Chapter: Epilogue - Divergence
The Human
"Scissors!" I shouted to Frank.
"Rock!" he shouted back, although I swear he hesitated first, saw my scissors, then used uber-Slug reflexes to quickly form his hand into the symbol for rock.
"Damn", I told him. "You win."
"Is there any point to this game?" asked Phill from nearby.
Matt turned from his conversation with Boy some distance away and said to him, "None at all. There's more randomness in that game than there is in a random iceberg that just happened to appear in front of a big ship in the middle of the night."
"There's a bit of strategy involved", I told him. "You have to try and predict what your opponent is trying to predict about you." I didn't know about Frank, but I found it quite hard to predict what an alien was about to do.
"Much like what we do with the Cyborgs", Carmen commented.
"So it is", Rosetta agreed.
We'd met up with Rosetta again when our scout ship had left PDN and docked with her starcruiser, which we were all now on, headed back towards Slugenis. Fortunately, this ship hadn't been damaged at all, and Matt had gotten all of the remaining Slugs that had stayed onboard it to leave on another scout ship (not our one, as the starcruiser could hold several) and join up with the others.
This left the entire ship just for our group. Minus Terry and Kerry. One had stayed behind to wrap things up on the Cyborg Archives and translate for Slob's interrogation, and the other... well, the other decided that I should still be around instead of him.
In either case, we'd been on the ship for at least a week now, if not more. When we'd left, we'd done our customary stare-at-the-orange-dot routine, which had pretty much become a full-fledged tradition now, and then proceeded to be bored for the remainder of the trip.
Imagine a big, round tube, surrounded by layers of other tubes. Now fill everything with little concave dishes at regular intervals. Now spend several weeks in it, and see what I'm talking about. There was only so much stuff we could do and talk about.
For the first day or two, I'd had a bit of a stomach ache, which was kind of annoying. We all speculated that it was probably from the grass water that I'd drank back on PDN, but since it hadn't killed me or anything, a sore tummy seemed an acceptable price to pay to avoid dying of thirst.
"I have a theory", Phill decided to announce. Well that was a bit random. It was as if he just said it to keep me from thinking to myself this entire time.
"Here we go", Matthew muttered, but he broke off his contact with Boy and came over to us. "Whatcha got?" When the Cyborg didn't respond straight away, he said, "Huh!?"
"I am awaiting for all of the interested parties to congregate", he said. Wow. I'm not sure which was worse; the 'interested parties' or the 'congregate'. OK, the 'interested parties' was worse.
Once we were all around him, he began. "Matthew." He looked at my friend. "You say that you cannot imagine how such a social system as Honour could possibly evolve from a sentient society."
"Yeah", Matt said. "I mean, I can understand why it's necessary. At least for normal Slugs", he amended.
"Lesser-minded Slugs", Boy corrected.
Matthew smiled at him before continuing. "But I just can't contemplate how it could have actually arisen. Like how the original founders of the system successfully brainwashed the entire Slug race to abide by it. We were already at a space-faring age; the only reason we invented Honour, as far as we know, was as a way to combat the Cyborgs."
"So we assume", Frank said from next to me.
"Can you think of a better explanation?" Matt asked him.
"That makes sense?" added Phill.
Frank simply shrugged his shoulders. Was this guy even a Slug anymore? It only made me more depressed that Kerry missed out on this. And that Terry missed out on a lot more.
"This is my hypothesis", Phill told us. "The Slugs were at war with the Cyborgs, for unknown reasons. They were normal organics at this point, like humans are, and for this reason they were losing the war against us. The entire race was nearly eradicated, until the final remnants retreated back to one planet. For reasons unknown to us, this final vestige of the Slugs was absent from Cyborg knowledge."
He paused for a bit here, as if waiting for someone to ask a question. "Go on", I prompted him.
He did. "I propose that it was this small Slug colony where the idea of Honour was first conceptualised and implemented. With such a relatively small sample of Slugs to work with, and with a great incentive, this would be a much simpler feat to accomplish than with an entire empire. Every further Slug born from this point onwards would also abide by the Honour system, thus spreading out into the Slug empire today."
"It would also explain why you don't keep history records", I mused after a bit of thinking. "Who wants to record and remember how they were almost wiped out by the enemy?"
"So you're saying that Slugenis is not actually our homeworld?" asked Boy.
"I doubt it", Matthew said. "Slugenis seems far too well-suited for our biology for us not to have evolved there. Perhaps the Cyborgs didn't actually know about our home planet, and that's why we retreated there. Assuming that this theory is true, of course."
"Unfortunately, it is just a theory", Phill almost sighed. "It is impossible to determine its authenticity. However, it is helpful in explaining some ambiguities, such as those previously mentioned."
