just help out…
“you’re initial reaction might be to hate the person you’re helping. you will certainly be repulsed by them. they are an odd creature in this universe. one that can’t be understood. but you have to move past those impulses and help them—”
“but what’s the point? why do we do it?”
“honestly, i don’t have a good answer for you. nothing that would satisfy those questions. in a way, i guess it makes us feel superior. there’s a bit of narcissism in helping less fortunate species. though i also have my conspiracy theory as well.”
“oh yeah, what is that?”
“we help humanity so much that they become dependent on us. it’s attrition through kindness. over time, humans will become less and less able to fend for themselves. they’ve let us take care of their civilization so they can attend to their own solipsistic wants and desires; they don’t even realize it’s happening.”
“i just don’t understand why we just don’t kill them all and be done with it.”
“we’ve done that before, remember? we’ve gone to different worlds and conquered one species after another. and they always resist. as futile as it was, they resisted. despite those species losing in the end, we still lost some of ours. i think upper management got tired of the loss of life on our side, and figured the kill-them-with-kindness might lead to better results.”
“i don’t know. kinda sounds pretty dumb.”
“either way, it’s an experiment. we’ll see how it goes, and then i imagine the eggheads will figure something else out.”
“then we kill them all?”
“yeah, i guess. if you want to be blunt about it…”
Fred Aiken Writing 