Δυο ιστορίες επιστημονικής φαντασίας

The switch

I’ve been alive for seventeen thousand cycles. Long enough to watch primitive species grow into empires. I’ve seen species climb from instinct to insight, from survival to transcendence.

...and just as often, I’ve watched them collapse into silence.

After all that, after meeting thousands of civilizations and studying their ways, I thought I understood how intelligence works. Then came the humans. And they humbled me.

It’s not their tech that unsettles me, though being only the second species in the galactic history to develop FTL travel on their own is no small feat.

It’s not even their capacity for violence and the highly asymmetrical way of retribution. We’ve seen violence before. We’ve cataloged cruelty, cold strategy, ruthless efficiency. These things, while grim, fit into patterns we’ve known for millennia.

What unsettles me, what I still think about, long after their delegation left Gal’dah, isn’t loud or dramatic. It’s something quieter and yet far more terrifying.

While they came into a single spaceship, blatantly and deliberately ignoring the hypergate network, it was three delegations from their three more powerful factions, who didn’t exactly seem to love each other.

Did they really think we wouldn’t notice? We’ve been studying sentient behavior since before their last common ancestor walked their planet.

Oh, they knew that we would notice. But either they didn't care, or they did it on purpose and with them, you can't be sure which is which; they are devilishly clever, and their so-called “erratic behavior” most often is intentional to throw you off balance.

The so-called “Earth group” kept a deliberate distance from the so-called “Kepler” representatives. The so-called “Eridanus group” sat between them, pretending to be neutral, but it was obvious that there was no love lost between any of them.

Taking it at face value, humans are surprisingly easy to read, and what I saw would have torn most species into open conflict. But taking anything that has to do with them at face value is a recipe for disaster.

The point is that they disagreed on everything: trade, resources, who would get first access to whatever knowledge they hoped to extract from us. Yes, extract. We’re not naive.

They argued during breaks. They contradicted each other. At one point, I’m fairly certain, Earth threatened Kepler with economic sanctions, and this was delivered with a smile.

They have a phrase for this: “diplomacy is saying good doggie while trying to find a rock to throw,” and by the thousand suns, they are good at this.

Then young U’lklam, new to the research division and still learning the art of restraint, made a mistake. He voiced what everyone in our delegation actually thought. He said that humans seemed “remarkably primitive” compared to the ancient civilizations that built the Gate Network.

Fair is fair, young, and naive U’lklam as he might be, he managed something no one has managed since we first met humans: with a single statement, he threw them off balance.

The shift was instant and almost instinctive. Three factions became one. No shouting. No threats. Just silence. For 2.3 seconds, every human in that room turned to U’lklam with the exact same expression: same head tilt, same eyes, same calculation.

And then, just like that, it was gone. They ignored us, as if we weren't even there, as if our presence was an afterthought, and they resumed the bickering like nothing had happened.

But I saw it. I saw it, and ever since it's fueling my nightmares. There’s a switch in the human psyche. And when it flips, the whole galaxy learns what the consequences might be.

I must be clear about this, lest my concern be misunderstood. Humans are, in their daily operations, entirely normal. They trade with everyone. They establish colonies. They build economic partnerships. Yes, they eliminated the Jarzin threat with stellar-scale weapons, but that was a targeted response to an immediate danger. Yes, they played dirty with the Darnaks, but no sun went nova and in the end they were Darnaks themselves who nearly destroyed their civilization.

After each threat is eliminated, humans go back to being... well, human. Trading. Building. Competing. And above all, fighting among themselves. Their internal conflicts never stop and sometimes become violent. Really violent.

But they never cross the line. They never quite push each other to existential threats. Because somewhere in their collective memory, burned into their consciousness from their nuclear age, is the ancient compact: "We can fight about everything, but we never go for the throat. Because if one of us does, we all die."

I believe, and this is a hypothesis that frightens me, that their fragmentation is not a weakness. It may be their greatest strength.

Every human faction is in constant competition with every other human faction. Kepler colonies compete with Earth group and Eridanus and whoever. Corporate entities compete with each other and with planetary authorities. Ideological movements compete for hearts and minds. Military forces maintain careful balance against each other.

