [or did he? Did he even remember Danaë by then?[Give evidence to support your claims]], but eventually, something had to slip out.]

Everything came to a head when she walked in to find him in bed with another mare [It is one thing to know, another to see with your own eyes]. She ran away, tears in her eyes. [Where could she run that he would not find her? Where could she hide that he had not seen? Where had she been where he had not kissed her, had not held her, had not caressed and possessed her?]]

[Danaë and her son, Perseus, were cast out to sea in a wooden chest, for the king would not sully his hands directly with their murder.] [He knew they would drown. [But it is one thing to know, another to see with your own eyes.]]

Not long after that, Heat left the university. Left town. [Holiday heard gossip about a mare who had slept around with a married stallion whose wife had just died. [She remembered thinking how easily it could have been her.]] But he left one thing behind [aside from a job, a house, and a string of broken hearts and shattered lives]; Scootaloo. Holiday couldn’t let the filly be lost in the foster care system. She deserved better than that. So she adopted the infant pegasus herself, and left the university not long after.

[She explained that she wanted to leave and build a family. She hadn’t been lying. But she also couldn’t face the truth of what had come before any longer. She had to leave the university behind.]

[When Danaë reached land at last, when she was taken in by King Dictys, could she ever look at the sky again? Could she ever hear thunder, see gold without being reminded of that short, torrid affair? [Small wonder she had reservations about marrying a king.]]

---

Holiday sat up with a jolt. Some electric sensation had swept the room. The lights flickered for a moment, then did nothing more. She looked around, confused, pushing aside a pile of pictures. She didn’t notice that there was a lot more silver, gold, bronze, and purple in those pictures than there ever had been before.

---

Propraetor Cyclone had bid Hurricane farewell after requesting and receiving the loan of his aide-de-camp for the rest of the afternoon. As she watched Private Pansy’s face go red and split open into a massive grin, she felt a twinge of regret about what she was about to do.

“So,” Pansy said as she fluttered after Cyclone. “Er, do you want to go off and be devoted companions?”

Cyclone clucked her tongue. “Pansy, you are sweet, but you lack poetry. Devoted companions indeed! I’ve heard that euphemism more times than you’ve had to practice formations.”

Pansy squeaked an apology and hid her face in her wing. “At any rate, no. Though, if the promise of going to bed later will help to persuade you…”

Pansy went white. “Or not,” Cyclone said quickly. “We can go to my private gardens and feed the birds, should you prefer it.”

“I’d like that,” Pansy said quietly.

“I am glad of that. We will sit together in my gardens, you and I, and look upon the glories of all the heavens. Under the stars, we shall lay looking upon the constellations. I shall perhaps put a wing around you, should you grow cold, and if you feel a chill still… ah, but that is later. This is now. And now, we are going to sneak around the back of the building and see exactly what our Lieutenant Pallas is hiding from us.”

Pansy stared at her, dazed by all the sudden, conflicting emotions. Finally, she settled on her default; terror. “You, you mean you want to spy on her?” she squeaked.

Cyclone glanced around, suddenly struck by terror herself. Powerful though she was, she had enemies. Enemies who wouldn’t be above hurling accusations of espionage at her. Enemies who would love nothing more than to put her out of power permanently. “I am going,” she said with a markedly more reserved tone, “to continue my scheduled observations of Silver Pallas’s progress, while taking precautions to protect my person against the risks she warned of. Do you understand me, Private?”

“I… think so, yes.”

“You think so?”

“I… Yes, Propraetor.” She saluted sharply.

“Excellent. Then let’s get back there, shall we?” She spread her wings and extended a hoof.

Pansy took her hoof. "Let's."

---

The Rani opened the door to her secret laboratory, which was cunningly disguised as a non-secret laboratory with nothing going on in it. She didn’t even keep the door locked. Remove all sense of mystery from something, and people will glance over it as though it weren’t there. For the same reason, she had hidden around the base a number of poorly-concealed safe-vaults containing baking soda volcanoes, potato clocks, and containers of dyed oil and water. She was quite satisfied with how her new security measures had turned out. Almost a dozen pegasi had broken into her science-fair-fare vaults and made off with delightful do-at-home experiments designed to teach children about density, electricity, or chemical reactions.

