“That thing is uglier than a nebula’s asshole” The commander of the Void Jumper looked at the screen, his professional demeanor denied him the opportunity to agree with the security cell operator.

“I’m going in there, are we certain the restraints are holding?” he asked, hoping that he wouldn’t have to find out. The legends told of these creatures clearly stated that no restraints could hold a human.

“There are no cybernetic enhancements in this one and the restraints have been reinforced.” The operator tried to emit an air of certainty and failed.

He entered the interrogation cell. The creature looked up at him and bared its teeth in a grin. “Interview commenced at 27:21:43:98. Present in the room are: Commander Xtlda and the captured alien pilot.” He narrated to the built in recorders.

“Steve.” The creature said in flawless Galactic Standard.

“Hm?” Xtlda looked at the alien.

“My name is Steve. I am a human.” Xtlda had to control himself, this was it. He’d done it. The elation rose through his chest as the realisation reverbed through his very being. Xtlda had captured a human. The enemy who never left their corpses or any scrap of their tech behind after a battle.

He had one now.

“I know what you’re thinking.” The human said, it was seated at the table with the heavy restraints weighing down its upper extremities on the table. It was struggling to do more than drag the titanium/lead/tungsten alloy double handed gauntlet across the table.

“You will answer my questions and you will do nothing more than that, Human.”

Steve shrugged. “Sure.”

“What are you doing here?” The grin on the human’s face widened as he asked.

“Answering your question.”

“Do you really think this attitude will help you?” Xtlda wasn’t going to succumb to simple counter-interrogative techniques.

“No.” Steve kept smiling as he pushed the heavy gauntlet away, allowing him to lean over the table. “But if you want this to be fruitful, you’ll have to ask the right questions. Specifically the one question you’re not going to ask anybody else.”

He looked at the prisoner. The short biped was dressed in what they had identified as an officer’s uniform, the hair and general grooming of the human matched their records of military service and it held itself with an oddly calm demeanor.

“why?”

“Now that is a good ask.” The human smiled at him, this time it seemed to be more of a modest smile. “But it has multiple answers. The first answer is: Because I have no reason to lie to you. I’m alone here, on a Galactic Council BattleCarrier.” The human paused. Xtlda nodded slowly in acknowledgement of the reasoning.

“The second answer is a bit longer, so please bear with me.” Another nod was offered as Xtlda leaned against the wall, furthest from the human.

“When we, humanity, first reached the stars we were elated. We had broken through the great challenge of FTL and powered beyond the confinement of our homeworld and what we found was hundreds, thousands of systems with habitable planets. In our elation we did what we had done through the existence of our species. Jumped in with youthful ignorance, without knowing what the consequences of our actions would be.

We colonised them, every planet we could find. We introduced a foreign organism into thousands of balanced biospheres and the results were unanimous throughout all of our territories: The original biosphere died off.

Everywhere in the galaxy, every sign of naturally occuring life was eviscerated because we had decided it was ours. we had been looking for intelligent life for hundreds of generations and eventually came to the logical conclusion: We were alone in the galaxy because we were the first. And in our eagerness to explore and settle, we had inadvertently killed off any chance of a second to arise naturally. Realising our mistake, we began terraforming barren planets in the habitable zone, even expanding the habitable zones in various systems through various means. Entire colonies were evacuated in attempts to preserve the remaining biospheres, but the damage was too extensive; the planets died and the terraformed ones were seeded with genetic material in an attempt to create life.

A complete and total failure. we had annihilated all life in the galaxy, proved ourselves the destroyers and subsequently failed to be creators.

Reservations were established for the few species of flora and fauna that had survived, but eventually they too failed. All we have left of them now are archives.”

The human slumped its shoulders and showed every micro indicator of shame in the book and a couple of new ones that Xtlda hadn’t seen before.

