I took the Chancellor into custody and escorted her to a shuttle that was called down from orbit. After boarding the shuttle, we were taken to the Phoenix which waited in orbit with the majority of my fleet. Sarah had taken her part and some of mine to continue taking the Empire's planets and ships into out custody. Hopefully, with the Chancellor and soon Earth having fallen to us, the remainder of the Empire would quickly surrender and let us move on to seizing and annexing the Wardens and their planets.

"Welcome to the Phoenix," I said to the Chancellor as we disembarked the shuttle, "flagship of the Nephilim Army and my personal starship. Hope you enjoy your stay."

"Go to hell," she answered with all the eloquence of her position. "I will not cooperate with you and your merry band of freaks, just because you say that I'm a prisoner."

"Less prisoner and more guest," I corrected her as I lead the way to Snow's room. He ought to know what the Chancellor looked like and hopefully his reaction would let me know if I did have the right woman. "The hope is that once this business is taken care of, we'll be able to return you and everyone else to their homes. We've already started with planets like Eden; the garrison fleet there was almost all natives, so other than a few of the higher-ups, we've allowed the rest of them to go home while we've monitored them to ensure behaviour. Eventually, we'll be able to leave without having to worry about them behaving themselves."

"You say that like we're a bunch of children that you're babysitting," Grandine said.

"From my perspective, you are a bunch of children," I told her. "I've been a Nephilim for almost a century now, and I was in my late twenties when I was taken by the Wardens for their hare-brained scheme. Now, everyone that is my age, is either dead or an alien that's approaching the end of their life. If I'd had children before becoming a Nephilim, then they'd have great-grandchildren and likely be dead. I've seen your Empire built, hell I gave you most of the planets after they were cleared of Scourge. I may not see the end of your Empire, but I've gone through a few Chancellors and I know what Earth was like before we were pulled into the stars. In my eyes, you are all children fighting for one toy when there's plenty to go around."

"If you'd allowed the Wardens to trade us technology and given Earth the formula to make Nephilim, then you wouldn't see us that way," she said. "Because you were so selfish, everyone that died because of cancer, AIDS, or even a car crash is on you. If we'd had better medicine, they would have all been fine, but you told the Wardens not to give that to us. Instead, we had to try to mimic what they showed us and whenever we failed at that they couldn't even tell us until we screwed something up catastrophically."

"What do you care for more?" I asked her. "A sandwich you bought from somebody you don't know, or a sandwich you made yourself. They're both the same, same toppings, same sauces, same bread, but which one do you enjoy more?"

"What kind of question is that?" she demanded.

"The one that proves my point," I said. "Which sandwich is the tastier one, the one you enjoy eating more?"

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"I don't know," she huffed, "the one I bought?"

"Are you asking me or telling me?" I asked.

"Fine, it's probably the one I made," she said.

"Why?" I asked. "Why do you enjoy that sandwich more than the one you bought? They have the same toppings, the same bread, the same sauces. They're even cut the same way. Why do you enjoy the one you made more than the one you bought?"

"I'm not playing this game anymore," she said.

"The reason is, because you made it," I said. "You made that sandwich, you know everyhting about it and there's no chance for a surprise topping in the middle that'll ruin the experience. You can add as much of the sauce or as many toppings as you want, and you'll be able to enjoy them in the ratio that's perfect for you. If it was the sandwich you bought, then the sauce might not be as thick as you like or maybe it's too thick. The toppings could be spread out more, or there's just not enough. You didn't make the sandwich so it's not perfect for you. It's the same idea with technology, medicine, even knowledge."

"I'm not following," she said. "Better tech is better tech, and better medicine saves more lives."

"It's about knowing how you got to the point," I told her. "Sure better tech is better tech, but if you buy a starship from an alien race and they give you something so advanced it blows everything else out of the water, how do you fix it? How do you refuel it? What happens if you can't understand the sensors, or monitor the engines? Things start to go wrong."

"That's when you go back to where you got it from and they fix it for you," she said matter-of-factly.

"And what if they're not there?" I asked. "What if they're a roaming race, and you can't find them anymore? What if they were wiped out soon after you left? Is there anyone left to fix your ship into perfect order anymore?"

"I guess not," she said. "But it's still something that's easy enough to fix. I just need to go to someone else and let them study the ship until they know what they're doing and can fix it. It's that simple."

"Is it really?" I said, raising a brow at her. "Is it really that easy or quick to have someone study a ship they've never seen before, so that they can make alterations and repairs as needed? In my experience it's not."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"To really study something and learn it, you need to spend years or even decades with it. Anything less is asking for mistakes to be made," I told her. "That fancy starship you bought is now little more than junk at worst or it's been devolved to the point that it's the same as all the rest. There's nothing special about it anymore."

"If I'd allowed the Wardens to give Earth technology that was beyond us at the time, there would have been so many problems that showed up, I'd have been unable to focus on what I needed to focus on at the time. Killing Scourge. This war is pulling me away from that and it all stems back to an argument that Earth and the Solar Empire should never have been involved in."

"The Alliance of Galaxies is an ally organization of the Empire," she insisted. "As Chancellor, I could not leave our allies to suffer through a war without our aid."

"So the lost Human lives are worth it?" I asked her as we stopped in front of Snow's door. "Every Human lost because you decided to get involved in that fight, was worth the alliance you made with them? I left and the Wardens were allied with Earth too. Did you just pick a side that gave you more technology? Or was it the planets that were stolen from the other side?"

The door opened and Snow appeared.

"Demigod James, Chancellor Grandine, I'm sure your conversation is important, but this room is occupied," he said nervously.

"I know it is Admiral," I told him. "I just needed your help with something. Thank you, you've been very helpful. This way, Chancellor. Your room will be close to the Admiral's if you two wish to have conversations with one another."

As I lead her to her room, I realized that for all my talk for being older and seeing the rest of them as fighting children, I was no better than them. I'd been pulled into an argument with one of those same children.