u/ApprehensiveCap6525

I saw a post earlier that was asking about a list of the biggest frauds in red rising so I figured I would help a brother out. I am not gonna rank anybody or anything but in no particular order the 10 biggest frauds I can think of are:

Kavax - bitched by the red hand, bitched again by Ephraim's crew (though tbf he was pretty badass in that fight), bitched a third time by Apollonius on Phobos, just L after L after L with no feats. PLEASE pierce brown give him a win

Karnus - only won against darrow with help from Octavia at the academy and then again with help from 6 of his cousins after that, when he fights darrow 1v1 he is instantly one shotted with zero difficulty. Fraud.

Octavia - sovereign of the entire society but couldn't tell bombs were being smuggled onto HER home sphere? Also fucked up the Augustus killing, fumbled the truth game with Darrow, and caused the massacre at the gala all in one book alone? Holy shit she's a bum. Maybe the biggest fraud in verse if it weren't for somebody else on this list down below:

Diomedes - Name one diomedes feat. Just one. I'll wait.

Magnus Au Grimmus - all the hype, none of the substance. Was dying in his bed for 5 years while his daughter ran the war effort. Yes the burning of rhea was tuff but we're done with the 90s unc, somebody put this guy in the old age home already

Ajax Au Grimmus - "he was stated to be the most threatening gold" "he fought evenly with darrow" "he killed tongueless easily" yap yap yap yap YAP. Victra + Thraxa belted him off screen while his #1 ally Lysander twiddled his thumbs on Phobos. Fraud.

Sefi the Quiet - was tuff in Morning Star but, again, we're done with the 90s. Poisoned by atalantia, tricked by Atlas, played like a fiddle by mustang, easily killed by Volsung Fa, constantly carried by GOATphraim and his skuggi. Ragnar would weep

Pliny - worm does NOT equal serpent

Antonia - what does she even do? Seriously. Name one thing she did all series besides fucking the Jackal (crazy is as crazy does). What does she do?

Publius - did all that work off screen, planned the biggest coup in the whole series, hustled and grinded for years, only to earn 2 and a half scenes of success for him before he became the Abomination's slave. Fraaaaaaauuuuuuuddddddd alert!

Also some non frauds who I think are unfairly dissed:

1. Lysander Au Lune - conquered Heliopolis, fell in multiple iron rains, out politiced Atalantia, nearly killed Darrow, killed Rhone ti Flavinius (the best gray alive who killed dozens of peerless scarred), defeated Atlas with Cassius help, conquered Phobos, rebuilt all of Mercury, killed 7 assassins with only a razor and firebrand bomb. Yes he is a loser with no honor but that's no reason to call him a fraud. Learn the difference goodmen

2. Mustang - organized the Augustus rescue in Golden Son, escaped from Pliny's spaceship crawling with enemy soldiers, was the only member of her institute house not to be enslaved, singlehandedly held together the solar republic for 12 years, escaped from the Abomination in Dark Age with zero help, nearly killed Apollonius with lionguards help on Phobos. She has feats bro. She has feats.

3. Lorn - "Two point three meters. Close." Lilath got lucky.

Feel free to argue with my rankings or add new frauds/non frauds down below. It's a Demokracy now or something like that

Synopsis: Just over a year after the end of the Federation War, an ambitious human businessman teams up with a crew of Arxur veterans to illegally smuggle goods in and out of the Arxur Quarantine Zone. Gunfights, space battles, and other shenanigans ensue.

CW: foreshadowing, mad science, plot exposition, you get the idea

Memory Transcription Subject: Markus Becker, Enterprising Businessman

Date (Standardized Human Time): April 2, 2138

The threat scanners showed a whole bunch of nothing as we approached the site of our client's coordinates. Proximity scanners, also nothing. My own homegrown scanners, which most people just called 'eyes', also said a whole bunch of de nada. That meant nothing in Spanish, by the way. The point is, there was nothing at all interesting on the journey to the planet and the cattle farm--ex-cattle farm, hopefully--we were going to land at.

