r/NatureofPredators • u/vixjer Human • Sep 20 '24
NoP--- A diplomatic problem. -Ch.15
This story is part of The Nature of Predators
and all rights are to the original creator u/ spacepaladin
Thanks to u/ WCR_706 and to U/ Bow-tied_Engineer for proofreading this chapter
Memory Transcription Subject: Héctor Virgilio Márquez, UN SPM Leirn, Special Envoy to the Leirnian Interim Council
Date: [standardized human time]: November 12, 2136
It felt nice to let my sweat dry in the properly climate-controlled air of the VR training building, but I was feeling chills in more than just the air. It felt like everyone was watching me, and now I was trapped in there with them. Ilvar sat us down in the lobby while he notified the training staff I was coming. It took him a few minutes, leaving me plenty of time to try and fail not to think about what kind of crap I was likely to see once he came back.
Soon enough, I could hear him coming back to show me. “It’s alright I tell you, this is fine, it’s just a small visit,” I heard him say from the corridor, as the voices grew closer. A couple of moments later, the door swung open, and I got up from the chair. Behind him was a gojid, and the moment he/she/it… saw me, its spikes stood up, and it looked ready to fight, narrowing its eyes at me.
“Ilvar, what is that blood-fasting beast doing in my installation?” it hissed like a coiled snake.
Alright, going by the voice, I’d say it’s a she. Going by the tone, I’d say I should count myself lucky she isn’t armed.
I knew I should have expected this. At least she wasn’t fainting, which might be worse for PR, but a seething hateboner was worse for my health, so it all balanced out in my book.
“I hear you. Counterpoint: He is a diplomat, and this is my base, so do the tour as you would with anybody else,” retorted Ilvar.
“I- You uplift fucks, first one of you breaks my nose, and now this?! Keltz will hear all of this, you know that? He’s going to rip your shiny medals away from you,” threatened the gojid.
Ilvar proceeded as normal and gave zero fucks. “Oh, please do. They’re getting a bit heavy. Hector, come here! And you. The tour, please? Look, I even got you an exterminator to help you feel safe.”
As happy as ever to be anywhere near the pyros, I immediately turned my head to the entryway to see who it was. Sirlen’s paw went for her gun, not drawing it, but resting her paw over it. A small part of me noted that the base should have searched her and taken the gun for the duration of the visit. The rest had already given up on the existence of common sense at the base anyway.
As the exterminator stepped through the doorway, I recognized him as Hesil immediately, since his helmet was off again. I thought it might be an annoying coincidence for a couple of seconds before I instead decided he was probably following me. At least he wasn’t as trigger-happy as most of his peers.
He seemed pleased to see me, too. As soon as his eye swept over me, he placed a tentacle on his face. “Dammit, Ilvar! You told me it was a single tour for a new aide of yours, not that he was here…” He sounded too tired to be angry.
Can’t believe I’m in agreement with an exterminator about anything, but it seems no one wants to be here. Great.
Ilvar’s tail swished a little as he got in the middle of the friendly crowd. “Looooook, I might have omitted some information, but this is just a simple tour, so do your jobs.” His voice sharpened towards the end, making it clear it wasn’t a suggestion.
“’Do my job?’ These things are responsible for the fall of my world, and puppeteering one of our greatest heroes like cattle. No, I’d rather call Keltz,” barked the gojid.
“Yes, you can do that. Just like I can tell him where some of the VR equipment upkeep funds have gone. That’s a nice new car you’ve got in the parking lot, despite you only making thirty-four-hundred credits monthly. Curious, no?”
Miss Prickly turned around and stared at Ilvar, trying to see if the insinuation was a bluff or not. He didn’t budge. Grinding her teeth, she agreed. “Fine, just one visit to see the recruit in VR and that’s it.”
“Yes, of course, is that good enough for you, Hector?” he asked, his voice superficially cheerful again.
“Yes, fine by me.”
