You tell the species that has to constantly remind itself not to commit atrocities that the rules of engagement are off the table, and this is the result.
To paraphrase Doctor Who (11th), "If we were the good people you seem to believe us to be, we wouldn't need rules. You're going to find out in excrutiating detail exactly why we make so many rules for ourselves." And I add: "And you will regret experiencing the results of us not following them."
@@benjamintherogue2421 You're conflating "good" with "trying to be good" but the two are not always the same. In fact most of the time, they are two different things.
"docile " Australian wildlife, the Nazis on the dark side of the Moon, intrusive thoughts: hey * vector intensifies* WWII documentaries, Napoleonic tactics, Vlad the impaler historical records, containing virus samples, the disease is melting out if the ice caps: you ain't seen nothing yet Conspiracy theorists, aliens, Floridian snake heads, Florida man, cocaine, artificial intelligence developers, 4chan, Reddit, Tumblr: when this any hits 88 miles per hour, your going to see some serious s#-t Nukes, former Soviet Russia inhabitants: time to make a big explosive again.
I'm reminded of the bit from Doctor Who. Silence chick: "I'm not afraid of you. Good men have too many rules." Doctor: "Good men don't need rules. You don't want to find out why I have so very many."
If there were truly no restrictions, if we knew that we finally get to fight a space war. Do you really think we're not going to finally let our intrusive thoughts win? Excuse to make all of our racism and Nazi jokes come to reality, we can be xenophobic like the imperium of man from Warhammer 40K. Weakened and leash from madness with our genetic engineering, we could import spiders from Australia into our warships, stage fake infighting, places that gets exploded way just so happens to have a canister full of"docile" Australian wildlife. And just imagine the confusion they would happen if we unleashed a bunch of furrys and disabled people. We could send nukes into space, we could take advantage of the fact that if you explode a satellite it is able to cause a devastating response. Normal launching a rocket has already been compared to throwing a clay pigeon down a shooting range. If every planet was to come with its own set of emergency satellites. We can press that cliche self-destruct button from the safety of the surface. Then after that, it's like this devastating wall of shrapnel-possibly full of enriched uranium rods, and then any ships that actually seem like they're going to get lasered. The heat from a high-intensity laser could burn through the hole, it could make them for surrender because the heat is going to cook them like a bowl of ramen noodles in the microwave, or they are going to simply cook to death regardless. Alien ship, we could detonate that thing with like a S.A.M , or just detonate a full-power tsar Bomba like 1 mi away. Under human has ever make it to the surface of an alien planet, we can float that thing with gas like we are the Germans in world war I.unless he's ignoring that a lot of us food is actually poisonous to us Earth life, and so it's probably going to be poisonous to the aliens. So if we were to hypothetically sprinkle some caffeine, hot sauce, and powderized American cuisine into like their food rations or over their crops or something... Yeah they are screwed, they can die so fast.
Just like a honey badger, idgaf whether I am willing given more or not because I will just take all I want ... And if I can't find more, then I guess I'll just have to figure out how to make it!
Badgers , honey badgers, wolverines. That’s what humans are the space equivalent aka terrifying. Seeing the title I instantly thought ah we are space badgers cool 🤣🤣🤣
I say it's pure naivety that Earth's Destruction would not awaken the darkest side of Humanity, or that there would be anything but the mercy of death for her killers.
Eh depends how many years it's been since they joined the galactic community. If this was still a point in time where most humans were born and raised on earth then you'd probably be right. But in this story it sounds more like the majority of their population at the time never even saw earth
Yeah, I personally would go into a blood curdling rage the likes of which no damned Zeno would have ever seen, nor would ever see for the entire rest of galactic history from that point onward. Like seriously, if I was in charge, I would make the holocaust look like a funny prank in comparison.
as Abridged Kirito puts it, "A super computer operating for thousands of years would not even come close to comprehending the amount of fucks I don't give."