Except for Sylara. She was always interesting. And a few days alone on a ship with her had let my appreciation of the woman age like fine wine. I had never really considered myself an alien fucker, I certainly didn't fetishize them or any weird shit like that, but the captain of the I.S. Little Runt was the most smoking hot chick I had met in a good long while and I was going to have to make my feelings known to her at some point.

Well, I mean, not today, of course. She still kind of scared me.

But some point.

The threat sensor blared for a few seconds, snapping me to alertness as we made our final approach. I was in my office, of course, poking Anraz's special package box he had asked us to deliver for him. What the hell even could be inside? That was a question I both did and didn't want to know, and it was getting on my nerves so much that I almost welcomed the distraction caused by the threat of imminent instant death. I rushed to the bridge to see what was happening.

"False alarm, Markus," Sylara told me as soon as I came in. Well, shit! That's a relief! "They tagged us with their targeting sensor as soon as we hit the atmosphere. But Anraz's code ran clean. We're cleared to land."

I nodded, sighed with relief, and went over to Zefriss' status board to look at the weapons. We had a lot of them, now, thanks to my spending spree on the Lizard Maw station, and I saw the trigger for our ship-to-ship nuke on Zefriss' console marked with a very clear 'FIRE SHIP TO SHIP NUKE' button. Just in case he ever forgot that we had a city-leveler stowed just a few dozen centimeters below our feet.

Can you believe that, no more than one year ago, I was a wool-care shampoo salesman? Crazy, I know.

Vazega, who I think was still our navigator, guided the ship down onto what looked like a landing pad as Sylara spoke with whoever was in charge at that base Anraz sent us to. I looked out the window, and, yep. That was a ship-killing railgun looking at us. Now I know what gave the threat sensors such a scare. I was no expert in space weapons, but I was pretty sure a gun that size could put a hole clean through three Little Runts.

I tried not to sigh in relief when I saw the railgun begin to retract underground, and a dome-like metal aperture begin closing above it. That base was loaded for bear. Not even the Ghost of Nishtal could touch us in there.

Vazega set us down on the landing pad and we began to slowly descend, actually descend, into the earth. I wasn't even sure what I was seeing at first. Still, it did make sense that they'd have some way to conceal ships from view. The crew and I waited until the ship was fully lowered and the hangar doors were closed above us before getting our shit together and going outside.

"I don't like this," said Zefriss. He was kitted out in full gear, including an Arxur-sized set of battle armor that must have required some serious custom tailoring for his huge bulk, and carried a United Nations-made plasma gun built for marines to use in boarding actions. It could output enough force to melt down a steel door and then, in the very next shot, squirt out barely enough energy to burn the skin of an enemy assailant. Or so I was told, at least. I had never seen the thing used.

"You don't like anything," said Sylara. She, too, was armed, though she wore no armor and carried only a pistol. "I know Anraz. He's a powerful guy, but he's good. He keeps his word and expects us to keep ours." She looked back at the cube in my hands. "Besides, that's why we brought firepower." She flicked her tail at me, no, behind me, at the two deckhands behind us carrying rifles and battle gear.

Zefriss thought of them as idiots who wouldn't be able to fight their way out of a paper bag, and they probably were, but they were also each nearly twice my size and kitted out in enough armor to look indistinguishable from actual soldiers. So, in short, badass motherfuckers. Or at least they looked the part.

"Avriss, lower the ramp." The one called Avriss did as she was told and went for the cargo bay ramp controls, lowering it and waiting by the control station for the welcome party to arrive.

The hangar we were in was large and expansive, but most of that size was taken up by the bulk of the Little Runt, and the ramp had set down only meters away from the doorway in. The room was dimly lit, even more so than appropriate for Arxur, and a faint orange glow swept over the sand-covered floor. We only had a couple moments to take in the sight before the doorway trundled open and a single human walked in.

"Do you have the package?" She asked. I showed him the package.

"Straight from Anraz himself!" Sylara cried out.

The human we were meeting, dressed in a lab coat like some kind of mad scientist, came up to us to take it. I gave the cube to her and she nodded satisfactorily. "That'll conclude our business together, then. Thank you, sincerely, thank you for your contributions to the advancement of science."