She derived no small amount of humor from the knowledge that a handful— she refused to use the colloquialism ‘hoofful’— of researchers were even now trying to design a vinegar-and-baking-soda-powered explosive to use against the unicorns. The faintest hint of a smile crossed her muzzle, but she made an effort to repress it. She was going to be speaking with an inferior, and smiling had no place in that sort of conversation.

She pulled on a lever, and immediately, the table burst into flames. She quickly flew up and smacked the cloud ceiling, sending down a cascade of water. “Why do we even have that lever?” she grumbled, pulling the lever that sat right next to the first.

The perception filter on the room flickered and faded, revealing a large box made of clouds, bronze, and iron, set with a pane of semi-reflective glass in the front. Siege Warfare stood beside it, his eyes hollow. “Report,” the Rani said, staring in through the glass.

“The, the subject is prepared, Lieutenant,” Warfare said, looking down at his hooves.

“And you have warmed up the machine?”

“I… yes, Lieutenant.”

“You have a question?”

“Lieutenant Pallas,” Warfare said, looking up at last, “I’ve never seen this machine before. I’ve never been in this room. So how did I know where to go and what to do? Why do I feel I’ve done this all before? Why—”

He stopped abruptly as the Rani took his head in both hooves and forced him to meet her gaze. “Forget about it,” she said shortly.

She released him as his eyes went foggy and he fell back to the ground. Psychological tricks were all well and good, but sometimes, the old-fashioned way was just what was called for.

The Rani leaned over the controls and spoke into a crude microphone. “Are you ready?” she asked.

There was a long pause. “Yes,” the answer came at last. “All ready.”

The Rani pressed a silver button inset on the console, and the machine rumbled to life. The light inside grew brighter, enabling the Time Lady to see for the first time who was inside. The green charioteer, his makeup smudged, squinted in the sudden brightness. Around him, the clouds began to swirl in odd patterns. The stallion threw his head back and screamed in agony as the nanites in the clouds swarmed over him. The Rani quickly turned off the receiving microphones. She didn’t want any loud noises or other distractions to prevent her from observing the transformation— the metamorphosis— the upgrade in full. It had nothing to do with the sound reawakening bad memories best left to scab over. Nothing at all to do with the War.

Patches of shiny bronze began to appear on his coat, forming what might, at a glance, have been mistaken for exceptionally well-fitting armor. Which in some ways, the Rani supposed, it was. His wings expanded into great, graceful limbs, more akin to those of a griffon. His tail was bound in purple-colored metal, and his mane soon matched. As the bronze worked over his face, he blinked once, twice, before his eyes were covered over with a mineral film. A bright golden glow illuminated the space on his face where his eyes had been. The Rani nodded once. To all appearances, at least to the extent that she could see from her current vantage, the test had been completely successful. She leaned over the microphone. “Subject, your conversion has been completed. Exit the machine and report.”

The metal pegasus nodded, a short, sharp motion, and made for the door. It wouldn’t open. The Rani frowned. Was the automatic door she’d installed malfunctioning? She hit the emergency override button. Still nothing.

“I wouldn’t waste my time,” a cold male voice said from behind her.

The Rani stiffened. “Doctor,” she said, turning to face him. “I wondered when you’d come back and start meddling aga—” her words died on her lips. The Doctor, as expected, stood before her, pompous and self-righteous as ever. She had expected that. She hadn’t expected that Scootaloo and Ditzy, looking respectively awestruck and horrified, would be standing right beside him.

“What are you up to this time, Rani?” the Doctor challenged, stepping forwards. There was a faint buzzing coming from right behind his left ear. “Sucking the life out of poor innocents? Turning them into your own personal army? Ditzy and Scootaloo told me how you kidnapped them and that poor charioteer in there. Give me a reason, one good reason, why I shouldn’t dissolve the floor right out from under us and let all your twisted work fall to the earth?”

The Rani blinked at him. “Well, for one, you don’t have wings,” she said. “Your young companion would also meet an unfortunate end, and in the process you would break apart all of my safety features, resulting in the uncontrolled spillage of nanites, unstable chemicals, and Time Lord technology across the landscape.”

That, she was pleased to see, shut him up quite nicely. “If you’ve quite finished making idle threats,” she said coldly, “perhaps you wouldn’t mind listening to what I’ve been doing here and why? You are part of the noblest and most respected Chapters on Gallifrey. You could at least attempt to appear civilized.”

