The Horrors of Humanity

By Tashdacat

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150 years ago, there were 127 known intelligent species populating the galaxy. They ranged from the lithe and graceful to the bulky and slow, to the many-legged and scary. All kinds of beautiful and unique races participated in galactic society, granting their own unique cultures and voices to the universe.

Now there are only 56 at above endangered levels. And of those 56 I want to tell you about the one we all grew to fear above all else.

Humans.

Humans were the last members to join the galaxy before the Calamity occurred, and they hid a lot about themselves and their history. Now, that wasn't uncommon, a lot of species withdrew slightly when confronted with the wider galaxy, often citing their realization of just how small their species really is. We left them be and didn't pry too much into their history.

While they were already an impressive stellar empire of their own, having developed in a relatively isolated and empty part of the galaxy, their people left their jobs, homes, and families in droves for the stars of other nations.

Within less than a decade, it was common to see Humans on every planet, their impressive adaptability ensuring they could live alongside almost anyone, and the wider galaxy learned to love these strange bipeds.

Whether mining on Celus IV, leading businesses on Prim, or delving into the multicolored caves of Giloria, humans very quickly became a sizeable minority throughout the galaxy. Explorers, diplomats, and traders by nature, found fast allies in every sector. Even the militaristic people like the Drom or Liligar found themselves impressed by the squishy pink creature's combat abilities, and their governments very quickly got human representatives as they defeated the previous holders in duels.

They were everywhere, doing everything, but still kept tight-lipped about the history of their people. They delved eagerly into the histories of others but rarely spoke of their own. When they did they'd recite the same words, speaking of the last couple of centuries only. Talking of the rise of the current Human Federation built from a fractured species of dozens of smaller groups. Eventually, we all stopped asking.

48 years after their appearance, a threat emerged. From a part of the galaxy long deemed impenetrable due to its thick nebula and strange electromagnetic interference, the Grox came. The galaxy had been at peace for over a millennium, even the militaristic species had largely let their militaries fall by the wayside as they began to consider a galaxy without war.

The galaxy scrambled fast, but our community had not even fought anything in almost 180 years, much less warred! Technology had marched on and governments had more important things to do than retrofit militaries that were never called on for anything more than the odd pirate gang. We were caught off-guard and by the time we organized a true blockade, it had been almost two years since Emergence, and a full thirty percent of the galactic arm existed within the rapidly expanding Grox Empire.

The humans were everywhere, in every role. Combat medics, admirals, ship engineers. You name it and the humans were there, but as the decades slipped by the fighting grew worse the hardiest economies began to show wear, and the various empires struggled to maintain an effective defense.

After almost fifty years of fighting, a Human diplomat, Charlize Metorian, appeared before the galactic council, asking that the humans take over the direction of the combat. We had lost almost half the galaxy, and millennia-old empires had cracked and fallen to be absorbed by those around them as they tried to ensure rogue states didn't make the situation worse.

It was true there were many Humans in the leadership of the war effort, even among the military of non-human empires, but still, we protested.

The Humans had lost almost as many of their species as the rest of the combatants combined, we thought there was no way they could form an effective fighting force. While it was true they were skilled in combat and had a still functioning economy due to their position being far away from the fighting, they had never fought in a galactic-level war.

We argued, back and forth for weeks, though Charlize held firm in her convictions, which she said were backed by the highest forms of authority. Opinions on the council were divided. Some saw nothing but skilled greenhorns taking advantage of a crisis to gain power, others a peaceful trading group hoping to make a difference.

Finally, in a fit of anger, she said she was no longer asking, she was demanding. She demanded the leadership be stripped from the galactic council and be transferred to Humanity, and the humans in leadership positions backed her. They said that their people knew war well, and they'd follow whatever orders they were given.

To use a human idiom, it was the straw that broke the camel's back. Other generals and admirals fell into line behind their human comrades, and the council's hand was forced.

It took only a week for a human fleet to take back a sector we had been trying to reclaim for months. They just blasted out of FTL and started hurling nuclear weapons and light-speed missiles at Grox fleets with a recklessness that bordered on insanity. The enemy never stood a chance, they were torn to pieces in a hail of fire and blood. In one week they had used as much firepower as we'd use in a month, but they achieved something we hadn't seen in years, results.

But they didn't stop there, they pushed forward further into enemy territory, and while they paid for every system they took, the Grox paid more.

Three months later we officially granted them the leadership of the combined galactic fleets. A human admiral marched into the military headquarters of a galactic armada and proclaimed the galaxy would be theirs within a decade.

We laughed, but they kept their word.

Human leadership caused more and more humans to join the fight, confident that with their own people in charge, victory was just a matter of time. By this point, the Grox had slaughtered trillions, and each human that signed up for the fight had lost co-workers, friends, and family. Even those few who had lost no one simply wanted to help those who had given them so much, or just burn the Grox on a pyre of nuclear fission.

Throughout the whole of the fighting, Humans had been everywhere. Huge medical fleets serviced soldiers wounded in ground fighting, and armadas of Human ships tore through space after the enemy with impunity, we had seen every facet and praiseworthy deed the humans had ever done.

