Arkhan sat in his throne room; alone save for the various microbes that were impossible to get rid of.
“So, the PR guys wanted to know a bit more about how I think about things, and thus they requested that I make audio logs as frequently as possible for ‘posterity’. They aren’t incorrect in the assumption that I could theoretically die at any place and at any time; we do know that those damnable ‘Anti Summoned Being’ Weapons exist, and the UGN or the Consortium may have them, so in the possible and likely event that I die of old age or sickness or some other natural or unnatural occurrence I should leave a log to detail my ‘great vision’ for this nation and whatnot.”
Arkhan shifted in his seat, looked around and began to make sure that his creations would not hear his honest feelings.
“Things in the past few days, weeks and months have been eventful. Although, that itself has to be one of the understatements of the year. A ‘War in Heaven’ or ‘Battle Between God and the False Angels’ as the spin doctors have been so eloquently putting it, not that I was even given a chance to voice my own opinion. The aftermath of the war was something no one was expecting; gaining early Newtype abilities certainly makes one realize just how scarred the MCs of pretty much every mainline Universal Century series ended up being by the finale… Thanks to Asharia, my wife, things are better. Although I am honestly unsure of whether we should have just dealt with the empathic depression or if I was right to let Ash muck about with the universe.”
Giving a sigh, the ‘God King’ of the Arcadian Galactic Commonwealth continued.
“At least nobody is feeling clinically depressed due to Newtype empathic space-magic anymore… Can’t say I feel comfortable knowing that my wife can and does consider the end of the universe to be an annoyance at best and a massive reset button at worst… Don’t know how many times she accidentally erased creation, and I honestly don’t want to know. Some things are better left unknown, and the masses would freak the fuck out if they knew that she had, or rather has this kind of power. I can’t rightly tell if she is just ramping up her own capabilities or if she is actually getting more powerful as time progresses, and to be perfectly honest I don’t know which option would be scarier…”
Arkhan continued after taking a drink.
“But what really sticks with me, almost as much as knowing that my own wife is able to remake a reality that she herself destroyed, is the fact that I condemned an entire race to extinction. It did not hit me until after the actions had been done that I had committed genocide on such a massive scale, and what worries me the most is that I am fine with it. I try and think about how there should have, could have been another way to end it. Maybe one with a less extreme solution that allowed the Angels to survive, but each time I do so it always ends with me rationalizing that it was the only way. At fist it was the ‘us or them’ mentality, then it began to fuse with the ‘they could never be reasoned with’ mentality, and from there on it only built up until I could no longer play devil’s advocate on their behalf. Already they are being twisted by playwrights and the like; it is like being a live witness to the epic smear campaign done by the Romans to the Carthaginians.”
Arkhan stood up and looked out the massive window that was behind his throne.
“And what makes it all worse is that I am okay with that. The mocking, the deliberate destruction of historical truth, the smear campaign, all of it. I can tell that somewhere along the way I have changed. Maybe the exposure to those weapons was what did it, or maybe it was even earlier. Maybe I was always like this, and just needed the proper push to reach this point. But either way it doesn’t matter. We are alive, and they are not. History will be written by us, the victors, and they, the defeated, will have no ability to deny what we say is ‘truth’.”
If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
Taking another drink, Arkhan sat down again.
“There is a storm on the horizon. Another one. The UGN is now utterly aghast at our willingness to destroy in order to claim victory. They have all but recalled their already new embassies; their economic sanctions on us would be crippling, if not for the fact that we have never traded anything with them. They are already gearing up for a potential, and quite possibly inevitable war. The hawks in Arcadia are a quite vocal majority and are leading the charge to do the same. We managed to get a lot of goodies from the AHU, and the eggheads are doing their damnedest to understand and incorporate it into what we already have. But I feel the biggest issue to deal with, and what could tip the entire Galaxy into another war is the fact that the worlds the AHU were uplifting are now contested territory. We have overtaken the duties of the AHU regarding them, but the UGN doesn’t want us to have them.”
A star map popped up and showed the seven systems that were contested. What made things more interesting was that they were quite near the Solaris System, and therefor deep inside Arcadian space.
“I don’t care how they keep sending things past our borders, despite them being closed. What vexes me is that they have abandoned their ‘no interference’ policy regarding industrial civilizations. And what vexes me more is that they are interfering in our space. It seems to me that they are asking for a fight and if they continue this course then they will get one. We have a larger territory, bigger military and in some ways equal or superior technology. We can literally spam nuke-filled asteroids, but they think this is a good idea. What makes things worse is that they are already setting up friendly governments in some of the nations on the habitable worlds in those systems.”
Once again, Arkhan sighed in exasperation.
“But, due to their own laws and rules, we now can interfere ourselves. Tomorrow I will board my flagship and travel to the Helios System. I can’t say I look forward to first contact; if our intel is to be believed then we had best make ready for a not-so-friendly reception. With one nation having a partnership with an alien nation-state and engaging in a world war with the others, I do not expect the other nations to view us with any degree of positivity. But that is all for this log, as I am running out of allotted time for each individual log.”
Arkhan pressed a button on one of the keypads on the throne. A beep signaled that the recording software had saved his log and at that notice Arkhan allowed his creations to once again hear his thoughts. His Mobile Throne entered the throne room and Arkhan left the immobile, yet more extravagant throne and buckled into his less extravagant but more mobile one.
“Where to?” The fusion between a Zaku Tank and a Guntank asked.
“The dining hall. Can’t go to bed on an empty stomach.”
Nodding, the Mobile Throne sped off with Arkhan holding on for dear life.
…
In a certain nation on a certain planet in the Helios System, a reptilian female shivered despite the warm summer weather. A man in a WW1 military uniform asked a very familiar face a question.
“Miss Hy’sisk, what seems to be the matter?”
The reptilian female did not know why she suddenly felt a chill run up her spine, but she had a hunch.
“Something is going to happen. Something very bad. I don’t know what, but I never get shivers like that unless things will take a turn for the worse.”
Her hunches, drawn from that type of shiver, tended to be right. She had ignored the feeling before when facing Arcadia’s tyrants and had done so again when that monster committed such terrible acts of savagery and barbarism. Now she had a feeling that was the same as the others, and therefore she could not afford to ignore it.
“Prepare you nation and it’s military; there is something apocalyptic coming…”