“I,” said the Doctor. “Er.”

“I’ll take that as agreement,” the Rani replied. She pointed to a table. “Sit.”

Slightly cowed, the Doctor did as he was bade. Scootaloo followed suit, leaving only Ditzy glaring at the scientist. The Rani’s face softened. “Please sit,” she said. “I promise that I will explain everything, but only if you will listen to me.”

Ditzy kept up her glower for a few moments longer, but sat down as requested.

“Thank you,” said the Rani. “You may now begin describing your concerns. One at a time, please.”

“You blew out that poor pony’s mind!” Ditzy snapped.

The Rani blinked. “Who, Warfare?” She nudged him with a hoof, and he giggled, rolling over and batting at the air with his hooves. “Not at all. I merely hid his memories of this location and anything he may have witnessed here. A simple post-hypnotic command.”

“You didn’t need to do that,” the Doctor said, regaining some of his earlier coolness.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot that this mockery of the Roman Empire has an internship program that specializes in the sciences,” the Rani shot back. “Sgt. Warfare is in many ways a useless assistant, but he was remarkably easy to train.”

“Well, why did you come here if you dislike it so much?” the Doctor demanded. “What sort of nasty experiment are you brewing this time, Ushas?”

“Do you really think I’d be here if I had the choice?” the Time Lady snapped, rounding on the Doctor. “Would I willing take a post, a military post no less, at the backwash of technological development if I had the option?”

The Doctor glowered. “You ran a bath house in rural England during the Luddite Rebellion to steal the ability to sleep from innocent people, and you destroyed them.”

“An unfortunate side effect, I agree,” the Rani.

“Side effect? Side effect? You killed them?”

“They turned into trees!" the Rani snapped. "Trees are technically still living, even if they are -- ugh -- plants. Anyway, that’s scarcely the point. I had my lab with me there, recording devices, computers, Zero Room. The most advanced technology here is smelted brass and whatever enables these creatures the ability to walk on clouds, which I can’t even properly investigate because as I may have mentioned, I have no equipment.”

“Yet you managed to turn several pegasi into mindless drones.” You could have cut glass with Ditzy’s voice.

The Rani pursed her lips. “Fine. I correct myself, I have exactly enough equipment to do that. This isn’t a choice I made for myself. It was an… assignation.” The last four syllables left her mouth like spoiled goat milk.

“By whom?”

The Rani rolled her eyes and laid her hoof on the table, all but breaking the cloud counter. A bracelet, matching her silver coat, was wrapped around her hoof, though perhaps ‘bracelet’ was less accurate than ‘hoofcuff’. In the center of the accessory blinked a slow, angry red light. “Guess,” she snarled.

The Doctor went very pale. “Oh,” he said. “I see.”

It was a very familiar design. He’d worn that bracelet once himself, back at the end of his second regeneration, at the behest of the Time Lords. It was a sealed time ring, a sort of temporal trap that could be sent hurtling through space and time at the behest of its controller. Its controller was usually not the one wearing it. “They captured me some time ago,” the Rani continued, almost conversationally. “I blame you completely, of course.”

“What? I haven’t even seen you for a good few hundred years.”

The pegasus glowered at him. “You really are as much an imbecile as ever,” she bit out. “Clearly your wife is the brains of the family.”

The Doctor grinned. “Well, you say that, but you haven’t met my daughter yet.”

The Rani flinched. “You reproduced? Menti Celesti.”

Ditzy looked from one Time Lord to the other and crossed her hooves. “I feel like I should be insulted, but I’m not sure who by,” she noted.

Scootaloo watched the two Time Lords, fascinated. "This is better than the movies."

The Doctor rolled his eyes at the Rani. “Yeah, yeah, you were saying?”

“You haven’t done anything to me. Yet. We’re out of order,” the Rani scowled. “Which means that, regardless of how gravely you irk me, I can’t kill you, nor the two others.”

Scootaloo’s eyes went wide. “Wait, hold on, when was killing us on the menu?”

The Doctor rolled his eyes. “Gosh, love you too, Ushas. Can’t think why we didn’t keep in touch after graduation.”

“As I was saying,” the Rani growled, “I can’t kill any of you. I don’t want to kill any of you, either. I was attempting to put you at ease.”