But while all this was going on, the greatest minds of humanity were debating among themselves, and they had finally reached a decision after a half-century of war.

It took them a month to retake sectors long held by the Grox, a year, to turn the tide, and by four we had the Grox fleeing!

But how they did it.... how they did it turned our blood to ice.

Biological horrors, the result of twisted experiments by insane scientists, dropped onto worlds to ravage military bases. Where horrors failed entire colonies were empties of violent prisoners to drop instead, utilizing the chaos they created to tear the Grox forces apart.

Viral bombardment of horrific plagues left entire worlds screaming in agony as their bodies were torn apart from the inside, turning them into sludgy piles of undulating flesh or just ripping their organs apart one by one.

Nanite swarms stripped enemy fleets of their hulls. These swarms purposefully spaced the occupants as they repurposed all that delicious metal into more of themselves, eventually growing into planet-sized monstrosities that could consume entire systems in a matter of weeks.

And when nanites, viral bombardment, or mutated horrors wouldn't work, the Humans simply burned whole words in nuclear fire, glassing manufactories, and economic centers. They turned the shimmering jewels of the Ateni and Beoma empires into eternally burning monuments of fire to ensure the Grox no longer had a hold on those regions. When the inevitable outcry reared its head Admiral Jonas Smithe went on galactic news and simply said "Do you want the Grox defeated, or do you want to die to their guns?"

By the sixth year, the galaxy had seen our fill of atrocities and turned back. Trying to repair our broken and fractured nations would take centuries, and our economies had been stretched to breaking point. With the Grox defeat assured, we beat our own swords to plowshares and offered up prayers to our Human saviors.

But every day that went past the Humans found new and inventive ways of horrifying the universe with their monstrous ideas.

Accelerating particles to light speed and slamming them into planets to break them in seconds became a common tactic. Fleets of drone swarms acting like locusts tore apart ships attempting to flee the atmospheres of broken worlds.

Worlds that relied on regular food shipments were simply encased in a shield and left alone as the war fleets moved ever onwards. Their inhabitants were left to starve, devolve, or simply tear each other apart as cannibalism became the new norm.

But the worst was in the seventh year.

Nanite swarms had grown to encompass stars, and all the various viruses the humans had were long since retooled for maximum effectiveness. But the humans had learned new ways of war from the other empires, and even from the Grox themselves, and they deployed them eagerly.

Relphox stood as the shining beacon of the Lenaylian Church. It had been taken in the first decade of fighting and been a major victory for the Grox. An entire system of twenty planets all perfectly terraformed into the most beautiful garden worlds in the galaxy. A masterpiece of terrestrial engineering and artistic design, its loss had been devastating to the Church's adherents.

The humans accelerated a payload into Relphox's sun. In a matter of hours, it went supernova, before collapsing into itself to create a black hole. Eager and hungry, it consumed everything in the system by the end of the week.

It was this move that got the Humans condemned by the Galactic Council. All the atrocities up until now had been excusable to many, but the humans now had the ability to collapse stars and this was a step too far.

Their condemnation brought outrage across the world. People called for them to be removed from the war council, but the human leadership sent but one message in return.

"This is war. In war, there is but victory or death, and we will achieve victory."

Alongside the message was a complete history of humanity, and it was then we began to understand.

Millenia, millennia of war was the human's legacy. Time after time after time, to the point where everywhere in their vast history, whether nation against nation, or a nation's citizens against its government, or insurgents proclaiming a righteous cause, there was war. It never stopped, never ceased.

Even before they left that blue jewel of theirs, they had almost annihilated it on five separate occasions in their pursuit of war with each other. By the Goddess, even when they HAD left it there were wars spanning decades. Earth V Mars, Inner Systems V Frontier Worlds, Sol V Alpha Centauri, it never ended!

In the eight hundred years it took from the point they first colonized another stellar body to the discovery of the galactic community there were no fewer than 963 wars between one or more human combatants. Some wars were fought while other wars were going on! Civil war against a government occurred while that government was actively fighting off an invasion! They just can't help themselves!!

And we unleashed that on the galaxy! We unleashed a genocidal race to combat another genocidal race!

The humans kept their promise. The Grox were beaten back to their little corner of the galaxy, then their systems were torn asunder in one of the worst genocides the galaxy has ever or will ever see. And we said nothing, what could we say?

When the humans make war, it's all or nothing. They stepped up to ensure their new comrades kept the galaxy they called home, and in doing so tore it apart.

And then they just went back to their old ways. Their horrors were corraled into vaults and sealed, or just deactivated and tossed into suns or black holes. Their military largely disbanded its wartime regiments, and those who signed up got healthy pensions and either retired or went back to their old jobs.

But the galaxy would never forget the horrors that Humanity could unleash should it be provoked, and while they never threatened anyone with them, they never had to.

For all the horrors we had witnessed, one stood out above all. The Human's capacity for war, and what we'd face if ever we turned our weapons against them.