9th July 2012
06:35 GMT
I open my eyes, blinking at the light-. I'm in space, right. Ring?
Inbound communication. No movement of Leentniar ships detected.
Answer.
"Illustres. I have… An observation, regarding our situation."
I undo the clamps I used to anchor myself to a piece of rock floating through the system I'm keeping an eye on. I don't have any trouble sleeping in space, but I've yet to develop the skill of sleeping without some sort of surface. Plus, it helps mask my heat and light radiation.
"And what's that?
"
"We have both assumed that the Leentniar would continue with their previously observed behaviour. But in this region the Reach have only expanded."
"As opposed to..?
"
"Temporarily retreated. The Reach have known setbacks before. The Leentniar simply had the misfortune to be in a region where that hasn't happened."
"Alright.
"
"L.E.G.I.O.N. ships in this region recently enforced a member world's territorial claims against a Reach 'trade mission'. The Reach-affiliated ships were destroyed or fled."
"And that's the first time they could have seen that?
"
"I… Can't say that for certain, but based on their known movement patterns it seems likely."
"So… What, you think they're heading home because they know that the Reach are beatable? That doesn't seem-.
"
"No, of course not. But it might prompt them to speak to the Reach directly."
"Directly?
"
"We don't know how they view the Reach. But they are the only outside influence they allow to affect them."
"I see what you mean. The Reach define how their civilisation works. And we know that the Reach don't have any problem with using auxiliaries. But why would they bother?
"
"Additional weaponry or other supplies. Perhaps some form of exotic transportation or an interdiction field bypass."
"To quote Tuvok; 'a logical, though highly speculative, analysis'. And I'm not hearing an application.
"
"We know where the closest Reach-inhabited worlds are, and we know where the closest 'pacified' worlds are. There could well be records there that would give us more information."
"There would also be fleets, defence networks and scarab warriors.
"
"There are ways to bypass those."
"Yes, and I'm pretty sure
I could manage them. You haven't had that ring for
nearly long enough. Do you know how many Orange Lanterns have died in this war so far?
"
"Yes. Zero."
"And I intend to keep it that way for a little while longer. The Reach aren't a group of minor pirates who don't bother with data security.
"
"Neither are the Spider Guild. Or the Psions."
"Only the Psions really compare, and they
never had the population, mental flexibility or industrial capacity that the Reach do. Or anything like their experience with Lanterns.
"
"'Use orange lasers' hardly requires Coluan intellect."
"It does if you actually want to
hit anything. Orange lasers barely even work for point defences; they go
through constructs.
"
I pause for a moment to think. I know where the nearest Reach world is without needing to stare into space; unlike Psions, Reachians are actually fairly nice to each other. Unlike the Leentniar they have a functioning civil society. They've pretty much perfected the
dual moral standard. Their serfs… I can feel them too, though they have a good deal less orange in them. When we start liberating those worlds I want to make sure that their behaviour is fully documented, so I can use it to browbeat anyone who questions my use of the orange light on a philosophical level.
But with regard to the actual issue under discussion: is it a good idea for me to appear on a Reach world? The Reach know that we can do things like that, but they must also know that there's some sort of limitation to the ability due to the way we don't use it all the time. If I do it carrying no other equipment and… Don't immediately jam all communications and kill all life on the planet, I'll be giving them a good idea that it's a me-only thing. Might be worth suggesting to Dox that I jump a fleet or two around without being outside the ships, so that it looks like it's not dependent on me.
"I'm going to say 'no', not without stronger evidence that we'd actually get something useful out of it.
"
"I understand. I'll keep working on creating a way to detect their spatial distortion drives at extreme range."
"Any thoughts on whether they'll swarm a place en masse or probe it first?
"
"There are no records of them sending in the industrial portions of their fleet until after the target is thoroughly defeated. I believe that they will send a fleet that is strong enough to do the job but which won't be a critical loss if it is destroyed. Are we planning on destroying it?"
"We're having a plan to do that. But my preference is to negotiate either their surrender or an alliance.
"
"How will our local affiliates feel about that?"
"About as happy as Commodore Amalak was about me negotiating terms with the Spider Guild, I imagine. They might make a noise, but by definition, the people they've acted against are either dead or under Reach dominion now. The worst they've done to anyone in L.E.G.I.O.N. is light commerce raiding, and they can pay reparations for that.
"
"The Queen had to be comprehensively defeated before she would agree to that."
"The Guildmasters had to be killed before the Queen was in a
position to agree to that. And it's not as if I
can't defeat the Leentniar. That's just a sub-optimal outcome.
"
"Will you be encouraging them to agree with you?"
"No. Quite aside from the fact that a culture secure enough to fend off Reach social conditioning efforts would have protocols in place to prevent me doing that, I want to make it an honest choice.
"
"As you did with the Citadelians."
"Quite. There's a book I read a few years ago. I think it was called 'Hyperion'..? Something like that. One of the characters had an interesting interpretation of a famous passage from one of my planet's religious books. The classical interpretation is that by not forcing Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, God showed mercy to a faithful man. The reinterpretation was that Abraham wanted to know if this new god was worth worshipping. If he maintained his demand for human sacrifice then he clearly
wasn't. Abraham was genuinely willing to kill his son to gain that knowledge; God demonstrated that he was worth worshipping by not insisting that he go through with it.
"
"Both I and the orange light respect people who follow their desires. That doesn't mean giving them free rein under any circumstances. Some desires are mutually exclusive. If a person wants to stay true to their faith rather than amend it and live, I respect that. And I kill them, or they kill me. I only ask people to think things through before committing. I-.
"
My ring blinks again, images of the Leentniar ships momentarily replacing Lantern Gozzi's head. Not in a system either of us are in, but we can get there before they reach the only inhabited planetoid.
"Will continue this later.
"
Not the best example...