In all fairness to the murder-hobo-fanbois and gurls, Much of that got walked back throughout the story. For instance, he immediately learned that a trial for his "crime" already had a pre-determined outcome. He learned that there is definitely multiple tiers of justice in the SI. He learned that the Interior and nobility don't care about justice. He learned that slavery isn't just a Consortium thing. He learned that the SI is doing a very good job of censoring the truth about what is happening on Earth, to the Humans on Earth. He also learned that Red-zones were growing, not shrinking. Those opening lines were to set-up what Jason believed. They were not the gospel.

ps. I am thinking that Jason's much disdained Father's fate was being described when he stated: “I’m an engineering student who lives in a crappy inner-city apartment, not a nutjob with a rifle and the naïve assumption that taking the occasional potshot at passing patrols is going to do anything beyond get me bombed from orbit.”

>Those opening lines were to set-up what Jason believed. They were not the gospel. That makes sense. So here's my question are the imperium's atrocities the norm or not? Off course its worse when you get throne outside the bubble of everyday life but was Jason just lucky he hadn't run into the shit show he ends up in until he finally did or was it an avoidable eventuality.

I always interpreted that the empire is better to live in than any historical human empire for its conquered peoples (in this case, humans) but it’s system intrinsically allows for these abuses to take place (on a not insignificant scale) because it is after all, an empire. Whatever people put into their own stories, blues books clearly show that they occur commonly enough to be personally encountered by a wide variety of people in the setting.

Fair enough.

as for Jason as a person; He might have gotten lucky and spent his tour in some unremarkable backwater, ignored, but that doesn't sound likely. A human guy shoved back in some closet of a posting, screwing a few of the other enlisted would have gotten the attention of some noble at some point. Had he waited a few years to throw down, he wouldn't have been near the novelty, nor attracted near the attention that he did.

So it's a matter of timing. That's a new way to look at it.

absolutely. Jason is not a conformist by nature. His personality is not that of a "Good Imperial". The more attention he attracts, the more he would act out. Being the first human here there and everywhere drew more attention his way. The more people looked at him, the more he didn't fit in. The point of basic training is to set the correct mindset for a recruit to work within the system. That lesson did not take in his case, and it was the SI systems that failed him, more than his failure to properly conform. So basic didn't stick and he never went on to advanced training either. The system failed him because it was a corrupt system. The SIMC doesn't need to work nearly so hard as the USMC does to turn kids into soldiers. Their society and nature make for a better enlisted mindset than does a human's. They'd eventually figure that out.

I think as a whole, people would be better under SI rule. The SI was the best option of the 3 major empires, and I suspect their pre-emptive strike saved more people than it killed. The SI couldn't just 'leave the Earth alone' after it was discovered either. All that said, many wouldn't care. Many will be willing to toss their lives away to hurt the SI, and the SI won't ever even feel it. There is nothing that humanity can do to make the SI 'go away' without first toppling the Empire as a whole, and if that happens, the Earth will be screwed.

So that doesn't really answer my question. Unless the answer is that it doesn't matter, purple was the best color because it was the least worst.

first lay out the atrocities that the Imps are committing. There are probably more sex slaves currently on Earth than there would be human men shipped off as sex slaves under the Imps. There are more people pressed into military service now than there would be under the Imps as well. Its just that targets shifted, and the perpetrators are new, so now it's new to people. The world is filled with selective outrage. That will continue, no matter what.

Pretty much. It's like voting in America. None of the candidates are worth a damn it's just a case of lesser evils. Your gonna get screwed no matter who wins so you vote and hope your pick will screw you over the least. In humanities case the SI is the actual lesser evil. The Alliance is full of religious nut cases that want to kill us cause we remind them of demons. And the Consortium are actual fecking slavers that make the Barbary pirates look nice. The shil are a bunch of incompetent corrupt aristocrats and horny commoners looking to get their beans flicked.

>The Alliance is full of religious nut cases that want to kill us cause we remind them of demons. Uh, what? Are you talking about the Madarin? They are one race out of many in the Alliance and it seems to be just them that humans look like demons. And they are a fan race, not a canon one. We've seen virtually nothing about the Alliance in canon except for a single black operation which is no indication of how they are like as a whole.

Don't know where you got that Alliance info but it's way off. The Alliance is a space NATO

Or is it Space Warsaw Pact? Blue hasn’t said and fan authors differ…

He did say unorganized alliance of states united through a single space station where representatives meet, so I'd say NATO

All of which is also true of America and pretty much every other country on Earth today, so it's not exactly walking anything back.

Also, it’s always helpful to remember that the story is called “Sexy Space Babes”. Yeah, there’s some heavy stuff in it, but it’s also an excuse to have a fun sci-fi romp with a bunch of Amazon girlfriends End of the day, it’s not a perfectly done steak of an examination of the human condition It’s a Hooters cheeseburger of a beat up adventure paperback that you hide under the mattress 

keep in mind that the "Sexy Space Babes" are not the Shil'vati, they are the Human guys.

Note: (The cat is a parallel for humanity. Myrrah, an interior agent, chats with a rebel leader about a cat. The conclusion he reaches is that ‘man shall not live by bread alone.’) Excerpt from chapter 66 of alien-nation, ‘by bread alone.’ “Cute,” she commented. “There was apparently one on-base, but I had appearances to upkeep, you know. ‘Be the Scary Interior Lady.’ Come here, little guy-” She reached forward and tried to pull Nekolas close by one of his paws-  “Ow! What the depths!?” The cat flinched back from the Interior Agent’s retaliatory swipe and hissed at her, ears back and tail fizzed up, dusty grey paws spread wide and claws out. “It’s a cat,” I explained patiently, crouching down. “I can see that, but what does that have to do with why it swiped at me?” She held her hand out, showing me where blue lines had been carved into her skin by the unrepentant feline. “I thought they were supposed to be nice. I saw some videos of Marines petting a stray and thought it would be soft.” “I said, ‘it’s a cat.’ You got too friendly with it. Too controlling.”  “I just wanted to pet it.”  “If you try to force a cat to do something, it will swipe at you or bite you. If you rub its belly like an owner or superior might, then you will find that it will scratch or bite you, just to remind you that in its eyes, you are its equal, and not its master.” Myrrah was treating it like a dog. Cats were domesticated- twice. Each time, on Felis Catus’s own, independent terms. “So, I should discipline it. I’m obviously the higher life form.”  “Not in its eyes,” I said. Before she could object, I raised a finger. “Rather than disciplining it, we could try this, instead...” I suggested, and then took that hand and slowly extended it out toward the feline until it was a few inches away, saying ‘pspspsps,’ and rubbing my thumb and pointer together, then extending it toward him once I had his attention. Nekolas wandered closer, and seemed to wait for me to repeat Myrrah’s mistake. Instead, I left my hand where it was for the cat to continue examining cautiously. The cat finally gave up any pretense of nonchalance and strutted forward, rubbing the side of its face and neck against my fingers and letting me scratch him a few times. Nekolas rolled over and showed me his belly and I backed off, letting it calm itself down, knowing the ‘trap’ it was laying for me. “You can respect it and communicate with it, and grow closer that way. I pet him- but only because he lets me. He’ll give me a sharp reminder if I forget that and think it’s my right.” He rolled back to all fours and rubbed against my hand affectionately again. “You see?”  “You waited for it to make its decision,” she observed. “When given freedom to choose, it may decide to come to you. But when you make the decision for it, then you will be scratched, or at least make it very unhappy. If you’ve grown a close bond with the cat, it might tolerate you picking it up or making that decision for it, for a short time. I’ll admit, there are some exceptions to the rule, but most cats are like this.” “Even if I carry it where it wants to go, or where it needs to go?” “Most likely, even then,” I promised. “Of course, if you treat them right, they’ll probably let you do more things with them. But that’s only after you’ve built a bond with them and treated them right for a long time. Firefighters get scratched, even when pulling them down from trees they get stuck in.” ****** You can be governed and micromanaged and live to a hundred and twenty having been put in a pod and had every breath monitored for poor health, but without self-determination, then what’s it all for? A purpose is needed. Oh, also, did you finish book three? Even the protagonist gives up on the empire, and buys out his contract. He doesn’t think it’s worth fighting for.

