The Corrupted Heart of the Heart of the Resistance
Eleys Mue sat before the Altarian senate, bored with the preceedings. The senators were up in arms about her decision to conquer the Vegans, when they landed too close to one of her worlds. She really wished the pacifist party and the war party would quit bickering and holding up the vote, everyone knew her Universalist party was going to win the vote anyway. She idly wondered if it would be worth the trouble to just kill them all and throw the Altarian Resistance back to an imperial government, but she knew the benefits of the Federation outweighed her personal annoyance.
She idly wondered where the Resistance would be now if The Prophet had not moved her people to favor doing evil for the greater good. Probably slaves or food meat by now, she decided. The only way to handle the monsters that opposed her was to treat them as they treat others.
It didn't occur to her that the Torians, whom she defeated the year before and turned into slaves for her people, had been a good people, nor did she think that enslaving their entire race was unnecessarily evil. Her trophy personal slave and trophy from that conflict, Tlas Kzientha, sat beside her, naked of anything besides the shackles she forced him to wear. To be honest, she could often hardly be bothered to remember his name, except when he got into one of his moods and started demanding his freedom. At those times, he often proclaimed who he used to be, but those 'moods' were coming less frequently as she wore away at his will and spirit. Another act she didn't think twice about. She was a good ruler at heart, that's what mattered.
The destruction of the Korath Clan was satisfying. She only regretted that the Telenath had been destroyed, she had wanted to put it to use. For the greater good, of course. Any price could be paid to secure the future of the Altarian Resistance. Again, it did not occur to her that the future of the Altarian resistance was becoming darker and darker as her people compromised their values more and more.
Her empire was expanding by the month. Her mind control center was constantly refining its techniques for pushing the borders of her empire outward, forcing nearby planets' peoples to join her empire, expanding her influence further to enthrall even more planets. It was a slow process, but it was steady, and there wasn't anything anyone could do about it. The mind control was subtly woven into all her peoples' broadcasts and trade goods, and made any civilization nearby to her own more susceptible to her influence. She didn't think that forcing other empires' people to rebel and join her was unnecessarily evil. She was doing what was necessary for her people to survive. To survive, they had to use any tool they could acquire to defeat the monsters that forced them to this. Her people were a good people. They only did what they did for the greater good. To fight against evil, one had to use evil's own tools against it. She had learned this from hard experience.
She was roused from her musings by what appeared to be the end of the debate and the beginning of the vote. She stood to make the final remarks before the voting started. "Universalists, I know that you'll vote my way for... various reasons. Each of you knows what your personal reason for obeying me is. As for the rest of you, you'll have enforcers arrive at your families' homes to collect your reasons for obeying me soon enough. The Vegans will make good slaves, and we're destroying another monster that would use our morals and ethics against us. All for the greater good. Now let's get this vote over with."
As she sat to await the results of the vote, she chanced to look toward Tlas, and saw something resembling pity in his eyes. "You've truly lost your way," he said sadly.
Irritated, she turned the control to his pain transmitter up a few notches and watched without remorse as he writhed on the floor. "You need to learn your place, slave," she said. She would have to break him a little more, he still had some spirit.
More on the Altarians' descent into evil. This game is still in progress, so as I find occasion to I'll post more on it. This game is being played with surrenders disabled (because I'm getting more than annoyed at empires I'm whittling away at suddenly flipping wholesale to join the worst possible side), specials disabled (so my super organizer special for the Altarians isn't coming into play here. Would be interesting, though, to RP a reaction to the Yor coming to our aid if we get attacked), immense map with loose clustors, abundant stars, planets, and habitables, very slow tech rate (or someone probably would have won a technological victory by now), 9 computer opponents (the Drengin, Korath, and Torians have been conquered, the latter two by myself), challenging difficulty. If I manage to finish this out and win, I'll probably move up to playing Tough maps. At this point, we're about 450 turns in.
