Sidebar: A Quick Sci-fi Story
What happens after humanity achieves "God"-tier status after a brutal war with an alien race?
As the global macro situation grinds into an impasse before a (possible) plunge and eventual recovery, I figured it was time for a diversion of sorts. Hence, a “Sidebar”, i.e. a topic not related to Asia, culture or business. This short story, from the subreddit r/HFY (“Humanity, Fuck Yeah!”), was written nearly 8 years ago by Redditor “ComeToMyWorld” who seems to be a budding writer. The story is reproduced as-is, with some grammatical/syntax corrections. Enjoy!
When the Alliance of Humanity reported that they had been attacked by the Scuthar without a formal declaration of war, nobody paid them any mind. When the outer worlds of humanity fell, none of their allies had come to their aid. If we had known what we know now, we would have gladly aided them.
Let me explain. The Scuthar are a warrior people, they breed faster than [rabbits] and they respect only that which is for war. The United Alliance of Solar States, of which Humanity was a part, was called "the-weak-together-less-weak" by the Scuthar. Together, these species promised to aid each other in any war.
Together, all 422 species of the United Alliance failed to aid humanity when the Scuthar attacked them. The war would be too costly, politicians said. In reality, we weren't sure if all of us together could defeat the Scuthar: they were too strong and they reproduced too fast. Humanity, despite having shown themselves to be inventive and somewhat of a cultural oddity, were simply not worth it.
Humanity's worlds fell one after another and soon they stood fighting on their 400 core worlds: the Circe and Khepri series, well-known for their industrial prowess. The Humans had, at this point, withdrawn from all space - with every human travelling back to one of their own worlds to fight in the war. Their cradleworld had not been found, but we all realised it was only a matter of time. Or so we thought.
The Scuthar invasion had slowed down to a crawl, partially because the Humans could handle much colder weather than the Scuthars and defeated army after army sent into the cold mountains of the Skadi worlds. Eventually, even the Skadi worlds fell, but the Humans proved so apt at urban and [Arctic] warfare that the surfaces of their outer worlds were covered in Scuthar corpses.
The mounting losses combined with the fact that no resources were ever recovered from the worlds they had taken. Only seven of the 90 worlds taken from Humanity had actually been taken intact; the other 83 worlds had been blown up from the inside or turned into a radioactive hell.
The estimated effectiveness of the Scuthar army had dropped from 1 human per 1.17 Scuthar killed to 1 Human per 40 Scuthar killed in just [seven months]. The Scuthar population may have been large, but it was only 12 times the size of the Human population. We came to a realisation as the Scuthar descended on the core worlds of Humanity with their battered fleet: the Humans were draining them dry. They were beating the attrition species in their own field.
The Scuthar were masters of attrition because they sent every single one of their kind to war. Humans did the same but they coolly and calmly calculated the rewards for each engagement and only battled when they knew they would achieve a sufficient kill ratio, regardless of how many they lost.
With one third of the Scuthar dead, the war finally started turning. At this point in time the worlds of the Scuthar stood almost empty, with little food getting to the front line and few left to build their ships. They were now standing still on all fronts, and even losing ground on some.
Humanity - on the other hand - was fielding increasingly fantastic machinery, up to and including a newly invented AI. “Genghis Khan”, they called it. It commanded large sections of their armies to just as, if not more, astounding victories as the Human generals.
By the end of the [14th month] of war, the Scuthar lost their first outer world. On the [9th day of the 15th month], their first core worlds fell. The end of the [15th month] heralded a historic moment: the first time a species landed on another species’ cradleworld.
As the Humans entered the Palace of the Warriors on Scuthuia with their armoured vehicles, the Scuthar surrendered. They hailed the Humans as their new Gods of War. “Biological-perfection-warrior-gods” they called them. “Mortal-but-gods” became the official species name for Humans amongst the Scuthar.
[Seven days] after the war ended, a Human ambassador was sent back to the United Alliance. By now, news of the war was greatly sought after by the entire UA and the ambassador agreed to an appearance in one of the UA’s most famous talk shows hosted by the Jihsd model Nnuhia.
“After an astounding recovery, you managed to completely subdue the Scuthar. There are reports that they worship you on Scuthuia as the Gods of War”, the Jihsd host said with an excited wave of her antenna. “However, there is one question that I'm sure is on the lips of all the galaxy. What will you do now?”
The Human gave a bitter laugh. “Now we go home.”
And that, son, is why you will never see a Human. They returned to their cradleworld, and we have seen neither hide nor hair of them since. With them, they took the miraculous technology they invented, the amazing music pieces they crafted and the odd food they cooked.
So when the Scuthar turned their attention to the ones they claimed had wronged their Gods, there was no one who could save us. They claimed that we had failed to prove our strength to the Gods, failed to prove that we were worthy. And that, son, is why you will never be born into this world.
If you feel like digging into a longer and non-fictional read, try the “Dharma” series, which traces the millennia-spanning shared religious and cultural history of Asia. There are five interconnected articles and two ancillary entries. Read the first one here and proceed onwards.