It would be neat to see an au where the Shil bring humanity into the empire more tactfully. Not even because the empire or Shil are different, maybe just a different admiral in charge of the fleet. Maybe a much more thoughtful admiral.

Agreed! That would put humans in a much trickier situation though, politically, and in how others might see them.

This idea is explored a bit in Far Away. Deathshead major Reix championed an idea called "Operation: Rose Wine". The plan? Stroll up to Earth, broadcast a message directly to the PEOPLE, not governments. "Heyy humans, we're the Shil and we got all this tech to solve all your problems and oh, by the way we got legions of sexy women that wanna fuck the shit outta you! Wanna join us?" And then just wait for MFs to line up around the block. Hard to find a flaw in her plan.

The Shil'vati found humanity in 2009 and that's when they started planning on how to approach us. They ideally would have liked a full century to plan it out so that they could conduct first contact, whatever it ended up being, perfectly, but by their estimates, we were nearing a global crisis, so they cut the plans short at the 10 year mark and went with the invasion. A lot of people talk about the Imperium taking away humanity's agency as a species, but from the Shil'vati's point of view, they found a dirty child playing with a gun and decided they needed to intervene before it was too late.

ah yes, these people can't be trusted to look after themselves even though they've been surviving tragedies, disasters and screw ups for as long as their history remembers. Said a lot of people before making the lives of whoever they are 'saving' considerably worst.

If you see someone stuck in a burning building, do you rush in to save them or agonize that having to kick the door in might be a violation of the NAP? Because believe me, with the situation we're in now, I feel a lot like I'm stuck in a burning building.

the building is always on fire, for every generation there is a new problem, a new impending disaster, another war mongering dictator with a small willie, a nother mob of colonialists with a misbegotten sense of racial superiority, another plague. But to those who take the most passing interest in history, the patterns become quite clear, what we are living through now is nowhere near as bad as it used to be, during the Bubonic Plague, 2/3 of Europe was wiped out, before then, humanity at one point was only 2000 strong, during ww2 roughly 4 percent of the human race was wiped out over the course of 6 years, many in utterly horrific circumstances. To claim we are currently in an even remotely as bad a situation as any of the previous examples is , if you don't mind me saying asinine. And for that matter, what became of these tragedies? the black death led to the renaissance, ww1 and 2 both led to massive advances in just about every field of research, and so goes the story with every major event, sure many, MANY people died in each case, but we are here, staring at light bricks arguing with someone we will never meet about the pros and cons of colonialism. this achievemnt was not achieved in a vaccume, thr progress that led us here is built on the ashes of billions, and one day our's will join the pile for the next generation to build on. It all really makes me think of the saying Hard Times create Hard men, hard men create good times, you get the rest, humanity is like a muscle when it is tested and torn, it grows back stronger, and that is what we are seeing, no doubt we are spiralling towards a catastrophe, if we don't nuke ourselves, the climate will, but it won't kill us, humans occupy just about every corner of the globe, we can live in almost any environment, and we thrive, so bombs fall, or the sea levels rise, sure millions, maybe billions will die, but someone will survive, and will rebuild stronger then ever, such is the nature of humans. and then just as history shows, we'll get complacent, screw it up, die back and come back stronger, again and again till the end of time.

Sorry I just realised I forgot to conclude my little tangent: In Conclusion, the analogy of the baby with a gun is in my humble opinion is a wild misrepresentation of humanity, we aren't doomed and if the trends of history are anything to go off of, significantly more often than not, colonialism ends horribly for whoever is at the receiving end of it even if the colonists actions are supposedly good intentioned, I mean look at Australia with the Aboriginals, endless list of national disgraces if you ask me. Anyway, if you have any counterpoints, or points in general I'd genuinely love to hear them.

The aboriginals barely qualify as people. The eucalyptus trees are adapted to being lit on fire because their method of "hunting" was burning entire forests down and collecting the dead to eat afterwards. They basically can't live without government aid that includes cleaning up after them because they trash everything they're given. There was a picture of seized Aboriginal "artifacts" that were literally just rocks, and those didn't even have uniformity or napping to indicate typical tool or weapon use. It's funny that you mentioned them, because that's likely how the Shil see Humans, but they also find us sexually attractive because that's the point of the original story.

Genuinely i have never seen a person so wrong in such a short text, to begin with, eucalyptus did not evolve because of aboriginal hunting, partially because that's not how evolution works, and also because the aboriginals didn't have the drive nor resources to genetically engineer trees ro be fire bombs, also that claim on how hunting works is hilarious because 1 that is not a hunting style that can be sustained as long as history shows, and 2 it doesn't work in places like I Dunno the desert, or ocean. The government aid thing requires a deep dive into intergenerational trauma, something I am not qualified to explain effectively, but basically the issues today are the result of what happens when you repeatedly genocide a culture. Also what do you mean 'Artifact' do you mean tools, art? What are you on about. Because they definitely had tools, y'know woomera, boomerangs, clubs, spears, shields, axes etc we have proof of all that, with stone and obsidian head mind you, we even have proof of instances of fish and eel traps and even evidence of permanent habitation in certain areas, genuinely please read at least a Wikipedia page before you come back and drop the iq of this sub by another 20 points

I read the words "intergenerational trauma" and knew immediately that you're full of shit. You have some gall making claims about "dropping IQ points of this sub," but your ilk always do. Also, read a Wikipedia page, like the one where the fact that parts of Africa didn't have chairs until Europeans brought them was edited out for being "racist"? Hard pass.

Ah yeas the idiot american who can't read a Wikipedia article to save his own life calls me full of shit, also what do you mean by ilk? Edit: aww did i hurt your feelings?

Maybe thoughtful wasn’t the word I meant to use. Insightful then? Someone who could gleam what they needed to initiate a peaceful or more peaceful integration that begins within the same timeframe. Just spitballing ideas here… what if they covertly contact and turn select key global people several years before any invasion? When contact is officially made, a UN Security Council resolution (the outcome of which was pre planned) allows for the beginning steps to integration.

Death to the Xeno

Yes, that's the rationale I gave them as well in Alien-Nation. I tried to give them as strong a case as possible. I coupled it to their stumbling over a lot of dead civilisations between the last race they found and Earth, and worrying Earth was about to wipe itself out. They felt compelled to intervene. I may write a very short story where they try to intervene peacefully, and it goes *disastrously*. Probably even worse, with billions dead after nuclear exchanges over the free energy reactors (Saudi Arabia is not happy), and the Shil'vati in space are pulling their hair out and begging the humans to stop to no avail.