As someone who rewatches the series yearly, the quote is actually "A quantum supercomputer calculating for a thousand years, could not even *approach* the amount of fucks I do not give" EDIT: Made a single mistake, he says number of fucks, not amount of fucks. Curse my memory.
When the admiral said 'there will be no rules'... I half expected one of the humans to shoot him in the face then and there... before acknowledging the state of 'no rules' to a corpse... cause you know... human's don't give a fuck.
Yeah, I was a little disapointed myself, but ours is a pregmatic species. I bet the admirals were thinking "Suite yourself asshole, you will live to see and regret this choice. "
I've said before, there are 3 kinds of warfare in HFY stories: 1.) "They stubbed our toe, glass their worlds, flay their leaders, and burn their gods for eternity." 2.) "Terribly sorry our war losses might make you think we're mad, can we get you some tea?" 3.) "Yeah, no. Some of us will be cool with you, but some of us are gonna kick your beaks up your cloacas if we ever see you on our planet." This feels like the second one.
hmm , sort of agree.. though i also think there should be a fourth category of 4.) they burnt everything we hade...but we endure and they dont.. aka attrition warfare
@@Amoth_oth_ras_shash you could still file that as a subcategory under #2. It just depends on the tone in which that line is given. Like, condescendingly vs. genuinely.
@@ShiKageMaru hmm..true it could be added to that ,but that loses its nuance quite severly since true attrition war is when both parties and most 'observers' not is surprised by it..and is bleeding equally so to speak is it not ?
@@Amoth_oth_ras_shash I'd have to see a more clear example before I'd be tempted to agree. All things consideted the humanity of this story is a LOT more even tempered and generous than baseline reality. They're more magnanimous in the victory over a much stronger opponent. They lost a lot, but it's definitely a clear victory. They were winning the entire time, it's just that nobody but them realized it. The losses they took were coldhesrted and calculated outside of the damage to earth itself.
@@ShiKageMaru true in this story its not attrition war ,its surgical strikes and tactically calculated loses one might say... hmm , suppose its hard to come up with a good none real life example
Amateur generals talk weapons. Veterans talk logistics! If your army is starving ,out of ammo, on the brink of open rebellion..numbers are irrelevant. Supply and logistics ,was how the Romans conquered as much territory as they did. Their legions could remain in the field, intact, while the enemy had to worry about harvesting. Of course their nobility were avaricious idiots, but no one is perfect.
Yep, the Romans had a lot of things they did well, but they had terrible nobility (we call them the one percent these days). History repeats, just the names and places change.
It's also how Nazi Germany lost WW2, they simply didn't have enough logistical resources to fight enemies on all sides. If I remember correctly, towards the end of the war, Germany was described as a ghost town.
@@kabob0077 Looking at how they're doing logistically nowadays fighting a proxy war in Ukraine against Russia, the latter of which who Germany gets their energy from basically. That sentiment still runs true today.
Comment above said the story made him giggle. Then you could think of somebody else hearing it, just knowing and holding back tears. Strangest part is to feel that way because you know once it's unleashed you will enjoy it. I was wondering would they wipe them out? They joined up now will they wipe out all the others? From nothing to the strongest, but knowing they don't even have to capture the rest anymore because there is no way they can even fight back.
Honey badger was once filmed stealing a mouse from a snake after it are the mouse it attacked the snake which bit it the honey badger ate the snakes head and then fell over after a couple hours the honey badger woke up and finished eating the snake 🤔
Humans: So here's a well rounded set of combat rules for the upcoming warfare Galactic Bureaucracy: *murmurs of assention Infinite Dude: THERE ARE NO RULES Humans: Very Well *silently smirks with glee as a flashback of every human atrocity and warcrime against our own kind ever recorded in our genome scrolls by with "Somebody I Used to Know" playing in the background, happy at the knowledge we'd have even less moral boundaries given that our opponent isn't even human*
It has been pointed out to me before that it is ridiculous that we have rules for war. All killing should be considered unspeakably bad. Having rules for war is an acknowledgment that war WILL happen anyways, and whether you follow these rules will determine how we treat you after you lose. When such a race provides you with a set of rules, know that they are very creative at killing and have to be told what's off limits... And they'll still surprise you anyways.
