Challenge #01609-D148: We're So Much Better Now
There are pieces of Historical Machinery, there are Collections of Musical instruments and some lucky souls get to care for them, keep them running and in the case of stringed instruments take them out and play them so they sound right. -- Anon Guest
They say the Archivaas collect everything and never throw anything away. This is very close to the truth. Most Archivaas know the impossibility of saving a physical version of everything and keep digital plans, instructions, or copies. The more extreme Archivaas still try to keep hard copies. Even those ones agree that the ones on Museum VI have taken things too far.
Museum VI is an Archivaas system dedicated to the instruments of war. From the sling and the spear through knapped stone tools, all the way to "planet killer" explosives, though the most dangerous of these weapons have been disarmed for safety reasons. The Museum system sadly regrets that all the 1950-era nuclear bombs were detonated in a frenzy of testing, and can only supply more modern copies. These, too, lack the crucial payload.
Of course the museum is run by humans. There would be no other reason for it to exist, otherwise.
Of the less harmful weapons, there is an 'exercise season' where they, or copies of them, are paraded out and exhibited against replica targets of their respective era. Much to the enjoyment of other humans, and the abject terror of their soon-to-be-former enemies.
What humans can do with a pile of wood and big enough rocks is enough to pacify all but the most aggressive of Deathworlders. To say nothing of what humans cooked up with sulphur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate.
The twentieth and twenty-first century displays are the most impressive. Humans could do extraordinarily hazardous things with heinously common chemicals. Though the display neurotoxins are admitted to be fake, the presenter details how easy some of them were to create. How easy some of them still are to create.
The Galactic Record for Deathworlder surrender to humans is five minutes. The longest was two hours, and that was because the aggressor in question was too afraid to ask a thing until the presentation broke for snacks and potty breaks.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / Anoli50]
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