We met them first on planet 4xab-Delta. We were so happy to finally realize we were no longer the only civilization in the universe and very soon we found ourselves doing our best to get to know them. I must admit, our scientists in the beginning committed horrible acts in order to gain an understanding of how they worked, but we had simply never seen sentient beings quite like them before and we wanted to make sure they were as smart as we thought. The beings retreated after that and we did not speak to them for many light cycles. We were saddened that we had lost our only known friend in this cold dark universe, but then we began to communicate freely and all was not lost.

We traded with them: technology, then religion, and after a while people. They came to our colonies to see how we terraformed planets while we went to their worlds to see how they organized their government. We were slightly shocked by their incredibly oligarchical style of ruling and the concept that so few had such power frightened us, but we did our best to not yet again offend our new friends. While we were learning about their government they were enthralled with the speed at which we had developed our technology but we explained that after many full scale world wars we were able to achieve enlightenment and expand into the cosmos. They were very interested in our culture and history subjects that we rarely studied because we had learned to elongate our own lives to the point that history became somewhat of an obsolete subject considering that we all lived long enough to repeat it from memory.

It was not more than one hundred years after we re-established contact that we recognized what they were doing with the technology we had given them. They had begun to elongate their own lives, give themselves super-strength, and were starting to create matter and energy in a way that no mortal being should ever attempt to have control over. We had made these mistakes in the beginning of our existence and pleaded to them to stop these projects before it was too late. Billions of lives would have been lost to both their people and ours if they began to rip holes in space. So we acted pre-emptively, cruelly, and pragmatically. Because it had to be done, for our sake and their own. We stormed their research planets and destroyed all traces of their work; blueprints, models, scientists. It was horrific, and we tried to explain it was done in the greater good, but they had not yet gained the understanding that the lives of few cannot control the destinies of trillions. We demanded that they surrender the rest of the technology they had produced and sent our entire military fleet to their homeworld to make it known we were very serious. They begged and pleaded for us to stay away but they left us with no choice and when they refused for the last time we cracked Earth in half hoping that from now on they could understand their place underneath us, but the Humans were stronger than we had ever imagined. They had improved the technology we were so proud of and that was how I found myself as captain of our fleet in the most tragic day in Gatholing Empire.
We engaged them in an open section of space and to our surprise only a single ship dropped out of warp space. When it hailed us I was expecting nothing less than complete and total surrender. They were young, had much to learn, and they need us to guide them. That was not what they said, “General, we plead with you for the last time. Give up your cause to take away our technology and there may be a chance at peace. You’ve already slaughtered billions of our people and if you do not stand down you will leave us with no choice.” I laughed at them. We were a navy of three thousand strong: 300 battleships, 2000 destroyers, and 700 aircraft depositors filled with ten thousand single manned ships a piece. They stood no chance, and then I watched, and I howled as I saw an arc of light stream across the black horizon and nearly my entire fleet was demolished by a ship 1/100th the size of our smallest. The cumulative knowledge lost on that day was greater than the entire known universe the Humans had explored and yet I was forced to jump away shamefully with my last three hundred ships as my people burned in front of my very eyes.

The humans took very little time after that obliterating one of our colonies after another destroying our people and establishing new environments so that their species could survive. We had never given any credit to their technology because we found it incredibly crude and uninteresting, but they had managed to find a balance between our arc beams and their projectiles and we stood very little chance. I had sat by and believed our people to be the gods of this plane of existence without any equal to overthrow us, but now we had created an equal, and they wanted us dead.

“So I speak to all of you my people. This will be our final vote and we must measure the consequences of it very thoroughly before we decide. The humans are bombarding us even now as we sit under our protective dome. It is but a matter of time before they break through and begin to tear across our homeworld like they have to all the others. Our options are as follows; poison our atmosphere so that we alone die with dignity and they may continue to forge on as the new gods of this universe or bring an end to all known life. Life will begin anew in a few thousand years and we may leave messages scattered around the entirety of space and time to help guide those whom we will not be around to guide ourselves. Now we vote my people, and may God have mercy on our souls.” I had recently converted to Christianity and felt it would be touching to have our last act as a people spoken in the words of our conquerors.

I watched as the votes came in and it was almost unanimous, 99.99% wanted the humans and all life destroyed. So in my final act as the Supreme General I decided to do what I felt the “President” of our conquerors would have done in my situation. I cast my vote by releasing the toxin in the air and watching my people drop around me for the second time in as many cycles, but this time it was of our own accord and this time it was with a subtle grace. They floated towards the ground like the leaves off a tree that I witnessed in my days as youth before the war broke out. And as I remembered the maple tree in fall time, the cool grass all around me, and the only creature I ever loved in my arms I felt myself go limp. With my last words I sent out our final message, “I love you Jessica. Please keep our child safe.”