The Nature of Predators 2-91

Memory Transcription Subject: Adam Meier, Advisor to the Secretary-General

Date [standardized human time]: March 18, 2161

Battles often boiled down to a single snapshot that would be remembered by history. Grenelka was the hardest-fought battle, showing the reasons why the adversarial Yulpa had been a Federation ally we hit the hardest in our cyberattack decades ago. The ghosts’ aid had gone a long way toward rebuilding the fanatics, stronger than ever. This time, if humanity prevailed in a two-front contest against enemies that, on their own, would be the toughest interstellar foes we’d faced…drastic change had to be enforced. This could not become the recurring cycle of hate that plagued future generations. 

The United Nations found ourselves daunted by that fleet, several hundred thousand strong, but it was the supplemental aid of our allies that would be Grenelka’s defining moment. With every human ship in the Libastion region mobilizing to crush their stranglehold, it was an invigorating moment to see thousands of ships from each ally packing into our formation. The Shield gave our numbers an extra push, as they turned against the prey species who’d shared their halls. Diplomatic relations between the UN and Shield members boomed like never before, despite our predatory nature.

Korajan came through at finally breaking the barrier between our two unions. The Shield’s desire to be a separate entity is one we respect, but they’ve had one foot in the new era and one in the old Federation for a long time. They picked the SC in the end.

Humanity pressed the envelope with the massive fleet; many drones were in tatters on both sides after Grenelka, but we had the largest allied force we could’ve fathomed. Back in Elias’ day, it would’ve been unimaginable that we’d receive such an outpouring of support from herbivores. I loved that image from Grenelka, the scale of our unity. That moment encapsulated what we stood for as a species, restoring harmony to Orion. There were a number of great images that bolstered our esteem, of course.

The ghost Farsul attempted to assail the Shield’s Sailer, the gigantic station that housed their government. It was a show that they’d grown stronger without the Federation stamping the life out of them, to see the built-in defenses and their upgraded ships holding their own. The cowardly attack was fended off like a man waving a torch at a pack of wolves, with lasers and incendiary munitions foiling the enemy’s offensive ambitions. Our fleet rode on from system-to-system like Sherman’s March, leaving any of their infrastructure in ruins. 

It was the rampage of humanity long feared by those who loathed our eyes. Hostile fleets built by exterminators fell at the treacherous Tevin world, attempts to retake Talsk fell to a heavily-reinforced defensive lineup, and Remnant colonies were picked off as weak spots. The greatest problem left outstanding was the Krev Consortium’s drone fleet, which stood with the ghosts on Malti and Drezjin worlds; control had long since left General Radai’s wingtips. We tried to soften up the Malti’s outposts and cut through all surrounding allies, to leave them isolated and alone. A stark contrast to a resurgent humanity..

“I much prefer watching these contests from the Bissem balcony. I look forward to you seeing a time when the galaxy is…quiet.” I had a mind for the diplomatic side of events, and found it curious how Talsk proper reacted to news of the ghosts. Despite being locked in a Kessler cage, they decried the extremists’ actions against Ivrana—because of the Bissems’ kindness. “I’ll never stop telling you how much I appreciate the work you’ve done with alien refugees. Remembering when it was humanity fleeing a broken home to Skalga, it’s a cause close to my heart.”

Tassi glanced over at me, now having a hardened determination in her amber eyes; she was a seasoned veteran. “I know how it felt to Bissemkind. I can’t imagine what it was like to be humanity. The mistakes you’ve made, I understand why you got here. You’re fallible, and your friends finally accept that.”

“Everyone is, but things are looking up. Osmani has been the shrewd leader we need, pushing forward with that relentless abandon that characterizes our forebears’ predation. Humanity is finally fighting for progress, inch by inch. We take out the Krev here today and the entirety of Remnant war assets will fall like dominoes. Cut off the head, that drone fleet won’t be getting orders anymore.”

“I was wrong about humans not helping us, Adam. You’ve done the bulk of the work going after the ghosts,” a grumpy Zalk admitted. “Your people found them. You did right by the Tseia.”

I kept it to myself that the one who found the rogue Farsul was Jones. “How we do right by you is to take the ghosts down with expediency, so they can’t be a threat to any predator race any longer. I really hope we collect the Krev’s surrender here, instead of drawing it out. I can almost taste a quiet life, despite the fact I have no taste buds.”

“You’ll never sample our fish. I don’t know how you carry on with that Hirsdamned knowledge,” Naltor said in a dry voice.

Zalk lifted his beak in snooty fashion. “Quite easily, since it’s not real fish. The deplorable garbage with fins by Lassmin does little but thicken your blubber.”