“Yeah, well, you didn’t,” Scootaloo shouted.

The Rani took a deep breath and held it for several seconds. She let it out in a rush. “After the end of the War,” she said quietly, “I was one of the survivors.”

“Impossible,” the Doctor said. “The War ended with Gallifrey’s destruction. All the Daleks, all the Time Lords, snuffed out. I watched it happen, made it happen, twice over.”

The Rani gave him a long, level stare. “And I suppose in all the time since, you never met another Dalek or Time Lord,” she drawled.

“I— Well—” The Doctor huffed and sat back. "I'll admit, it got rather complicated..."

“As I was saying, after the War, the militaristic attitudes hung around. It was decided that Gallifreyan security needed to increase, and that the safest way to work on that would be in parallel universes. The aftermath of your stopping the Reality Bomb, closing the paths between universes, that gave us a nasty shock, but come now, Doctor. We’re Time Lords.”

“That doesn’t explain anything,” Scootaloo said.

The Doctor glanced over at her. "She means we, as a species, are stubborn bastards who aren't above blasting apart the fabric of the universe with dynamite when it gets in our way," he explained.

"Oh."

“I was, ahem, assigned to the task of creating a new type of body armor. A biological defence, designed to keep the body safe from the looming. It was based on the Cybermen, naturally. Potentially, it could even be modified for traditional birthing.”

“That’s monstrous,” the Doctor said, going pale. “To keep a person, a child, literally locked inside a suit of armor, divorced from the physical world—”

“Again, not my idea. I wanted it to be based on the ankylosaurus, all thick plates and clubs.”

“WHAT?”

Ditzy, meanwhile, had grown distracted. The robot that had once been the charioteer was standing at the glass panel in the machine, one hoof tapping gently at the barrier. Its mouth was moving, but she couldn’t hear more than a faint static. Ditzy reached for the microphone. “Hello? Are you alright in there?”

The robot stopped tapping. It said something, but Ditzy couldn’t hear it. “Hello? Hello, I can’t hear— hold on.” She turned a knob, and suddenly, a musical, mechanical voice rang out across the room. “Hell~o? Iz~ Lieu-ten-ant Pall-az~ there~? Can you let me out~, plea-ze~?”

The Doctor, the Rani, and Scootaloo all turned to stare at Ditzy. “That… doesn’t sound very robotic to me...” the Doctor said slowly.

The Rani glared. “As I've been trying to tell you, Doctor, I've turned over a new leaf. I'm not trying to control any minds or destroy lives. As a matter of fact, I would say that this process may be the best thing that the pegasi could ever have hoped for..."

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

Bonbon scowled at them all. “Well, it’s about time you answered,” she snapped. “Come on, you’re going to need to see this.”

"What is it?"
"You're going to need to see it."
"Can't you tell us now?"
"Trust me. You're going to need to see it."
"This seems very inefficient."
"Twilight."
"I just played 'They Love Me, They Love Me Not' with a cadaver, Bonbon. I need to compartmentalize that somehow."

Yes. Just a little rest…

Oh dear. She's probably doomed in the short term.

She didn’t notice that there was a lot more silver, gold, bronze, and purple in those pictures than there ever had been before.

Oh. Oh. I was wondering when in metatime we might see the ripples.

“As I was saying,” the Rani growled, “I can’t kill any of you. I don’t want to kill any of you, either. I was attempting to put you at ease.”

Ladies and gentlemen, one of the few beings who can give pre-Ponyville Twilight Sparkle a run for her money in terms of absent social skills. At least Celestia managed to beat some courtesy into that skull.

And a new wrinkle shows itself. There are more steps we're not aware of. This could get very strange indeed...

[Sixes_And_Sevens]

10112125

Oh. Oh. I was wondering when in metatime we might see the ripples.

Yeah, that part's always the most fun to do honestly.

Ladies and gentlemen, one of the few beings who can give pre-Ponyville Twilight Sparkle a run for her money in terms of absent social skills.

One of the many benefits of a Gallifreyan upbringing!

[Shilic]

Well then. Things have gotten very wibbly wobbly, timey wimey. And concerning. I think that maybe, shunting one of the most powerful races to ever live, just after they'd got done fighting the biggest war(or wars, if we take the novels into account) in the history of the universe, so far into the future of the universe they have nothing to do, might not have been the best idea.