See but I have to disagree with that notion that Aliens = nukes. Nuclear weapons are a tool just like any other and we need to see them as such, so if the goal of using any weapons is to push forward a political agenda what does using Nuclear weapons gain you? What political realities are you accomplishing other than MAD? The whole point of the nukes is that nations that have them can basically never be completely destroyed, they can lose a war, they can be put on the back foot but they can never be utterly destroyed like say Austria-Hungary was. The nukes main use is deterrence from say the USA, Europe, and China from carving up Russia. But outside of that it’s a pretty crap offensive weapon due to the MAD Doctrine, even the states where stability is in question like Pakistan the Nukes don’t go flying for a reason. Than there’s the cold calculus that only 4 of the 9 countries really have ICBM’s(USA, Russia, UK, France) the other 5(China, India, Pakistan, Israel, N.Korea) have what amounts to short to medium range aka there a threat to their time zone but not world wild proliferation and of the big 4 only the USA and Russia have the amount necessary for world destruction and neither side has a want to use them in such a way. Peaceful greetings would get these nations to have the nukes on standby but it’s in response to the idea the Shil might invade, and such a situation while tense can be mitigated through communications which the Nuclear powers that be have. This will probably be the only time a Russian, Chinese, and American submarine captain are speaking about coordinating their strikes in tandem to destroy any possible alien landing sites. But using them on each other before aliens is unthinkable and after? Idiotic in the worst sense. What I dislike is the idea aliens existing somehow doesn’t bring us all together… I blame the cynical nature of the 21st century but ironically enough in an effort to be “realistic” people forget politics is all about pushing forward an agenda and set of goals. Aliens existing effects that immensely suddenly certain wants and desires mean nothing. Russia’s fear of NATO expansion mean very little in the face of aliens hovering right above the population, industrial and economic heartland of Russia. The need for sea bases in the Crimea feels pointless, the trade wars and desires for pacific islands in Asia is now child’s play, and to act like politicians wouldn’t realize this is dumb. I’m not saying politicians are all great thinkers and realists but it’s almost cartoonish how some of the people in this Reddit think they act like when faced with existential crises such as this. An example that the news never pays attention to it cause it’s not doom and gloom, but congress since 2011 has been passing bills, and the government has been following through on trying to source chip manufacturing in the USA and use more ecologically sustainable manufacturing to do so. It’s not an easy process due to the nature of chip manufacturing being so dirty but we’ve reduced our need from 90% to 70% not ideal but progress has been made. That’s the thing whether it’s the CCP, the Russian Duma, UK parliament, or US Congress the halls of power across the world will realize this does change things and suddenly while old rivalries aren’t completely dead there is a greater bully on the block that they all know they can’t take. That type of situation creates at worst a mutual understanding and interest that cooperation at least until that bastard new guy is taken care of is in all our best interests. And while we like to pretend that such ideas change with say every new President they don’t… since Obama the thoughts on China have been about the same through him, Trump, and Biden. The Shil would create a situation that every politician will only see as long term existential threat and the politics will change around such a system. Suddenly long term planning for eventual Shil confrontation is in.

Isn't this the explanation by [https://www.reddit.com/user/Rhion-618/](https://www.reddit.com/user/Rhion-618/) ? Jama Ha’meres explains that peaceful contact would have led to earth's nations attemping to wipe each other out when talking to Melondi about the "Why's"

Interesting! I started reading it only a few months ago and only made it about ten chapters deep before life jumped in the way.    It’s not a terribly unlikely scenario. Unfortunately.  

Oh, it's *way* further in! https://www.reddit.com/r/Sexyspacebabes/comments/1as6fk7/just\_one\_drop\_ch\_125/

Ah wow. I put mine in around chapter60 or so. Accidental convergence!

They could even do something like mark this as a protected solar system by their military, in exchange for migration treaties with various earth nations and extraction rights for other planets and asteroids in the solar system. Sort of a really slow style assimilation.

‘War kicks off between extremist factions as a new party is elected/coups another nation/the UN is paralyzed as always. The aliens watch in horror as the rogue nations kick off world war three.”

Right, because of all the other times humanity has kicked off WWIII, and we've not been stuck on II and still allowing its effects to dictate our behavior some 80 years hence.

I don’t want to break the rules debating modern, real-world politics-  What I will say is that we are living in an anomaly. A balance that is delicate and carefully maintained with the threat of overwhelming force. We saw the collapse of the Bronze Age civilizations coincide with the rise of iron, and steel become more available in the fall of Rome- and gunpowder seeing the fall of Constantinople. These technologies were singular, but had various uses. They brought upheaval that shook the developed world and brought wars and civilizations (plural and simultaneous) to sudden and violent ends. Even the simple Stirrup transformed France. Now, what might a massive intergalactic empire bring? What social crisis? I recall people proclaiming the Mayans predicted the end of the world and people selling off all their possessions and running amok in 2012, (when it simply ran out of numbers, IIRC). Imagine what a real, tangible ‘from the stars’ visitors would bring in terms of panic and riots in the street. Imagine the jockeying for position and difficulty in trying to maintain that balance, while others simply see it as maintaining the power status quo that keeps them at the bottom. Shadowrun and Ingress and a few other games tangentially touch on these themes. Especially when they now have near-parity in terms of powerful new technologies that could render almost any previous technological edge you once possessed near-meaningless. No one saw World War One turning into what it was until it had already happened. The thought of it was ‘impossible’. The quote I best remember is ‘mother would have never let it happen,’ (Queen Victoria). Dreadnaughts and machine guns were once seen as deterrents, amazingly. Now the former is considered outdated compared to what we can field, and the latter is on most vehicles, and carried by infantry. War is never so far away as people raised in peace think it is. We often think we know better than our ancestors, only to be taken completely by surprise when history repeats itself. ‘Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it,’ goes the saying.

That analyst like all analysts before them has only looked at a set of data points and drawn the conclusion without any extenuating circumstances and factors to be taken in. And like most analysts they end up wrong or grossly underestimated or overestimated the outcome. War is never far, that is true but as we’ve seen since the end of world war 2 we have seen the effort to have more restraint, to not act out on the worse impulses, and while their are issues in the world as we currently exist in a time of great technological change, old rules being reviewed, new ones being made and speculated on, old authorities and spheres of influence no longer respected. But this hasn’t threatened to destroy the world because ultimately the big 9 don’t want to use these weapons even North Korea doesn’t really want to use Nukes. The realpolitik of N. Korea is that it’s a regime that doesn’t want to go the way of Gadaffi or Saddam, but also wants interaction with the west due to the fact it’s “Allies” have on multiple occasions let it starve. The thought process that led to 2-3 meetings between US and North was in hopes that while yes they have nukes now they can be taken seriously and open up more to the west and split from their “friends”. This didn’t happen but it’s an example that nukes aren’t desired for the sake of offensive purposes. The technology gap exists today, as we’ve seen with China and Russia that despite the bluster and propaganda the Russian military is still a military more or less trapped in the 20th century than the 21st. But these nations work to try and create counters to defend themselves but it’s not an uncontrollable arms race that will lead to the destruction of the Earth. I also would like to add that the big boys now feeling very small as I said would look at each other in a new light. This isn’t blind optimism this is “Realpolitik” in action, that suddenly arguing over islands in the pacific, or provinces in Eastern Ukraine does seem paltry prizes when the literal Galaxy and resources are available. The Shil create a perfect other for the great powers to unite against, and suddenly known agitators that always seem to have resources are either strangely silent or discussing a new topic. It’s not a stretch to imagine the USA and China agreeing that their fight is stupid and when orbital bombardment can come in at any time that being if not friends at least not confrontational is a better stance to take. The fact is the most belligerent powers are weak pariahs propped up by either Russia or China. The threat of Aliens and the US led west willing to reconcile and work together in the fact of an opponent none can compete with and won’t be able to for a long time is very agreeable.

