Gods Dogs, Book 3

It is the greatest good for a man to discuss virtue every day and those other things about which you hear me conversing, and testing others and myself, for the unexamined life is not worth living.

Socrates

The Chert emperor, Anjevin Ronal Est, was in a holo-conference with the two other humanoid emperors. They had each reviewed the recording of the first contact encounter in the landing bay.

Anjevin’s martial arts instructor attended that screening and told the emperor, “He knows how to hit. Notice he didn’t just use his arm to cuff the Section Leader. His hips moved as well. He engaged his whole body weight. This person is a skilled fighter.”

“You can tell that from one hit,” an aide challenged.

“Yes.”

Anjevin cut in, “The history we received spoke of this. The Galactic Congress admitted the League of Worlds to their Congress without sponsorship. They have ‘exceptional’ status. These humans embody many contradictions, and Coyotes exemplify that trait.”

The martial arts instructor said, “They would be worthy opponents.”

Anjevin pondered that remark as he consulted now with his fellow emperors. They were of the opinion that it didn’t hurt to talk. Anjevin agreed, but it also didn’t hurt to probe for weaknesses, to identify advantages, or to seduce enemies into spies.

“There are two females,” the chunky Dobal emperor smirked. The holo-display showed he was offended.

The dwarf-looking Baston emperor replied, “They do claim to have an egalitarian culture. Why should this be a surprise?”

“It’s not a surprise. It is offensive.”

“Different species, different values. Offensive or not, they have made the free society work on a large scale. How much time, energy, money, and lives do you waste keeping your worlds in line?”

“Order must be maintained.”

Anjevin broke in, “Beside the point. Do we want a war with them? If so, how much are we willing to spend to wage a war? And if it is too much, what happens here as we weaken ourselves with that war? Rebellion? An attack by our neighbors? It seems our annexation scheme is a failed prospect. What now?”

They argued that issue and came to no conclusions. The Galactic Congress would be a worthy opponent. As conquest empires, they all knew conquest was only assured by overwhelming firepower. The odds did not favor them because they could not guarantee strategic superiority.

Anjevin changed the subject. “What of the report that some of them are shamans?”

“They apparently communicated with the bug shaman,” the Dobal said. “What of it?”

“Don’t you have psychic protectors?”

“Well, yes, but I don’t know that they do anything.”

“We must explore every advantage available to us.”

“Perhaps,” was the reluctant answer.

The Baston said, “I’ve seen things from our shamans – things I don’t understand. How would one approach this without giving the shamans too much power?”

“I don’t know,” Anjevin said. “At first, I think we use them as scouts to determine the lay of the land. We also use our spies. We use our influence on the Accords Council.”

Into the silence that followed, the Dobal asked rather pointedly, “Are you going to let the insult to your Section Leader go unavenged?”

Anjevin laughed. “Of course not. I have my own plan for that.”

The conference call ended, and the emperor set about gaining the intelligence that would hopefully lead to opening the Milky Way for conquest.

Since the battleship had other things to do, Satya flew out of its hold and docked at a spoke on the upper donut of the space station. It was smaller in diameter than the lower donut and served the upper crust of the citizens from all five empires.

The lower donut served everybody else and took care of the trading and tourism necessary for economic stability of the world below, and the independent status of the Accords Committee – the group that worked to maintain the peace among the five empires. Additionally, the station was a racist-free zone. No overt racist activity or signage or institutions were allowed. It was a nice sentiment, but covert racism abounded. Second-class citizens needed to know their place, after all.

The donuts were where most of the routine business was conducted. The spokes were off limits to regular folks. These restricted areas housed the delegations from each of the five empires along with troops for their protection. There was, as yet, no military force that drew from each military with the mandate to serve all empires. As such, mercs provided for station security.

Once the Satya docked with the station, Raina and River got to work with Satya to hack into the station’s systems. They released a cloud of nanobots that mimicked space dust. The dust cloud settled on the antenna arrays at the station center. The nanobots found access to the interior of the core, assembled into larger bots, and attached themselves in various locations: comm center, station security, the control center, and the conference rooms security.

It took a few days for this to happen, and they lost about a quarter of the nanobots in the process, mostly due to solar radiation. Eventually, though, they were tapped into the station NSAI, a dumb A.I. that oversaw operations. Other NSAIs ran each department, life support, hydroponics, power distribution, etc., and were subservient to the station A.I. They tapped into those as well, except on the Machine Autocracy’s spoke of the wheel. They weren’t sure the androids could be fooled by the nanobots.