I had heard of enough Josef Mengeles and Navaruses in this world not to trust those words when I heard them.

"Sir?" Zefriss asked, stepping forward. He, like sometimes, had the same idea I did. The decent one. "What, exactly, are you going to use this package for?"

Sylara smacked his leg with her tail in a clear 'shut the FUCK up' gesture. "Apologies for my security officer," she began, but Mrs. Lab Coat cut her off.

"No need for apology," she told her. "You Arxur have seen the worst this galaxy has to offer." *And done it. Mostly done it, in fact.* "I can't blame you for being suspicious." Sje waved us over to the door so she could show us the rest of the base. "What we're doing is so incredibly complex that... well... I think it's best to just show you."

I nodded. Sylara nodded. Zefriss, to my surprise, also nodded. I guess we just were doing that today. "You two," Zefriss said to the deckhands, "secure the ship. Lock it down." He went with Sylara and I to go follow the scientist.

"It would be better if you used their names," I quietly admonished Zefriss as we went through the dark, expansive corridors of the base. No one was around but us. In all certainty, the place felt like the set of some kind of horror movie. Like the kind where a mad scientist kidnaps people to experiment on them, for example.

"I don't know their names," Zefriss complained. "Maybe Avriss. And also... Klavra? I think? But I have no clue who the third guy is."

"Sarviz," said Sylara. "His name is Sarviz, he likes watching comets move during long space deployments, and he's training to be an engineer for the ship." I looked her way in surprise. "It pays to know details about your subordinates. And to care about them. Empathy is a surprisingly practical trait to have." She said that like a person who just discovered what it was like to have it, because she was, and I was fairly certain I was the guy who taught it to her. I think I could feel moderately proud of myself for that.

"Anyway," said the scientist woman, probably getting tired of not being the center of the discussion anymore. "I'm Dr. Viktoriya Viktorvich, director of this institute. We are here to accomplish what no other scientist has dared to try." Now we were all interested. This was gonna be some groundbreaking shit. Granted, mustard gas was also groundbreaking shit for its time. So were pseudoviruses. So maybe being groundbreaking wasn't in and of itself a good idea.

"Ever since the dawn of human existence," continued Dr. Viktorvich, "Human beings have improved their environments with the tools of science. From the wheel to the warp drive, the history books are filled with men and women who tried that and succeeded. But nobody has ever thought of the most obvious solution: what if we improve the human body itself?"

Oh, god. Sylara and I are going to gave to fight our way out of a laboratory filled with this mad scientist's crazy mutant super monsters, aren't we?

"Imagine a man who could survive the vacuum of space with no suit," Viktorvich continued. Wait, sorry, *Doctor* Viktorvich. Women didn't fight for hundreds of years to get the right to practice medicine for nothing. "Or one whose body is only life support for a gargantuan brain, capable of creating ideas that would make Einstein or Vasilyev like toddlers by comparison. These are what I am making. The übermenschen, if any of you understand that term."

I remember Hitler using it.

Dr. Viktorvich led us around another corner and I started to realize I had no idea where in the facility I was. Where even was everybody? This was not working good. "The United Nations did not understand my genius," Viktorvich continued. "They ordered my research ended. But science is not so easy to stop!"

She gestured around the room, unaware that Zefriss was about one scary noise away from turning her into a predator-on-predator violence statistic. "The Arxur Dominion had genetic technology under lockdown, filthy fascists that they were, but the constraints they operated under produced a unique kind of scientist. Ruthless. Secretive. Willing to do anything to serve the goal of knowledge. Exactly the kind of person I needed on my team. Together, the team and I have come within millimeters of producing our greatest work. The greatest work."

"What the fuck are you making?" Sylara snapped. "And why the fuck do you need that cube?"

"The cube is ingredients," said Dr. Viktorvich, but she very deliberately did not answer the first question. I noted that. "The last, rarest, and most crucial ingredient for the serum we are making. As for the serum itself... well..." She stopped us at a heavy steel door and scanned her thumb print, causing it to trundle open. "Come inside. I will show you."

