“Humanity manages to conquer the galaxy while acting solely in self defense.” -u/Mister_Phantom, original post here.
September 9, 2433, was the day that we finally reached out to the stars. We were ecstatic. The world gathered in hushed awe as our first ship with FTL capabilities launched, and we shot out faster than reality should have allowed into that inky black void.
Captain Johnathan McKinley returned to Earth orbit on the same day that he left, and with him came the representatives from the Galactic Council. The world changed, that day. We had passed the barrier of entry, and we were now considered a heightened species. Even now, it seems surreal.
But of course, where there are resources, there is war. And when a fledgling race becomes heightened, they present a whole world of pre-prepared resources ready to be swindled away. Soon, we were onset by everything from predatory trading partners to outright pirates. The economy was crashing. Something had to be done.
The inciting event was the attempted kidnapping of the World President on April 23, 2440. Some small-time raider with high ambitions borrowed tech from another race, and teleported our leader away in the middle of a speech, demanding a ransom. It was an insult, and an affront to everything that we had fought so hard to build. We didn’t let it stand. The President herself signed off on the order from her cellphone, read off the launch codes from memory. We exterminated the raider with extreme prejudice, and the Vice President stepped forward to fill his predecessor’s shoes.
It was self defense. It was about sending a message—that we were not to be trifled with. It was never about saving out President, but about preventing anyone else from ever being attacked again. It was self defense.
It wasn’t enough. Four months later, August 31, 2440. We reverse engineered the remnants of the teleporter that the raiders had used, and traced it back to it’s race of origin. When we confronted them about it, they denied their involvement. They refused to cooperate with our investigation, and they refused to institute safeguards to prevent such a tragedy from occurring again. Their ambassador gave us his sly smile, telling us that we couldn’t prove anything. That night, he was assassinated. On September 1, 2440, we began our first war against another race. It was launched in the name of self defense.
On September 9, 2440, the enemy gave us their unconditional surrender. The anniversary of our heightening was not lost on us. Following the Eight-Day War, we reduced them back to pre-heightening levels of technology. They were still part of the galactic community, technically, but we stripped them of everything that could be weaponized, imposed sanctions, stationed permanent military orbital cruisers—they were nothing compared to what they had been.
That was how it had to be. We couldn’t allow them to attack us again. It was done in self defense.
Of course, that wasn’t the end of it. They had allies and trading partners, and we were still the new kids on the block. We had shown some prowess, yes, but there was no way that we could stand against the might of a small interstellar alliance. The retaliatory strike came swiftly.
On September 11, 2440, we spotted the incoming fleet at the edge of our solar system. The fired off a missile at the Honorary Planet, Pluto, as they passed. It was a weapons test, meant to show off their military prowess and to intimidate us. It reduced our favorite planetoid to a far-flung strip of gravel and ice ringing the sun. In addition to an outright attack in our solar system, they were attacking our culture. That was all the excuse that we needed.
They were annihilated, in the truest sense of the word. We had been doing some weapon tests of our own. Turns out, ours were better. There wasn’t a followup fleet. Instead, there were hushed discussions throughout the galactic community, as other spacefaring civilizations began to look at us with a degree of respect, and of fear.
We had acted in self defense. That much was clear. But still, we were threatening. On December 14, 2440, Talks about restricting our weapons development programs began. On December 28, they ended with our refusal. Where were those restrictions when we were investigating the loss of our President, we asked? Where were those restrictions when an invading race used overzealous military force against one of our cultural heritage sites? No, we wouldn’t restrict our weapons. We were a young race, but we were far from naive.
Tensions grew over time. There were occasional attacks against us, which we shot down in self defense. There were occasional attempts to remove our presence from the homeworld of the race we had conquered, which were similarly unsuccessful. A powder keg was forming.
On April 23, 2442, there was an attack on Earth soil. On the anniversary of our late President’s demise, an undercover alien agent launched an attempt on her successor’s life. The attempt failed, and the would-be assassin was dragged kicking and screaming into custody. There, after being extensively interrogated, they revealed their master plan: On the edges of the solar system, surrounding us, was a fleet the size of which the galaxy had never seen. A coalition of concerned races, banded together against humanity, cloaked and awaiting the signal to descend upon us while we were distracted by the loss of our world leader. For our own self defense, we needed to act.
It only took us six hours to prepare. We gave another twelve hours for civilians to get into shelters, and then we sent the signal ourselves.
The April 24 War is known throughout the galaxy as the single greatest upset in military history. One planet, less than a decade after being heightened, fended off an attack from the combined might of the Galactic Council. Hundreds of thousands of cruisers were shot down. Billions of lives were ended. Some civilizations had committed their entire military fleets to the battle, and they were left defenseless in the wake of their defeat.
Of course, we suffered heavy losses ourselves. 27% of the population, focused primarily in super-urban areas. 12% of habitable landmass, irreparably destroyed. So much death, all reduced to numbers and statistics. We, as a people, mourned. But still, we had won. When the aliens came, we acted in self defense, and we brought death and ruin down upon them.
And it still wasn’t the end. The broken fleet fled, limping back to their home systems and calling urgent meetings, trying to ascertain how much damage they had done. It wasn’t until they were home that they realized that when they had fled, we had followed.
Civilizations were razed. Planets crumbled before us. Entire races were wiped out. There is no Galactic Council, anymore. There is only the Collective of Mankind, and the lower races that have sworn their fealty to us.
We aren’t cruel. We helped rebuild, where we could. We showed mercy, where we could. And we made sure that when we did, the civilizations that had acted against us got the message: Your lives, your families, your culture, your entire planet still exists because we have chosen to spare you. Stay in line.
It was self defense.
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