The Good needs no Leash to do what is Right, Those who are capable of the darkest Evil have rules to ensure their good side prevails, And you just turned it into a Checklist of stuff we can Try
Human Military Leaders: ...Alright then. *Pulls out a giant binder full of archaeic script* Beaurocracy Aliens: What are you doing?" Human Military Leaders: Deciding what would be the most poetic way to kill them. *Holds up the binder full of war crimes* The karkans are honestly adorable in how aggressive they are, but they lack our creativity. Let's fix that.
Nice to see one that actually acknowledges that there's a pretty good chance humanity's history would be nothing special compared to other intelligent species that managed to fight their way to the top rung of their worlds and take to the stars. Honestly, chances are if we found alien races out there, there'd be several that made our history look tame in comparison.
I think it would fall into the same category as when we compare our wars with each other, like WW 1+2, Vietnam, etc. I told a couple arm chair historians that you can't compare wars, it's all shit, just different flavors of shit. You cant argue that Runny shit is worse then nutty shit.
I think our history and culture would be our only true value. All our planetary mineral wealth is nothing compared to the wondrous bounty of our solar system. Exporting any significant off our planet is not worth the cost, when you can harvest an asteroid instead. Our labor is more easily automated. After a certain point, culture and art become the only remaining value
@@JS-vn1og If no struggle what use sapience? Sapience is energy intensive, the human brain accounts for 2% of our body by weight, but requires 20 - 25% of our energy intake to maintain. Evolution tends towards energy efficiency. If everything is nice, safe, with no struggle, food is easy to get, the climate is mild and stable, weather predictable at worst, then there is literally no evolutionary pressure electing for intelligence. Intelligence is most useful in conditions the organism has to adapt quickly. more quickly than evolution can change them. Sure, social interaction requires some, but remove that requirement to adapt to rapidly changing environments, to solve problems, to learn, then Sapience will NOT evolve, because there is no requirement for it to evolve in order to survive. So I am very much afraid that it is the view of most Evolutionary Ecologists such as myself that should sapient beings ever truly traverse the stars, they will ALL come from worlds where life has had to struggle to survive, because WITHOUT that struggle sapience will not evolve.
@@alganhar1 I said I hope not. Because that would make them a threat. Write frankly I don't want to find a species it there that is more advanced than us and a threat. Better for us that none of them had to struggle to survive. Quite frankly I care about humanity surviving and thriving not the rest of the universe.
We have those Rules because we know that without them there'd be no end at our creativity and lack of fucks, it's there to protect ourselves and those we fight against, And you just let slip the chains and let loose the Dogs of War
That awkward moment when you think you're making a statement of intimidation to cow your enemy when in reality you're giving them permission to be their truest selves, the self that frightens them.
Karkans; "THERE WILL BE *NO* RULES OF WAR, I WILL COME AT YOU WITH EVERY-" Humanity; "We're gonna stop you right there. See here's where you done goofed because, (cracking our knuckles) *that was for keeping US in check*" Karkans: "What?" Federation: "What!?" Humanity: *Nagasaki 2: Eletric Boogaloo intensifies*
"In galactic news, the Human Federation has reformed themselves into something called.... Imperium of Man. Whatever this new human government is, expects are sure nothing for us to worry about and everyone can continue their lives as normal."
@@JorD11121humans: * laughs in Gene replacement, gassing of alien planets, orbital satellite web with self-destruct button, "accidental infighting" resulting in the debris containing "docile"Australian wildlife to land on alien planets, and Shaolin monastery z
Aliens: "We are the mightiest military power of the Galaxy! Nobody can stop us!" Humans: "Behold the fields in which I plant my 'f*cks to give', and see that they are barren." Edit: hey, Ma! Look, I'm famous!
Humans: "JK I give so many f*cks, inside this bag are all the f*cks I give." Aliens: "Its empty." Humans: "Darn it I'll just run over to the F*ck store its open till nine, oh no, its nine o'two."