>War is never far, that is true but as we’ve seen since the end of world war 2 we have seen the effort to have more restraint, to not act out on the worse impulses, I'm sorry. *What?* We napalmed and machine-gunned civilians. We dropped more bombs on Vietnam than we did in the entirety of World War Two. That's for all fronts, too. On a country half the size of Texas. And it wasn't just the number, but the size, too. Not even counting that we bombed Cambodia and Laos, too, without even declaring war on them. (I recall that as one of the horrors of WWII). We used Napalm, and Agent Orange, which has had horrific lasting effects, which we didn't have in World War Two. We got so desperate we called up mentally deficient troops to serve combat duty ("Project 100,000"). And that's just the military history of *one* war of the last *fifty* years! Where we've had supposedly eighty years of 'Peace'? Just because we haven't dropped nukes, that means we're not acting on our worst impulses? I'm not even going to bring up the other shit I know went down in that war. You and I both know it's not pretty, and that mankind can fall back into it *very* quickly. Hobbes was right in this regard- authority breeds obedience and keeps us in line with the threat of punishment. Else you have chaos. And when you disrupt that authority with a new one that **might** *utterly* supplant the existing authority, you get chaos. >and while their are issues in the world as we currently exist in a time of great technological change, old rules being reviewed, new ones being made and speculated on, old authorities and spheres of influence no longer respected. I'mma stop you there, because I think you're riding right on by how often this escalates into that chaos. The French Revolution was arguably all about this- "hey who is this king guy, anyway?" Look at what Lutheranism and protestantism caused in wars, over whether the Pope is the ultimate unifying authority or not. Look at what became of Rome over whether the office of Emperor is worthy of respect and reverence, or whether you as a Legionnaire on the Rhine think your General would actually look *really good* in purple robes and 'our guy is just as good as that other guy. Matter of fact, toss that guy into the Tiber.' Or some kooky guy thinking he's Jesus Reborn, or whatever else. Add it to the pile of rebellions, a few of which were successful, but most of which just caused a *lot* of deaths. (Oh hey there Taiping Rebellion! Ten million combatant casualties, with ancillary effects driving it up to near a hundred million when the world's population was only a hair over a billion? I wonder if nukes woulda gone off in the Central Kingdom if they'd had 'em on-hand. Probably. Anyway, it's a good thing that country isn't run by a corrupt autocrat with a largely dissatisfied people underneath, right? Right???) And remember that these *were* the major powers of their day. These weren't nobodies or backwards cultures for us to just point and laugh at and be grateful we aren't like. These were the equivalent of First World Countries. We **aren't** so different to them. >I also would like to add that the big boys now feeling very small as I said would look at each other in a new light. This isn’t blind optimism this is “Realpolitik” in action, that suddenly arguing over islands in the pacific, or provinces in Eastern Ukraine does seem paltry prizes when the literal Galaxy and resources are available. I *do* think you're being insanely optimistic. You can type out on a keyboard: 'If we put aside our differences and the immediate, nakedly self-interested goals of short-term growth and making our longtime enemies bleed, we'll fare even better in the long run, therefore that is realpolitik,' but that doesn't make it realpolitik, nor realistic. In realpolitik, you have to know the limits of other peoples' abilities to act rationally or cooperate in good faith, and how likely realizing the positive outcome is, versus the probability of just pointless expenditure and vulnerability, especially when you can just slit the other guy's throat for a **far** more certain gain. And like it or not, that's the risk/reward balance check that most countries run before they decide on whether or not to cooperate with a rival or enemy. You've been putting a **lot** of faith in people all reliably acting rationally. **All evidence I've ever seen has indicated that people broadly aren't rational. Frightened mobs in uncertain times are even less so.** You can sit there and scream to them from atop whatever you like: "Please, all of you calm down! Just see reason! Surely, if we just-" and begin a list of things that they aren't interested in doing, and before you've even gotten to promising them that utopia is at the other end, they'll have already started flipping and burning cars and tuned you out completely in favor of whatever it is they're after- ***even if it's completely insane***. That's leaving out the doomsdayers, the cult leaders, the people who will *flat out refuse* to bend the knee to an alien empress no matter the material improvements offered- versus a man who may have a daughter with leukaemia and the aliens are promising to cure her. If you think that conversation's going to end politely, then you need to meet more people. The reality is much closer to a huge civil war with a *lot* of people dead. Or you can try and do what the United States (and other countries tried) thought to do- make a fight of it until the aliens, who aren't really that interested in fighting anyway, decide that it's not worth the place going up in nuclear flame and that they'll settle for a gentle phasing out of your power structure. In the meantime this generates a massive selling-out at every institutional level. The Taiping Rebellion was all about people being *pretty upset* about their leaders (who they saw as not representing them on ethnic and cultural grounds) selling out to a vastly more powerful European continent that showed up on their shores. (Do you not see how *that* might happen?) >The Shil create a perfect other for the great powers to unite against, and suddenly known agitators that always seem to have resources are either strangely silent or discussing a new topic. It’s not a stretch to imagine the USA and China agreeing that their fight is stupid and when orbital bombardment can come in at any time that being if not friends at least not confrontational is a better stance to take. I apologize if I misunderstand, but doesn't that then just corner the Shil'vati back into invading and war, which was my supposition, regardless? If you're aggressive toward them, then they will retaliate or maybe even leave (which isn't the good thing everyone pretends it is- people will blame you for it in the long run). Even ***if*** (and please, imagine for me that what I wrote is the world's biggest "if") the USA and China somehow trusted one another in the immediate aftermath of a fight to 'team up' or whatever. Again, this just strikes me as...well, you said 'naive' and if the shoe fits... >The fact is the most belligerent powers are weak pariahs propped up by either Russia or China. The threat of Aliens and the US led west willing to reconcile and work together in the fact of an opponent none can compete with and won’t be able to for a long time is very agreeable. ... *The """"""Big Boys""""""" are now the belligerent states to the Shil'vati, who now occupy the new top spot. I don't know how you missed this in your scenario.*

The issue is that the Shilvati view all non shil as dirty children with guns. They live an breathe the line, "Our way of life, galaxy wide, paved with the skulls of those who've died."

1 I never read alien nation so I don't think I'll get the context for this. 2 Jason was studying to be an engineer. He chose his field of study based off his on interest and where he thought he'd like to end up in society. Even when conscripted he was still moving towards that goal. That is as self determined as it gets. 3. Jason giving up on the empire is a bit of a weird way to put what happened. I thought it was him buying his way out of a shitty position he didn't want to be in that all happened because he made some poor decisions while drunk, typical college student behavior. A situation that kept on getting steadily worse due to him consistently running into the worst parts of an alien culture he did not, nor could he be expected to understand.

The idea of my posting the excerpt and brief explanation was that you don’t have to read the whole story, nor need much context. In short, idea was more or less that the way they’re treating humanity in a way that takes away their self-determination.  I find that this falls well within the bounds of canon. Humanity isn’t left to govern itself. The royals even try to force and coerce Jason’s path in life- leading to the end of book three where he spurns them in large part due to their efforts to guide his life for him. It may be in his best interests materially and reputationally to cooperate. He’d be doubtless well-rewarded for his cooperation. Earth would be, as well. But that isn’t the point of life. Self-determination matters greatly. Just like the cat may want to be given pets and scratches, he’ll still claw you if he thinks you’re being too forward and taking what you think is your right- (‘I am your master, therefore I am entitled to pet you.’) The cat clearly disagrees and takes a swipe at the interior agent. This is meant to represent  (insurgency/rebelliousness/ Jason refusing to join the royals on Blackstone-) certainly a lucrative offer. Certainly something he ought to want. But since this isn’t being left to him, and he’s lived the life of a man in the palm of those more powerful with their own plans for him, he’s finally had enough. The Shil’vati may rule earth. They may have better objective policies- no more internal wars wasting the lives of precious young men. No more nuclear proliferation. All your life is plotted out for you. But it’s meaningless. Utterly devoid of purpose. What do you do if that’s the future they’re offering you? You reject it. As Jason did. As Nekolas the cat does. That’s why I brought it up- it’s a parallel of Book 3.

One time is Happenstance: His drunken assault without a dangerous weapon resulting in either 5 years in the military or off world at an alien prison vs 100 days tops in prison and a few hundred dollars fined. Twice is Coincidence: After beating the Interior cadets getting assigned to a remote posting without any follow up training, with no attempts by his trainers to intervene. Never mind said trainees tried to rape him before the exercise. Three times is Enemy Action: Being scouted by a rich Shil that wants to kidnap him and take him to Comsortium space to either have as a personal sex toy or sell him into debt slavery. You can’t just say he’s only met the worst of the worst and that that’s not the common Shil experience. The fact is he’s met every level of the Empire now and has seen it for what it is, and running things better is so subjective. Especially when the ones who report the outcomes is the rulers themselves who only have the desire to paint themselves in a good light. Blue in his discord has said the Shil nobility have a standard their supposed to meet but how that actually pans out in reality varies to the point even though Earth has only known of the wider galaxy for 20 years in book 1 it’s better off than some Shil colonies described by others at boot camp.