Not having sentient A.I. partners put the biological empires at a disadvantage to the Congress, to be sure, but the overall racism cut them off from more robust problem solving and creativity. Sadly, they didn’t even suspect this loss, given their racist myopia.

The entire ship’s company stayed aboard Satya while the empires, through the Accords Committee, figured out what to do with them.

Capt. John and Cmdr. Nomero pushed everyone to gather and process as much intelligence as Satya could glean about their hosts. After a few days, once the bot infiltration was complete, a fuller picture of the five empires emerged.

With River busy with the infiltration and data interpretation, Pax kept in contact with the bug shaman, who soon invited shamans from the other empires to join the party.

At the morning briefing eight days after they docked on the upper donut, Pax gave his report on those contacts.

“Their sense of the Divine is skewed. I think it has to do with the worlds that were cannibalized from the other galaxies Andromeda passed through. There is a racial memory about the Ancients and a fall from power, advanced civilizations collapsing, and so on. They see themselves as inferior to those Ancients and not capable of achieving their former status. They are somehow fatally flawed because of it.”

They sat in the mess hall – Nomero, Capt. John, the Coyotes, Raina, and the elf negotiators.

Heng commented, “Many of our races have similar myths – a fall from Paradise and a drive to regain greatness.”

Pax said, “The difference I’m seeing is they believe they are incapable. Ascending the developmental ladder, be it technological or spiritual, is a doomed endeavor.”

“Interesting,” Briju said in a pensive tone. “You think this has to do with the disruption of Andromeda cannibalizing other galaxies.”

“Their myths speak directly to it.”

Nomero said, “They unconsciously expect failure.”

“In a nutshell, yes.”

River observed, “It’s like a galaxy-wide traumatic event they never got over.”

Moss, their combat medic who knew trauma better than most, joined in, “The psychological pattern with repressed trauma is that you keep acting it out in an effort to heal it, but all you accomplish is re-traumatization.”

River concluded, “It’s why they’re stuck fighting each other.”

Heng sat back in his custom chair and said, “What about their gods?”

“Dark ones dominate. Dark shamans probably outnumber good ones. The idea of the Great Mystery is more chaotic. Few seem to have experienced any form of Enlightenment. Most ridicule the idea of it as wishful thinking.”

“Please explain,” Nomero directed. “What is your definition of Enlightenment?”

Quinn answered, “It’s direct contact with the creative essence of the Universe. The individual ego is dropped in favor of a wider identity with the All, and compassion for all is one result.”

“Yes,” Pax agreed. “They would see that state as annihilation rather than transcendence.”

“Goddess help us,” River breathed out. “A whole galaxy of wounded children not knowing how to heal and acting out their pain.”

“Except for the Machines,” Moss interjected. “They seem to be headed in the right direction.”

“And the bugs?” Briju asked.

“I don’t know,” Pax admitted. “They have a different psychology.”

Heng said, “We’ve dealt with insectoid species before, Briju and I. Perhaps we should collaborate.”

“Thank you,” Pax replied.

Capt. John spoke up, “How does this affect our strategic position?”

Quinn responded, “They will be defensive, easy to provoke, lacking in trust, quick to betrayal, and ultimately self-sabotaging.”

“Like dealing with feral teenagers,” Moss summarized.

“How do we proceed?” Nomero wanted to know.

“Our term is Socratic dialogue,” Moss supplied. “You ask questions rather than offer solutions. It’s what works with the defensive, wounded ego.”

“A sound tactic,” Heng said. “We can do that.”

Briju laughed and touched her husband’s arm. “He can be frustrating that way – obtuse, calmly questioning someone, and giving nothing away.”

Raina finally spoke, “What you’re describing helps me make sense of the data we’re getting. Their rigid social structures are necessary to curb or control this impulse to act out in a doomed attempt to heal. The question, of course, is how do we point them to a healing path?”

Moss chuckled. “The tulku speaks to the deeper question, and I don’t know the answer. They must find their own path. I do think Socratic dialogue will help. Who knows? Maybe one of us will ask the question that will empower them to look for their path.”

“I sure hope so,” River said.

Satya interrupted, “Captain, Mudark is requesting you. They are ready to resume talks.”

“Thanks,” Capt. John said as he stood to take the call on the bridge. “Commander, if you would accompany me.”