I mean, it might have been for the better in the end. If they hadn't, then maybe they would have eventually run into another race that led to a similar scenario as in this story, only with a heaping tablespoon of genocide instead of mercy.
I doubt that. Those documents were most likely full of the other acceptable losses. Humans don't lose were like a cockroach and a honey Badgers horrifying lovechild. It also doesn't help that they destroyed earth. Infront of every single earthborn man woman and child. And probably 2nd and 3rd generations who had family from earth. You want a chance at not being dismantled entirely don't destroy our home
That scene reminded me of that one Dr. Who episode. "The anger of a good man is nothing to fear. He has too many rules." "Good men don't need rules. Today is not a good day to find out why I have so many."
10:23 and as they looked upon each other the sound of the Geneva convention being set ablaze and the howl of 10 billion years of creativity could be heard throughout the galaxy
Humans fight often and this causes us to have giant development spurts. A peaceful alien world where they have war every millenia will take 10 times to advance. We literally wipe ourselves out, like during ww2 and use that tech to make life better before repeating it again. By the time the aliens travel home to report and return back to us we will either have destroyed ourselves or be ready to meet the aliens head on
This story started with us ashamed of our more violent past. This meant we remembered it. Active shame is not a response to water under the bridge or forgotten grievances. We remembered, which meant we could return to such ways of thinking.
One of my favourite dust jacket quotes of all time ends with "...the reason that humans had decided to practice war no more was because they were so very, very good at it."
That's the main problem we have😅,if we teach about war and weapons, people will use them due to knowing they exist. If we dont teach about them, then what's to stop us from doing the same mistake again?
Well, you can.. It just needs to be world...enemy everything including all his planets ending. Though weaponry that powerful.. i'm not sure its even possible with large empire like that...
I love the way humans are portrayed here as both strange, unpredictable, and unconventional. They aren’t incredibly intelligent, but have very clever moments resulting from their ability to think outside the box. I also like that the aliens aren’t portrayed as completely devoid of emotion, but the author still manages to make the way the humans feel it very unique. This was also a very wholesome story overall, this feels like the good ending for our species!
I think we'd definitely GAF about what happened to Earth, but it was an obvious move, so we were mentally prepared for it. Like how the slow death of a loved one is as heartbreaking as a sudden, unforseen death, but it's a lot easier to cope with and move past, even though you never truly get over either. However, it might seem like we don't GAF, and I don't think we'd put much effort into trying to show that we do. Having well meaning friends constantly expressing sympathy or someone else quivering in fear would be a constant reminder of the tragedy. The Earth will reform as the twelve pieces come back together, and we'll be around to reseed life. But it will be barely recognizable, if at all.
One upside is if those twelve pieces can still reasonably fit back together, then it would cut down drastically on the initial investment of turning Terra into a Death Star.
It is to assume that the majority of the population at this point wasn't even born on earth and that those who did were evacuated in advance already. With the capabilities of evacuating entire planets in short time spans, I could even imagine that some human arks had the capabilities of evacuating central human heritage before its destruction, so that most of what would be lost would have more or less only a sentimental value. Not to forget that humans are usually not engaging in wars of genocide and the human government here is clearly not a highly militarized or fascist one. Humans usually fight wars with the intention of conquering enemy terrotize with the intent of either blackmail reparations out of the defeated enemy, which in this case wouldn't be worth it because the Karkans only produce the minimum necessity to be self-sufficent or to annex and integrate enemy terroties into their own, with in the case of empires the intent being to integrate and assimilate these territies or build vassal states out of them. So this was actually a pretty realistic outcome. The humans pushed into a total victory and fully assimilated the mightiest militarist empire of the galaxy into their own, using its former leader as a hostage and figurehead who they would use as a propaganda figure. The treatment of the karkan admiral actually reminds me of how maoist china successfully integrated the last chinese emperor into their communist society, which helped giving the government a higher level of legitimacy.
