God of Death

The decision was made, after much deliberation amongst the senate: we were going to invade the planet.  We had no actual meaningful contact with the native species, but it was decided, by a landslide majority, that not only were they of no technological benefit to consider as allies, but all of their ethics, arts, and philosophies had been explored by out people at least once, and in many cases, more than once.  They had demonstrated to be violent creatures, even towards each other.  While we are not innocent of such a past, allowing it into our present would have simply been unacceptable.

The invasion was not something as one might think a sci-fi movie might present  It was very impersonal, very swift, and very unemotional.  There were no great dropships of troops armed with energy rifles and armored with crisp black suits and visored helmets.  There were no gargantuan battleships brimming with missiles or laser batteries.  There were no relativistic weapons or kinetic spears, no antimatter torpedoes or nuclear bombs.

The first step in the invasion was actually very peaceful.  We began advertizing wonderful immigration packages to the planet, detailing the most beautiful vistas and luxurious scenes the planet had to offer.  We had, of course, been covertly probing the planet for decades, seeing just what the natives were like.  Of course, there had been exceptionally good-natured members, but the race's propensity as a whole was simply unacceptable.  Naturally, the natives weren't in any of the scenery we advertized.

The next step was to begin building these immense ark ships, capable of moving thousands on the interstellar journey.  The most interesting feature of the system was that it was nearly identical to ours.  It was a fascinating exercise in planetary development, two systems, with almost identical characteristics, evolving in parallel.  Even the planet we were after was the same, it was the third from the star.  This had amazed our scientists ever since we discovered the system.

The ark ships were beautiful, each spanning kilometers in length and thousands of meters in breadth.  The most advanced technologies were employed, some for their maiden voyages, others because they were tried, true, and extremely reliable.  The engines alone were massive, absolute marvels of engineering, in every sense.  They created thrust so perfectly, so efficiently, it was an absolute spectacle to behold.

Every creature comfort was attended to.  The beds were all well-padded, the carpets immaculate, all the tables polished, every detail was in order.  There were even swimming pools on two of them.  You might think “water in free-fall?  Why?”  The answer was simple: it stayed put when the engines were thrusting.  Of course, they never were designed to accelerate very fast, top acceleration was at 1g, just enough to move without being uncomfortable in the least.

Then came the gruesome matter of eliminating the native species.  Of course, it wasn't going to be easy to get all of them, but we had determined that at least 99.9% needed to be eliminated to ensure a safe and effective colonization.  We opted for a two-pronged method: neutron radiation and biological warfare.

The planet already had hosts of diseases that were completely harmless to us (this had been proven time and time again), but were lethal to an amazing degree against the natives.  The fauna didn't even suffer from them, but the intelligent species did.  This was a boon, since the animals were in a number of the advertizements.  The neutron radiation was going to be very easy to generate, and would only target major population centers, where the impact on the environment was either none or (in a few cases) beneficial.

We would slowly make our way into the system, utilizing the bomber ship's small frontal profile to minimize our chances of being detected by any visual means.  Our thrust would be minimal to avoid setting off any detection systems that might have been put in place without our knowledge.  The species had a propensity for keeping secrets from each other as well.  Naturally, we as outside observers weren't going to be privy to their deepest secrets, which we had discovered were usually exchanged in writing.  We had already tracked the orbits of their telescopic satellites and determined the best approach, avoiding detection by any of them by virtue of the fact that they would simply not be looking our way.  We also learned that the majority of objects in the system's Oort cloud (another astonishing similarity between our systems) were undetectable to the natives.  We would blend in nicely.

Wormholes had been a recent development at the time.  We had only just breached the first technological singularity, so it was a brave and bold new undertaking for us.  Our transapient “god,” or Opus, as he called himself, was very protective of us, and even though his physical body no longer even remotely resembled one of us, as he had long since uploaded his brain into a processing bank, he still considered himself one of us and wanted nothing less than the best for his people, our people.

The science to develop wormholes had been in place since the middle of the information age.  The math had long since been figured out, but the methods were still unclear.  Opus changed all that, turning us from an interplanetary civilization into an interstellar civilization.  We had put a wormhole exit near the system we were invading roughly 30 years before, amazingly undetected by the natives, and had been probing the system ever since.

I was assigned to be the gunner on the neutron bomber, a role that I have never been proud of to this day.  I may have destroyed billions of would-be murderers, but the few good souls that I destroyed still haunt me even now.  I have never had anything in common with them other than being a carbon-based life form, but I feel as though I should have known each of them individually as people.