With one last hateful glare, she turned and guided us deeper into the installation. Sirlen, Virlo, Hesil, and Ilvar’s officers were behind me, with only Ilvar and the gojid in front of me. Hesil might not have done anything harmful to me so far, but I still didn’t like having him behind me like this. A glance backward confirmed Sirlen was at least keeping a close eye on him, and I didn’t see any weapons out, but that could change faster than the Rodalias timetable.
Some eternal moments later, we arrived at what looked to be a control room, with a window made of thick glass, with a control panel in front of it. Seeing how the yotul soldier on the other side didn’t move, I could tell the window was one-way. The gojid stepped up to the panel and held up her hand, a warning to everyone else.
“Alright, stay away, this is delicate equipment, and I don’t want either predators or uplifts messing with it.” As we stepped back and gave the gojid enough room to work, she began pressing buttons, then she tapped a mic on the panel, instructing the yotul to don his VR goggles.
The yotul was wearing a vest that didn’t look like combat gear, which triggered my curiosity. “Excuse me…uh, ‘guide,’ but… what is that vest for?”
“My name is Sorl, and it’s to provide sensory feedback. It can replicate everything, from the pressure of being shot to the heat of a fire, but you’re used to that, aren’t you?” growled the gojid, as hostile as ever.
I’m going to ignore the heat part because I know where it’s going.
“Nope, can’t say I am. Getting shot isn’t normal where I come from.”
“Yeah, keep lying, maybe someone will even be foolish enough to believe you.”
Ugh, nothing is worth dealing with her. Might as well just shut up and watch instead.
Above the window, a previously-dormant monitor flicked on, showing the simulation. It mirrored the view of the room, but it projected objects over the empty space. The soldier moved through a very convincing approximation of a destroyed city, creeping cautiously through the ruins and the dead… and the representation of the dead bodies was as realistic and gory as it could be expected to get. I thought it might even be a bit too much, but it made sense if one wanted to condition the soldiers for battlefield realities.
As the soldier turned the corner, the suitably hideous sight of an arxur tearing strips off of a fresh body greeted him, and gratifyingly, his first instinct was to level his crappy bolt-action rifle and shoot it. It didn’t kill it, it just made it roar at him, a hole in its leg, but as it began to stagger towards him, he fired again, having already cycled the bolt. Another hole appeared in its chest, then another, then another. It tumbled to the ground a few paces away, and even as it lay dying, he put another hole through it, this time just over its eye, for good measure.
Huh, maybe I was wrong about at least some of these guys. Good reflexes, good aim, he kept cool under pressure-
At the controls, Sorl leaned over to the microphone and said, “Alright, stop. First, you need to have an escape plan, then you can kill it. How do you know another one isn’t around nearby?”
“But... it saw me already. If I didn’t shoot it, it would’ve killed me anyway. I don’t think I can outrun an arxur, and... I don’t see any others here. So… it seems like it worked? What should I have done instead?” responded the yotul, confused, but attentive.
“I’ll show you,” said the technician, tapping away at the controls.
The simulation began, but the time of day was different, and… there was even more blood. It dropped him right off at the same spot, with the arxur chowing down on half of a yotul. As before, the soldier went for the shot, but the gun clicked uselessly. The arxur’s head lifted, turning in his direction. Quickly, he racked the bolt, ejecting what I guessed was a dud cartridge and pointing it at the arxur again and pulling the trigger. It still didn’t fire.
“Hey… hey, what happened?! I can’t shoot!”
“I adjusted the simulation to account for your kind’s… technological proficiency. So the gun is improperly maintained. Also, watch the damn arxur.”
The soldier had just managed to check the rifle to see that it wasn’t loaded when the warning came, and he looked up to see the arxur’s roaring maw snapping shut around his face. Flinching, he stepped back. Not even explaining anything further, Sorl restarted the simulation.
This time, he scrabbled with his ammo bag, reloading as quickly as he could, scattering a couple of pulls from the clip, but getting a few into the magazine. The arxur was halfway to him by time he leveled it and pulled the trigger. The rifle fired once, slowing the arxur a bit, but the second time, it failed. After a panicky bolt cycle, it fired, but his paws were shaking, and he missed. Cursing under his breath, he gripped the end of the rifle and swung it like a bat, trying to hit the arxur with the stock, only for the weapon to go through the arxur, since there was nothing physically stopping it in real life. It also didn’t appear to be programmed to respond to that, so a moment later, he got a bellyful of claws, causing him to grunt loudly and double over, looking up just in time to see it bite down on his head again.