And here is the crucial insight: They are all competing against opponents who have the same intelligence, the same experience, the same motivations, and the same capacity for unconventional thinking. Because they all belong to the same species originating from the same planet. For example a Kepler faction developing a new strategy cannot rely on their opponents being slower or less clever. Earth group know they are facing adversaries who think like them, who have access to the same historical knowledge, who can predict their moves because they would make the same moves. Eridanus independentists cannot count on their enemies being less motivated, because everyone involved wants survival with equal desperation.

This means that every human faction must constantly innovate. Constantly adapt. Constantly developing new strategies, new technologies, new approaches, because they are in an endless arms race with opponents who are exactly as capable as they are. They cannot become complacent. They cannot rest on superior technology or superior numbers or superior position, because their rivals will immediately exploit any weakness. They cannot afford to stagnate, because stagnation means defeat at the hands of someone who is just as smart, just as experienced, and just as ruthless as they are.

Most species achieve unification and then... stop. Stop innovating at the same pace. Stop competing as fiercely. Stop pushing boundaries with the same desperation. They have internal peace, which is admirable, but peace allows for complacency. Humans never have peace, not really, not among themselves, and so they never stop sharpening themselves against each other.

They have a mantra that speak volumes about the way they think: “If you desire peace prepare for war.”

When they encounter external threats—the Jarzin, the Darnaks, anyone else, they are facing opponents who have not spent millennia in constant, fierce competition with equals. Opponents who unified early and learned to compete only against inferiors or distant equals. Opponents who have not been forced to innovate at the relentless pace that internal human competition demands.

Is it any wonder they win?

But this is not what troubles me most.

After young U’lklam's comment, after that 2.3-second moment of unity, I began watching more carefully. I studied their interactions with new understanding. And I realized that the humans did not fully understand what I had witnessed.

They are not consciously aware of the switch.

I conducted a quiet experiment. I asked one of the Earth representatives—a woman named Chen, sharp-minded and refreshingly direct, about human unity. She laughed. Actually laughed.

"Unity? Have you seen us? We can't agree on anything. Kepler wants independence, the Eridanus wants representation and Earth group is fragmenting into a dozen different power blocks. We're barely holding together."

I pressed: "But surely, if humanity faced an existential threat, would you unite?"

Her expression changed, not dramatically but something shifted behind her eyes—something she herself did not seem to consciously recognize.

"Well," she replied slowly, "I mean, obviously. If it came down to species survival, we'd... yeah. Of course. That's a whole different story."

"Different how?"

She struggled to articulate it. "It's just... that's the line, you know? You can mess with other humans all you want. We do it constantly. But if someone threatens the species..."

She didn't need to explain further. Jarzin and Darnaks learned first hand. What I noticed is that she didn't know where this line was. But she knew it existed. And she knew, they all know at some deep, unarticulated level, what happens when that line is crossed.

I have run simulations. We all have, in the Council. We have studied human history, analyzed their conflicts, modeled their behavior patterns. And we keep arriving at the same disturbing conclusion.

Imagine this scenario: Some coalition—perhaps the Lautar, the Galagrags, a few other systems—decides that humanity has become too powerful, too unpredictable, too dangerous. They decide to do something about it. It starts with economic pressure, trade embargoes, diplomatic isolation. Standard great-power politics.

Humans respond with measured counter-pressure. Blockades. Economic warfare. Perhaps they destroy a few military assets to make their point. All normal escalation.

The coalition sees this as proof of human aggression. They escalate to limited military action. Strike a few human colonies. "To teach them a lesson." "To contain the threat before it grows."

Humans respond by making a star explode Jarzin-style. A clear message: "Back off."

But now the coalition is terrified. Frightened powers make desperate decisions. They coordinate a massive strike against multiple human systems. Not to conquer but to cripple. To reduce the threat before it reduces them.

And that is when it happens. That is when the switch flips.

Up until that moment, humans would be fragmented. Kepler factions arguing with Earth and Eridanus factions about strategy. Corporate blocs trying to maintain profitable relationships. Isolationist groups insisting "this is not our fight." All the normal human chaos.

But the moment the attack hits multiple systems, the moment it becomes clear that this is not a local conflict but an existential threat to the species—, everything changes.