“If you’re implying that I eat a lot of fish, that means that our food is better—because it’s worth eating. You look as fucking thin and shriveled as pickled memlifin, wanderbird.”

“The coasts and lands of Alsh are worth wandering.”

I snickered at them. “You two are like an old married couple. I know you secretly respect each other.”

“For sparing Dustin and nothing else,” Naltor responded. “The one we all respect is you, Adam. You’re an optimist and a warrior, and let me tell you, that combination is real fucking rare. Even rarer to shine in both categories.”

“I think you should bestow those compliments on Tassi. I’m ready to be a little selfish and just live my life. It’ll be with great relief that I step out of the game, the second this war comes to a close. So again, I really hope that’s now.”

Tassi squinted at me, perhaps sensing how ready I was to begin a new life, disconnected from my memory donor. “So you’re really going to retire from the SC, right as the real work starts to cement our principles for a lasting future? I can’t say you haven’t earned it, but I’d miss your fierce beliefs. What are you even going to do?”

“I don’t know, and that’s the beauty of it. I want to do things Elias wouldn’t have done, and just ‘winging it’ certainly wasn’t his style. If others don’t take up the reform torch, it wasn’t going to last anyway. I would like to enjoy the peace we’ve clawed for. A digital being could have the rest and quiet life his predecessor never did. Might we all be so lucky one day.”

“The fuck did you just say? Don’t wish that on me. Being involved in this lunacy keeps my mind sharp,” Naltor snapped. “I’m dreading retirement.”

Zalk looked at the Selmer like he’d grown a second beak. “Even after meeting aliens? I also need a break after a year of this. I miss the Tseia’s isolation.”

“You better keep missing it. We’ve got a peace deal in place, and shifty cloacabeaks like you can’t go breaking it just to get away from the rest of your species.”

“If we go to war with the other continents, that still qualifies as interaction with you. No, a few cleaned up oceans from those Sivkit maniacs won’t make us one big, happy family.”

“Tseia aren’t big or happy—”

Tassi raised a tan flipper. “Shush! They’re about to make contact with Avor. We should all hear this; we have to see if Adam gets his retirement wish, after all.”

“Seconded,” I chuckled. “Wish me luck.”

My hopes and spirits were high as Admiral Monahan initiated contact with the Krev homeworld. With them seeing their fleet on the ropes and experiencing widespread rebellion at home, it would be reasonable to accept the terms of an honest surrender; the government needed to face the music for abetting the Farsul and duping their entire sector of space. Osmani had already begun drafting up the terms of a new arrangement, should our enemies admit their inevitable defeat. It would be refreshing if we could skip the agonizing process for once.

I can’t be the only one tired of maddening galactic wars and evil plotters screwing over their own people. It’s not too late for even the lunatics to look in the mirror and see sense. 

The image that was burned into my brain from this encounter was not a triumphant one; it wasn’t the Krev dignitaries coughing up a surrender, all bravado vanquished from their eyes—justice winning the day on a few spoken words. It was a photograph that the Consortium transmitted to mock our efforts, one that struck me at my very core. I had no idea how to respond to a legion of people that were reset to a controllable space, under the control of absolute madmen. These were beings created from memory transcripts just as I was, tickling my very worst fears about how Virnt, Terra Technologies, or other actors could exploit my hardware. Stripping digital minds of control and sanctity, and using them to replace a noncompliant, flesh-and-blood populace.

Needless to say, it was an absolute nightmare to every attendee of this meeting, but there was no one it felt more tangible to than me. I could feel stares being shot my way, even from the Bissems neighboring me; it wasn’t lost on the diplomats that humanity had harnessed the same technology that fueled this diabolical plot. The thought that was crossing each of their minds was that we could be a threat to them, much like they’d feared Earth’s “inevitable” expansion in Elias’ lifetime. That realization made me grit my teeth, as I jolted myself out of my stupor. 

The last thing I wanted was for us to fall into that pattern of thinking, just like the predator fears, all over again. After coming to terms with who I was, I wouldn’t believe I was a monster, due to a perversion of something that could give people like Kristin a fresh chance. I pressed a hand to my head to push back the shock, though I felt sickened to my stomach. Tassi supported me with a flipper as my balance lurched. The uneasy stares were reminiscent of how the Shield and the Skalgan commuters all gawked at me.

“I know what you’re thinking,” I challenged the assembly in a booming voice, sweeping my gaze over the gathered crowd. “I’d hope that the Sapient Coalition has risen above judging an entire classification of people, writing off their right to existence and their value as sapient beings, all because of one instance where a characteristic is used for evil. You would’ve burned all predators by the same logic.”