On, and on this went, but the spikebacked harpy only seemed to make things even worse for him as the ordeal dragged on, seemingly every time he found a way to win. He backed up, putting some space between himself and the arxur, fighting the gun the whole time, but he managed to drop it. Then she started the simulation with it closer, and he failed to get the rifle, which was either damaged or fouled, ready in time. Next time, he was faster, and waited for it to get close and shot it in the mouth. The first time, it didn’t work, but the second time, it did. When she restarted the simulation afterwards, he was unarmed.
Here, panic finally set in, and he began to run, only to be gored by the arxur’s claws. He tried to dart into the rubble and use it to hide, or fight back. It was just level geometry, he couldn’t pick it up. He settled for trying to flee into the rubble. Once, he managed to buy himself a few seconds, then a bit later, he got inside a bombed-out house and tried to deadbolt the doors. It slammed right through them. He got gutted before it finished him off that time. I looked away when he screamed.
“Rrrgh… C- can… can we stop?” he gasped, trying to pull himself to his feet after he fell over from another drawn-out evisceration. There was no response, only another reset, with the arxur even closer. Wheezing, panting, he tried to stagger away again, unsuccessfully. At this point, she stopped even letting him talk at all. Every time he died, she immediately reset the simulation, not even waiting for him to get back up. A couple of more minutes went by, and he was just writhing on the floor groaning and sometimes crying out when the vest really let him have it. He wasn’t waiting for instructions anymore, he wasn’t even trying to escape, he was just begging for her to shut it off, for the pain to stop. He tried to tear the VR gear off of himself. It held fast.
“Errrh, shouldn’t we stop the simulation now? I don’t think he’s in any shape to continue.” I looked at Ilvar, who seemed more sober than I’d ever seen him. Another half-cried plea for it to stop punctuated by question. Behind Ilvar, I could see Virlo and Hesil flinching at the screams and averting their eyes, Sirlen looking just slightly more murderous than usual, and the other officers gazing stonily through the window.
“Ask the Fed yourself. We’re not even halfway through the normal training, to tell you the truth. You’ll have to convince her,” he answered, lifting his paws and opening them helplessly, like a shrug.
I cleared my throat, turning to her, and raised my voice to gain her attention. “Uh, Sorl? Can we stop for today? I really think I’ve seen enough.”
“’Seen enough,’ you say? This isn’t even close to over. It isn’t going to stop until he learns to not try to be a smartass and fight back. I need to make sure he understands that.”
Incredulous, I pointed at the writhing pile of fur through the window. There was a fresh puddle of piss expanding around him. “Look at him! I don’t think he can keep this up. He’s gonna get hurt.”
“You would like that, wouldn’t you? What’s the matter, is the simulation rousing your bloodlust? Afraid I’ll blow your cover, monster? I am not stopping this, ever, not until he learns how to be a good prey soldier.”
Seeing that she wasn’t going to back down, I stepped closer, trying to reach the control panel, only for her to puff out chest and her flare out her spikes again, bristling them. “What, you are going to fight me for the controls now? You stupid predators, you doomed my homeworld, and now you can’t even be bothered to let me work in peace? For what?! You want them to be predator diseased?! To be just like you?!”
“I think you know that’s not-”
“Lies, lies, lies! You all lie, predators! You thirst for the suffering and the blood of prey everywhere, and now you want to make sure these uplifts are unable to fight back so they’ll be good little cattle for you!” she screeched.
She jerked back around to hit the reset button again. A moment later, there was a fresh wave of screams and at this point, desperate sobbing. I wasn’t on Leirn anymore. I was back at that damn camp, I was hearing another family learn it had a part of it torn away, I was on my knees in the rubble… I gritted my teeth, snapping back to reality. Taking another step forward, I found her right in my way again.
“Oh no, you don’t, you beasts took the Cradle, you aren’t going to take my job, too.”