But back then I had a job to do.

The first wave of neutron bombs fell, and wiped out all life in thousands and thousands of population centers.  It had been determined that the light and infrared outputs from the cities would be the best way to target, so that was what we went off of when planning just where out bombs would strike.

Fast neutron radiation is highly penetrating and highly lethal, especially in the concentrations we were using.  A single bomb could sterilize thousands of square meters, and we had millions of them on board.  Radio emissions were briefly stopped after the bombing had finished, then recommenced with an amazing fury, as though we had thrown a boulder into a pond and the waves were rebounding on the splash.  From what we could decipher, the natives had no idea whatsoever had just happened.  The nightfall became their undoing, however, and radio transmissions began dropping dramatically once the other continents came under the shadow of night.  We had, of course, been slowly moving towards the planet, so the lag was diminishing significantly.  By the time the last bombs were dropped, we had passed inwards of the last and largest gas giant in the system, a true spectacle in and of itself.

We continued to monitor radio transmissions for five more rotations, dropping more neutron bombs as we saw fit to eliminate as much as possible, until all radio transmissions were silent.  There was still some coming up from the planet of course, automated machinery and the like still running just like it had been programmed to do, but we already knew where that sort of transmitting was located and how to identify it.

We scanned the planet's infrared signature for five more rotations, and concluded that all major populations of the native species had been wiped out.  There were still large infrared readings where possibly refugees or primitives resided, but the neutron bombs were all gone.  It was time to use the biological warfare charges.

Some automated missile defense systems still functioned, but only three ever launched themselves.  The rest were simply detection stations.  Inevitably, the remaining major populations were infected with our biological weapons.  Once they had run their course, a matter of roughly 30 planetary rotations, there were only isolated thermal signatures, most of them in the less habitable areas of the planet, where we assumed tribes relying on long-since outdated technologies resided.

Of course, viruses mutate at an alarming rate, so we waited roughly a year before announced the planet ready for habitation.  The thermal signatures only moved within our pre-determined acceptable parameters, and radio transmissions were completely absent.  Presumably the power supplies needed the natives to maintain functionality and simply ceased to work without maintenance.  It was time then for the colonization to begin.

Of course, we had no intention of starting the actual journeys to the planet for quite some time.  There was still much cleanup to be done.  The major cities, though sterile, all had massive amounts of naturally decomposing biological matter that needed removal.  For those of us who were involved in the cleanup, it was a very long, drawn-out process.  Every building needed to be swept clean, every street needed to be repaired, every room sterilized (even though neutrons had done a very thorough job already), cleaned, and reassembled for our use.

Of course, my ship wasn't the only one involved in the cleanup.  Hundreds of thousands more of us were involved, each of us doing our part to re-purpose the planet's buildings.  It was a real pity that so many good people died.  We were allowed to rifle through anything we felt like, since most of it was getting destroyed anyways.  There were books, which when translated, spoke of great compassion performed by real sentient beings, and moving picture documentaries about great souls that were now lost to our weapons.  I held in my heart that somewhere out there, in the tribes that wandered the wildernesses, that there were still good souls to be had.

Only a few of the implements that were so common and fundamental to some of the buildings and other structures had to be altered, though only slightly.  There were a number of things that had to be replaced as well, mostly things that were grabbed or held in a particular way.  Handles were pretty universal, and required little to no adaptation, on average.

Eight years later, we declared the restoration of the planet complete.  It was a fascinating sight to behold, especially since the natives' architecture was so vastly different than our own.  Shapes, layout, everything was different, but it all served the same purposes.  There were a few religious fanatics amongst the crews who said that it was a manifestation of destiny that we had taken over the planet.  The concept was an old one, many centuries old.  But there were very few who subscribed to the meme, and they kept it to themselves, for the most part.

So then the colonization began.  Millions upon millions of us came to the planet, all of them enthralled by ts completely stunning beauty.  They all marveled at the fact that the buildings, the vehicles, everything that was ever on the planet, was already set to be used by us, no adaptations required.  The poets wrote grand poems detailing the natural beauty of the world.  The musicians composed great masterpieces inspired by the planet's seasons.  The artists created legendary paintings and sculptures and all manner of visuals from the inspiration of something so simple as the water crashing on the beaches.

But for the dozen of us that had been on the weapons vessel, the beauty was haunting.  True, we had destroyed the murderers, the rapists, the haters, those that hate and loathe and fear simply because things are different.  Yes, we had destroyed the militants, the warlords, the deposed generals, those that want to destroy because that is the only thing in them.  Sure, we had eliminated the corrupt, the two-faced, the hypocrites, the liars, those that would deceive even their own kind to further themselves.  We had eliminated all the hostile intent that race could have ever had against us.  But that wasn't the only thing we had destroyed.