"YOU WANT SOME NAPALM? I HAVE SOME NAPALM FOR YA!" *"Paranoid" of Black Sabbath begins to play while scenes of indiscriminate violence and destruction against EVERYTHING that is not Human happens in vivid detail*
I feel like, had this NOT been a 'short' story, and we had gone deeper, the aliens would have learned that its not that humans don't give f__ks, its just that we've also mastered something called 'poker face'. I feel like humanity had that all planned-out in advance, after first learning about the Karkans, 'acceptable losses' and all. They baited them with the 'rules of engagement', knowing those idiots would scoff at them. The two leaders who stoically didn't give any f__ks? They were high-fiving the moment they left that room.
Never tell a species that tinkers for fun and has their kids well trained in multifront warfare on board games by age 10 that there are no rules. Creative warfare is not something you want to try to fight against.
Nice story. And an interesting perspective on our psychotic species. I would add one line in the end to male it more grim: "And I dread the day, if it ever comes, when they actually give a fuck."
Humanity is usually viewed by aliens in these stories like this: "Yeah, they are pretty dumb and barbaric but even the smartest lifeforms would be terrified of a Gorilla busting in a room with full armor plate carrying around a shotgun."
I love how when human spirit needed to be summed up, because nobody else knew what kind of crackhead determination would make us do this, we pointed at the honey badger. "This guy has concrete-digging claws, a feather-duster tail, and has enough crack in his system to swing on a jaguar and possibly win. And we lived with this shit. Crack runs in the Earthen bloodline."
I've seen a similar premise in the _Honor Harrington_ books; of all the colony worlds humans have populated, it's the high-gravity ones that tend to produce some of the most determined and stubborn people. And when a heavy-worlder gives you a handshake, you're very grateful that they tend to mind their grip carefully.
@@Jesus_Offical PRECISELY!! That's where my mind went. Anyone who's read any novels of dwarves should see the similarity's. Glad I'm not the only one who felt that correlation.
And just imagine how the aliens would have reacted if we hadn't seen enough and made enough alien movies to know better than to tell them we are in fact weak... And that we are also technically not the only intelligent life on our home world.
I like this. I wanted to write one where we are the only galactic species with predators as pets, and lethal predators wild on the home world. And are also the only species to live on a planet with 5 mass extinction events with us being the 6th. And how we would be perceived because if our idea of risking tasking hobbies and liking for drugs. We do things like camping, deliberately living like primitives for fun. Imagine societies so far removed from their "roots" looking at us.
"Why are there so many dead people on the side of this mountain?" "They died trying to climb it." "Oh, like long ago?" "No, actually quite recently all things considered." "Why didn't they just fly up there?" "Done that already. Wanted to climb it." "Why climb it at all then?!" "Because not many can, but if I try really hard, maybe I can. Because of the sense of accomplishing something very difficult, and nothing is more difficult than what can kill you. ... Because it's there." I could easily see this as a trait that most evolving creatures would have developed (nothing prepares you more for terrible change than constantly testing you limits)... ... but it's also one of the first things I could see being unintentionally genetically shed after thousands of years living in a technological civilization that has bypassed such needs. Until, of course, the universe throws a new unforseen curveball, as is the only true constant of our reality...
@@kaisokusekkendou1498 want a laugh, take a bunch of portland protesters, dump them in the woods and record them trying to survive camping for a few months... be like dumping those aliens out there... where as my gen... "yo, this is gonna be a blast, look at all this gear/food/etc" LOL..
It was nice to see how we practiced the past military doctrines of the powers before then like; 1. Operation fortitude by making the agri colony look like ppl were there when they weren’t 2. Scorched earth by burning all the food supplies of soon to be fallen worlds 3. Blitzkrieg by rushing behind enemy lines and destroying their food supplies 4. Napoleonic strategy by living off the land i.e. food bays on our ships
Actually, the main strategy they used was the one used by the Russians to defeat both Napoleon AND Hitler, which itself is a resource & climate based variant of the mongol tactics - keep retreating and do so at a rate your enemy does not realize they pushed too far... and then close the jaws of the trap.