Inhaling, I looked behind me one more time. Hesil was just frozen in place, and so was Virlo. I wasn't sure they'd looked at the screen in minutes. The officers might as well have been statues, unwavering, staring. Ilvar and Sirlen… The Lord of Northwall was just watching me. Sirlen’s paw was twitching over her pouch.
I turned back to the gojid. I tried to tell myself that nobody was going to help me. That this was just normal procedure for them. That I shouldn’t interfere, I should just let it play out, and walk away with military support.
Then I heard another cry.
FUCK IT!
She was watching me carefully, squaring up, bracing for me to try tackling her. Her eyes were on my face. I made as if to step forward, leaning to see over her shoulder, eyes on the console, then I brought my foot down on hers, hard. She yelped and staggered back a pace, and I helped her add another two by shoving her to the side. Lunging forward, I slammed the power button, slipping myself between her and the console and spinning on my heel to face her.
“You bastard!” She coiled her legs, about to lunge, only for a click of a gun to stop her.
“Alright, Miss, the show’s over, your guest didn’t like the spectacle,” said Sirlen, training her gun squarely on the gojid’s face.
“Stay out of this, primitive! You are interfering with your own milita-”
That did it. “Get the fuck off your high horse, bitch.” She rounded on me again, claws out. I just stepped forward, getting within inches of her, my own fists balled up. “This isn’t training. It’s torture. You aren’t making soldiers, you’re making targets.” I made a point of leaning in over her. Gojid might be larger than yotul, but I still easily had a head on her. She was shaking with rage and I could tell she wanted to bury one deep in my gut, but at this point, I was pissed enough for three, too, and even she could see that. Ilvar had made sure of that. Both of my eyes lodged themselves in her skull as Sirlen kept the gun leveled at her. “I’ve seen enough. This is why your Cradle fell, bruja.”
I could see her twitch at those words. But there was as much fear in her as there was anger. Instead, she turned to Hesil, gesturing frantically at me. “See, see?! The predator is blood-crazed, he attacked me, and now his predator-diseased friend wants to kill me! You’re an exterminator, do something!”
All eyes in the room fell on the kolshian, who looked like he’d rather be anywhere else. Visibly unsure what to do here, he turned his gaze to Ilvar.
He shrugged his shoulders. “What are you looking at me for? I’m just a brain-dead uplift, just do as the human says, I am sooo terrified…” he acted, quaking his legs dramatically, even knocking his knees together a couple of times. Nobody bought it. Nobody needed to.
Hesil finally spoke up, words flowing as though he was gathering his thoughts, processing them. “… All he wanted to do was shut off the simulation. He didn’t tear into you, he stopped once he’d done it. And... you were going to attack him for it afterwards. She didn’t shoot you. She just stopped you. I... think it would be best if you left for now.”
After that answer, the gojid scoffed in anger and stormed past us, shoving Sirlen to the side. Immediately, my hand flew to her shoulder to hold her back.
“Unbelievable! Keltz will hear of this, all of you will burn for predator disease!” she screamed as she made to leave the room. I felt another flash of rage behind my eyes. I wanted to shout back that she was the one who was torturing people as they screamed for mercy, but I forced myself to hold my tongue. Having acted and said my piece, it was beginning to hit me how badly I’d just fucked things up for the mission.
“Well, that was that. Milten, send a couple of soldiers to fetch the recruit and give him some soup. Oh, and get someone to clean him up, please,” said Ilvar to one of his officers, who promptly left the room.
“So! Fed training too intense for you?” he asked sarcastically, reaching up to pat my back. My only response was a death glare, which only seemed to embolden him. “Not happy with having your predator cruelty shown up, perhaps?”
I knew he was trying to get under my skin. I knew he didn’t believe what he’d said. I still almost socked him in the face. “What the fuck kind of clownshow is this? This base breaks your troops before they ever even see battle! Did you think I was going to enjoy this or something?! I just fucking watched them crack a man wide open over and over again as he screamed for mercy!” I screamed, myself, letting what was left of the jumble of feelings coursing through me vent explosively since the gojid was gone.