"So it is", Rosetta said. "But, as you said, we'll never know for sure. No sense troubling anyone else about it."
"Hah", laughed Matt. "If we troubled any other Slugs with half the stuff we talk about, we'll be disowned from the empire."
Boy laughed at that, although I wasn't sure that 'talking about random stuff' was a good enough reason to be banished from your entire race.
We were quiet for a bit, before I decided that I might as well ask an important question, now that we were all together.
"So", I began, instinctively turning to Matt. "What do you reckon will happen to all of our races now, after all of this has happened?"
The Cyborg
Ethan asked, "So. What do you reckon will happen to all of our races now, after all of this has happened?"
While Matthew thought about how to answer Ethan's question, I also tried to formulate my own answer.
I considered;
As to the Humans' fate, I believed that they mostly stood to gain from the events at the Cyborg Archives. After the way in which the Slug force had utterly decimated the Cyborg ship resistance using Human rockets, explosives, and weaponry, the trade for those kinds of items would drastically increase once Slugenis learned how effectively they were utilised.
In addition, as long as the Humans refrained from directly participating in the war, which they likely would, and as long as the Cyborgs did not learn of the extent of trade between them and the Slugs, Earth's race would be relatively safe from aggression. Add to these factors its favourably defendable location behind Slug-controlled space, and the great incentive the Slugs have to keep the Human race alive and productive, and there was a high chance that the Humans would come under no form of attack from the Cyborgs.
As for the Cyborgs, we seemed to be in the most precarious position of the 3 races. If the war were to continue, it is highly likely that many Cyborgs and Cyborg worlds would fall before we could develop any kind of countermeasure to the Slug-Human weapons. By that time, the Cyborgs' enemy could well have more advanced technology again. Based on the mere 20 years I spent listening to a Human radio, their level of technological progression was astounding. Could Cyborg technology keep up with this? I did not wish for them to have to find out; Humans were resourceful life forms who could accomplish much given the right motivation.
Due to this, should the war continue for any considerable length of time, probability indicated that the Cyborgs would lose, or at least be reduced to a negligible state. We therefore required a peace to ensure our continued existence; any other outcome woul
d result in either near or total extinction. Although I was not heavily invested in my race's future, I would still do all that I could to try and avoid such a terrible outcome.
Finally, I had the Slugs' fate to consider. Evidence indicated that the Slugs were currently in a favourable position. Due to their new alliance with the Humans, should the war continue, they would win many battles. Should the war end in a ceasefire or something greater, they could prosper with unrestricted trade and good relations, the system of Honour no longer necessary.
However, it seemed that Matthew did not come to the same conclusions as I have. I interpreted his recent comments on PDN as indicative of his intention that a peace should not eventuate. If there was a legitimate reason for this, I could not fathom it. Perhaps now would be a good time to discuss the apparent divergence of our wishes.
Finally, Matthew answered Ethan's question. "I don't think things will change at first, as least that we can see. Slugs ships will be outfitted with a bunch of new technology, and Earth will be full of new cool stuff. And the war will go on. When your Empire spans across a respectable portion of a galaxy, you'll find that change happens quite slowly."
"What about the possibility of an eventual peace?" I asked him.
He slowly turned to look at me. I may have been over-interpreting this movement, but it seemed that this perhaps did not bode well for me.
What he said next informed that I hadn't over-interpreted his movement. "I believe that an end to the war would be the worst thing to ever happen to the Slug Empire since the war started."
There was a silence of approximately 5 seconds before I replied. "I do not share that belief. What brought you to such a conclusion?"
The Slug took a deep breath before speaking to all of us, as a group. "The current Slug society is built upon war. The only reason it exists in the form it does today is because it has adapted, evolved, developed, with the war. In the much the same way as removing a white tree will kill all of the white moths that depended on their environment for survival, the removal of the Empire's canvas - the war - will result in the Empire's destruction.
"As a society, and as individuals, we need the war to function. Our lust for Honour requires an outlet; there must be a lawful way for a Slug to easily end their life, for them to achieve their Honour. The war is the only way to do this. The rules of Honour were originally crafted in such a way to ensure that the war was the only way to do this.
"Were this war to be taken away, were a peace to occur, how would Slugs die? How would they attain their Honour? Every basic function of our society would fall apart. The only reason any Slug does any of the necessary work on Slugenis, in space, on any world, is because of the promise that after their half-cycle of work they can rejoin the war and hopefully die. If there was no war, what would happen?"
He stopped talking then, and strangely hung his head.
I decided that I would be the first to evaluate his arguments. "You may be correct", I began. "However, there are several possibilities and options that you failed to mention."