They were pretty much using Fabian Tactics. Let the enemy wear out its resources for as long as you can before actually striking back. Brilliant strategy.
The reference to the honey badger... Yeh... It makes sense, those little Guys, they just straight up dont give a f***, they can anger an animal, be yeeted into the air, land, and then try again
its like watching a north american wolverine get into it with a bear... saw that as a kid and.. fuckin bear ended up castrated... swimming down river with a fucking angry little shit chasing him... "glad we are way up here... thats one angry little ball of self guided hate" yeah... that was surreal but.. also.. why tell people not to fuck with the wildlife.... never know what you may endup pissing off..
Holy cow this needs to be a movie it’s just serious enough and just funny enough that, if done right, could be one of the most successful movies of all time.
even higher gravity planets "i present to you spin launch, building a synchronized orbit base that collects solar particulates to maintain that orbit, the electromagnetic pull ray caster helping get out of orbit, yes, we have to do a three stage launch, get into an orbit and tractor beam our ships out of our own atmosphere." Everyone just looking at the ships and huge, roundabout method of getting out of orbit. Humans "can, can we study under you??"
@@tylermech66 I did in fact mean out of, as mass increases, the required amount of thrust/lift would increase, on a planet with far heavier gravity, setting up a tractor beam in the highly complex geosynchronous orbit, absolute agony as you are saying, getting a heavier ship out of orbit may be possible, essentially requiring sending hundreds of tiny drones to construct a fictional base to pull a gymnastic handoff as it would be thrusting pretty hard to counter the bonus lift, even if it could lock onto another target and pull itself like some deranged tug of war with billions of resources in one project
@@tylermech66 tldr, since I was talking about a super gravity planet and race using relays, getting people out of orbit would be harder than launching lighter and more durable construction bots to play "catch" with a high G people
@@firedirewolf But the rockets to get up from the ground into an orbit around a planet is surely harder than deorbiting a craft back down? I'm talking real rockets here, with no concern on if the craft will actually survive the trip down. And escaping the orbit to go off to other planets would still be easier than actually getting up there, right?
@@tylermech66 I was talking about getting something into and out of orbit in a planetary gravity too high for a normal rocket, the down is plenty safe but the up is the hardest part, trying to get more up in a gravity that is far worse than normal
9/19/4022 -- Today, the Infinite Admiral of the Karkan Infinite Armada said, following the destruction of Earth, "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill them with a terrible resolve."
Honestly, a follow up of this but humanity giving a fuck about *caring for others* would be neat. Like a star was becoming unstable for the isolationists, and humanity makes major priorities to move the whole civilization, when the rest of the council deemed it undoable or economical.
As wholesome as this is, I can't imagine there'd be anything less than an outcry for blood, or you know, eye for an eye. I'd imagine their homeworld would've been vanished with no less impunity than ours was
Or the very least ban every xeno from their cradle world and make it your capital. Then only allow select few of the xenos to even visit for specific events. It makes "taking their world" to a whole new level than just blowing it up
I imagine we would destroy everything and everyone on it with thrice the brutality they did, and we would kill every single one of them. Unlike them we will make it slow, and if we do let a few live they will not be treated well at all.
Maybe. Humans are sentimental beings, but at this point in our existence, a large portion of the Human population has lived off world, never having seen the Planet. I think, we can draw similar comparisons to nowadays. Say Russia bombed the US capital. The People would call for war, and the rebuttal would be grand, but I do not think that the US would actively strive to Bomb the Capital of Russia. Same principle applies with Earth. We would be at a point where, despite caring for, and being angry about the capital, we are so detached, that we will not be looking for an exact and complete replacement for it, in the form of Eye for an Eye.
@@barstool9156 - at this point a large number of Americans might want to bomb the U.S. capital themselves (not that they would want anyone else doing it). When the movie "Independence Day" came out in 1996, the scene that got cheers in the theaters was when the aliens destroyed the U.S. capitol.
in all honesty. This is exactly how I actually see the current humans and the future humans. OUR pride is almost non-existent in front of the inevitable, "why bother fighting for something if you it's already lost ".And the fact that we as a species are as united in front of a crisis as much as we can wage wars for the minute details, is honestly one of our charms IMO.
