Dark Fate, Book 17 Prologue (Patreon)

Prologue – Trade Chat

(North American System Information Exchange Forum, formerly Community Building and Civil Defense Chat)

abby_gail, bento, RainyDayze, GringottsGoblin, DoritoMan, D.VaLuvr69, Carion, RadicalEdward, FusionGal, NotACop, Scholar, RamblingWreck, Anonymous4, Anonymous6, RedShift, SevenNationArmy, DarkLord, BagOTrix, White_Queen, Faraday, BackpageGal, FullServiceMassage, daytrader, Skippy, shadow_clone23, THE_MERCHANT, jenny8675309, Rabbit, Angelus and Tracker are in the chat.

Redshift: Oh, god. Is this real? Is this really happening?

Carion: Yes, it is real. People all around the middle east saw the flashes.

Faraday: What is the fallout situation like? That’s going to wreck most of the country for generations, right?

Scholar: Actually, if the information released by the Kingdom of Ceres is any indication, it is probably already safe to walk through the affected areas, without any issues.

BagOTrix: HOW? Those were nukes! Don’t they cause radiation for decades afterwards?

Scholar: Actually, they’re not nukes. They’re antimatter annihilation weapons. Basically, E=mc^2 made manifest. The radiation caused by an explosion like that is incredibly deadly, but falls off very fast.

Skippy: So, anyone in the blast radius that survives the blast wave and flames is probably dead from radiation, but the land isn’t contaminated?

Scholar: Not by radiation, at least. There will probably have to be some kind of cleanup to deal with chemicals and other hazards in the affected areas. But most of the radiation would have been gamma radiation, which breaks down very quickly.

Angelus: What about all the holy sites in the area?

DarkLord: Wiped from the face of the earth. Well, some of the ones further out might still be found, but all the ones in Jerusalem are gone.

Anonymous4: HOW DARE YOU! WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO THAT FOR?

DarkLord: What? I transmitted a warning to evacuate. I was even nice enough to make it in the local languages, as opposed to just using English for Western media to consume. Perhaps if they stopped hiding behind women and children and came out to face me, this could have been avoided.

DoritoMan: The sarcasm is audible.

DarkLord: Not my fault that someone playing with atrocity didn’t think that someone else could do the same to them. There is a reason why humans wrote rules for war. But when those rules aren’t enforced because someone is trying to hide behind their religion, and painting everyone who disagrees with them as being against the whole religious group? And the powers that be let them get away with their atrocities because of it? And the media uses atrocities by one group to justify them? Well, sometimes the world needs someone willing to fight fire with fire.

Anonymous4: You MONSTER! Those were innocent people that died there!

DarkLord: And the people Israel has been systematically abusing for the past seventy years weren’t? Remember this, the only difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter is who controls the media.

Scholar: But did you have to go so far?

DarkLord: My user name on this forum isn’t NiceGuy. I’m DarkLord, the Demon King of Ceres. If it takes someone willing to out-atrocity people to bring things to an end, then so be it.

Rabbit: But, why use those bombs? Couldn’t you have done something else?

DarkLord: Like what? Conquer the country and occupy it under force of arms? Go through the land, personally slaughtering every Israeli soldier until their leaders surrendered? Spend decades in a quagmire trying to keep the two sides apart and hoping something changes? No, Ceres is not America. We don’t do that, here. We look at the heart of a problem, and rip it out.

D.VaLuvr69: But, you’re fine with just destroying all those holy sites? And all the people who died?

DarkLord: I won’t have any trouble sleeping tonight, if that is what you’re asking. The Israeli government thought I was bluffing. That’s on them. If any of my people take issue with my methods, then there are means of redress written into the laws of Ceres. All they have to do is challenge me to a duel.

Redshift: You’re not worried about being portrayed as a genocidal monster?

DarkLord: Not at all. I freely admit that I am a monster. You don’t get to my position, as quickly as I have, by being a good person. I am a monster, but sometimes a monster is just what the doctor ordered.

daytrader: What do you mean?

DarkLord: A good man will get too hung up on all the moral quandaries and bleeding-heart worries, to the point where they become incapable of doing what must be done. The pragmatic man will pause, and evaluate a situation to decide whether the cost of doing something is worth the benefits to him, ignoring situations or even going against their stated values, in order to get the most benefit from a situation.

DarkLord: A monster, on the other hand, is unburdened by whether innocents may get caught up in things, and does not care about pragmatism. The monster will see something that needs to be done, and will do it, often choosing the quickest and most ruthless way to be done with it. But, because of that, the monster doesn’t get bogged down in endless debate, and they don’t sit around, wringing their hands while things deteriorate.

DarkLord: Monsters are the ones who drive change, who make things happen. Monsters are the ones who force things into motion, instead of allowing comfortable stagnation.

White_Queen: And what now, oh monster?

DarkLord: Don’t pretend you’re any better, Queenie. You just didn’t have the chance to start your crusade this time.

White_Queen: I guess we’ll never know.

DarkLord: Hah! That may work on others, but I know you too well.

Scholar: But she does bring up a good point. What now?

DarkLord: Now? Well, I’ll have my troops there continue providing some humanitarian aid in the region. I know that other countries are starting to provide peacekeepers and aid, as well. Religious ethno-states are a very Pre-System idea, though, so I would hope that people will stop clinging to the past, and embrace the new reality.

Anonymous4: How can you all just sit here and listen to this crap? He killed tons of people!

DarkLord: Because I did nothing but act out a more vivid example of what Israel has been doing for decades. And because, besides whining about things as anonymous posters on the internet, there’s nothing that they can actually do to stop me.