The Dauk'rar ambassador's iridescent frill was raised with consternation as she sat across from me, breathing rapidly into her facemask. I could hear her beak grinding slightly as her eyes darted around my office.

I sighed. This wouldn't be easy. Before I could open my mouth, however, she spoke. "I wish to assure you, Mr. President, that the Confederation in no way intended any harm to your people, and that upon hearing news of the disaster our wails to the heavens matched your own."

"I understand, Madam Gaukartak," I sighed. "Our peoples have enjoyed decades of profitable partnership and cultural exchange. It is extremely difficult to imagine how things would have gone if the Dauka hadn't arrived. But you must be aware my constituents have questions. There...isn't a Confederation, is there? Your fleet doesn't really have a homeworld, does it?"

Gaukartak bowed her head and trilled in distress. "There was once. We believed in freedom of enterprise and faith. It is why we chose your America as one of our great friends. We dared to hope that we'd be allowed to our own ways, but we feared the risk that the Concord wouldn't tolerate us. This is why fleets like ours fled into the void."

I rubbed my temples. "So you did lie."

"Yes," came her whispered reply.

"And now we're in the Concord's sights along with you."

"You were always in danger, Mr. President," she objected. "Their actions against the Confederacy proves their ruthlessness."

"People are panicking. The Dauk'rar fleet escaped to the Oort Cloud without even picking up the thousands of Dauka on the surface, and they broadcasted their ultimatum to everyone: surrender you and the other Dauka 'traitors' over, or more cities will be annihilated. I've managed to keep your people safe for now," I said.

"You are honorable, Mr. President. More ultimatums will follow until there is nothing human left. Just another outpost of the Concord."

"I know!" I shouted, throwing back my chair. "You don't think I realize that? They've got us over a barrel and they know it!" I stated out the window, wondering how it could have gone so wrong. Earth had not even seen civil war in years! Poverty had been eliminated! It was supposed to be the beginning of humanity's first, truest golden age! I wanted to cry.

After a few moments, Gaukartak stood beside me. "There is still hope, Mr. President," she said.

"How?" I asked, my voice finally breaking.

"This isn't the first time this cycle occurred."

I stated at her. "What are you saying?"

The ambassador shuddered. "Centuries ago, the Dauk'rar were like you: uplifted by visitors, themselves refugees from the Concord. We kept alive the light of freedom and faith. Now we pass the torch to you humans. You must hand us Dauka over and... we will certainly die. Then our fleet with attack the Concord, and buy you more time. You have the means of destroying the leftovers, if you dare, and you may buy a decade or two of freedom. You must take this chance to escape, like we did. If you don't..."

I stared at her. Seconds dragged into minutes as i contemplated what she said. Finally I nodded and Gaukartak bowed and took her leave. I sat down, feeling ancient. "What are we going to do?" I asked my empty office.

“Hold on, you’re at war with who?”

“The Golarian Conglomerate, in essence the rest of the galaxy’s inhabitants.”

The Human representative sat there considering their next words. “You should know that humanity will not be pleased.”

“That we are now requesting humanity contribute to our war efforts?” The Valerian representative shook its head, “After all that we’ve given—“

“No. That’s not it.” The representative sighed, “They’re going to blame the Human government for not telling the populace. Most people would probably give you their dying breath after all you’ve given us, but it wouldn’t be sustainable. I’ll tell the Human Counsel, they’ll blow up at me for not telling them sooner, I’ll say you told me today, they won’t believe me, then they’ll think through the same things I’m thinking now.”

The Valerian sat across from brooding Human. There was a peaceful silence, for a moment.

The Valerian spoke next, “And what are you considering?”

“How many of the planets you’ve given us can be sustainably shifted to a war footing. We’re helping you, make no mistake, we’ll just need to try to learn enough about this new enemy to make a little propaganda.”

“If it helps, they are an authoritarian theocracy.”

“Religious freedoms, and the freedom to be an atheist. That’ll always work, good thinking.”

“You’re people will die in countless quantities.”

“Yes. This is war. Actually, that reminds me, are there any limitations on the RoE? Any structures or populations that aren’t allowed to be hit? For example, no targeting hospitals or children’s schools. Or any weapons not allowed to be deployed?”

“No planet-busting, or rendering uninhabitable. Hospitals are not typically targeted, but if they are close to a target, they will not be avoided. In addition, their churches are also military facilities, so expect your churches to be targeted under similar assumption.”

The Human made a free scribbles on a note pad, “That’ll be all for the moment. I’m afraid I’m out of my depth on military matters, so expect at least one other ambassador on our next meeting. I might even be replaced entirely for the foreseeable future.”

“I will likely be in a similar situation, my job was give your people enough to join us, and to be convincing.”

The Human stud and stepped toward the door. “A beautiful job convincing us then, I’ll reach out over the Net if there’s anything major.”

“I’ll be watching for alerts. Perhaps we can stay in correspondence afterwards?”

The Human paused at the door frame, and gave a friendly smile, “I’d like that. Here’s hoping that’s an option.”

The Human set off down the hall, already speaking into a communicator. The Valerian sent a message from their desk, informing the higher ups that humanity was both ready and willing to assist.

The signal was first recorded by a group of twelve international scientists gathered in India as part of an educational exercise on galactic formation sponsored by the Circinus Knowledge Transfer Council. Per routine protocol, the signal was logged and the recording disseminated securely to host nations participating in the knowledge transfer as part of the daily training summary. From this daily training summary, each participating nation followed CKTC protocol, briefing their own scientific experts at home on the findings and teachings of the summit. At this point, each nation was to encrypt and store the daily briefing information inside of the provided Circinus Vault. All host nations performed this task to the letter, except one.