“But time did what it does: It passed and with it came the ability to bridge the galactic void. We arrived in a neighbouring galaxy and found that it did not have a spacefaring civilisation. This founded the First Rule: No life bearing planet is to be occupied by anyone not native to its ecosystem. We found life, this time we would not destroy it. We terraformed and colonised barren planets throughout the galaxy. We safeguarded the life bearing planets, destroying the cataclysmic event-sized meteors that were heading for them, landing to distribute life saving medicines to combat any plagues and offering clean energy technology to any civilisation that had made it to steam power. We Elevated and created prosperous star-faring civilisations, allowing them to bypass most of the errors we have made in our advancement by teaching them and using our history as lessons.

We shielded them from making errors and when they began to establish their own colonies, they claimed ownership of the life bearing systems we had been protecting.

We told them no and when they tried to take them by force… We stood fast. At the end of that war, the few species who still had a home were… humbled…”

A tear formed in the eyes of the prisoner. “We killed billions, beings we had loved and taught, given them the tech to defend themselves and then seeing it used against us, not with malice, but because they didn’t know any better.

In our eagerness to protect life we had forgotten that life, growth and knowledge comes from opposition. Only in strife can we truly learn.

Thus the Second Rule was formed: No system with a life bearing planet can be occupied or interfered with. Any contact with an alien species has to be on their initiative.”

Steve looked up, his eyes projected the sadness of a billion souls lost.

“Then we found this galaxy and with it, the Galactic Council of Species. One hundred and fifty spacefaring species, locked in a political grid of mutually assured destruction, a volatile peace, if peace at all.”

“One-Fifty-Seven.” Xtlda corrected the human before he realised that he was offering intel.

Steve returned a polite nod. “Fifty-seven, yes. The newly joined seven species have space communication, but not space fare. They’re lambs in a pit of hungry wolves.

We arrived and watched a largely populated galaxy tear itself apart in an arms race to gain the advantage. This was when we realised that in order to preserve the life of this galaxy, we would have to become its enemy.

A leader from each species was invited to a diplomatic vessel. They were then ferried across the entirety of human space, lectured on our history and the ensured annihilation of life in their galaxy if something didn’t change.

We offered a solution: We would be the enemy. The invaders who could only be held at bay through cooperation and alliances.”

“So your leaders just forced you into a war as the boogeyman? I don’t buy it.” Xtlda interrupted the human.

“The four rules are not casually stated by an elected official, Commander, they’re formulated over centuries and debated for millennia before a unanimous consensus is reached across the entire species.

The third rule took less than fifteen hundred years to be enforced: To preserve life, everywhere, those with the wisdom and knowledge are obligated to act with such.

For six thousand years we have fought to defend the life bearing planets of this galaxy. Firstly by colonising neighbouring systems and establishing ‘safe zones’ that expand out to encompass them.

But the galaxy is large, Commander, and one hundred years ago we found out that in an effort to gain more resources, the council has expanded into prohibited systems. Systems that the council knows are off limits, due to the presence of life. The new seven are examples of this.

One hundred years ago, Commander, the Fourth Rule was proposed.

I am here to relay it to you. You are in a populated system. The natives here are in their early computer controlled automation age. They will not reach space for a long time. Anything above their heads is divine territory. Any interference will be perceived as divine intervention.”

“Compared to them we are gods.” Xtlda didn’t see a need to interfere with the planet, he was looking for mineral extraction sites and gas planets. This system had plenty of both.

Steve nodded, slid his hands out of the restraints and stood up from the chair. Then he sighed and looked Xtlda directly into two of his ten eyes. “Any technology advanced enough is going to resemble magic. My ship is not captured, I am not your prisoner and this is not an interrogation. My ship is parked, I am a volunteer messenger and I am giving you the reason why your long range communications are down, your jumpdrive is not charging and you will all be dead in ten minutes.

The one rule that took less than a century for a googol of humans to agree on: Rule Four: No Species are exempt from the rules.”

By /u/Zephylandantus on /r/HFY