We slew the righteous.  We damned the pure.  We ruined the incorruptible.  We broke the purest of spirit and mind, turning them into nothing more than a soupy mass of biological waste.  Their voices, no matter how powerful, would never be heard again.  Their thoughts, no matter how noble, were forever forgotten.  Their deeds, no matter how noble, would never be done.

I had admired these gemstones of personalities from afar for decades, learning their languages so that I might understand where their visions of their race were aimed.  I still pride myself in remaining fluent in eight of them and proficient in five more.  They had nearly as many languages as we do.  Granted some things simply didn't translate, but usually, those were proper names for things and the like.  The stars were not high enough for the most beautiful of these souls, no aspiration less than heaven was good enough for their people to them.  No kindness was below them, no mercy unfathomable to their hearts.

I remember one day in particular, we had been cleaning out a small, what appeared to be residential, building.  I was doing the initial survey of it, determining exactly what was still useful and what was worthless, so on and so forth.  There was a small one, obviously a child, kneeling (to my best approximation, that was the position) with its head touching the ground on a mat.  I recognized the position immediately as one of the prayer postures of one of the major religions of the planet.  The look on the face of the child was serene, at peace.  Even after having sat there for so long, for some reason, the atmosphere was just right and the conditions in that room were just so that the body was immaculately preserved.

I noticed a book on a small table in the room, positioned next to what I knew from my experience with the race to be a sleeping area.  I sat down on the springy mat and opened the book and began to read.  The first few pages were petty day-to-day adventures.  The child had only been nine years old when we bombed, so I learned.  I was alone, so there was no reason for me to hurry.

I flipped through the pages, briefly scanning them, though for what I can't say I even knew then.  I stopped at one page that caught my eye for some reason, being n a different ink than the rest of them.  When I read it, I was moved to tears before even finishing the page.  I had destroyed a young saint.  I still have that book with me to this day.

This is the best translation I can make of what I had read.

“I went to school today for the first time in my new city.  Many people hate me here simply because I believe in something that they do not.  They tell me that all my people are evil and will all go to hell for what we have done to them.  I can do nothing to change their minds except prove to them that we are not all bad people.  So when they throw things at me or spit on me, I do not turn to anger, for I know that is what they want.  That is all they seem to know, and I think they expect it to be all anyone else knows.  Instead of balling my fists and striking, I do as I know is right and look to them with a smile.

“My teacher looked to me with an angry face when I first walked into the classroom.  He did not say anything to me, but I know that in his mind, I was not a good person, even though he had not even learned my name.  But I think that somewhere in him is a good person that simply needs to be loved in order to come forward.  I think that everyone has in them a good person that must be uncovered.

“Allah, I know you hear my prayers at the hours you have told us to pray, but you are all-knowing and merciful.  Please read my words as well.  In them, I beg you to give me the strength to unveil the good that is in all people.  I believe with my heart that it is there, and I believe that you have put it there to be discovered.  Allah, I do not ask for you to make peace in the world.  I ask for you to give me the strength to make it happen amongst all of us.”

I closed the book and put it back on the little table.  I put my head in my hands and must have cried for nearly an hour.  I wished that I could go back in time and take this little one with me, take this young saint away from the doom that I would bring to its planet.  But time does not flow in reverse, no matter how hard we try to make loops and exceptions.  I took the book in my hand, pausing for a moment to reflect on the six fingers that were on my hand and the five that were on the child's.  I looked at the child's face.  Two eyes.  My face only had one more.  My ears were slightly pointed.  The child's were rounded.

I made a case, when we were deciding how to preserve their history, to have the child kept preserved in the museum of universal history.  I may not have taken the little child to heaven, but the stars were as close as I could do in this life.  I only hope that I may see the child when I die, that I find a way to heaven to see this little saint and worship him even after my death.

To this day, Earth, as the natives called it, remains beautiful and poetic in its grandeur.  There are still human tribes that roam the wilds, their technology still extremely primitive.  The most advanced have only recently made the transition from bone and stone to bronze smelting.  Naturally, they keep their distance, surely perceiving us as gods of some kind.  But the only kind of god I have ever been is a god of death.  I have rained down invisible fire from the skies and brought horrible death to those that survived.  I have hunted and killed the few that remained in my way.  My hands are responsible for the deaths of billions.

I am the unwitting god of death.