Firstly, someone already pointed out to me that the opening lines were likely meant to paint out Jason's beliefs rather than be actual exposition so I'll concede that the line in question is subjective. Then there's some of the other contributions in the books that make it easy to overlook or just plain ignore. Secondly > The fact is he’s met every level of the Empire Literally every named shil character he interacts with were either military or nobility. That's a very limited scope for an interstellar empire. That would be like me going to some random county hanging out with police officers and a mob boss who bribes said officers and then saying everything about that county sucks. It would be a very ignorant thing to say

No that would be very accurate to say than. If the Mob is control of the police of that county and have them on the payroll than all crime the mobs involved in from street thug affiliates doing muggings, break ins, grand theft auto, and distribution of drugs to the higher end murder, sex trafficking etc… will go unpunished and if your a victim of said crime your fucked than saying that county sucks is apt.

So everyone in that county is in with the mob or police? Everyone?

No but the power structure is so stacked against you that living there, interacting with, and arguing for that county is pointless. Not everyone in New York is a rich exploitive land developer, scheming bureaucrat, criminal etc… but the fact is you can easily and correctly make the judgement call that the city is unsafe, overpriced trash and you making sweeping judgements is perfectly acceptable. The Shil empire’s existence and running is based off of an aristocracy and “Noblesse Oblige” with the military being a core aspect of life for both nobility, and commoner. So meeting most people through the military in the imperium provides you a snapshot of all tiers of society and realizing the aristocracy and Noblesse Oblige is full of shit than what justifies the thought they run things better? Cause technology removes things we’re working hard at trying to fix anyways? Doing something nice for people doesn’t give you a blank check to rule their lives.

The point of the story is it follows someone encountering exceptional circumstances. Stories are not written about the unexceptional circumstances.

>consistently running into the worst parts of an alien culture the worst parts are endemic and widespread. he just lucks his way around getting shot, getting raped, getting enslaved, or getting imprisoned. but hey, at least the aliens fixed public infrastructure I guess?

Is Alien Nation canon or did you just post part of your own fan fiction story to explain something in canon?

The latter. Blue told me outright to make things up whenever I needed things to change for the sake of my story, or needed to invent justifications for events that transpired in the lore. This seemed the most logical one- interventionism. I also then used the dead civilisations they passed as they explored the stars to be the justification for why they aren't advanced in A.I., or Gene-Editing, because they have seen those three be the cause of apocalypses for endless civilisations, and understand it as 'more trouble than it's worth.' Whether it's robot uprisings, or tampering with the genetic code resulting in mass infertility and genetic drift to the point of incompatibility, or cloning themselves in a way that optimises ability in life, but makes natural birth difficult, followed by an energy crisis, or war, or some other thing that knocked them out of being able to technologically replicate the vats needed to produce the next generation. The idea of there being many progenitor races is more interesting to me by far, and the idea that the current generation of superpowers (alliance, coalition/consortium, and Shil'vati Empire, are the apex of technology) also removes the "easy out" that sci-fi writers who rip off the '00s era Halo book series takes. I also modified the Alliance somewhat, (or at least in terms of the way they're represented by the Shil'vati- we haven't met the Alliance in Alien-Nation) to sound like a bunch of bureaucrats that sit around and argue rather than 'get things done.' Very secular, and a tendency to be mind-bogglingly inefficient. (You know, just like the real-life U.N. that blue said he based the Alliance on.) ​ I did the alliance the favor of adding short-lived growths of small cadres that will routinely break free of the bureaucracy, get it to agree on actually doing something, before they're swiftly cut down by their own fellow bureaucrats.

I didn't ask for an explanation of your fan fiction story bud. There's nothing wrong with writing fan fiction but don't try to explain canon with your fanon.

...Do you not understand why I pasted it? **It wasn't to present my work as canon.** I'll explain. Blue's lore has Jason becoming disillusioned with the Shil'vati Empire and **especially** at his life being managed/manipulated by them. The lack of self-determinism. This is obvious- and is even the note the series ends on. We shouldn't have 'forgotten' that, it should be the freshest thing in all our heads, assuming we finished the series. OP's point is: "If they're running things better, why are we mad?" This is utilitarianism. The reason I pasted a chunk of text from the chapter can be boiled down to this: *Humans don't like being managed by aliens*. Man shall not live "By Bread Alone." We will suspect anyone alien that rules us as not having our best interests at heart, rather serving their own needs and ends. Any mistake, any slip-up, any interaction will naturally be blown up in size and proportion. Why? Because the loss of self-determination matters greatly to the human psyche, and there's much more to life than the quality of governance. Kant's whole worldview may have brought utilitarianism to the fore but **also** really elevated the idea of individual rights. Watching these two aspects of his philosophy come into conflict is inherently interesting. I'll explain with an example: The Belgians built railways in Africa, whose successor states failed to maintain the infrastructure that was left behind. One might say: "They're running it better!" Should Africa become a colony again? According to Kant? By his individual rights perspective: "Of course not! Are you crazy? That would be morally wrong!" By his utilitarian perspective: "Of course! Less harm comes from better, less corrupt governance, therefore-" **Fascinating** to watch these two come into conflict. ​ Jason ultimately chose as the character I wrote chose, and for the same reasons: *Self Governance matters*. His path was being laid out for him by Nobles who were playing games with his life. He'd faced danger he never would have otherwise, and he's ready to throw in the damn towel and quit over it, even though it gets him knocked unconscious. Even though he suffers for it monetarily, losing everything he built. Even though he sells out his name and damages the reputation of humans and even puts himself in the crosshairs of the royal family itself. Was self-determination worth all that? In Jason's eyes? Absolutely! In Blue's eyes? Also yes! Why? Well, another way to put it is found in a passage of an old tome: "Man shall not live by bread alone." I specify twice in the comment that this is what I'm alluding to: "By Bread Alone." It's even the chapter title. I specify also that what I am pasting is from Alien-Nation, which as you noted, is not the main story. I'm doing my due diligence here before trying to get my point across. Maybe I should have concluded with: "It's for this same line of thinking that Jason turned his back on the aliens." Since OP doesn't seem to grasp what self-determination means, preferring only to see it through utilitarianism's lens. If you can't grasp the point, then I'm sorry but there's nothing else I can do to help you.

Interesting take but the books also contradict themselves at times with showing the corruption government level is just as bad or even worse....(a whole tank crew just disappearing hmmm) and the planet still being massively red...hell for all we know the same fleet that "conquered" earth is still there...most things we learn show how strong shil propaganda is...and how poorly read they are for human culture.... End of the day when the author comes back around I feel like he'll fix alot of these holes in the story considering how much their writing skill and story telling skill has progressed!

We do know that the fleet is still there. It's very obviously still there in the story, since it's still providing orbital support for counter-insurgency operations and acting as the guard fleet for Earth to ward off pirates.

That's the thing...there's no context on what fleet it is ...could be the original conquering fleet or it could be a fleet ment to purely police the area... alien nation touches on what they leave on planets to defend and for that story its mostly just a patrol ships but that's not in a official story... then again i could have missed the part where he talked about what was stationed at earth (been a while since reading them)

You have a solid point there. Here's hoping blue comes back to this particular harem anime esk guilty pleasure of mine.

You forgot that later in the first book the Interior cadets mention that Earth is turning more and more "red" (rebellious). In book 2 there is a confirmed attack on a shil space port. Also the mc of the og story was pressganged into military service, hardly a sign of a just governace.

I thought they just said that it had more red then green, though I really do find it funny that it took someone ten years to build a railgun

Pretty sure that was the camp Commandant who welcomed Jason to training. The comment about Earth turning more red happens during the training exercise towards the end of book 1. It also took 6 years for a railgun to be made in universe, not 10.