Zefriss and I were understandably hesitant to do just that, but Sylara stepped inside so I had to follow, and I stepped inside so Zefriss had to follow. It was a dominoes thing. I looked around the room.

It was huge. Dozens of meters across, two stories tall, and filled with human and Arxur scientists in lab coats and mostly-Arxur security people wearing armor and wielding badass-looking weapons. The place was filled with science equipment, and a catwalk ran along the sides of the room to make sure people could make use of its full height.

"See the containment cells?" Dr. Viktorvich asked, pointing to a set of sturdy-looking windows and doors embedded in the walls of the room. There looked like four to a side, plus another set of four to a side on the top level as well. "Thirty centimeter thick carbonized glass, durable enough to stop a bazooka blast. It was the only clear material we had that could withstand the force our übermenschen deliver."

I looked closer inside the cells. Each one of them was occupied by a single freakish organism. Huge blue birds with talons the size of meat cleavers. Massive- holy shit! Those are Venlil! Massive, roided up Venlils whose legs made goddamn tree trunks look small. A gorilla-sized Gojid, fully covered in spines, glared at me from inside his or her cell before roaring inaudible and rushing the glass. The security men nearby jumped. Damn, those fangs look nasty.

"What the fuck?" I asked, because what the hell else could you ask in a situation like this?

"My words exactly," hissed Sylara. Zefriss also took the time to express his agreement. "What the hell is this?"

"My failed experiments," said Dr. Viktorvich. "During my time in Arxur space, I discovered the work of a scientist who had developed something called the Apex Serum. A chemical cocktail designed to mutate sapient life into horrible monsters. I attempted to refine his serum and create a perfect version. All of the strength and durability, but none of the bloodlust. As you can see," she waved around the room, "I failed. That is where the package comes in."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" I exclaimed. "Why the hell would we give you anything, now that you've shown us what you're doing?" Zefriss' tail smacked my leg. Viktorvich's security guards surrounded us.

"I'm not a mad scientist, Mr. Becker," said the woman who had spent the past hour or so acting exactly like a mad scientist. "I understand that this is not the desired result. I would have killed these people, but I continue to hold out hope for a cure. It is my duty to care for them until then, and if their survival gives benefits to my studies, well... win-win situation. All I want is the advancement of civilization."

She showed us the package we had given her when we landed. "The substance in this package is a very powerful mutagenic chemical," she informed us. "Highly restricted, because it was used in biological weapons during the Dominion days. But just the same way snake venom is used to make treatments for hypertension, we can use this to refine the Apex Serum."

"Also, we'll shoot you guys if you try to stop us," one of the security guards chimed in.

"Thank you, Patrice, very helpful," said Dr. Viktorvich. "Anyway, once I add this mutagen into the Apex Serum, it should, emphasis on the should part, be usable for intelligent subjects without, you know, that." She gestured to an absolutely huge Krakotl in a cell who was shrieking at the glass.

"Uh, sir?" one of the security men asked.

"This will be a revolution for the human race," said the doctor, ignoring him. "All races. Thank you all for making it possible. Whatever Anraz gave you wasn't payment enough."

"Sir?" asked the security guard again.

"That looks important," Zefriss rumbled, pointing at him.

"What is it, Zefriss?" Dr. Viktorvich asked the guard. Huh. Small world, I guess.

"Bad news, sir. We have a contact at sixteen hundred kilometers and closing. Venlil Republic warship."

My heart sunk so far in my chest it was damn near coming out of my asshole.

No.

"Does it see us?"

"Most definitely, sir," said the security guard. "It made a circumplanetary entry to avoid detection on our long-range scans. We have only minutes before the ship arrives."

Minutes. The Little Runt took about that long to fucking land. We could take off before it arrived, yeah, but we'd need some tricky flying to escape in time. Maybe the nuke. "Sylara, go back to the ship and let them know," I ordered. "We have to launch now."

"Launch?" Dr. Viktorvich snapped. "That's a fucking Federation battleship! It'll murder your souped-up cattle carrier before she clears the atmosphere!"