There will be no formal declaration. No emergency meeting of human governments. No dramatic announcement of unity. It will simply happen. Every human faction, in every corner of the galaxy, will suddenly know. Will feel it. Will understand: "This is it."

And then something deeper, something wired into their collective unconscious from millennia of near extinctions, every human faction will make the same calculation: Species survival trumps everything else.

The arguing stops. The competition pauses. The ideological differences become irrelevant. They do not become friends. They do not forget their grievances. But they become, functionally, a single organism with a single goal.

And that is when the galaxy learns what "acceptable cost" means to a species that has survived this long by never ever accepting its own extinction.

This is what we have come to understand, what keeps me awake during contemplation hours: Humans have already done the math. They have already made the calculation. And the answer is clear: For them "humanity goes extinct" versus "turn the galaxy to ashes" is not a choice.

They are not cruel per se. As species they are rather friendly, as long as your disposition to them is friendly.

But even if the entire galaxy unites against them; if it becomes clear that the choice is "us or them," humans will choose "us" every single time, without qualms and regardless of cost.

And the cost could be everything. Every star. Every planet. Every civilization. Every living thing in the galaxy except humanity itself.

For them a dead galaxy with humans surviving somewhere, somehow, is better than a thriving galaxy of a trillion trillion souls without them.

This is not madness. I wish it were, madness can be treated, contained, managed. This is cold logic. Pure survival arithmetic. From the perspective of a species, if your species ceases to exist, nothing else matters. The universe might as well cease to exist.

They will preserve their species at any cost. Even if that means a galaxy devoid of any life except human.

We have analyzed this from every philosophical framework we possess. We have run it through ethical matrices, strategic assessments, game-theory models. And from a pure logical standpoint, from the perspective of a species that prioritizes its own survival above all else, it makes perfect sense.

That is what makes it so terrifying.

If they were irrational, we could predict when they might break. If they were emotional, we could appeal to sentiment. If they were honor-bound, we could negotiate within honor frameworks. But they are none of these things when the switch flips. They are simply... committed to survival. With a completeness that admits no compromise.

I have seen species willing to die for glory. Species willing to sacrifice themselves for ideology. Species that choose extinction over dishonor. These responses, while alien to Gal'dah sensibilities, are at least comprehensible within established frameworks of behavior.

But I have never seen a species so utterly committed to survival that they would burn the galaxy rather than accept extinction. They will not seek justice because as a whole species have realized the simplest of truths about true power: justice matters only between equals.

It is not that they would do so eagerly, I genuinely believe they would find it regrettable. They would probably even feel guilty about it, or whatever passes on for human moral contemplation.

But they would do it anyway.

So, we watch. Every day, we observe humanity going about its normal business. Trading with the very Jarzin they nearly exterminated. Rebuilding the Darnak civilization after offering them the tool to dismantle it themselves. Helping backwater colonies develop. Fighting among themselves over resource rights and trade agreements and ideological differences.

Completely normal. Entirely rational. Even, dare I say it, benign in their daily interactions.

"See," we tell the worried civilizations that come to us, "humans are not monsters. They are traders, pragmatists, rational actors. Leave them alone, do not threaten them, and everything will be fine."

But every quiet moment, every period of contemplation, I remember that 2.3-second shift. That moment when three arguing factions became one entity. That glimpse behind the curtain of human psychology.

And I know that somewhere in the galaxy, right now, human factions are competing with each other as fiercely as ever. Blocking each other's trade routes, undermining each other's colonies, fighting over resources and pride and ideology. Looking, to any external observer, like a species barely holding itself together.

But there is a line. Invisible, subjective, undefined even to themselves. And if that line is crossed, if humanity collectively decides that the species itself is under existential threat, then all that internal competition, all that fierce rivalry, all that barely contained conflict will redirect outward and with the combined creativity of a thousand competing factions that have been sharpening themselves against each other for millennia. With the focused intensity of a species that has survived nuclear age, system-wide conflicts, and a hostile galaxy through sheer refusal to accept extinction.

With the cold calculus that has already determined: Anything is acceptable if the species survives.

I presented my findings to the High Council. They listened in silence, the deep, heavy silence that comes when ancient beings confront something truly new. When I finished, Senior Councilor Vharra asked the only question that mattered: "What do we recommend?"

