Chapter 111 (1/2)

There are weapons in the Terran arsenal that those of us of other species would shy away from possessing. Weapons of such terrible power that they risk entire planets, entire planes of reality, risk everything you could possibly imagine.

It is easy to see a Terran, jaunting about the galaxy without a care in the world, eagerly throwing themselves into danger for fun, for respect, for profit, and think they are silly and vapid. If you have been to Terra, you know of the insanity of their species, that their capacity for self-delusion knows no bounds. It is easy to look at their history and decide that they doubtfully are half-crazed.

You would not be wrong.

Terrans are half mad. They have pursued technological developments and theories beyond any that any other species has bothered with. No, not bothered with, dared to research. They discovered how to make themselves nearly immortal and shrunk back from it, as the idea of an immortal Terran is frightening to them. To the risks they take, to the joy the approach life and exploration with.

Terrans are big believers in risk, in taking chances. Much of their philosophy centers around 'no risk - no gain' and 'glory exists in the minds of others forever and females enjoy the appearance of tissue scarring' as well as a belief that what they are currently facing might not kill them.

I, personally, have witnessed a human stare at a tall mountain and ask me if I wished to climb it with them. For what reason? Because it is there. For the 'thrill' of it.

Now, you might be asking why this is important. Well, it is simple.

Terrans believe that there are three parts to a weapon. The ability to manufacture it, the ability to deliver it, and the will to use it.

As you have learned in previous lessons, for the majority of the galactic community, less than 0.01% of a population is able to engage in hyperviolent activities such as war. Less than 0.12% can even engage in violence without serious emotional injury that can require extreme therapy to ease.

For humans it is different. Every single human you ever encounter, read about, see at a distance, or hear of, is capable of violence. Physical, political, emotional, philosophical, and, yes, lethal violence. The majority will not, but humans have something called 'being pushed' and 'across the line' that means, basically, that if you antagonize a human beyond a certain point, and each human is different*, then they will respond with some type of violence. Additionally, their escalation and transfer of violence happens rapidly.*

The most peaceful and kind human you may ever meet, who weeps over the slightly emotional, political, philosophical, or ethical violence done to them is capable of reacting with lethal violence under stressors.

You may be asking why this is part of this lecture. Well, your confusion will only deepen as I go into human history.

Humans are a young race. They have possessed actual spaceflight for less than 10,000 of their years. Five hundred generations (Human life expectancy was, as recently as 12,000 years ago, measured in a mere handful of decades) ago for them.

Less than 30,000 years ago, they were largely hunter gatherer. You heard that right, hunter gatherer. They quickly moved to agricultural, then metal working, then industrial. It is here that many species end up choking themselves on toxic clouds and poisoning their water. This hurdle was overcome and they made it to the atomic technologies. From there to the information edge. Each hurdle, humans approached faster and faster. Rather than backing off from dangerous technologies until they could overcome the hazardous sections, they jumped to developing technologies to overcome the hazards, faster and ever faster.

To understand humans deeper, you must understand that as recently as 11,000 years ago they were still split into geological region groupings. In order to protect hunting areas and, later, resource extraction areas, they were forced to use violence. Despite the fact they are a ”post-scarcity” race and culture, they still violently protect their regions.

We must, as student and educators, admit that humans did not have a warm welcome to the galaxy. Where the majority of our varying species were allowed to explore and settle planets in peace, sometimes for thousands of years, only moving to a new planet when population growth demanded it, humans found themselves under attack from other species within a hundred years.

Once they developed space travel, rather than seek out other areas of exploration, they spent decades building massive fortresses and combat fleets before journeying out into the greater reaches of space again.

Due to this factor, human technological development did not stop when it came to weapon technology. They continued to develop ever more powerful weapons, ever stronger weapon technology, armor, shields. Faster engines, new alloys, new ways of traveling.

And in doing so, they created weapons weapons of great and terrible power.

Yes, every species has developed their own versions of the so called 'planet-cracker' as well as methods of 'glassing' a planet.

You must understand, students, that Terrans developed every single known type on their own and improved upon them.

But those are not the types of weapons, class, we will be discussing. Every race has a planet-cracker, a planet duster, a glassing weapon. The Terrans have weaponized peaceful technologies.

There is a saying: A tool is only a tool until you need to kill someone and then it makes a marvelous weapon. A Terran saying, true.

Which brings us to the saying that involves our subject. The most dangerous weapon that Terrans possess.

The saying, students, is simple: There are no dangerous weapons/technologies/items, merely dangerous Terrans.

Why? On the evolutionary scale your various races took millions of years, hundreds of thousands of years, to merely approach each Paradox Boundary. There was the subtle hand of micro-evolution, to encourage cooperation, trust, hegemony. Without exception the invention of basic agriculture resulted, then, in hundreds of thousands of years, possibly millions, before the wide-spread adoption of smithing base primitive metals.

Every one of your ancestor spent more time arguing over whether or not the plow would be too disruptive to your society than humans did going from primitive planting to detonating atomic weapons upon their own cities.

I will wait for you to recover because you heard that right, the first use of atomic power was first a weapons test and then two detonations upon human cities during a war.

Interestingly, this may have actually been a boon to their species. By detonating only two, it made the Terrans aware of the damage and horror of atomic weapon use. This use may have been why they passed that Paradox Filter, because they understood, at more than an academic level, what kind of damage atomic weapons could provide.

But no, they did not turn away from the possibility of using atomics as some of you with raised hands are likely to suggest. Instead, they armed wildly. With only one world, they prepared, if necessary, to destroy that world in order to save it according to ethos.

Which is why, if you continue to study humans, both academically and empirically, that you understand a simple thing about humans.

That they will destroy anything that threatens them. A human will fight a planet and declare victory if he adapts to it or forces it to adapt to him.

That, dear students, brings us back to weapons of such terrible power, that no other race has been willing to use them.

A Terran.