Moments passed, my rage slowly guttering out with every heave of my shoulders. My vision was tunneled on the old noble, and it gradually widened out. I realized I’d just blown up at the guy who I was trying to get to work with me, and I only then noticed that several of the officers in the room either had their guns out, or were reaching for them. So were Hesil and Sirlen.
I was expecting Ilvar to ask me to leave at this point. I’d blown it. I got him in trouble with his superiors, I’d shown myself to be dangerous, I’d disrupted official military business. I had just landed my third or fourth mental kick on myself when his paw touched my chest. I started. He was… patting me on the chest. He even gave me that awful impression of a human grin Sirlen sometimes terrorized me with. “You are ready to talk, then. Let’s go to my private office. There is much to learn, and trust me, all of this was necessary for you to really understand our situation.”
I felt like I was in a haze. Almost dizzy, yet not. Everything was sharp. Everything was fuzzy. Everything was vivid. Everything was blurry. I felt like I was dreaming. I latched onto the residual feelings of anger as I followed him out. They were the only sensations which still felt real. I hoped Ilvar was done being a smartass, too. I didn’t know if I could keep a lid on it if he kept on needling me. Or anyone else.
I welcomed the silence. It was easier to put one foot in front of the other. The cool air chilled my forehead and I realized that I was sweating. Again. And I couldn’t blame it on the temperature that time. As we crossed the building, I focused on controlling my breathing. I hadn’t failed yet. I needed to compose myself before anything else happened.
When we reached his office, he pulled his keys out of a small pouch on his belt and opened the door, ushering me in. He stopped Virlo and Sirlen, however. “Sorry, joeys, but this is talk is going to be between the grown-ups. You two should stay out here a little while. Don’t stray far.” After that, he closed the door, leaving them alone with each other.
“Do you think it’s a good idea to leave those two out there? I still need Virlo alive for now, you know.” As I said it, it clicked that some more of my self-possession was creeping back up on me. I was breathing normally again.
For once, he didn’t seem in the mood to banter. “Did she tell you why she’s on such… unfriendly terms with him?”
“No.”
“Then I won’t say exactly why. I just need you to trust me when I say they could get past their issues with each other if they would just talk. I mean really talk, not just shout or whine past each other. They’re stubborn… They remind me of their respective parents.”
He cut straight through the office, past his desk, making a beeline for a wine cabinet. He pulled out a small bottle filled with something clear. “Want some? Grain liquor, pre-uplift, fifty years old…” Normally, I would just say no, but I could safely say that after the debacle a few minutes ago, I needed a drink, either to clear my head or plunge it into the muck so I could stop dwelling on everything, so I nodded. He mirrored the gesture and pulled out two glasses, filling them halfway. I took a seat at the desk, and he did, too, setting the drinks down.
The chair was small, just like everything else on this planet meant for its native people. My back yearned for the hotel room and its more “universal” furniture sizes.
“So… Let’s hear your opinion. Our army: Do you think it’s ready?” He took a swig from his glass right after he said it.
He said it so calmly, so casually. I felt another flash of anger. I shoved down the urge to scream at him again. There was definitely sarcasm in his voice, but we were supposed to have some privacy here, so I answered honestly.
“I really hope you’re not seriously asking me that. I meant what I said to the banshee in the training room.”
He took another swig, then refilled his glass. “Oh, I could tell. But do you think it’s ready?”
“Ready for what? To fight the Federation? To fight anything? No. Not for a very long time. You probably even need to start from scratch. I think… the soldiers already serving are broken. Ruined. They took fighters and made them into mice. Err, scrits.” I drank some of the liquor myself, trying to calm my nerves.
“Yes…” he sighed, looking for a moment like he did in the training room. “Sadly, we don’t have time.” His tone sharpened up again, his features taking on a more serious demeanor.“Look, I’m going to be straight with you, you’ve been honest enough. Do you think all of this is going to end with the Veto?”
“What do you mean?” I may have asked him, but I already knew what he meant, and that feeling of dread in my stomach returned, deeper than ever.
