"No. This wasn't the first time I've seen this."
"The Sheeda?"
A reasonable guess. But shit can get
this fucked up even in accidents.
"That was the first time I saw industrial murder supported by an entire civilisation. But the first time I saw a lot of dead people in one place was after an apartment fire in Lahore. I'd been Superman for about two years at the time. I saw the news on television, flew there as fast as I could, and..."
I nod. "I remember reading about that. Ah. Do you want to talk about why I did what I did here, or do you want to leave it?"
I don't doubt the firefighters on the scene there did all they could to comfort him, too. And they'd probably seen worse.
He looks down at the ground, eyes narrowing as he combines x-ray and telescopic vision to take in as much as possible.
"Does this sort of thing happen a lot out here?"
There's shit on the internet that makes you wonder who would
film things like what they did...
And simply, some people
are that fucked up...
"If you mean 'somewhere in the universe', then, probably. If you mean 'do I have to deal with it regularly', no. There was… Something not too dissimilar when we were fighting the Reach at the very edge of their territory, but Vega wasn't this bad."
"That part of the Guild didn't eat people?"
...Not once the Queen took over, at least.
"That part of the Guild had run out of people to eat and were realistic about their circumstances." I shrug as we watch the Spider Guild ships under the Queen's authority come in to land. "And the Queen hadn't really had any choice in her diet prior to their Elder's deaths."
"Okay. Could you have stunned the Elder?" I glance-. "I'm not saying that you should have, I'm asking if you could."
If the extra moment let him finish the bite he was starting on that child? Would you take that chance?
"Almost certainly. It would have taken me an extra fraction of a second which might have given the robots time to shoot a hostage or two, but I'm aware that there's a difference between killing someone and failing to save them. But if I had… What happens then?"
"You tell me."
Remember, Clark: No Geneva Conventions out here. For some races, lives are
cheap.
"Feigning surrender is a war crime on Earth, though I can't immediately call to mind any trials taking place."
"I don't think he surrendered."
Just the opposite, I believe. Going by the dialogue yesterday, he was basically rebelling against the others' decision to give in.
"Then it's treason during wartime, and that will get you executed in America too. The other Elders had surrendered, and that's usually definitive. Even if I'd taken him alive, he'd have been executed… Well, now, and frankly keeping him under control would have been a distraction."
"And the wounded spider?"
Wrong place, wrong moment. If that had been the
last chamber to be cleared, he might have been lucky to live...
"He knew what the Elders had decided. He backed the renegade faction. I don't think that the Queen will demand the death of everyone here, but any senior people who are still alive are probably…"
Ring, summary of Spider Guild punishments?
...Is it going to be something Clark won't really
want to watch?
"Apparently, the Spider Guild version of 'decimation' is 'halving'."
"Will she do that?"
For reference, he means 'decimation' as in 'removing one tenth of the whole'. What it
actually meant before people began to use it in a hyperbolic fashion....
"If she wants to keep control, she'll… Have to at least do something along those lines. And if she.. doesn't, then she's in violation of her treaty obligations with her new neighbours and they might decide to finish this place off for her."
"How many worlds does the Spider Guild control?"
If nothing else, it'll make it easier for her to control them if they're
her offspring, with her programming.
"I don't know. I know it's at least two hundred and-" He twitches. "-eighty. The actual… Core of their space along with what is probably their homeworld is a long way from here, but they're willing to travel very long distances."
"What do they eat there?"
With a population that large? Probably anything they
can.
"Oh, they have a licensing system for importers. My personal suspicion is that they maintain a breeding population, but that's more because I've tried to think how I'd handle it if I were them than any actual intelligence."
I give a black-humoured laugh as the ship lands and the Queen exits the landing ramp.
Let's hope they aren't
quite that intelligent.
It would make it all the more
horrific.
"Of course, you have to remember that they not species-prejudiced. They'll eat each other, too. One of their insults is 'you're so stupid that even your mate wouldn't eat you'."
"Yes, I-."
Gee, how
delightful. But I expect they'd rather have non-Spider flesh if they could.
The Queen picks up the most senior surviving member of the garrison and shoves his head into her mouth, holding his convulsing body in her hands as she chews at a leisurely pace.
"I see. And you're okay with this."
...It says a lot that he's simply
watching this, and not looking away or moving to stop her. Probably too fatigued by the things he's seen today...
"If I was okay with it, I wouldn't have intervened. I'm not okay with piracy and cannibalism. That meant that the Guild had to go. I'd prefer to avoid extermination where reform is possible, which means defeating them and handing them over to the Queen because she's the only person they'll accept."
"Why not just isolate them?"
...Even though acceptance probably means a good chance of being devoured. Alien mindsets and moralities...
"Because space is really big. And while individual septs don't mind other septs getting knocked back every so often, they will send a relief force if aliens look like they're going to knock one out. And because without a plan they probably would end up eating each other because they're dependent on imports. And because all the local stellar nations want them destroyed. And because the Orange Lantern Corps is too busy with the Reach to intervene in force, and the Reach are worse."
Sort of a 'we may not like those guys, but we can't let the
food think they can fight back against us all.' logic, then. Half of their power comes from other species
fear of being captured by them...
"Worse than a civilisation of cannibals?"
"The Spider Guild rarely exterminates intelligent species. The Reach does as a matter of course. We actually.. have interview recordings of species on the verge of extinction, and they're so brainwashed that they're happy about it. And…"
Going to their deaths with a smile, huh? At that point, they're probably better off dead anyway...
I make a helpless gesture with both arms as the Queen keeps eating.
"This is me trying to be nice."
I'm guessing there would be a lot more
orange if he weren't.
"What would you have done before the JSI?"
"Not sure. Killed them all and then destroyed the fleets of the nearest septs so they didn't have reinforcements to send, maybe. How about you?"
...Which would probably result in you having to go after their neighbours, and then the neighbours after that to stop a chain of reprisals.
Respect to the man, he hesitates and thinks about it.
"If I hadn't seen this, I think I'd have crippled their ships and space stations and hoped they'd have the sense to quit."
They wouldn't. Sadly, they would
not quit. And I think you realise that
now.
"And the relief force?"
"I'd have tried to convince the locals to prepare to fight them, and try warning them off myself."
That would just get you shot in the face with their biggest gun... They need to send a message, after all...
"Kal-El, this isn't just a group of raiders, this would be an actual military force. You aren't immune to levels of energy their main weapons can discharge. Spider Guild ships are heavily automated, so they aren't slowed by organic response times. I strongly recommend not trying to fight entire warfleets."
"Sometimes, you don't have a choice."
...That much is true, yes. But it's still better to not
have to in the first place.
"Sometimes, you have a choice and don't see it."
I shake my head.
"I killed a wounded man I could have healed and killed people I could have contained. And for the life of me I can't see a better solution."
And that's at the root of this whole issue, isn't it? You
want to be able to see a better way, but life just won't play along...