It's also our greatest strength. That we can unify so totally amd quickly is terrifying. And that we can ignore, at least for now, what should decimate us, use that pain to fuel our anger and resolve... that is doubly terrifying.
Thinking about it, the fact that so many of us agree to the conventions should actually be terrifying. We all know exactly the depths of our potential depravity and it scares even us who have gone there. We see the bottomless pit in each of us and so we hold ourselves to these rules. To protect others from us. God that's actually pretty messed up. Aliens have no idea the absolute horrors we can unleash. I'd say us biologically wasting their entire food supply was them getting off extremely easy. Imagine what Vlad the Impaler would have done.
@@carlfranz6805 I'm still waiting for the story where the humans explain how to deal with the wildlife on their world. Human: OK, so if you're dealing with this 10 foot tall 900 lbs predator with 4 inch claws either play dead, or make aloof noise to scare it away. Alien: that sounds very illogical, also why is gist small, adorable striped creature at the top of the list of dangers? Human: that's called a grizzly bear, and they can run about 40 mph. You're not gonna out run them. The little one is called a honey badger, and it will absolutely fuck everything else on this list. Honey badger don't care, it just doesn't give a shit. If you see one, just run, and pray it finds something else to eat in the meantime.
@@johnaeryns5364 Ima continue with your honey badger story Alien: How long would it take for this honey badger to give up chasing? Human: Well put it this way, if you can run till the thing dies of old age your safe if you cant then ill be at your funeral.
xenos: SCREW YOUR LAWS OF WAR! human: *slowly removes studded belt* ..... xenos: SCREW YOUR HOME PLANET AS WELL! human: ....*just puts belt back on* .......*slowly holds up a flip flop as even eldritch horrors known to earth shriek in terror*
I can see accepting surrender and absorbing the enemy’s population, even keeping the emperor around temporarily if he’s necessary. But permanently sparing the guy who ordered earth destroyed? Ha. No. Also, why the hell would humans threaten to riot if he wasn’t spared? That was dumb.
there is one thing you forget called basic human empathy; he regeretted his actions, and agreed with helping save others; he worked with the humans to do as much good as possible. while this doesn't excuse his actions, nor does it make up for them completely, you would still want to take some mercy on him if you aren't heartless
@@chronred8190 To add to this, there's plenty of moment in history where after bloody conflicts there are calls to stop the bloodshed. People that were supposed to be executed would have different punishments given.
@@chronred8190 " Oh this man murdered a bus full of children in cold blood. But he feels bad about it... we should spare him." That is how stupid that rationale sounds.
@@ashmoleproductions5407 you are exaggerating and trying to twist this; if we are to use stories and symbolism - a more fitting example would be crashing a car into a bus then spending money for the hospital bills and for the whole bus repair thing and helping get food and other things for the people that survived
Liberty or death, what we so proudly hail Once you provoke her, rattling of her tail Never begins it, never but once engaged Never surrenders, showing the fangs of rage Don’t Tread on me So be it Threaten no more To secure peace is to prepare for war So be it Settle the score Touch me again for the words that you will hear evermore Don’t Tread on me Love it or leave it, she with the deadly bite Quick is the blue tongue, forked as a lightning strike Shining with brightness, always on surveillance The eyes, they never close, emblem of vigilance So Don’t Tread on me
Holy shit that final line sent chills. "No one has ever seen humanity give a fuck since first contact. And with the power they've gained since then, I doubt they ever will."
We have a way with machines. Just trust us. We can coax more out of a busted old junk engine and a bottle of whiskey than you can out of a brand new fusion reactor. Don't believe me? Just watch.