"What the fuck do you propose, then?" I snapped back. "We fight against an actual warship?"

"Yeah, actually," said Dr. Viktorvich. "That's about it." Oh my god, she really is insane. "You two," she pointed at Zefriss and I. Sylara had already dipped. "Do you have any fighting experience?" Zefriss said yes. I said no. "Then come with me to the control room," Dr. Viktorvich told us. "It's the safest part of the whole facility." With a nod from me, Zefriss followed her out of the laboratory and into the corridors again.

Alarms sounded and red lights flashed as personnel of all kinds rushed to their stations. Where the hell were all these guys earlier? "The base's defenses are designed to resist an attack from orbit, not a slingshot maneuver through the atmosphere. The security team will be hard pressed." A few armored men and women rushed past us holding guns. Two technicians jogged past them on the other side with wrenches and tool kits. Fuck, I was scared.

"Doctor! Doctor!" An Arxur in a flashy uniform ran up to us waving an arm. "We have to evacuate!"

"Evacuate?" Dr. Viktorvich snapped. "That's impossible, and you know it! Get to the control room and direct the defenses, Zanzi, or I'll have your fucking pelt as a handbag!"

Zanzi, as big as he was, withered under the scientist woman's glare. "But, doctor... look!" He showed her a picture on his hand terminal. I looked too.

No.

Not this.

The sight was unmistakable. The dread terror of the Arxur smuggler fleet. The lone remnant of a species long since destroyed. A Federation-era battleship, apparently retrofitted to be able to survive atmospheric entry, and painted like always in the battle livery of the Krakotl people. "We have to evacuate," I repeated Zanzi's saying. "Now." We were under attack by the Ghost of Nishtal.

First | Previous | yes that was an apex predator reference just there

I know a lot of people here call Kalsim a fraud because he fought for the federation and all that but none of that is backed up by text evidence. He is good at what he does. All his military decisions make total sense from a practical, if not ethical, standpoint, and he is not a fraud or a bum like you say he is. None of the other guys in the verse have feats that are on the same level as his feats so it is safe to say he is the best military officer in the verse.

(Yes, I know that he's a terrible person. So was Napoleon Bonaparte. As far as I'm concerned, Kalsim is the closest thing NoP has to space Napoleon. Or maybe space Erwin Rommel, if you prefer that comparison)

First, it's clear that his tactical-level ability is considerable. His first battle scene shows him successfully out-ambushing a UN fleet ambush on the way to Earth, being the only non human commander to exhibit such advanced tactics and the only commander period to show such mastery of battlefield knowledge and improvisation. Additionally, his ship handled itself well during the BoE, scoring several ship-to-ship kills and even (i think) securing the launch of AM-bombs from a strategically valuable bomber. These are not the actions of a bum whose only feat is being slightly better than the bums he is surrounded with.

Second, his strategic command of the battlefield and how it relates to the war at large is also solid. During the BoE, he is able to identify and attack weaknesses in the U.N. fleet as well as command a huge battlegroup of 40,000 ships to exploit these weaknesses in unison. He also was able to spot several traps the humans set for him at the BoE based on innocuous things like gaps in their fleet formation. Yes, he did have the numbers advantage, but when you consider the fact that he's leading a force of sleep-deprived Federation bums with zero fighting skill against a fleet of trained fearless technologically superior space commandos fighting for their very existence, it kind of evens out. Kalsim has many solid strategic feats that far outstrip the other commanders in the verse. He did not get hit with the dumbass brick.

His most hated on decision, the choice to press the attack on Earth rather than retreat to defend Nishtal, also makes perfect sense in context. The journey from Nishtal to Earth took 7 days. Kalsim's decision to spend 12-24 hours destroying half the Federation's enemies rather than turn tail immediately and give humankind 14 whole days to regroup was a completely sensible choice at the time. Also, assuming that Nishtal would have been lost if he had not left then and there, the sacrifice of one planet that produced tiny fractions of the Federation's military fleet is a small cost to pay for wiping out half of the predators' vital infrastructure and manpower in one strike.