"Such as?" asked Ethan enthusiastically. He seemed to be as vested in this difference of opinions as I was.
I explained; "1st, you describe the Slug race as if they are not each an intelligent being, capable of understanding and accepting a peace between our races. Although Honour would severely restrict this, I would not completely discount the possibility that the Slugs would simply accept the necessity of such an eventuality and try to adopt a new system of living.
"2nd, even if the entire current population of Slugs would be doomed to destruction, this does not mean that the entire race of Slugs is doomed to destruction. The desire of Honour is not an inborn trait; it is taught to new Slugs before their cycle-life begins. All that needs to be done is to allow the current living Slugs to achieve their Honour, and to not school newborn Slugs in the usual manner. In this way, the Slug Empire will eventually constitute a race who values their lives in much the same way that the Humans do.
"3rd and finally, you do not regard the impact of Earth and the Humans, and friendly Cyborgs, on what would happen in this hypothetical. We have already seen proof of the unlikely yet strong friendships that arise between members of any combination of sapient species. If you, a single Human, and a single Cyborg could alter 6 Slugs to at least consider the benefits of living, what could a planet of Humans and amiable Cyborgs inadvertently achieve while in contact with every Slug?"
I ceased my discussion, and awaited Matthew's response, hoping that he would understand and accept my arguments. I had never thought that he would hold such strong views on the matter, views which I thought were perhaps, while partially correct, also partially misguided.
"Well", Matthew, after briefly looking at Ethan, finally said, "We've all heard why everything I say is wrong and incorrect. But now let's hear your perspective. What are the benefits of such a peace?" I did not label his arguments as 'wrong and incorrect', but made no comment on this.
As I dedicated my processes to delivering a persuasive speech - helped in part by many a speech I'd heard from my radio - I understood what would happen should the Slugs and Ethan not agree with me. Should they decide that the war must continue, at any cost.
I would help them. As much as I valued the survival of my species, I valued my friends more. Now I understood Matthew's prearrangement of priorities; I hoped that I would not have to make one, but if a decision was required, it was already made.
It did not require any consideration; there were no variables involved. My friendship with Matthew, Ethan, Boy, Frank, Rosetta, and Carmen was more important to me than my entire race. That was all there was to it.
There was a great many things that time can and does change, a great many things indeed; but this was most definitely not one of them.
The Slug
Well. I sure hadn't considered a lot of what Phill just said. Looking over at Ethan, I could definitely envision a horde of Humans verbally and emotionally assaulting the Slug Empire, slowly but surely converting each and every one of them. It sure worked on us.
However. First things first. And I would begin the first thing that I would do with the first thing that I would say.
'Well', I said as I turned to look at Phill, 'We've all heard why everything I say is wrong and incorrect. But now let's hear your perspective. What are the benefits of such a peace?' I was sure interested to hear this.
The Cyborg took a moment to... compose his thoughts, or some other CPU mumbo-jumbo. Then he began. Which came as no surprise at all; he had to begin at some point.
'Obviously, it would bring about an end to the pointless and wasteful bloodshed between our races, and prevent the remote possibility of the Humans getting drawn into it.' Don't want that.
Phill went on. 'Next, it would - given enough time - slowly eradicate the Honour system in your Empire, thus benefitting the Slugs. The Cyborgs would not die at the hands of the Human weaponry, benefitting my race. Earth would find itself another trading partner, and another source of extensive scientific and cultural information, benefitting the Humans.
'In addition, the enhanced quality of life for all three races would drastically outweigh any disadvantages. Merely look at us; despite any problems that have arisen, and that are yet to rise, this existence is significantly preferable to when the only advanced concepts I was considering was how I could assist the Cyborgs to kill more Slugs.'
After a short pause, Ethan added, 'Those sound like some good reasons to me.' Of course he was on his side; the Human would want to avoid war as much as he could. There's too many movies out there that show a war as a terrible thing. And I supposed that they were right.
As much as it chagrined me - a funny word that I could just as easily have replaced with "displeased" - I also had to admit that Phill had some good points. Of course he had a good incentive to make a peace sound as attractive as possible; his race surely stood the most to gain. But he was pretty darn good at making it sound like it would benefit
every living molecule in existence as well. Even one that lived on the other side of the galaxy. A peace would definitely benefit that little guy.
However, I did have one concern. 'I have one concern', I said, making sure that they knew that I had one concern. And one concern only. Otherwise I would've said "two concerns". Or "three concerns". Or maybe even more. But no, I only had one. So I only said "one concern".
'What is your concern?' asked Phill, probably hoping it was one he could easily brush away. I sure hoped not.