 

Dr. Philip Andrews, a professor of geology, participated in the briefing performed by the US scientific council and was intrigued with the radio emission signal mentioned during a brief segment of the talk. Andrews was an avid historical hobbyist in his free time, delving deep into the technology, media, and art created Before Circinus. He had recently reconstructed a pair of crude radio transmitters from the turn of the 21st century (approximately 300 BC) and was intrigued by the idea of playing a modern never before heard radio signal on BC hardware. Andrews stored the signal in his personal cartridge and returned home at the end of the day. Two hours after leaving work, approximately 16 hours after the signal was first received, Andrews received a priority call to return to the US department of research for an urgent inquiry.

 

Neither Dr. Philip Andrews, nor any of the twelve scientists part of the international scientific coalition, were ever seen again. What was initially thought to be a radio emission occurring due to star formation in a distant galaxy at a specific wavelength known as the 21 cm line was discovered to have slight anomalies when examined by Circinus AI after the host nation daily summary had been performed. This 21 cm wavelength was discovered to be a mask, the signal mimicking its behavior in order to penetrate as far as possible. The anomaly was determined to be a primary defect and triggered CKTC immediate redaction and containment procedures. All human knowledge receivers were successfully quarantined. Andrews’ personal cartridge was recovered and destroyed during his intake.

 

Before he returned to work, however, Andrews used his radio transmitter to send a message to his daughter asking if she was enjoying her half of the antique radio he had sent to her as a birthday gift the previous week and to wish her well on her trip. He then decided to use a unique sign off signal that he told his daughter had first been heard by human ears that very day. She had been recording her side of the message as a keepsake for her upcoming voyage.

 

They knew that Circinus allowed us to learn basic properties of the Universe. So they allowed Circinus to deliver to us and teach us the one fact that Circinus did not want us to learn. That we are not students. We are prisoners.

It is a common trend that the more advanced a society becomes, the lower their birth rate. Even extending that to multiple planets, centuries of genetic engineering and cultural progress and found virtually all advanced space-faring civilizations with nearly stagnate population. So when the Faqquan, who had been in rebellion against Galatic Order found Earth and the humans, they saw the potential immediately. A still primitive, but not ignorant species billions strong that had not reached the point where they controlled their population to any significant degree. So they brought the humans on board, gave them technology and information. Transported populations, especially those of the relatively poorer countries, to new unoccupied worlds. It took a few decades to fully establish, but when the Faqquan counterattacked one of their main rivals, they took humans in tow as ground soldiers. Technology can only do so much against overwhelming numbers short of blowing up the entire planet. The tides had turned in the war, but even the Faqquan leadership was worried about the humans eventually turning on them. Plans would have to be made...

It was probably what you would expect. Faced with their insignificance and convinced that the lives of every human on the planet were in imminent peril, a very large amount of humans did what very large groups of humans do: they panicked and rioted and abandoned their collective pretense at society. But it turned out that our visitors from another world did not fly all the way to our planet to exterminate or enslave the human species. They sought cooperation. They wanted to educate and foster us. And so they did.

Within 100 years disease was not gone exactly, but it became rare enough to be seen as a shocking tragedy to the very few who ever felt or even witnessed it. Within 200 the population of planet Earth had quadrupled and spread to the nearby planets Venus and Mars. For the first time energy was so abundant it was free for all and its source wasn't going anywhere for another 4-5 billion years.

Within 1000 years we thought we had taken that giant step from child being guided and taught by their elders to something very much like peers to our alien visitors. But in reality, we were never children. We were something somewhere between an animal in a zoo and a field of grain.

We were to be protected so that we could grow. We were a resource. We thought our visitors were the pinnacle of intelligence and prosperity. Instead, they were a fleeing refugee. A beggar in the night, fleeing to an alley to consolidate what property they had left and to quickly find anything close at hand to try and prepare for the fight they knew would come when they were discovered in the morning.

They gave us so much. That's why it took so long to accept that they were fugitives. Thieves.

Is a person more noble when they put their loyalty in those who have helped them, those who sacrificed for them? Or if their loyalty belongs to a code of conduct? To ethics? The very behavior the best of us aspire to, which most of us abandoned so easily 1000 years ago?

It might just be philosophy, but that doesn't mean it doesn't matter. That question ended up killing more billions of human beings than anything in our history. So far. See, we know the cops are coming. They're going to find the beggar in the alley, and I doubt they're going to be happy with what the beggar made in the nighttime. And the best part is, we don't even know what the beggar stole in the first place.

What they did not realise though was, that humans where capable of diplomacy on a level that has never been seen before as well as something that was an even bigger shock to everyone : Humans had nuclear weapons which was something no other race had ever managed to even comprehend in its function. Humans tried negotiating piece between the different races at first . But when Humans actually managed to make a deal with the other states of the galaxy the rouge-state turned on them and attacked them too . Humanity didn’t even bother to attempt diplomatic solutions in this case . They sent a single ship. The Rouges laughed at them and ignored it till the very second humans unleashed hell and the nuclear-space-torpedo breached through the attacking forces energy-shield and blew up as bright as a sun, disintegrating the whole attacking fleet with a single blow. One FTL-travel later the Ship started engaging with the rouges planetary defence-system destroying it with easy within 3 hours their whole space-army was wiped out and they surrendered. Humans took control and got the population back from being war-hungry rouges to a calm species. And while the other galactic states where still in shock humans started assembling an intergalactic council with members of all races to prevent any future wars.

Welcome to the Prompt! All top-level comments must be a story or poem. Reply here for other comments.

Reminders:

>* Stories at least 100 words. Poems, 30 but include "[Poem]" >* Responses don't have to fulfill every detail >* See Reality Fiction and Simple Prompts for stricter titles >* Be civil in any feedback and follow the rules

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