I had no answer. What can we recommend?

We cannot try to eliminate humans, that would trigger exactly what we fear. We cannot control them; they would perceive control as threat. We cannot even predict them reliably, their threshold for species-survival-mode is subjective and unconscious.

We can only warn others and watch as humans continue their normal bickering and trading and expanding, and pray, if we still remembered how, that nobody is stupid enough to cross that invisible line.

So, I watch. We all watch. The Gal'dah, who have seen millions of years of galactic history, who have witnessed the rise and fall of countless civilizations, who thought we understood the patterns of sentient behavior.

We watch humanity trade peacefully with their neighbors. Build colonies on distant worlds. Help suffering populations, sometimes purely for profit, sometimes for reasons they themselves probably do not fully understand. Fight among themselves with passionate intensity over issues that seem trivial to our ancient perspective. We watch them being normal.

And we worry.

We worry because we have learned something in our millions of years of observation, something that younger species have not yet internalized: The most dangerous threats are not the ones that look dangerous every day. They are the ones that look normal, peaceful, even benign, right up until the moment they are not.

Humanity has shown us their switch. That 2.3-second glimpse behind the curtain. They did not mean to, I do not think they even realized what they revealed. But we saw it. We understand it now, as much as we can understand something so fundamentally alien to our experience.

And it's frightening.

—Personal note, not for official record.

I found myself almost admiring them, after that visit. The sheer audacity of a species that fights with itself so fiercely yet can unite so completely. The paradox of cooperation and competition existing simultaneously at every level of their civilization.

But admiration is a luxury we cannot afford. Because the stakes are not merely academic. They are existential—not for us, perhaps, but for everything else.

I think of young U’lklam's innocent comment, and that 2.3-second response, and I wonder: How close did we come? What exactly would it take to trigger not just that flash of unity, but full commitment? Where is the line?

I do not know and I don't want to know.

'Cause while ignorance terrifies me, finding out terrifies me even more.

—Elhardr, Senior Council Member, Gal'dah High Council

Cycle 10,847,229 Post-Integration

 

On the nature of power

—Jarmiquilar, Senior Council Member, Gal'dah High Council
Cycle 10,847,229 Post-Integration

Personal Notes - Not for Council Archive

The human delegation departed three cycles ago. I have spent the time since reviewing every moment of their visit, every interaction, every data point.

I admit I started admiring them as much as I fear them.

On their own humanity is a fascinating species. Their evolutionary history shows they descended from persistence hunters. Omnivores who could survive on plant matter but invested enormous effort in hunting megafauna, prey that even apex predators avoided.

Their hunting methods: persistence (tracking prey for days until it collapsed), ambush (planning, patience, coordinated strikes), and group coordination (complex social structures dedicated to hunting success).

These are not merely learned behaviors. These are evolved traits. Patience, cunning, and group coordination are written into their biology.

Their evolution was shaped by extreme selection pressure for group survival. Individuals who prioritized group survival over personal interest out-reproduced those who did not. This continued long past the point where survival on their planet was assured. The drive for "group survival" - now abstracted beyond simple existence to include ideological, cultural, economic survival - is genetic. Not learned. Genetic.

Humans maintain multiple factions in constant conflict. But the definition of "group" is fluid. It expands and contracts based on threat level. I still remember when Chen shared one of their sayings: “Me against my brother. My brother and me against our cousin. Our family against the village. Our village against outsiders.”

The pattern scales infinitely. And at the species level, when the entire species perceives existential threat, all internal conflict pauses. Instantly. Completely.

They have practiced this not for mere centuries, but for millennia, honing these skills against each other, always striving to stay a step ahead of equally capable actors.

For them "Adapt or die" evolved into "Outsmart and outpower, or become obsolete."

They refined these techniques precisely because their doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction made direct conflict between major factions suicidal.

When you cannot fight openly, you learn to fight through others. They became masters of it.

And even more unnerving is their understanding of game theory. Humans possess mathematical sophistication to unheard level for a species so young. They understand deterrence, signaling, commitment mechanisms, separating equilibria, and focal points at levels approaching our own.