Secretary-General Osmani stood in support. “It’s easy to differentiate the ethical standards used for Adam, which bring relief to millions of grieving families. In the open, to offer a chance at a rebirth—an afterlife—here on Earth. The Krev view mind-uploaded replicants as weapons in their toolbelt.”

“And that’s exactly what I don’t want to happen, which is why I want the rights and restrictions around this technology codified in stone, so we can avoid this ever coming close to fruition here. There’s a right way and a wrong way to root out a new scientific path. Please, do not let their flagrant abuses lessen your assessment of people like me. Instead, the Sapient Coalition is once again called upon to be better.”

“We see why this topic needs to be monitored and handled with care; I suggest the first amendment to our founding document, The Universal Declaration of Sapient Rights, to keep up with new technologies that we couldn’t have anticipated. Our strength is that we grow and adapt with the needle of progress, and for all of the help he’s given us, Adam Meier has my full support. However, the pressing issue is how we beat the Krev. We’ll deal with our own house after we take out the trash.”

“Take out the trash?” Ambassador Korajan squawked. He gave a slight head toss in my direction, perhaps to offer me some acknowledgment and comfort. “Is today the day that we finally see humanity glass Avor? After their machinations against The Sailer and Kalqua—”

I gave the Duerten a pointed stare. “I thought we talked about an eye for an eye, Korajan.”

“They have an infinite army of robots now, for squawking out loud! We have to be sure.”

Osmani’s expression was cool and collected. “Humanity has doomsday cyberweapons at hand, which we’ve spent years perfecting. We’ve been enhancing them since our last cyberattack, to match technological improvements…it’s our weapon of last resort, in a situation with vulnerable, central infrastructure.”

“I’ve been warning about this for years. I saw the damage a cyberstrike could do with my own eyes, when Grenelka was first ravaged,” Onso chimed in.

“It could incapacitate this infallible army that’s primed to destroy the populace. That’s the other danger of synthetic beings that we must address; they’re vulnerable to hacking, lacking the security our natural bodies have. We fry any robopeople at all accessible on the surface, which’ll buy some time to save as many people as possible. We can verify the biological beings with x-ray machines. After that, we burn everything left behind, pummeling deep underground like they did to Esquo to be sure they don’t have the means to build an army.”

“Hang on. Those robot legionnaires are people, sir. Just like me, they didn’t choose to come back,” I remarked.

“I know. Korajan is right that we have to wipe them out. We either ensure none of them survive, or we wake up in twenty years ruled by their machines, Adam. Humanity will save the innocents, but the pawns are beyond our reach. Even if we got through to them, there’s nothing that would stop their masters from removing that memory or overriding their wishes.”

What’s to stop someone from doing that to me? Virnt could. “I understand. While this was already not the life Elias would’ve chosen, nonexistence is most certainly preferable to that—having a mind that belongs to someone else.”

“The last thing I want is to commit a genocide of unwilling slaves, but I hope it’s some mercy to spare them this eldritch horror—to prevent the unconsenting citizens from encountering doppelgangers of themselves with a kill switch and no free will. They challenged us to ‘do our worst,’ and that’s an unwise decree to humanity. We know what we must do. It’s the only way.”

I stewed in that grim feeling, pitying the digital beings who’d never have a chance to get off the ground. Much like myself, they didn’t ask for any of this, and hadn’t a clue during their lives that it would even be a possibility. Secretary-General Osmani’s argument rang true to me though, and I saw that there was no way of winning this fight without getting our hands dirty; this was the time for unfettered warfare, if there ever was one. Humanity had to defeat the Krev Consortium, before their metastasizing greed grew too large for us to contain.

My hope was that our missions on Avor and the other Consortium worlds would be successful in saving the civilians that their government hoped to replace.

A/N - 91! Adam spends time around the Bissems, who share mutual respect and plans for the future; our narrator is hoping to settle down quietly and differentiate himself from Elias’ path after the war. There’s been a lot of progress back at home, so he’s hopeful that victory at Avor could cause the enemy presence in Orion to collapse. However, it soon becomes clear that the Krev don’t intend to surrender, and are using the same technology that gave him his life. The SC has a clear indication as well of exactly what restrictions they need to put on transcripts, and makes a plan to rescue civvies and torch Avor.

Do you think Taylor and Gress will be able to rescue Lecca, and how will humanity fare overall at getting civilians away from the Consortium? Is Osmani’s plan for tackling the issue the only way this can be handled appropriately, in your opinion? What kind of laws do you think the SC will need around Meier’s tech?

As always, thank you for reading and supporting!