Challenge #02134-E305: Terms of Combat Have Changed
A single inescapable fact is that humanity united with infinitely greater purpose in pursuit of war than they ever did in pursuit of peace. -- Anon Guest
Humans are not good at sharing, they say. Their origin planet was divided into thousands of groups identifying themselves with borders, religion, and culture to define battling clusters. When all of those were in common, lines divided amongst economic, gender identity, skin tone, and creedic boundaries.
All it took was one contact with visiting alien life for all of those to no longer matter. Peace on Earth only came about with the identification of someone Distinctly Other. Only then did the nation-identities of Earth merge into one, solid unit. Allied against the outsider.
One can only imagine their disappointment when they discovered that the greater portions of the Galactic Alliance had next to zero interest in invading, conquering, or purchasing a Deathworld that was close to ruin due to the actions of its original cogniscent inhabitants. Further, several colonial planets wished to have serious discussions in regards to Terra's stated 'garbage dump' policy of treating wormholes as a solution to 'problem groups'.
Those problem groups had survived, pissed off and cockroach-like, to achieve polity with the Galactic Alliance, and were now bringing lawyers to the negotiations table.
Terra had thought they were problems before they dumped them down a wormhole. It hadn't seen anything yet.
Humanity did, eventually, have its wars with outer space. They were not fought with lasers and explosions. They were not fought with enormous fleets of battleships. They were not fought with space marines on distant planets that looked amazingly like quarries. They were, disappointingly, fought in courtrooms.
The assembled colonies of the United Fellowship of Terran Planets had a class action suit against the planet that essentially abandoned them to their own devices. Having many of the 'garbage' groups doing far better than Terra merely rubbed salt into the extant wounds to Terra's pride.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / njaj]
If you like my stories, please Check out my blog and Follow me. Or share them with your friends!
Send me a prompt [21 remaining prompts!]
Cockroach like literally or figuratively :D
Posted using Partiko Android
Figuratively. Borrowed liberally from a tweet in which someone was like:
"All the nice gays got murdered, so all that's left is us pissed-off cockroach motherfuckers."