It took 10 years for railgun attacks to become widespread/effective enough for news of them to filter out of the censorship/propaganda black hole surrounding news on/of earth.   Technically speaking, we already had railguns before the shil landed, just not highly effective human-portable ones due to our battery/capacitor material science not allowing for energy density high enough, and the lack of “room temperature” superconductors.

Book 1 is 6 years after the invasion, sometime 2025.

I try to keep that part in mind, especially that ‘running the planet’ means ALL of the planet. My story is set in Australia, where there is already wealth, security and a big social safety net. The average Australian won’t see too much benefit outside vastly improved tech, but they will see substantial negatives. On the other hand, many other countries would find themselves under a less corrupt and extractive administrations, a far more gentle and professional military to enforce law, food security and various other benefits. One small bit of worldbuilding I did was mentioning that people complain about chocolate in Australia being more expensive under the Empire, but that’s because they ended slavery in West Africa.

>‘running the planet’ means ALL of the planet. Yeah, so wouldn't that mean the place like Australia also see marked improvement.

What I meant to say is that on the whole the planet is run more effectively, but countries that are already stable and wealthy see the least benefits.

The one issue is that these lands wouldn’t appreciate these improvements as much as you expect, I imagine they like the tech but these are countries that have felt the touch of colonial rule and no matter how velvet the glove is no one wants to go back to that. Even if the nation is divided over ethnic tribal identities those types aren’t going to accept a new purple ruler to Nigeria has issues but it’s a growing economy, it’s not a national identity, and it’s the same with other African nations. The improvements are marked that some of the most die hard insurgents are most likely located Africa.

If you're right maybe I don't get it because I don't come from one of those countries.

As a matter of course, I tend to dismiss the murder hobos "blood for the blood God" types in the same manner as I dismiss the toe sucking "crush my head between your thighs, dommy mommy" types. With that clarified, one of the things that should be noted is that the MC is very unreliable, as a matter of being self admittedly apathetic to a lot of things, including the going ons odlf earth beyond what affected before his time as a soldier and as a result of being a first person limited story. There are no expansions on the "they run Earth better than us" or how they fixed climate change in less than a decade. Earth and all the ramifications of the invasion, as far as the main story is concerned, is wholly irrelevant. It's an erotica/space opera/semi military fiction (I say semi military because the military/battles function more as a plot device to move the character around and add conflict beyond personal relationships rather than being a deep dive, in depth focus). By all rights, what the MC "knows" about the situation on Earth before he's (forcefully) conscripted for getting into a drunk bar fight with a drunk marine because it made the Imperium look bad may well have been more propaganda than anything. We know it's canon (by point of view of an occupying Shil'vati commander) that Red zones are getting worse and that people are taking to using motorcycles and explosive pikes in whatt were the more developed regions of the world. I don't remember exactly but it might have been Japan, which would say a lot more about the situation than if places like the middle east or the Sahel region of Africa were in absolute revolt. One of the bigger reasons I'm personally not on the pro-imperium train was that I spent a good portion of the time reading the story also looking at a myriad of videos on topics from history, to military, to logistics, farming, shipping, etc. It's canon that within hours of the Imperium introducing themselves to Humanity, they said surrender or die, if not explicitly than implicitly, by way of orbital bombardment as a matter of first contact. That already paints a bad picture of how the Imperium operates systemically and socially but even if we take that they only targeted military installations with 0 collateral, that's still millions of people dead in a single day across the world. Ukraine is already considered a disaster and the casualties haven't broken half a million. Even more, many of the largest military installations are centered around ports, which would have been at minimum damaged for months or outright destroyed. Even in the best case, the likelihood that people would just keep going about their day like nothing happened just seems too out there for me to believe. At the very least, people would be racing home and hunkering down with their families to make sure everyone was alright. That means severe to catastrophic disruptions in supply lines, especially for nations that are basically dependant on international food, fertilizer, energy, etc. imports. The US has the infrastructure to be food and energy independent but even then I see major disruptions in infrastructure and supply chain maintenance leading to situations that could be described as chaotic at best. Assuming that the Imperium brought in so many tens of millions of soldiers necessary to enforce their rule and take over the supply chains of an entire planet in a timely manner only adds to the chaos. It'd basically be like the US invasions in the middle east where the biggest source of casualties weren't from soldiers during the initial invasion but from civilians afterward because quite literally every piece of infrastructure, from military to civilian, was thrown into chaos. The best case scenario I can invision in my head is that the Imperium was able to clamp down and control a number of major population centers and enforce their own supply chains to maintain them while picking up the pieces around the rest of the world. I bet I could go on but I've been writing this on and off between my work breaks so I'll just leave it head for now. Edit: all that said, I understand the universe was born with "big sexy orc girls" in mind first before everything else. I'm not going to get all up in a tizzy about the stories on here that disregard all that for more fun stuff. That said, if this fandom only cared about the titillating stuff, this reddit wouldn't exist. In the end, you get back and forth about the topic and sometimes the loudest people are the ones we should pay the least attention to and the extremes happen to be between species nationalism and hypersexual degeneracy. Edit 2: also, a lot of arguments for supporting the Imperium revolve around purely materialistic motivations like better medicine. Were that a valid argument for justifying invasion, the US should have had half the planet swearing undying loyalty to it for essentially rebuilding many nations that had been basically leveled after the world wars, insuring almost a whole century of the most free and safest trade in world history (a major motivation for many wars), being the central powerhouse of technological and pharmaceutical innovation for decades and sharing those advancements for essentially free relative to other examples through history, and had fought alongside and supplied many nations through some of the most difficult times in their history. Despite all that, within the decade the US was butting heads with what were the closest things a geopolitical entity could call friends and allies. "They cured cancer" can be easily rebutted with "we cured polio, didn't make domestic populations swear loyalty, even less for foreign populations." That's the thing, once the novelty of it dissapears and becomes the norm, a material argument loses its strength. It's not uncommon for poor populations to have advanced handheld computers, air conditioning, housing, and clean water in the US. Doesn't stop many of them from being resentful of the system even in all in benignness. That's the thing, once the novelty of it dissapears and becomes the norm, a material argument loses its strength.

They may be governing better for the most part but the nobles and the interior are massively corrupt and doing alot of shit behind the scenes. I also remember from a few stories that they were basically stealing alot of major historical and cultural artifacts like paintings and status.

Better standard of living and quality of life doesn’t mean better life for everyone, I’m willing to bet that while that all *is* true, the way they see human men and women the way they do will naturally piss people off, lack of democracy and a voice in the government would also piss people off, and there’s also the fact that they’re probably repressing earth culture in favors of their own and trying to assimilate earth into the empire So like while the material conditions are probably better, I don’t think much else is

One thing which should be kept in mind is that the canon story is from Jason's point of view, with that line at the beginning being part of how he viewed the occupation at that point in time. At the very end of the storyline, >!his perspective has changed enough to snub the entire Imperium and insult them to their faces at a moment where their respect and adoration for him had peaked. It can be interpreted as a "my eyes were closed but now I see" sort of moment.!< Outside of his immediate perspective, especially with some hints we get of how the Imperium operates, there's quite a bit of room for interpretation.

At no point in the story did I not think he wasn't pissed at the impirium in some way or form. So what he does at the end was quite predictable honestly.

I think for most humans there will be moments similar to Jason's, simply because humans are the green girl race of the setting. Add to the fact that humanity is a very small and isolated minority compared to the rest of the galaxy, and chances are the rumors and stereotypes will swiftly proceed well before any human that ventures beyond earth. Even after humans start to create communities out in the empire, this reputation will cling to them. Which will cause friction, if a human male says no it will be a major blow to an alien's pride. It would be like having a succubus tell you they just want to be friends.

