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986 - How to Make a Threat 101
🕑 Added 2025-09-19 03:52:42 +0000 UTC“Thank you for the effort and sacrifices you made to reduce the number of casualties,” Youssef said as he collected the pieces of paper on the table, tapping them neatly together while keeping his eyes on the person on the opposite side.
“The things we do for our people,” Hogu, the leader of the Nymari civilization, said with a bitter smile on his face, having just signed the unconditional surrender accords of his civilization to the empire.
As the weakest civilization in the Conclave, he was someone who had expected something like this to happen sometime in the future, and he had dedicated his life to delaying the inevitable as much as possible, which he had successfully managed to do for more than fifty years.
It was something he was extremely proud of because he knew what he had achieved meant for his civilization. After all, they weren’t the weakest civilization from the start; there were a few more under them, but they all lost their individualism when the situation got difficult and couldn’t hold on anymore, forcing them to become vassal civilizations for the strong in order to be covered under their protection umbrella, but in return becoming no different than low-class workers for that civilization and losing the ability to regain their independence in the future.
But all his effort had now just turned out to be meritless labor, as fifty years of hard work couldn’t stop this situation that he hadn’t foreseen.
“It is not meritless. Rather, it is because you fought hard for more than fifty years, buying your civilization time for us to save them from the open oppression they were experiencing,” Youssef said in a serious tone while looking at Hogu to show he was very serious.
“We spend our lives hiding our true thoughts in fear of those close to us or those we wish to gain the approval of, not agreeing with them, but when you are put in a situation where you can’t hide any of them, it is quite liberating. I can’t quite explain this feeling fully yet, but it is something I really want to be on the other side of,” Hogu said without showing any surprise when Youssef answered an unverbalized doubt and thought in his mind, as he remembered what led to this…
……………………….
A few real-world minutes ago.
As the weakest civilization, they had only managed to send a single fleet to participate in the war efforts, something they had to do despite being against the war with the empire in the first place, due to the vote for going to war passing, leaving them very weak.
As a result, Hogu had been very relieved when he realized that they weren’t on the list of civilizations that the Terra Empire attacked in retaliation, because he knew if the empire actually targeted them, there was no chance in hell that they could fight back, and they would fall pretty quickly.
However, the relief he felt was only momentary since he knew the empire could just target them later. Unfortunately, his fear turned out to be quite spot on, as within minutes of that worry appearing in his mind, a group of individuals materialized around him in his room, capturing or killing all of the security before knocking him out and logging him into the VR before the full reality of the situation had set in.
“Welcome, Mr. Hogu Bustamindatne,” a man that Hogu knew very well, welcomed him with a very courteous smile when he opened his eyes in the VR, scaring him speechless.
When Youssef didn’t receive a response to his welcome, he opened his eyes as if he had come to a realization. He straightened his suit before saying, “Where are my manners?” as he buttoned his suit before saying, “My name is Youssef Al Muwatwaa, the head of the Ministry of the Exterior. I’m sure you already know that.”
“What do you want from me? I don’t care. Whatever it is, you will not get it from me,” Hogu said with difficulty because his body and mind betrayed his words, as he was shaking and on the verge of having a mental breakdown from fear, not for his life, but for what was going to happen to his civilization.
“First, calm down,” Youssef said, waving his hand. In an instant, the body and mind that were fighting him calmed down as if they were nothing but a mere hallucination.
“Now that you are calm, we can get right to the main point. We want your unconditional surrender,” Yousseseff said as if he were asking for something trivial, which, from his tone, it sounded like it was.
“I’m just a piece of the cog within my civilization, and I will not crack and give you what you want. Even if you torture me, my people will continue fighting back to the last man,” Hogu responded, his tone so calm that even he was surprised. He knew the weight of the situation, the threats of what the empire could do, and everything more, but since the man said "calm down," that was the only emotion he could experience fully.
This scared the shit out of him, or at least his mind told him he should be scared shitless, but he wasn't experiencing the fear that he knew was unavoidable due to the situation. This repeated again and again as if he were locked in a loop with no exit conditions.
“I know you know that what you are saying is not true, and to show my sincerity, let me do this,” Youssef said before two additional people appeared in the room, a doppelgänger for each of them.
Before Hogu could say or ask anything, his actual live thoughts were recited by his doppelgänger, word for word, not missing a thing. Even his reaction to it happening was being recited, making it clear to anyone who saw what the doppelgänger was doing that these were someone's live thoughts. To top it all off, Youssef’s doppelgänger started doing the same, showing the live thoughts that were going on in Youssef's mind, which led to Hogu's doppelgänger going even more wild in revealing the thoughts in Hogu’s mind.
“Now that lying has become impossible and all of our cards are on the table, let me repeat what I was saying. I know that you are lying when you say that your people will fight to the last man, since a majority of them have already given up and actually hope to become a vassal civilization if the fear they were currently living in is going to end. We already know from your memories that your faction has been losing power, and within a few years, you would have been replaced by pro-vassalization groups, and your people would have willingly accepted becoming vassals under them, which even you already knew was inevitable,” Youssef paused for a moment after revealing that they already had his memories, meaning the empire now knew all the intimate knowledge about their civilization. But Youssef didn’t stop there. After a few seconds of silence to allow the doppelgänger to reveal what was going on in Hogu’s mind, he continued, “Now it is my time to make the actual threats.”
The moment Youssef said that, their surroundings changed into an empty space that was then instantly covered by miniature-scale models of different star systems with their names above them. All of them were Nymari civilization's territory, and under every star system model, there was all of the important information about it, from the number of citizens all the way to its worst secrets, and this went for all of them, including the absolute coordinates of all of these star systems.
“I’m sure you already know what these are. Let me be clear that I was against this course of action, but I have to follow my superior's orders, as they are responsible for dealing with the citizens who have now experienced tens of millions of casualties and need to show a strong response to avoid internal turmoil. If you do not surrender in a minute, we are going to send your entire civilization into extinction by dropping black hole bombs on all of your inhabited planets, hunt all of those across the star systems that survive, taint all of your genetic records so that no one can remake anyone in your image, and shred all the records of your existence, making sure you are forgotten in history. That is what the Emperor has deemed to be a satisfactory response to send a warning to the Conclave that we are serious about retaliating against those who bear arms against us. It is your decision to make, and you only have thirty seconds remaining to make it.”
“Where do I sign?” Hogu said, his artificially induced calm mind allowing him to make the decision very fast, the moment he finished listening to the threat. Surrendering might mean they become a vassal nation or even be treated as slaves, but his rational mind had deemed that it was the best solution if he wanted his civilization to exist and have a chance in the future, and he took it without hesitation. The main reason he didn’t want to delay, despite not feeling urgency amidst his calm, was that Youssef's doppelgänger was praying that he didn't accept the surrender offer so that they could have a record of removing a civilization from existence, the complete opposite of what he was saying about being against this decision.
“Good decision,” Youssef said as he disintegrated his doppelgänger, who was there to lie in his stead about what was going on in his mind, as there was no need for him to continue existing. He did the same for Hogu’s, before they returned to the desk, with a few documents already on the table for him to sign.
And with that, the empire increased its territory by a few hundred percent.
Comments
Zabulus
TYFTC.
Sol_Invictus(Hail the Terran Empire)
TYFTC!! That's pretty scary
