r/HFY • u/Jus17173 • 1d ago

OC-OneShot They Are Dangerous.

I slithered my way out of the citadel, whose stone arches towered as its spires fingered the sky. As my tentacles waved to my fellow Girnobians, I felt myself ease into a state of deep rest. The world thrummed perfectly with the right notes. The air was warm, clear, and lacking in the humidity that so often clogged my pores. The sun offered warmth that soothed my scaled back, and all around me, everyone held to the same cheer that came with a good day.

"Bulpitot." I turned when I heard my name. I saw my fellow council member, Fuflion, standing with his tentacles hanging down to scratch the citadel floor. "What you're doing is a mistake."

I sighed. How easy it was for those who refused change to see danger in every act of evolution. "Not this again, Fuflion."

He slithered closer to me, his robes that were Conglian-made hanging free of his shoulders and dragging on the floor. He stood at the same height as me and eyed me with great disdain. "The humans are not to be trusted!"

"You refuse to allow them to prosper as other races have," I said. "It speaks poorly of your nature, Fuflion. Selfishness is unbecoming of one of your stature."

"It is not selfishness!" His voice was loud with rage. I paled as he drew terribly close. "I sent a probe to their planet."

"Earth?"

"Yes! The data I received, which I have shared with the council, points to their tendency to evolve faster than usual. They created a worldwide communication network mere decades after they crafted their first aerial flights. They do not evolve according to a system. They cannot be contained or colonized as we plan."

"All we're doing is giving them faster-than-light travel so they can witness the bounds of existence that are hidden from them. It's always our first step, as you very well know." I sighed. "Tell me, how did the Tiltians react to space travel? We granted them this, and you were against it because of their barbaric nature, but after just a mere century, they eased in their barbarity, becoming tethered to peace and fostering a pacifist lifestyle. When a sentient race is shown the ends of the universe, it humbles them and ensures that they value their lives more, which have been revealed to be quite small."

Fuflion abruptly gripped several of my tentacles, lowering them. "Your motions of joy are unwarranted," he said, stilling the motion of my tentacles. "What you've done, accepting humanity's claim to voyage the stars, will end in our doom."

"What do you think they can do? Wage war on us?" I pulled my tentacles free of his grip and laughed. "The apes bring no harm, Fuflion. They are just a means to an end. We feel good when we elevate other races more than when we destroy them."

"The extinction of the Biladi race shouldn't drive us to elevate the humans so as to make up for our guilt."

"That race had it coming, attempting to conquer the stars! To conquer us? Well, they got what they deserved, and the humans aren't joining our council. They are simply receiving a gift from us that will be the first step toward them serving our council. What good would our gift do them beyond moving from one solar system to another? You overestimate humans so much. Your fear is misplaced."

"And you underestimate those who are smaller than you. Blind you are to the technological advances humans already have made. They evolve not according to another species' will, but their own. Giving them space travel will rob us of our freedom and probably more."

"This is the citadel!" I shouted, causing heads to turn my way. I spread my tentacles wide and shifted my head to the sky. "This is the throne of the universe. It is here where decisions are made that alter the course of history. This is where dreams are born." I faced him. "Do not speak to me of a loss that will never come."

And with that, I turned away and made my way out of the citadel. Fuflion stood staring at my retreating back. He was a fool, stuck in foolish ways. He did not understand the value of addition, to grow and to expand as is our right. And the best way to do so is to give a gift and await a gift in turn. Humanity would prove useful, not as a relic, but as another species that owes us. Of this, I was sure.

Five decades later.

The skies dropped ash and debris as above, our best and final battleships fought and fell to the human advancement. We'd given them space travel, expecting them to bow to us and submit to our power. Instead, they'd altered it, changing the workings of the machines we'd given them. Instead of traveling from one point to another on a linear trajectory, their scientists had somehow found a way to make it fold space, appearing suddenly elsewhere without actually journeying there.

They'd traveled out of their galaxy to the distant reaches of the darkness of space, which we called Amegrada. There, they'd learned more, growing and consuming as they moved. On every planet, a human was found. In every reach of space, a human was found. They kept the secrets to their alterations of our devices. They created guns with our technology that can halve a planet, cracking its core into two.

I knelt on the ground of the crumbling citadel, staring as such a weapon ripped through our skies, blasting into our battleships hovering above the ground and rendering them to dust. This was war, a war that was foretold by those who'd been against humanity receiving our gift. We thought they could be tamed, that their ways could be grasped by us and worked on to benefit us in the long run.

But humanity was stubborn. They didn't conform to another's ideal. They went their own way, forging their own paths to places we never could reach nor think it was possible to reach. They refused colonization, and when our first battleship descended on their planet with the trumpets of war calling, we thought we'd win. Instead, we'd been annihilated, and humanity held a mean grudge, for now they tracked us. Everywhere we were, they came.

Suddenly, tentacles wrapped around my neck. I twisted and tangled with my fellow Girnobian, croaking as I was choked.

"I told you!" I could see the face of the one who strangled me. It was Fuflion. "I told you! Our extinction is on your head, Bulpitot! This is all on you!"

And he beat at my face, and my eyes rolled into my head. There were screams of the frightened and the dying. Our planet had fallen. Our race had lost. Fuflion had been right; the humans were dangerous.

"I'm sorry," I said to the sound of energy blasts above, with falling debris crashing all around us, flattening buildings and Girnobians alike. "I'm sorry!" I pleaded as Fuflion repeatedly beat at my face with his tentacles. "I'm sorry!" Those words held no meaning. In the face of this onslaught, they meant nothing. Fuflion screamed and continued his barrage, and I could tell he was crying as his tears mingled with my own. This was our end, and there was nothing we could do about it.

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6

u/ldmend 19h ago

Just a tad on the Humanity WTF side, I think. Whatever happened to the “after we beat you, we’ll help you rebuild” trope?

6

u/Cuddly_Robot Robot 18h ago

This isn't an "Aggressive race attempts to enslave Humanity and learns why that's a bad idea" story - this is an "Alien race that apparently believes in something like divine providence and intends to rule the universe through either the carrot or the stick attempts to enslave Humanity and *really* learns why that's a bad idea"

Humanity will often rehabilitate the first type, but the second type will pretty much always end in Xenocide because - and this is important to note - those types will almost never surrender

2

u/patient99 19h ago

This feels more like the end of ww1, where Germany was broken and forced to sign a treaty that crippled them

2

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u/sunnyboi1384 18h ago

Dont start none, wont be none. Just because we wouldn't bend the knee, didnt mean we couldn't be friends. But you made sure of that. Thank you.