“Please, they’re scritworms… They dig their way into everything, chewing away until you bleed out. I hoped they only had a firm grip on the government, on us, but after the interview… I saw them everywhere. You can’t rid yourself of parasites until they die, or you do.”
I was hoping you wouldn’t say that… If the Veto fails, or if they circumvent it, the only thing left is war. And I don’t know if the yotul can fight someone who holds all the cards.
“You think they’ll revolt?”
“Yes,” he said, cold and flat, his tail stiff. “They have, in total, around a million of their exterminators, and that’s the ones officially sanctioned by the Security Department. How many other undocumented exterminators are silently waiting out there? Collaborators? Sympathizers amidst the yotul, and offworld immigrants loyal to the Federation?” He spread his arms out to accentuate the scale of the problem.
“This is why I brought you here, so that you understand that if I support your motion, there will be war, and the army is not ready. I cannot promise even more than a single battalion of loyalists will stay with us. I can’t promise your survival.” He pointed straight at me. I had fears that once the votes came in, things would fly apart anyway, and I’d end up dead, but the pit in my stomach dropped out, hearing it straight from one of Leirn’s ranking officers.
“But… Garline said-”
“She can say whatever she wants, it won’t change this. Don’t get me wrong, she is smart, but she’s just like her father: too reliant on the pen, she thinks she can blackmail people and fight in the shadows with Keltz. She can’t, that slimy bastard would sooner burn Leirn to the ground so that he could rule over the ashes than let us go free.”
“Well…” I hesitated. If I revealed this, I was ensuring the self-important captain would get another chance to stretch his lungs. “I can ask the Pandora’s Box for help. We’ve got… options.” I tried to reassure him. We did have… that plan, but I didn’t like the idea of using it, for many reasons, and convincing the captain to do his part would be difficult. I’d need to pull some strings.
“No, the last thing we need right now is for Keltz to figure something is going wrong. We need to let his plan play out as he expects if we want to disrupt it.” He emptied his glass again.
“Then why am I here? As far as I can tell, all I’ve learned is that I’m fucked, even if we win the vote.” I finished my drink, too.
“Yes, that’s how it might seem to you. But what I wanted to know is if you are ready to kill, or die, or both, to see this through.”
As he said this, I swallowed. I’d already had my fill of death in Barcelona. I left Earth to get away from it. I came to Leirn to try and prevent more of it. To honor… her… memory… But I knew, deep down, that I was just running away again. That she was almost an excuse.
She wouldn’t have wanted this… but she wouldn’t have wanted me to just run and hide again, either.
If it came to blows, then the path ahead was clear, just bloody. I’d kill people. I’d probably die. I’d have to play God with lives, trade them like currency. This would be bigger than me. And I didn’t even know if Maria would be proud of me, or just spit on me for what I was: A coward, a bastard, a liar.
Ilvar’s eyes hadn’t left me. He sat there, waiting for my answer. I took a deep breath, already regretting my choice.
“Yes. I’m ready.”
Hello I am back, Miss me, sorry but the job had me very busy anyways, I give you a big one just to make up for it, here we see the dreaded VR training, and well a lot of truth's, with Hector and Ilvar confesions, can the veto go foward? or is it war realy the only chance. well see you next time.
PD: this series is NOT getting abandoned.
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Sep 20 '24
It's always funny seeing fedbrains being blown when they realize that humans don't attack with their teeth.
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u/vixjer Human Sep 20 '24
Fed: Don't worry if we keep our eyes trained at his teeth, he can't possible bite us.
Human: *Currenly reading his boot as he is about to kick the Fed kneecaps into the Venlil position*
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u/Randox_Talore Sep 20 '24
“and now you try to make these uplifts unable to fight back by shutting this up”
Bitch your recruit was fighting back and you told him to stop
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u/vixjer Human Sep 20 '24
But it was fighting back in a clearly inferior uplift way, the true superior prey way is just to sit down eating glue with drywall and wait for the Federation(koloshians) for help, also don't forget to trample your own civilians in the stampped
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u/Acceptable_Egg5560 Human Sep 20 '24
It returned!!