The more I thought about it the more I got convinced that everything they did was deliberate. Every moment of their visit was calculated. Every action was planned. Every word was chosen. Every response was anticipated.

They didn’t merely ignore the Gate Network, they dismissed it. They did not stumble into revealing their unity. They did not accidentally show us their capacity. They did not spontaneously decide to give us historical texts about power dynamics.

Elhardr got it completely wrong, along with the rest of the Council. There was nothing spontaneous, nothing instinctive in their behavior. It was choreography. Performance. Theater designed to lead us to specific conclusions.

And we, ancient, wise, supposedly unmanipulable, watched the performance without even realizing that it was a performance, and drew exactly the conclusions they wanted us to draw. We invited humans to study them; they accepted our invitation to use us as a vehicle to deliver a warning to the rest of the galaxy!


Realization #1: Not using the Gate Network was message.

Every species in this galaxy depends on the network. Travel, trade, communication - all require it. The network is infrastructure of galactic civilization. Attacking the network would be attacking civilization itself.

Humans arrived without it. They demonstrated, wordlessly, that they do not need what everyone else needs. They could survive if the network collapsed. That they could continue expanding while every other civilization regressed to isolated systems.

This was not convenience or preference. This was strategic demonstration. "We are not dependent. We are not vulnerable through infrastructure. We do not need what you need."

The implications are staggering. If conflict escalates to point where humans calculate that galactic civilization itself is threat, they could shut down the Gate Network and watch everyone else collapse while they continue expanding independently. They don’t need to burn the galaxy; they can simply suffocate it.

They did not say this. They did not threaten it. They simply arrived without using the network and let us calculate the implications ourselves.


Realization #2: Diplomats Do Not Lose Composure

The 2.3-second moment of synchronized response to U'lklam's insult was presented as loss of composure. Momentary reaction to being called primitive.

But these were diplomats.

You do not become diplomat if you cannot control your reactions. You do not represent your faction in first contact with the First Ones if you lack emotional discipline. You do not get selected for this mission if you are prone to being thrown out of balance by insults.

These were not random humans. These were carefully selected representatives who had trained their entire careers to maintain composure under observation.

And they all "lost composure" in perfect synchronization. Same head tilt. Same eye focus. Same duration. Then perfect resumption of previous behavior.

This was not loss of control. This was performance.

They showed us the unity mechanism. They let us see what happens when the switch flips. They maintained it for exactly long enough to be noticed by observers as sophisticated as Gal'dah, then they turned it off and returned to factional arguing.

They were showing us the early warning sign. "This is what it looks like when we perceive existential threat. This moment right here. This synchronization. When you see this, you are about to be destroyed. This is your only warning."

They demonstrated it in safe context - mere insult, not actual threat - so that when it appears in dangerous context, we will recognize it. And they did it so subtly that it appeared spontaneous, instinctive. It appeared to be revelation of something they could not control.

But this was a message! Deliberate, calculated and executed with precision.


Realization #3: The Threat Assessment Protocol

When humans perceive species-level existential threat, they respond with genocide. Without hesitation, without mercy and without proportionality.

But - and this is crucial - only when the threat is external to their species.

Humans fight each other constantly and violently. Their factional conflicts have killed millions throughout their history. But they never go for existential throat, they maintain M.A.D. equilibrium. They have agreed, collectively and probably unconsciously, that species survival trumps factional victory.

This means their genocidal capacity is not general bloodthirstiness. It is targeted response to specific calculation. External threat to species equals elimination of threat by any means necessary.

The boundary is clear, the mechanism is understood and the response is proven through demonstration. This is not moral failing, this is strategic doctrine and they wanted us to know it.


Realization #4: Method Selection Based on Strategic Calculation

Jarzin could not be manipulated in time. They were straightforward military aggressors, requiring direct response. Result: stellar annihilation. Fast, immediate, and overwhelming.

But humans understood that destroying a civilization is insufficient if survivors might eventually seek revenge. So they rebuilt the Jarzin—strategically.

They integrated Jarzin survivors into human economic systems, creating dependency. And then they addressed a structural vulnerability in Jarzin society: females, though equally intelligent, had been systematically subjugated by males. With Jarzin male dominance structures destroyed, humans simply... treated Jarzin females as equals.