Nobody else in the verse has shown military skill on this level. Sovlin has no feats besides a suicide charge that only worked because of luck, Captain Monahan (the captain of the UN spaceship at some point in the book) has no feats period, Isif and the other Arxur commanders are all fear effect merchants and bums, and nobody even remembers the guys from NoP 2. Captain Kalsim is the best military leader in the NoPverse.

TLDR: captain kalsim is a terrible person but he handled himself well against the UN fleet and made strategically sound decisions that put him above all other commanders in verse

Yes this IS a ficnapping of the fanfiction known as An Ape Out Of Place, you're so astute for having made that observation. Also it's a prequel. Big whoop.

CW: Ted kaczinski reference, paperwork, paperwork, more paperwork, a day in the life of a pencils pusher (assuming they have pencils in the year two thousand nine hundred and thirty-six), they found a living one

Memory Transcription Subject: Alexander Farmer, Reclamation Initiative SubDirector

Date (Standardized Human Time): May 6, 2936 (before the main fic starts)

The Galactic Federation and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.

No, really. They were. I dunno what the hell else you'd call them. Truthfully, they were also a disaster for the Venlil race, Gojid race, Krakotl race, Fissan race, Dossur race, Yulpa race... you get the idea, but I wasn't one of them so it wasn't them I was concerned with. Humans. Human beings. Homo fuckin' sapiens. That was my order of the day.

And here I was, looking at 'em.

Not in the flesh, mind you. I still hadn't gotten over the brainwashing the damn feds did to my people all those generations ago. Any set of eyes not optimized for a wide field of vision still scared the hell out of me. But I had gotten enough access to the Galactic Archives files the Farsul had been so, erm... generous... to "lend" to us to piece together a history of what went down for humankind.

Not the barebones, half-assed shit we had been watered down to. The real humankind. Who we were once, were always meant to be, and will be again once my agency finishes its work.

What was that work, you may ask? Paperwork. The worst kind. All the cool shit was being done by the cool agencies, like the space corps or exterminators. They got to light shit on fire, for herd's sake! Why didn't I get to do that?

Hell, I wouldn't mind lighting this paperwork on fire about now.

Paperwork. An antiquated word, over a thousand years old, so dated that the language we speak it in wasn't even a concept when true humans last roamed the earth. Its roots come from the ancient English words 'paper', which refers to a writing substance derived from plant matter, and work--which means exactly what you think it means--as well as the ancient Mandarin word for 'bureaucracy'. Herd only knows how that got in there.

The Federation had robbed so much of ourselves from us that I wasn't even sure if we'd recognize each other anymore. I mean, sure, physically, the similarities were there. But mentally? Psychologically? Socially? How could my species call ourselves humans anymore, if we weren't even human in the ways that mattered?

I dunno. That was for people with degrees in relevant fields to answer. Me, personally, I was just the guy who gave them information. And oh boy did the Farschives have a lot of it. Farschives. Farsul Archives. I'm a genius, I know. My whole job for the next thirty days, maybe twenty-nine days if I was absolutely filled with luck, was going to be reading forms, filing forms, filling out forms, you get the idea. Not the greatest place for a guy like me to be, but hey! Someone's gotta do it.

I flicked open my personal computer and got to work. Some idiots from other parts of the RA called them PCs, which is apparently an acronym, but in my language PC was a slang term for very illegal and immoral herdnet content so I wasn't exactly able to say that. Anyway, I quickly found no small shortage of files to go over, though most of them were dedicated to other species and, as such, quickly dismissed. No, I do not want to know about pre-first contact Yulpa mating habits. I'm not really sure who would.

It took a few hours before the RA ground personnel, or technically underwater personnel given their current location, could bust down the door to the human section and really get me the data I needed. File after file began downloading onto my starship's servers, ready to be sliced up by the main slicer and sent off to the dozens of sub-slicers, including me, we had on board.