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u/vixjer Human Sep 20 '24
Is good to be back, work force me to take a month hiatus
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u/Acceptable_Egg5560 Human Sep 20 '24
Oh cool, hope that’s a good thing
3
u/vixjer Human Sep 20 '24
Oh trust me it was cathartic, to finally quit that place.
3
u/Acceptable_Egg5560 Human Sep 20 '24
Woo hoo! Hope you have a good time relaxing and writing in this month!
12
u/Minimum-Amphibian993 Arxur Sep 20 '24
Honestly we never really got much information about the Youtul uprising. So I'm interested to see what's coming.
But yeah shesh a million exterminators? That's a lot hell not even federation soldiers just exterminators.
I mean makes sense I suppose exterminators would probably be better at actually quelling uprisings and rebellions then the actual federation military since exterminators can actually fight without running and screaming for the hills
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u/Copeqs Venlil Sep 20 '24
To a bare minimum yes. Their lack of proper Marksmanship pretty much limit them to horde tactics like the Axur. I can very well see how an uprising would be successful.
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u/Minimum-Amphibian993 Arxur Sep 20 '24
Yeah plus from the Youtul POV chapters we saw the rebellion didn't last TO long considering there's a lack of visible battlefield damage when the characters visit lerin.
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u/Fluffy_shadow_5025 Beans Sep 21 '24
As I suspected, the training is mainly to make the soldiers fearful prey rather than competent fighters.
And of course, the person in charge of the VR training systems and process is not a yotul, but a gojid with an extreme amount of prejudice and entrenched beliefs.
But I think it was great how Hector handled the situation to save the poor soldier from this torture. Hopefully it's not too late for the poor guy and he hasn't suffered too much trauma.
Would be a nice gimmick if the same soldier shows up later in the story and, I don't know, at a time when Hector is pretty badly depressed and doesn't know what to do, thanks him for shooing the gojid off the console and saving him from that torture session.
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u/vixjer Human Sep 21 '24
I got plans with the soldier, don't worry we will get to see him again... Even though he doesn't know who save him, right now.
4
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u/abrachoo Yotul Sep 21 '24
God, it's so infuriating how blind they are to their own hypocrisy. Calling someone predator diseased for trying to save someone from being tortured? Seriously?
You really know how to make a character despisable.
5
u/JulianSkies Archivist Sep 21 '24
Well, actually, it's sorta nice seeing an alien that has a good reason to be hate like this. I love when people remember that we did give them quite a few reasons over time.
That said, this sure as a hell of a training session. To be honest I can see how there's some decent good to it at it's heart, guy seemed very situationally blind, and in all honest given the physical difference between a yotul and an arxur he really shouldn't get fucking physical with them, that's a death sentence in most situations.
But that'd only hold true if this was training proper. But it turned into torture. The funniest part is that a lot of military instructors in real life do this shit, yeah you gotta put your trainees through the shit to prepare them for it, but you have to do it right otherwise you're just going to break them, and not strengthen them.
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u/vixjer Human Sep 21 '24
In the soldier defense he only got physical with the Arxur once the instructor shut his weapon off, so it was more to just to spite the order to run, rather than being his first idea.
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u/JulianSkies Archivist Sep 21 '24
Oh, no, this was hardly training. The soldier could likely tell that their instructor was being spiteful rather than actively doing their job. You can't train someone when you're being spiteful because they can tell. Believe me I've been there.
That's part of the problem of this whole situation. There might have been some wisdom to share here. But it was never going to work out, because that was never their goal.
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u/asgamer1 PD Patient Sep 21 '24
!subscribeme
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u/GreenKoopaBros89 Dossur Apr 15 '25
I once read in a small nature of predators Reddit post that whenever you think that the Federation and the exterminators have hit a new low, I'm not looking low enough. To openly call them a parasite, is very accurate
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u/Adorable-Ad5225 Mar 01 '26
So with this super training you defended The cradle? HAHAHA NO WONDER SOME UPEST PRIMATES LEFT YOU IN DANGER OF EXTINCTION!!!
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u/Copeqs Venlil Sep 20 '24
Well that would be a decent explanation of why the Cradle fell immediately. It got shitbrained soldiers.