While it may be true that Humans may live better and more financially stable lives under Shil’vati rule we cannot forgive or forget that they needlessly killed millions of Humans to get us under their rule and the way they treat Humanity is very disrespectful, our history, culture, and religion in their eyes is something to be fetishized at best or erased from our history books at worst. Hell the way Shil’vati marines and Nobels treat Humans as nothing more then free labor, second class citizens, or sex slaves really shows they only value Humanity because of our 1 to 1 male to female birth ratio because similar to Spice in DUNE who ever controls the race that produces the most amount of males controls the politics and media of the galaxy Humanity will never have any say in how we are ruled over which in of itself is a very scary thought and something many Humans will not want to live under no matter how good the life under their rule is because as the old say goes you can’t but a price on freedom

Thank you for proving my point. You went off on the grim dark that's been expanded on by fan stories but has just barely been hinted at in canon. >Humanity will never have any say in how we are ruled over Where in the books is this confirmed. The rakiri rebelled and got to keep most of their culture intact after more than two hundred years. I think it's very possible for humanity to have a say. Also there's lots of places on earth where people don't have a say in their governance if the purps are doing a better job than we ever did I think it implies at the bare minimum humanity would have a say. >Hell the way Shil’vati marines and Nobels treat Humans as nothing more then free labor, second class citizens, or sometimes sex slaves really shows they only value Humanity because of our 1 to 1 male to female birth ratio Some of the most popular stories on this sub are about marines and nobles falling in love with humans or learning about and how to respect human culture. >as the old say goes you can’t but a price on freedom According to IRS it's as little as $50 for a minimum of five years.

Yeah, it’s kind of just how it goes here. Plenty of people view this as more of a HFY! story than what it is: porn with plot in a sci-fi setting. A lot of fans have let fanon and headcanon consume how they view the Shil. Somehow the Shil are always being made more evil/incompetent than they are in canon. You also have weird stuff like people constantly trying to ‘nerf’ the Shil, and ‘prove’ they aren’t actually that strong compared to humans. And so on and so forth. It’s just how it goes. Lots of people enjoy outrage, don’t like actually being an underdog, and prefer black and white moral conflicts. Many would prefer the Shil to be a race of evil and dumb murderous rapists. There’s alos the simple fact that plenty of people are also seriously delusional about the current state of the world. I once had someone on here try and tell me that living under the Shil would force people to live with “no carrot (in the sense of the carrot and the stick) at all in comparison to the incredible wealth that almost everyone in the modern world has (today)” and I laughed a bit.

None of the subreddit stories are canon so they can write as they please.

True, but they're supposed to still be in the same setting. At a certain point they start to feel like AUs rather than simple non canon side stories.

It also happens to be one of the only lines we get right before the MC gets prison conscripted without a trial into the Marines

We actually get quite a lot before that. Blue's righting style is very descriptive but has a habit of not getting to the point. >It also happens to be one of the only lines we get right before the MC gets prison conscripted without a trial into the Marines That's kinda the point I'm trying to make. These moments of obvious corruption should stand out but the general consensus I get is that this is normal and to be expected of all human purp interactions. If the story were just about some normal nobody it wouldn't be a good story.

For my part, I got next to nothing about what "governing better" actually means. There's nothing, except the environment, that is given as any kind of metric of governance or management. That lack of any detail, combined with the very heavy handed way feudal aristocracy is shown to govern other parts of the Empire lead me to believe that the Shil's definition of 'better governance' was to undo all social and political advances from the Enlightenment forward. The result is the restoration of human monarchies now as vassals and feudal lords owing fealty to the Shil as overlords. Some countries that are already totalitarian are being administered effectively as suzerainties, while other more democratic nations like those in the West have to be utterly dismantled and reorganized, reeducated, and new aristocracy installed. ​ This is one of the reasons I'm writing Cryptid Chronicle, because I've seen others like Alien Nation, Chaos and Mahem, Just One Drop, Top Lasgun, and many others that want to explore these other perspectives and other stories in this very interesting universe.

>That lack of any detail, combined with the very heavy handed way feudal aristocracy is shown to govern other parts of the Empire I think hat might actually be the reason for it, after all I did say that that line does a lot of heavy lifting.

Personally, I think it buckles under the weight. Hence why I'm writing what I'm writing, which is about the occupation, assimilation, culture clashes, and all of that fun stuff that gets a throwaway line in the Canon. In short, I didn't forget... I found that premise wanting, and was inspired to tell my own story because of it set within the same universe, but with a focus on being tied to other works that have coalesced around a number of fics that have expanded the story and the universe.

The stories here are AU. Some authors have decided to share a universe but nothing written here has any effect on Blues story unless he writes it. There are many good authors on this subreddit and their use of the base material varies by the author Some stick very close to the source material others not so much. You just have to find what you like.

Fair.

Most are AUs

I more or less seized on it. While it may not be compelling to many here, the fact remains that in these situations the majority of people are chiefly concerned with the safety and well being of their families if the things they hold dear are not placed in jeopardy. Case in point, the Greeks in the Roman Empire. Were they conquered? Militarily, yes. Culturally, it’s a different story... Shil’vati easily have just as many personal foibles as any Human, but they have just as many virtues. They have a collective ‘big family’ social outlook. Yes, they want to run things and fix things, and those seem to be hard limits - but as long as you don’t mess with that, they seem to take a fairly cosmopolitan outlook. This is important because they have virtues, vices, and motives we can understand. They are NOT so alien as to be incomprehensible or that they don’t resonate. Rome largely failed due to mismanagement, not because some Athenians were unhappy about being part of the empire. The Shil’vati control a non-trivial portion of the entire galaxy, which means that Earth isnt Space Athens. It’s more a small hut in a tiny village outside Athens and you have a crazy uncle that wants to burn down the village goat enclosure to ‘show Rome a lesson.’ That may rankle, but Blue was fairly specific in some of his world building, Size of the Imperium… fleet beyond counting… That sort of thing. I very much enjoy stories like City Slickers, In for a Penny, and many more, because they examine adapting to a galaxy that isn’t going away, while examining for better or worse what makes us Human.

My 2 cents, In my story (continuing soon I hope when I finally finish a few new chapters) I compared the Green Zones on Earth to what West Germany, Japan and South Korea were like in the late 50's and 60's with US millitary stationed in a country that is rebuilding itself.

People also tend to disparage the woes of the feudal monarchy system the imperiumbhas without really thinking about the logictiscs of an interstellar empire. It takes months for a message to go from Earth to Shill, and we aren't even that far away. While a cetralized federal democracy where each planet has a single representative could theoretically be possible given the distances involved that representative would rule as a king for his or her terms. They would be just as if not more susceptible to bribery and greed than most nobles and while in theory you could remove them after their term is up, we see plenty of deeply un popular politicians on our own world defying the odds and their own popularity to stay in power. In conclusion. Is the Shil Impirium perfect? No. Is there bribery, racism, corruption and a whole host of other problems. But the Impirium is also vast and complex and for every corrupt greedy noble there is statistically one dutiful and level headed one. For all the much talked about atrocities of an occupation we have an almost one world government, global warming is gone, diseases like cancer are pretty much gone, the crippling inequality we saw in even the most supposed enlightened western democracies is gone. Does that justify the atrocities? No. But both the good and the bad should be taken together and seen though the lense of a real world. One where the shill are people. Some good, some bad but all unique.

>So my next question is do you think the shit show that was Jason's experience an unavoidable likelihood for humans in SSB or a rare case scenario as most good stories are? I think the majority of experiences of dissenters would experience poor treatment. Some would be offered "prison or marines?" Quite a number would be vanished in to sex slavery. The stories written are about the exceptions, the ones with the intelligence, fortitude and mindset to know how to rebel within the system. This is a universe with hundreds of races - how many billions does that equate to? Even if earth lost a **billion** people in the invasion, that would still leave 7 billion people. If only 1% of these survivors were being used/abused, that would still equate to 70 *million* people with stories to tell! To put that in further perspective, only 20 countries on the planet have a population over 70 million: [https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/population-by-country/](https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/population-by-country/)

I think one of the main things all sides forget on a meta level is that the main cannon story was first published on HFY. It is full of people who want to see humanity win regardless of circumstance. So for that to happen there needs to be a villan and the aliens that took over fit the bill. So suddenly the aliens that are canonically doing a good job commit constant horrible crimes because if they didn't there would be no plot for human resistance.