I was a historical slicer. More specifically, military history. Most people of this era never wanted a job looking at such bloody information, which is why I was able to get it so easily, but I took pride and solace in my role. This was going to be the first real glimpse our new species had at the most unsanitizable parts of old humanity.

Wars.

Actual wars. Where people killed each other over territory, resources, and political or religious beliefs instead of finding a compromise or agreeing to disagree. I didn't know if it was just some lingering remnant of the Federation mindset talking, but I was actually pretty happy they had gotten rid of those.

Still, it had happened. This was as true a part of humankind as any. And I had a duty to understand it, even the worst parts of it, if I was to be a proper member of the human reclamation initiative. I pulled up the first file I saw and began to read.

The First War

Oh, this is gonna be a good one.

No one actually knew when, where, or why the first ever war even happened, which made this article's title kind of misleading. There were conflicting historical accounts on all factors, and even some that, regrettably, the Farsul archivists had scrubbed from the records. I felt my blood boil at the irreparability of the damage they had done to human history.

Judging by how I felt right now, I could tell how some people had it in them to start wars.

I read onward. The first recorded battle was fought in a place called Mesopotamia, then Persia, then the Middle East, and then finally Sandeya, under our Federation occupiers. Now, it would be known as Mesopotamia once more. Two factions of primitives, one attacking a city, one defending it, faced off with crude but effective weapons that used the application of kinetic force to kill either at range or in close combat.

Farsul archeologists had discovered evidence of thousands impacts from thrown stones, which were apparently the favored projectiles for weapons at that time, as well as a few surviving examples of the stones themselves. Hamoukar, the city was called. The first ever battle was the battle of Hamoukar.

Then, of course, were the other battles. The battle of Megiddo, for example, fought in a place now known as Nilen. It was waged between a single overwhelming power on one side and an alliance of companions on the other. Like the Arxur war, or at least the Arxur war as we had believed it to be. I wouldn't be surprised if that was all a lie too.

Hell, all this military history was getting really depressing. Just war after war after war. Massacre after massacre. And for what? So some fucking overlord of an ancient city-state with a population of twelve could proclaim himself 'Emperor of Two Shitholes' instead of emperor of just one? I really didn't get it.

The Federation could have enlightened us. They could have lifted us up above all worldly worries and given us a paradise among the stars. Hell, ending war alone would have been enough in my book. But they just had to be like they were. Another conqueror. Like Cyrus the Great, the man who created the first ever empire, who was praised because he brought peace and prosperity to dozens of city-states but never mind all the blood he spilled to make it happen.

All the Federation was to the world was just another Akkadian Empire. All of them were. Conquerors who brought 'enlightened' ideology to a foreign land and snuffed out everything and every one they didn't like about it in the process. Justifying their bloodshed by the monuments they built. The legacies they paved.

Really, I felt disgusted by all of it. Maybe we really were better off without this kind of stuff. Hell, who was I kidding? Of course we were better off without mass warfare. That was kinda fucking obvious, no? The problem came with all the other stuff the Federation did.

I filed my first file away and wrote down what I knew. Primitive battles, weapons used, casualty numbers, yadda yadda yadda. The important thing was what this revealed about pre-uplift human culture. That was the whole reason I was here, so I took a moment or so to think about it.

Humans of the 2,000-10,000 B.C.E. era were bloodthirsty idiots who killed each other for riches, power, fertile land, religious or political disputes or other, unknown reasons. Boom.

Speaking of idiots, who was the guy who made their timescale go backward before a certain point and then forward after it? Why was it all centered around one point? What could possibly have been so important about that year anyway? Just another question the Federation had robbed us of the answer to. Herd, I hated them more and more the more I read.

Still, I kept reading. More inconsequential battles. More reminders of true humans' nearly-unequaled capacity for savagery. I kind of wished I had taken something nicer like pre-Farsul gardening or something like that. That would've been something fun to spend a few claws on. But nope! Here I was.

The Battle of Troy, the decisive battle of the Trojan War, was fought between the Greeks and the Trojans in...

Yeah, yeah, they did not do that. Spartans. Three hundred of them. Against an army. That shit did not happen.

Cannae? Well, shit, I guess they can.

