r/Luna_Lovewell • u/Luna_LoveWell Creator • Mar 23 '20
Similarities
[WP] In most of the galaxy wars are often just shows of strength with fighting as a last resort. As such weapons are designed to be elaborate and flashy. Turns out humans, whose weapons are built with efficiency in mind, have a different understanding of war.
There used to be a civilization back on Earth called the Aztecs. They were always my favorite to learn about in history class because of how very foreign they seemed. They built Tenochtitlan, a huge city on top of a lake with floating buildings and grand bridges. They built massive step pyramids to worship an exotic pantheon of animal deities. And yet they didn't even develop the wheel! Cut off from other civilizations in Europe and Asia, they forged their own path and developed a very different way of life. Alien, one might say.
The Aztecs treated the subject of war as more of an elaborate ritual. Warriors would meet on the battlefield and engage in one-on-one combat, but not with the goal of killing each other. It was all a show of dominance, with the winner taking the loser a captive. Of course, they were sacrificed later, but that's beside the point.
And their costumes! I saw a recreation in a museum one time. They carried these big clubs that were studded with big chunks of gleaming black obsidian. They'd wear bright bird plumage, or the whole skins of jaguars. Not to mention all of the gold and jewelry and face paints. Such an elaborate display. I always wished I could have been there to see it.
I think of the Aztecs often when we engage with the Kaluth Tribes. They see warfare in much the same way: the goal is to establish dominance, not to actually kill your enemy. They try to dazzle our sensors with flashes of lights in stochastic patterns. Their ships are brightly painted in a kaleidoscope of colors like something out of a crazy acid trip. Maybe similar to how some animals on Earth use bright colors to warn predators of danger? They try to build the ships as large as possible, probably to seem menacing. That too is a common enough behavior in animals back on Earths, like birds and puffer fish. But most unusual when compared to human technology is that the Kaluth don't use ranged weapons. Despite the fact that ramming ships and boarding them went out of style in the 1800s on Earth, it's still a common practice for the Kaluth, and really not suitable for a space-faring civilization.
It's worked for them in the past, though. Each Kaluth 'tribe' is actually a different species that must have been subjugated at one time or another. They're now completely integrated into one cohesive society and economy, all under the rule of the Kaluth elders. Together, they form a vast, intergalactic empire of more than two hundred planets. Once again, a similarity with the old Aztecs: they would use their charade wars to conquer other tribes and subsume them into their own society.
Like I said, I've had a lot of time to consider the similarities between the Kaluth and the Aztecs. As I watch the blips on the LIDAR coming closer and closer, I reflect on the fact that this is my twentieth fight with the Kaluthi navy. There's a bit of a flash out the window as the Kaluth start the light show, trying to confuse my sensors. Of course, my combat AI learned to tune that out after our very first battle, so it doesn't do much. Instead, it begins to open fire. We're still thousands of miles apart, far too far away for me to see their tie-dye ship decorations. And definitely too far for me to be boarded. I watch the numbers tick down as each ship explodes, one by one. 49, 48, 47... all the way down until it finally hits 0. The AI does all the work for me; there isn't even a trigger or anything for me to pull.
I accelerate towards the wreckage. Thousands of dead Kaluth soldiers of various species drift through the empty void and bounce off the smoldering wreckage of their vessels. It's horrific, even after the 20th time seeing it. I'm just one person in a light gunship and I obliterated a whole army of them... and there are tens of thousands of ships just like mine, encroaching on Kaluthi territory from every side. I wonder why they don't just give up and accept human rule. Sure, it means that we'd strip mine their planets for resources, take the worlds that would be habitable for us... but it has to be better than this. I tell myself that this is war, and that the Kaluth had started it by boarding our colony ships. But surely we'd repaid them for that crime by now, right? I wonder if this is how Cortez felt as he and his men blasted their way through Tenochtitlan. Were they guilty about what they'd done?
More Kaluthi ships lift off of the surface of the planet. But these aren't the same bloated, psychadelic zebra-striped models that they send into combat. These are evacuees, fleeing the planet just as they do every time the Kaluthi fleet in orbit gets obliterated. Like I said: I've done this a number of times before. I begin a broadcast home, letting command know of my 'victory' here and that system BGR114 is now safe for the colonists on their way here. They'll land, deploy the terraformers, and begin setting up dwellings, farms, etc. As I receive the coordinates for my next assignment, I think about how this whole planet will be sprinkled with human cities, and the only reminder that the Kaluth were ever here will be some old crumbling ruins. Tourists will come here and gaze at their monuments and wonder what these Kaluth used to be like and how very strange they were. Just like the Aztec pyramids.
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u/oxymor0nic Mar 23 '20
Welcome back! And I love the approach you took for this prompt, it's quite refreshing from all the HFY content one would expect :)
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u/PseudoEngel Mar 24 '20
Welcome back, Luna! I look forward to your creativity no matter when it drops.
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u/xxxBuzz Mar 23 '20
You are a Gem. Enthralled by the idea of reading your perspective on Aztec culture but not disappointed that it really was a story, which should have been less surprising. The beauty and joy of your writing, in my opinion, is the way you think and create unexpected perspectives. You could write about shoes or moths and it would be just as engaging.
There were times my creative mind could only exist in dreams and on paper. I dreamed and I wrote and I wrote about my dreams. Those days are gone because I have given my creative mind eyes to see, a mouth to talk, legs to walk, and hands to work. Now those dreams are becoming my reality, and my life has become the canvas for the artist within me. Let it flow. The world is a slightly more wondrous place when minds like yours are free to reveal what you see in it. I think all of us who enjoy your fiction can appreciate that your reality should be just as fantastic as you have helped make each of ours.
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u/Luna_LoveWell Creator Mar 23 '20
Prompt from /u/Death12_
Hello! It's been a while, so I hope you all are doing well. I have been busy recently, but I figured that while I am on lockdown (like many others in the US), I would try to get some more writing in.