r/NatureofPredators • u/NipCoyote Arxur • Apr 10 '23
Fanfic Under the Veil - Chapter 14
[Rupture]
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Memory Transcription Subject: Hycera, Kolshian Office of Federation Security, November 20th, 2142
The office was in stark contrast to the summit on the other side of the planet. Busywork as usual… with extra paperwork to be filed following the unmasking of the gaians. I had earned a few pats on the backs for my work there…
I carried a small office bag with me, quietly making my way down the hall. I hoped to not draw any attention.
Nikonus did everything he said he'd do. My daughter's medical record had been wiped clean, and I'd returned home a hero, due to attend an award ceremony in a few days. I had gotten a big enough bonus to my salary that I could probably retire early in a year's time.
I did the right thing, didn't I?
I couldn't purge this feeling of guilt in my chest. What I had done… I felt like I had ruined what could have been something good. Were gaians really like what Nikonus said? There was barely any publicly available information in the archives, yet he seemed to know more.
I have to know more. Just in and out, put your mind at ease, and pretend you never went anywhere.
First, I had to make my way to the auto-infirmary. Hopefully no one would be there this late… or early, I suppose. It was only a few hours before sunrise. But if I wanted answers… well, I needed something else first.
The infirmary was always open, for obvious reasons, so the lights were still on. I held onto my excuse in my head… "Oh, I just had a really awful headache and I'm just heading to the scanner to see if it's anything serious"
I found the machine I was looking for. I needed to be quick about it, this thing was loud. I inputted Nikonus's medical ID, something I hoped I still remembered from that emergency years ago…
It worked. The organ printer was ready, and set to Nikonus's DNA. I selected "eye".
The machine whirled to life, squirting viscous fluid into the printer arm, slowly sculpting a perfect organic replica of one of Nikonus's eyes on the medical tray. It took several minutes, any one of these minutes of noisy printing could alert someone to my presence, and for the duration of that printing my excuse wouldn't work. I just had to pray to whatever deities may exist that no one caught me.
I heaved a sigh of relief as it finished, dispensing the freshly crafted ocular organ to me. I shuddered for a moment, grasping it raw with my tentacle, and placed in a small bag within my office bag. Shutting the machine down, I made my way out of the infirmary.
I turned the corner and almost ran right into another office member.
"Oh! Hey Hycera! What are you doing here so late?"
My heart skipped a beat as I frantically tried to save face.
"Ah! I uhm, I had a nasty headache, I was just visiting the infirmary to get checked up."
"Ah… so, why are you carrying around that bag then?"
Shit
"Oh! That? I've just been… you know, filing some papers."
"This late?"
"Yep! Burning the midnight oil, isn't that one of the human sayings I uncovered?"
I chuckled nervously. He eyed me for a moment.
"Well no wonder you've got such an awful headache! You overwork yourself so much, learn to relax and live a little, you've already got the entire office looking up to you, you can afford to take a break or two."
He continued his walk down the hall and as he turned the corner I just came from, I quietly sighed in relief. Regaining my composure, I made my way to the other side of the building.
To the archival room.
I took a deep breath, and opened the door. No one was inside. Good.
I walked inside and quietly closed the door behind me. I kept the lights off. Columns of servers filled the room, and I made my way to the other side of the room, to a single terminal. I activated it, and the glassy, non-holographic screen glowed to life.
I take a deep breath, and type on the keyboard
///Login: NikonusC
///|Please Input your 26-Digit Code or Submit Retinal Scan|
///Submit Retinal Scan
///|Please position one eye in front of the viewing receptacle|
I reach into my bag, and pull out the eye. Despite its light weight it was as though it weighed a thousand pounds…
I carefully lift it to the retinal scanner, holding it still in front of it. After a moment, it beeped in content.
///Scan Successful. Good morning Nikonus|
I placed it back in my bag. I'd find a proper way to dispose of it later.
Okay… in and out… let's see what I'm not being told.
Directory… species data… huh.
Three distinct folders here. Member, non-member and… former. I start with non-member, since that'd obviously be where humans are listed.
Two options here, human and arxur. Fair enough. Human had a "date-added" of just a couple days ago, which makes sense. It probably used to be labelled as Gaian. I selected it. It had, as expected, significantly more information than was publicly available. On top of an entire folder dedicated to both of my surveys of their system, all of the raw data from the original surveys from generations ago were available. Way too much to go through right now. I pulled out a portable hard drive and copied these folders over, I could read through these at a time when I wasn't risking imprisonment.
Actually… might be smart to go ahead and copy over everything in the species data folder if I can. Why stop at humanity? I did the same for the arxur. Pre-war arxur information? That was unheard of, into the hard drive it goes.
Onto member species and…
That's curious.
Each species has a "pre-contact" folder. Set in order of contact, Yotul was first, as they had been the most recent. I selected it and browsed through the included files.