That pun makes way more sense in my language, by the way. It's nothing like pre-uplift English.

I had gotten all the way to the year zero, only reading the important documents of course, when I decided I would take a breather and come back later to read the less important ones and gain a more in-depth understanding of human military history.

I stood up, went to the ship's cafeteria, grabbed a meal and a drink of water, and took it all down in thirty or so minutes before I felt refreshed enough to go back to my work. I also spent some time wondering what humans used to eat before the Farsul came, but in the end, I elected not to know. I could only handle so much bloodshed in one day.

With the reading done, partially done at least, I figured I'd take some time to write up my report. Click clack click... click click... No. No. Backspace. I didn't mean to say that. Click click clack...

The general gist of it was going to be controversial, but simple. There were some parts of old human history we were really just better off without. Just the casualty figures alone were mind-boggling to a man of the second millennium P.F.F. That's Post Federation Founding, by the way. So much more sensible than any of that B.C, C.E. shit.

Anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah. Forgot. The Farsuls had done us a huge favor by ending war. Like, the rest of it, no bro, but this was a biggie. If ancient humans could come up with horrors like this using only primitive technology, what the hell would they be capable of with modern stuff?

Was I going to be a witness to the first space-age Attila the Hun, watching as he and his armies snuffed out a star from existence or some similar shit? Maybe figured out multiverse theory just to trap an enemy planet in the Tortureverse? I sure fucking hoped not!

Anyway. Gotta cool my head.

Click click click. Click clack. Clack clack- no. Not that word. Different word. Click clack clack.

Maybe the Federation was right. Not about everything, of course. But some things. Some things were better off as they were. Somebody had to send that insight up the chain of command before somebody else undid something we would've been better off leaving in place. Oh. Wait. I'm somebody. I can do that.

I clicked out a few more sentences on my report and added my newfound idea to the mix. Hey, worst-case scenario, I was just fired and blacklisted from the Reclamation Alliance for life. Not so bad, right? Said nobody ever.

After writing up a few more of my ideas on what was to be done, most notably the concepts that we 'blow up all this data RIGHT NOW' to keep any future Hannibal Barcas from having ideas, I took a break and ordered the printer to print up a can of grunk for me. Yes, we did drink a drink called grunk in the 29th century. It was actually really good. After finishing off my can of grunk---again, that is the real, bona fide, no-jokes name of the drink---I got back to work.

The fact of the matter was that they were better off left buried. Humans, that is. There was no way that a species capable of inflicting that kind of cruelty on its own kind, let alone others, should be brought back to life like that.

Yes, the Federation was a terrible and abominable nation-state, but it was better than this! Better than whoever this "Scipio of Africa" character and his kind were. Those Farsul people were one hundred percent in the right to rid the universe of monsters like that, and no way in heaven should we decide to undo that call.

That idea was actually going to be the thesis of my report, but fuck was I nervous about bringing it up. I mean, this was practically a bare-naked defense of the Federation and its principles, hell, it was a bare-naked defense of the Federation and its principles! The very damn thing this alliance had been created to undo! How was I going to explain to a bunch of guys called the Reclamation Alliance that, actually, maybe let's not reclaim all that many things after all. They'd fire me on the spot!

Well, there was nothing to be done, I guess. I sighed, finished up my report, and put it into a file and sent it off to the higher-ups. Relieved that I had finally gotten the most eventful part of my day out of the way, I headed over to the ship's cafeteria to stock up on more food.

Yep.

I had just been bombarded with all the evidence in the worlds about the sinister nature of pre-uplift humankind. Nothing that happened to me today could ever be crazier than that.

"Alex! Alex! Alex!" A guy I knew but didn't particularly like ran up to me waving a data terminal. "I've got news! I have news!" He grabbed me all of a sudden before I had time to react and whispered something terrifying into my ear. My face went pale. My eyes zoned out, an artificial instinct to spread my field of focus and allow me to track threats in a wider area, or so the Farsuls had said. The hairs on my arms stood on end. There was no way this was possible.

"They found a living WHAT?"