I always love stories that have aliens go:" You have RULES for war? How dumb" Just for humans to basically do the metaphorical knuckle-crack while getting giddy like children over this perfect opportunity to "let loose" for a bit.
the greatest achievement in human history will be coming into contact with another sentient species. no matter what comes after, meeting another species will be the biggest moment in human history and can never be topped
Sure it can. At one time, the discovery of two halves of the Old World, or Africa, or the New World, Or Australia, and the people there were a huge deal for about 200 years apiece. Now nobody cares, because we have better horizons. Similarly, who would care if we discovered some "sentient" species, like a space ferret, more than a few decades later? Lots of animals are sentient, only humans are sapient, but even another sapient species is only novel or useful for so long. Odds are, that species probably won't be very useful, or it will be an active threat, and it will end up either destroying us or being as important as a disposable cup.
Well, can't blame for using the most efficient way of dealing with that situation. I mean, sure, first few hours and days after hearing those news, maybe even a week, almost any human would at least once think about exterminatus, but in the end what was chosen is the best way. It was expected loses from the start anyway, seeing how the first moves were no-trade declarations and Ark projects. Also, they were punished by becoming a part of our culture. Is it not enough of a torture in itself? :D
You must be speaking sarcastically. Look at Japan and Germany. Some the most vicious and inhumane activities used during World War 2 but wholly accepted back into civilization after the war. Additionally, the period between WW1 and WW2 illustrates that "revenge and punishment" treatment of a foe is likely to have them come back like a phoenix, forcing you to deal with it all over again.
So you think you're tough destroying holy Terra that way..... --laughs in the sound of bolter chambering--please allow me to introduce you to my 8-ft tall muscle bound clad in ceramite armor friend here, and yes he really does like to get up close and personal with that chain sword!
Nah, if it was a natural disaster I could see it, but war blowing up Earth would end in all the enemies worlds shattered. Not saying some humans would not lean this way but as a whole humanity would have gone for blood until there was nothing left of the enemy.
Maybe the humans from the other planets made that peace deal i suspect that after the peace deal humanity would go on a full scale civil war for not avenging the death of earth
Honestly, destroy our world, we will have our finest chef's create wonderful cuisines from your flesh. And eat you into extinction. While terraforming your world to suit us humans. Because, we don't give a fuck.
This is actually such a human thing to do. Like I would not be surprised if we used asymmetric war tactics in space combat. After all, we've been doing it here to each other for ages.
Humans: Let's establish rules for war. Karkarans: There will be no rules! Everyone watching: Why did the camera slowly pan and the color shift on the humans with ominous music playing?
@@hanneskarlbom6644 I don't get that feeling from this. More we will fight to the death but once the smoke clears you gotta help the ones caught in the cross fire. And extinction is a bridge too far.
I love the idea that intercontinental wars or mass genocide aren't actually considered particularly bad, and are apparently viewed as some sort of "edgy teenager" phase of development that all sentient life goes through at some point! 😂
The planet chunks would have coalesced in a clump and continued orbiting the same orbit it had before. Since they won the war, the very same grav-wave technology could have assisted them in piecing Earth back together, reheating the magma and ultimately restarting the core.
Karkan Admiral tears up document, "There will be no rules!" Fabric of reality rips slightly and John Cena's face shows through the rift. "Are you sure about that?"
The reason we never gave f@ck is because we have seen it all before, countless times in fact. Suffering and hard ship is very common with humans and we are used to it, even hundreds of years in the future we probably still remember our history because our history is what makes us human.
would be 10/10 story if not for the fact we forgave the Karkans, looking at our history we absolutely would not, we wouldn't stop until every last trace of the Karkans was purged from the face of the galaxy
FINALLY, a story that doesn’t have other alien races chastising humanity for our shaky and violent past. It always bothers me when stories do that when, by all accounts, every species out there is just as subject to the Laws of Conservation of Matter and Energy as we are and, thus, have had to take drastic actions against others due to scarcity of resources. If anything, I feel the alien races out there will see the state of humanity right now and feel sympathy, knowing that they were once at that stage and will simply hope that we make the right choices to rise above these eras of division.
