The group sits quietly contemplating Angelidis’ question. They don’t know how to proceed. Ajax asks a question out of curiosity.
“What did you all learn in school about the Empire?”
“Hm? What do you mean, Ajax?” asks Angelidis.
“Well, I just thought that maybe we could learn a little more about the war itself, its boundaries, you know… Its goals for success. There’s obviously some bad points to it, right? Maybe we should understand what the enemy is like?”
Dzantemir provides some clarification for the table, building off what Ajax wishes to learn. “Well… when I was still in school, we learned that the Empire is basically a country that was as large and as powerful as the Federation. It’s ruled by demons, not people. But, not just demons live there. There’s a beastkin nation as well as a draconid nation and… a nation of dragons. They were all being ruled by the Devil, Semjaza. Their army was made up almost entirely of dragon knights. Uh…”
“What else?” Ajax asks.
“Mm… We learned about a lot of their past cruelty towards the Federation. The demonic dragon knights are famed destroyers of our lands…” Dzan learned this fact in church rather than school.
“When was the last war with the Empire?” Angelidis asks this question with curiosity of her own.
“I think… 400 years ago.”
“Alright, that’s a good start… What are demons like?” asks Ajax.
“The church always says that they are as evil as their creator. Their line is that demons can never be assimilated into the federation unlike the beastkin and draconid nations. They must be exterminated. Same with the dragons. The beastkin and draconids can be conquered, enslaved really” says Dzan.
“A-Actually, my question was more about… what they’re like as a race. What are their characteristics? Their strength?” Ajax’s question is actually far more basic. He wonders if it might actually be too basic.
“Oh…” Dzan is uncertain. He looks over to Sigvor who has some information to add.
“...Well, they’re kind of weird. The church says that when you kill a demon they disintegrate and leave behind minerals that can be used for alchemy. Unlike the other humanoid races, they don’t leave any corpses. They’re not really living creatures. They look a lot like humans but with horns and different colored skin than humans or beastkin would have.”
“Are they intelligent?” Olah asks this. She isn’t familiar with the demon race as much as her friends are. Most information about the demons is tightly regulated. Their racial features aren’t even taught in classrooms. It is surprising that Sigvor knows even that much.
Nobody in the Federation really needs to know about the demon race to begin with. Only the heroic nobles ever confront Semjazan Imperial forces in battle.
“Yeah, they’re smart, I personally think. Although, some of my teachers used to tell me they were like mindless slaves who did what Semjaza told them to do.” Sudirja offers her own insight. Meixi nods and gives her own thoughts.
“I think I learned that as well about the demons, how they’re like battle golems.”
Shaula finds this whole conversation really odd. How can the table know so little common knowledge about demons? Why is it that everything they seem to know about them is contradictory?
“Have… any of you ever actually seen a demon?” asks Ajax.
“No, I’d assume not. They don’t live on this continent, and they don’t send ships or anything here. I mean, we’re all commoners here, you know? What would we know about that continent?” Angelidis says.
No trade policy at all? They really must be the Federation’s mortal enemies…
Shaula realizes the issue with asking questions about the Empire. From the perspective of the Federation, especially the commoners, it’s a continent-wide black box. The others at the table know this as well. Maybe Ajax shouldn’t have started with gathering information about that continent. He still needs to know.
“What exactly is the point of this war then?” asks Ajax. He wants to know why this country wants the people in that continent across the ocean to all die. Of course, he simply memory-holed the whole war between Osva and Semjaza to begin with.
“...Well, Semjaza was trying to kill Osva. She would have tried exterminating us next. I think that for the Federation, a war of extermination needs to happen for retribution. Something like that.” says Meixi.
Revenge? Is that worth going to war and dying over? Shouldn’t they be powerless without Semjaza now? Would they really be stupid enough to attack the Federation in their current state? Why not just let things go with that?
Shaula considers this point. Then, she wonders.
What about the experience for her brothers as soldiers? How would that be?
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“...Jelli.” Angelidis looks over at Shaula. She is surprised that she raised her voice. If Shaula has an opinion, she normally says it through Ajax. Angelidis has noticed this about her personality. She’s known people like that in the past, so she isn’t offended by her quietness.
“What is it?” asks Angelidis, curious about what Shaula wants to say.
“What do you learn about war in the schools in this city?”
“...Not a lot, honestly. Our teachers describe historical events. Both conflicts within the Federation and between the Federation and the Empire. This many people dead, this many people valorized as heroes, as divinities, this many monsters or demons or crawlers or wyverns or dragons killed… Honestly I’ve forgotten a lot of it. It was never very useful.” Angelidis muses.
Shaula pauses at the appearance of a couple new terms. Divinities. Wyverns. She moves past that while keeping a mental note. There’s always more to learn.
“What about the aberrant crawler hives? How is war in that theater?” Shaula continues.