'You speak of ending the philosophy of Honour, and breeding a new race of non-Honour-dependent Slugs. But how exactly do you plan to do this, while keeping Honour-bound Slugs obviously alive?'
'This appears to be the most difficult issue', the Cyborg replied. 'Although there may be better alternatives, I would say that the best option is to allow the war to continue in isolated areas, fought only by Honour-bound Slugs, until this entire race of Slugs have been replaced by newborn Slugs. Then the war can come to an end proper.'
'You plan to continue a small portion of the war just to kill off the remainder of the Slugs?' asked Ethan, horrified. I understood his point of view, but it was necessary if this plan was to work.
'In some cases, the ends do justify the means', I told him. 'Never believe it when a villain tells you that, they're just justifying their villainous actions. But when a good guy says it, you know it's legit.'
'All of this discussion is good for theories', Boy said. 'But it's not going to go anywhere unless we can convince the Slug King that it's a good idea. And then promptly replace him with a Slug who doesn't desire Honour.' That would be fun.
'I'm not doing it', I quickly said. 'I've already done my Kingly duty.' That, and I didn't want to be away from my friends again; I wanted to go wherever they went, not be stuck in the Slug "palace" on my lonesome once more.
'Well, do you know of any other Slugs who would want to?' asked Ethan.
'Alas, no', I replied.
Boy, for some obscure reason, decided that this needed further elaboration. As if I hadn't clarified it enough, or something. He said, 'Unfortunately, the nature of the King's role means that they have an extremely low chance of dying. Therefore, no Slug wants to be the King, because every Slug wants to die.'
'Well then', Ethan put forward, 'breed a new Slug and make them the King.'
Frank told him, 'The Slug King is the oldest, and therefore the strongest and wisest, of all Slugs. How could a newborn take on the duties of an entire Empire, especially at such a critical time as this?'
'And would the rest of the Slugs accept such a leader?' I went further. 'We accept our superior's orders without question because they are older than us. What if a young Slug was to give much older Slugs orders? That would be like Boy trying to order me around!'
'Hah!' Boy laughed at me. He was probably remembering all those times that I did follow his advice. Some of the time he'd been right. But sometimes he'd been wrong. Heh.
'Hmmm', Ethan mused. 'This all sounds much more complicated than I originally thought.'
'When did you originally think it?' asked Rosetta.
'Yeah?' I asked. 'We only brought it up like two minutes ago.'
'That still counts as an original thought', he smiled.
Phill added, 'Ethan is correct.' Trust those two to gang up together.
'Well, whatever the case', Boy said, 'I'm sure that everything will be fine.'
'As long as we have each other!' I shouted. 'Yes, I just said that. I know, right? I can hardly believe it myself.'
The Human
Well. Now that was out of the way.
It seemed we'd come to a temporary understanding about what we should do about the whole situation. The only problem was, it turned out that maybe five random Slugs and one random Cyborg didn't have the capacity to influence an entire race and its eon-long issues.
And yet, despite how hard everyone tried to convince me, I couldn't help but think that there had to be some benefits to Slug Honour. Terry's death had brought this to light, and made me think that perhaps some vestige of it should be saved. I'd never known any humans who'd died, but I'd think funerals would be a happier event if it was to celebrate the life of the deceased, rather than to mourn their death.
However, these weren't things to be thinking about right now. It was time to enjoy the moment (that is, the boredom of a long, uninteresting flight) and not worry about such big problems. Worrying about big problems too much tended to be bad for your mental health.
So, so long, big problems. I'm sure we'll never meet again. I mean, all we were trying to do was alter the very highly-ingrained consciousness of two entire species. So the way I saw it, out of all the potential big problems out there, how many of those could we possibly run into, right?
###
You’ve done it, you’ve gotten to the end! Assuming that you didn’t cheat, but I’m done talking about that.
Once more, my brave one, you’ve mustered the determination and fortitude required to slog your way through this entire novel! You should definitely be proud of yourself; I know I’m proud of you.
So, The Slug Invasion is over. Do you remember when I told you that this would be a trilogy? No? Well I did. And do you now find yourself itching, craving and gnawing to get the third and final book? The answer is ‘yes’, but it could come from many reasons – maybe you actually want to read it and love it, read it and say ‘meh’, read it and hate it, or look at my awesome covers and laugh.
So, onto the last book. It is named The Slug Inception. What does that mean? Well, go look up the word ‘inception’ in a dictionary/internet (we all know which one you’re really going to use) and figure it out!
Once again, rather than thanking people for reading – and most probably hating – my book, I’m just gonna leave this with a good on you. Good on you for what, exactly? I’m not very sure. But good on you all the same.
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