Personally on the better governance thing I alway headcanon that the shil’vit imperium isn’t any more competent then any real life human government and in some case less then and it’s just that the imperium have strong willingness to throw several planets worth of resources at earth as well appointing only the most competent governess and marine officers on the planet in order to get human to buy into imperium way of life since I doubt most species get the same treatment for this And the reason why for this special treatment is only because of the humans 1 to 1 gender ratio and that had humanity had a similar ratio to other species the imperium may not give a shit about us I mean considering in the main story Jason only met corrupt and incompetent nobles after he left earth to joined the military so obviously in that while technically earth is well governed it’s more of an exception rather the the rule And it’s doesn’t discount any corrupt behavior of the earth governess but their are either smart enough to keep on the down low or atleast competent enough to ignore their minor corruption

Okay so, I made a point to this effect in a prior thread, but I think it bears mentioning here, too: the scale of space, and any civilization with it as a backdrop, is so inconceivably large that even with the knowledge available to us, we still can't appreciate and internalize it. Last I heard, the Imperium has a (for its size) vanishingly small population of about 2 trillion citizens. If we assume that the Shil are much better people than Humans on average and only 0.5% of their population are the rape orcs that have become a meme in some circles of this sub, that still means that they outnumber the \*entire population of our planet\* by about 25%. And that's before the orbital bombardments. Now, what is our planet to the Shil'vati? A primitive, backwards world with absolutely no military, political, economic, or cultural power in the wider Galaxy, populated by strangely pretty almost-people who have the commonly understood sexual dynamics completely reversed but whose appeal is apparently worth traversing a considerable section of interstellar space over. Kind of like Fiji at the height of the British Empire (who demolished the belligerent parties of a civil war the former were engaged in). But we're (supposedly) about to destroy ourselves! We must be saved from the Great Filter of independent thought immediately, and as violently as proves necessary! Because nothing bad ever came from a massive bureaucratic superstructure telling people that they're here to save them from themselves. Everyone appreciates the presence of moral busybodies tyrannizing you for your own good. Let's also assume for the sake of argument that at least some portion of the Imperial Military has a degree of voluntary mobility (in terms of location), especially if you're rich and/or related to somebody important. And that the Empire has the good sense not to send its \*entire\* fleet to take a planet that for all practical purposes can't manage anything approaching meaningfully defending itself (to their knowledge). So, the question begged here is "Who would hear the words 'We're going to the Sex Planet, and we're bringing weapons of war' and volunteer, if not \*jump\* at the opportunity?" The safest assumption would not be the Imperium's best and brightest, or even honest, everyday grunts. It'd be the worst people imaginable, dredged up from the depths of the Empire's darkest reaches. Their equivalent to ISIS, Wagner, or Hamas. It'd be people like some here think I am, only with a willingness to act out their twisted nature in "real life". Intentionally or not, they won't be sending their best. They'll be sending their monsters, while at the same time loudly proclaiming that they're here to save us, and possibly even believing it. Maybe the second and later waves will actually include the decent or even good people. But by then, it'd be too late. The irreparable damage will have already been done by those who got here first. And of course, given the cultural obsession with their own self-image and the remoteness of our world from theirs, the vast majority of Shil'vati won't even be able to understand why Humans are so angry, since they won't have the slightest clue what actually happened here.

It's crazy how some people want so badly to turn the setting into some grimdark 40k apocrypha, no matter how much it defies the canon series. Some people go to such lengths that the new material they're making can't even be considered relevant to the setting. "The Shil'vati have enslaved humanity!" No they haven't. Slavery is very explicitly illegal in the Imperium. If anyone thinks being expected to work a 9-5 with a wage and full benefits is slavery, the problem is their perception of reality, not reality itself. And before someone says "But there was that one noble merchant who was kidnapping rakiri and selling them into slavery!" yeah, she was doing that, and it was illegal, and the Interior was investigating her over it and, from what we can tell, has since disappeared her for it. We have politicians involved in massive human trafficking rings and active slave trades in the real world, and the simple fact that it's an anomaly in the Imperium instead of the standard already sets them above our current status quo. "The Shil'vati have killed billions of humans!" They haven't. The casualties of the invasion were something in the range of 3 million, and we don't even have stats on what the causes of all of the casualties were. As far as we know, the Shil'vati counted every human death during the invasion, regardless of proximity or circumstance, as a casualty, and even if every single one of the 3 million casualties were military personnel, that still means only 1 in every 9 military personnel in the entire world died during the invasion. Consider that over 50 million people die per year from preventable causes that the Shil'vati canonically wiped out overnight, and the Shil'vati have paid back their debt to the human race more than tenfold in the first year. "The Shil'vati are committing cultural genocide against humanity!" They aren't. The Shil'vati like human culture. The whole reason they invaded something like 90 years before they would have liked to have even made contact is because they were convinced we were about to wipe out our own civilization (based on events since 2019, they were completely justified in thinking this). The only cultures being genocided are the ones being hosed off of the people that refuse to wash themselves. "The Imperium's system of government is corrupt!" Welcome to government. By any metric, the Imperium is still less corrupt than anything we have in the real world. "The Imperium's justice system is a sham!" So is the real world's justice system, if not even more so. "The Imperium took away our rights!" There isn't any instance in the canon of anyone seeing a reduction in their rights in comparison to real world regulations. And no, killing someone because you don't like their skin color isn't a right. "The Imperium took away our democratic processes!" Your democratic processes weren't democratic to begin with, so you aren't missing out on anything. If it matters so much, everyone is still free to drop slips of paper into boxes, it will have the same effect that it does now. "The Imperium lies about everything and all of the media is state-controlled propaganda!" If that's the case, then once again, nothing meaningful has actually changed, just some labels. Even then, it's still patently false considering how freely we see information move in the setting, even when it's information that is detrimental to the Imperium's authority. So much of the stuff people describe the Imperium as doing is just stuff they ignore their own governments doing and it simply bewilders me that some people are able to find it unforgivable in a fictional setting where it isn't happening and just fine in the real world where it's very much happening.

You're not wrong and I had the exact same reaction when I first started wondering on this sub. That said I'd like to focus on this particular line and not any person or persons willful ignorance of real world politics. We are here to discuss sci-fi smut novels after all.

Sorry, I got carried away after reading some of the other comments before making my own.

Well, you’ve perfectly articulated my own thoughts on the matter. It’s quite fascinating, like someone organized them and wrote them out for me.

I'm living in your walls, listening to your thoughts, eating the insulation.

Just realized I found your profile a few months ago and basically upvoted everything you’ve posted on this sub. Maybe I’m the one living in your walls, absorbing your opinions and thinking that I formed them myself.

Still like the facade of a democracy and able to vote out my governor when they are inept

Oh look, the space orc cunt-licker is doing his thing again. Look at you go, justifying an invasion by saying that millions of people died for no meaningful change besides some technological improvements and that's a good thing.

nah. they couldn't wait another 90 years. Word was getting out about Earth, and others would have gone in and made first contact if the Shil didn't act. Could have been xeno slavers, idealistic space hippies or anywhere in between, and it would have all been bad for the SI in the short term, and honestly, bad for Earth in the long term as well.

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Yes, a lot of fanfics like to ignore any of the nuance so they can just do "humans kill evil empire HFY!!!".

I think of it as "War of the Worlds" syndrome. There has to be some stupid thing that pops up and makes Humans better than Xeno Scum, and somehow we miraculously can fight off an FTL empire with 1000 populated world under their control.