“Most people in this city wouldn’t even think of joining the army just to kill a bunch of bug monsters. That’s one of the reasons mom suggested they join the army before the news of the Final Crusade. It’s easy work, and they’d be in the reserves for most of their tour of duty. It’s more like garbage collection to deal with an aberrant hive, not that it isn’t dangerous at all…”
“Ok, I see… Well, I asked because, in my village… we had access to a library where Ajax and I used to just sit and read for long periods of time. A lot of what we read was fiction; some non-fiction too but we didn’t really enjoy those. There were stories about war as well, some of them written by actual soldiers. The lives of soldiers who go to war during peacetime is normally fine. But, soldiers who are drafted or volunteer during crises face difficult lives.”
Shaula tries to explain why she knows history that the people at this table would not know. She has access to a lot of Earth history. She had an interest in the subject, and even took a world history class in her first semester of 12th grade.
If she says that Earth history is all fictional, then they won’t think twice about the events she references. She can present it to them as a thought experiment to get her point across. That point is…
“War is a hell for those who join it.The thing that you’d want to be worried about most of all are your brothers coming home shell shocked, maimed or injured, or coming home in a coffin.”
“Shell shock… what’s that?” Malia asks. She has been quiet this entire time, but she has been listening. Shaula explains.
“It’s what happens when a soldier is exposed to large amounts of blood, violence or death for a long period of time. They start becoming afraid. They’ll see things that aren’t there. They can go insane from the fear or even develop health conditions. Of course, you can think of it as ‘trauma’, shell shock is just what war trauma is called. For example, in that alleyway when I confronted Dzan, I was afraid he would get traumatized too.”
“Why?” Dzan is confused. He can intuitively understand the concept of trauma applied in war. But, what does that have to do with that confrontation between the two of them?
“Well, you sincerely thought that you were going to die. You even seemed to prepare for it when I took your weapon. Angelidis, your brothers will be exposed to that kind of feeling during extended fighting to the death on the battlefield. I’ve read many stories about soldiers be deathly afraid even after the war ends.”
“That’s… really something that can happen to them?”
“If they’ve heard explosions all around them during war time, when they come home, they’ll start to fear loud noises in general. If they even see a dagger or a sword, they might act unconsciously and even hurt those around them.”
“Well… I guess that kind of reaction makes sense.” Angelidis sighs. Post traumatic stress disorder is a relatively simple concept to grasp for everyone at the table. Ajax is surprised that Shaula had such understanding of the subject. The way she explains it is quite helpful.
Shaula faced a great deal of trauma in her own life prior to meeting Ajax. She was forced to familiarize herself with how PTSD worked.
“One more thing, Angelidis. Have your brothers ever considered what it’s like to kill someone before?” Shaula asks.
“...No. I don’t think they have.”
“From what everyone has shared about the demons, it seems as if they’re mindless or unintelligent. Even if that is the case, the demihumans on that continent can’t all be like that too, I just don’t believe that. Are your brothers willing to see severed limbs, destroyed heads, brains spread across the battlefield? Corpses of demihumans that may look similar to the friends and family that they’ve seen here?”
“...No.”
“Are they ready to dig mass graves? To kill men, women and children? That’s what the army is going to train them to do.”
“My brothers wouldn’t do–”
“Jelli, you have to understand. Your brothers will be trained and conditioned thoroughly by the military. Maybe they’ll start with killing soldiers who are running at them on the battlefield. Then they march into a populated city with their fellow soldiers. They see men coming at them with knives, civilians this time, not soldiers or ‘combatants’. They’ve already killed soldiers with their comrades, what’s a few more grown men? And then, maybe they’ll see their fellow men killing women who try to attack them while defending their families, their homes. Then, the men and women who aren’t attacking them will be next. The old men and women… the children. It’s like slowly wading into a cold pool of water. Eventually, people can get used to anything… Especially when they’re with their fellow soldiers.”
“...” Angelidis is speechless. She never had anyone explain things in those kinds of terms before. Why didn’t she think of her brothers facing beastkin soldiers? Draconid soldiers? Why didn’t she consider that the people in the Empire must have their own families?
Even if the Imperial soldiers are the most evil people imaginable, what about their families?
Their children? She knows in her heart that the church wishes to exterminate them all. That is just reality to her. It is a reality that was always there, but one she never had to consider. It’s like how a fish doesn’t comprehend it’s swimming in water, until it leaps past the surface.
The church and the Federation it operates is ruthless.
The entire table looks over at Shaula in surprise. They each consider what she is saying. They aren’t human, they are demihuman. Humans are enthusiastically in favor of this war. One of the reasons why is that they aren’t seeing members of their race being exterminated.
There are no humans on the Empire’s lands. That must have been one of the reasons the people at this table didn’t want to think about this war at all. It isn’t the same for them.
Angelidis wants to learn more from Ajax and Shaula. They know about war. They could be the key to convincing her brothers not to join the effort.