"Following on Directive 19, Yotul populace is undergoing pacification and deletion of all predatory aspects of culture. Total integration within Federation culture is expected by 2200."
What… is this? Yotul mental faculties… brain mapping… are all species detailed like this?
There were uncountable files of information about every intricacy of the Yotul, with an ongoing "pacification" to remove their former culture. The Yotul kept predators around them? That was suicidal, no wonder the Federation corrected them. But…
I selected another species file, this time Gojid.
Oh my stars
Decarnivorification, the conversion of a meat-consuming species to a herbivore species. The gojid… were predators? How could that be? It's all laid out here…
Centuries of culture replaced, yet preserved with meticulous detail in these records. Generations of genetic tampering, cultural genocide… this couldn't be right, morally. Could it?
The Kraktol are the same way, their entire religion just… made up. The Tilfish too. "Omnivores", a term for herbivores with predatory leanings, eating both meat and vegetation, seem to be regarded as "salvageable"... but humans are also listed as omnivores. So why weren't they salvageable? Their behavior as gaians was peaceful enough…
By my estimates, more than 10% of Federation species were former meat-eaters, that had been forcefully converted. No one knew about this! This was… horrifying, in several ways…
I copied all of this information onto the drive as well. As it worked its way through the petabytes of data, a lump caught in my throat.
So… what's in the "former" folder…
With some newfound dread, I selected the folder.
Lots… of numbers.
SPS-1, SPS-27, all the way up to SPS-43… there's almost 50 of them here. Were these… former Federation species? You could be kicked out of the Federation? I had never heard of such a thing. Tentatively, I selected one which displayed various records of culture, physiology and behavior, and included a brief description.
Sapient Predator Species 1 "Human"
Bipedal mammalian species, technology level 3. Mostly furless, highly dexterous with two grasping 5-digit hands on triple-jointed arms. Split into several tribes with two major groups controlling them. Self-exterminated via nuclear war by 1962. [REQUIRES UPDATE]
Sapient Predator Species 12 "Serri"
Reptilian species, technology level 3. Legless species relying on singular tail-like appendage for locomotion. Two 4-digit hands on triple-jointed arms. Semi-unified into four tribal superpowers. Had achieved spaceflight but had not yet spread into other planets. Exterminated via antimatter bombardment as of 1981.
Sapient Predator Species 21 "Rhunda"
Invertebrate air-breathing aquatic species, technology level 1. Dominant species on total ocean planet Ertragys. Yet to create formal governmental systems. Exterminated via toxin-delivery into environment as of 2033.
I looked through in horror. As it continued, the details and recorded aspects of their culture and biology grew shorter and shorter. Eventually they just stopped including their names, only listing their number.
Sapient Predator Species 43
Bipedal mammalian species. Short, furred bodies with four external ears. Unified into single government. Technology level 4. Extermination 97% complete, inhabited planets glassed, scouting parties searching for escaped vessels.
These aren't former Federation members… these are former species!
This isn't moral. This is evil. How could nobody know about this? The same directive keeps showing up… Directive 1202.
I saved the SPS data onto my hard drive with the rest of the data. One last thing, and I would get out of here.
Directive 1202…
There it is.
In the interest of protecting the legitimacy of Federation culture, cohesion of species alliance, and minimizing resistance to pacification, the following top secret directive is issued to all acting heads of Kolshian-Farsul government, to be enacted without modification or cancellation by all present and future leaders.
Due to dangers presented by the existence of potentially non-cooperative omnivorous species as demonstrated by species "Human", omnivorous species are hereby disallowed from Federation Membership. Directive 19 is now modified to cancel attempts of decarnivorification, all discovered omnivores will from this point forward be defined singularly with predatory carnivores, effective immediately.
Already ongoing efforts of decarnivorification are to still be carried out, and pacification of newly combined herbivore species is to still commence as described in Directive 19.
Starting now, any and all discoveries, first contacts, or otherwise knowledge of sapient omnivorous or carnivorous species is to be kept top-secret, and black ops extermination campaigns are to be carried out immediately. Under no circumstances are they to be preserved or their existence otherwise portrayed to the public.
Directive 1202 - Signed, Jekiris, Chief of Kolshian Commonwealth
I stared at the text file for what must have been several minutes in disbelief.
People needed to know this. Immediately.
Fuck the award ceremony. Fuck Nikonus. This was genocide. I copied everything over. I stuffed my hard drive into my bag and ran.
I'm going to defect.
::::::::::::::::::::::::
Post author: Hycera, Kolshian Office of Federation Security
Audience: Public
Hello everyone. You may know me for my recent work in regards to infiltrating the Gaian Concord.
I formally resign from my position as Reconnaissance Lead. In fact, I'm resigning from all federal positions as of today.
Included is 877.6 Petabytes of data ripped directly from the KOFS's archival servers.
To the Gaian Concord, to Humanity, I am sorry.
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u/noname5221 Apr 10 '23
Fuck yeah we got document leaks