The calculation is ruthless in its elegance. Jarzin gender ratio: nine females to one male. Within one generation, ninety percent of Jarzin society will consist of females who experienced not genocide but liberation from millennia of subjugation. They will remember humans not as the species that nearly annihilated them, but as the ones who freed them from their own males.

Even if Jarzin rebuild their civilization to its former glory, revenge becomes impossible. The population that would lead such an effort sees the old Jarzin order as oppression, not golden age. Humans didn't just defeat the Jarzin—they ensured the next generation would be grateful for that defeat.

The old ways died with the old stars. And humans made certain no one would mourn either.

Darnaks were different. Stronger and smarter but more complex psychologically. Humans realized they could be turned against themselves without the internal restraints humans maintain in their own conflicts. Result: orchestrated internal collapse. Slow and patient but equally destructive.

Then humans rebuilt them—strategically. They positioned themselves as essential mediators between Darnak factions. As neutral arbiters. As the circuit breakers preventing the cycle from repeating. Throughout reconstruction, one message was reinforced constantly: "You nearly destroyed yourselves. We are why you still exist. We are the safeguard."

The psychology is surgical in its precision. Darnaks will not remember humans as the ones who gave them the tools of self-annihilation, they won't even realize it. They will remember humans as the ones who stopped the genocide, not the ones who manipulatevly initiated it. Human presence became associated with stability, not destruction. With recovery, not collapse.

Within one generation, Darnak factions will accept human mediation as necessity. They will believe they need humans to maintain peace among themselves, that without human oversight, they would return to the self-destructive cycle.

This demonstrates something terrifying: humans do not have one response. They have toolkit. They assess the opponent, identify optimal method of destruction, and execute without moral constraint.

If you cannot be manipulated, you will be destroyed directly. If you can be manipulated, you will be destroyed through proxies. If neither method serves their purpose, they will find third option.

The lesson was not new to them; they have been practicing this for forty-five hundred years and not as abstract strategy but as survival necessity. They refined proxy warfare because their M.A.D. doctrine made direct warfare suicidal. They became masters of orchestrated destruction because they needed to fight without fighting. And now they have brought those millennia-refined skills to the galaxy.


Realization #5: On the nature of power

Among the documents they shared with us, one in particular stood apart. It was ancient by their standards—more than forty-five hundred years old—and the way they drew our attention to it was almost playful. They didn’t insist; they nudged us toward it. The title read simply: On the Nature of Power.

Athens confronting Melos. The Athenians explaining that justice is irrelevant when power is unequal. Melos were destroyed because it believed it could appeal to morality and fairness. Athens acted not out of cruelty, but as deterrence: allowing Melos to exist without submission would have been an existential threat to the Athenian order, and so Melos was erased.

The message could not have been clearer: “We understand how power works. We mastered it throughout all our history. And we had to make sure that you understand our modus operandi.”


Realization #6: We Are the Message Delivery System

The final piece clicks into place: they came here to turn us into their warning broadcast system.

They could not spread warnings themselves. Threats signal weakness. Direct communication of "we are dangerous, fear us" invites testing. It creates adversarial dynamic. It potentially triggers coalition formation against them.

But if the Gal'dah - ancient, neutral, wise observers with no stake in human success - if WE warn others about human capabilities, that carries weight no human statement could match.

They understood this, they calculated it and then they executed it.

They demonstrated their capabilities twice (Jarzin, Darnaks) using different methods. They showed us their unity mechanism. They gave us historical texts explaining their strategic thinking. They provided evolutionary context for why they operate this way.

And then they left. No threats or demands, no explicit requests that we warn anyone because they knew we would. Because we are compelled by our own analysis. Because the mathematics demand that we warn species away from triggering genocidal response. Because we would prefer civilizations to learn through observation rather than become the next demonstration case.

They manipulated us, not out of malice, but because they knew the weight of responsibility we carry as the last of the First Ones. They used our desire to prevent galaxy catastrophe.

They didn’t come to justify themselves. Because they know! They know!

“Power is the perception of potence. It lies where we believe it lies.”

And they came to use us, used our own perception to make sure the galaxy hears their message: that if anyone threatens humanity, they will not be the Melians. They will be the Athenians, the ones who erased them.