_Chapter_Page_-_Book_1.jpg){kind=link}
Chapter 75 - The Administrator[]
Tharkad System
Lyran Commonwealth
3150
another diplomatic meeting...
"You put them in Reservations?" Paladin Howell hadn't gone back to New Earth with his tail between his legs.
"That's the term, it was selected from pre-spaceflight historical documents." Admiral Ngo's bruise was two-days faded, but still apparent.
"WHY?"
"If you kill people that are surrendering, the next bunch won't surrender and you've un-broken that will to resist and fight that you just spent vast amounts of lives and money breaking." She cited, "Towards the end, the Falcons were surrendering in job-lots. Not all of them were Mongols when we started, and not all of the ones who were on day one of our counterattack believed in Malvina's toxic philosophy when we finished."
"They could have been lying, or deceiving you." he said.
"Yup. they could have." she nodded sagely. "That's why we did what we did with 'em. Surrendering means the war is over. Surveys were done, some worlds were found while we were conducting operations. Not the nicest places, but, suitable for human life, reachable, and able to be monitored. We relocated Warrior Caste populations and identified collaborators to those worlds. We provided them with seed crops, livestock, and sufficient basic hand tools to enact any base non-industrialized society they wanted to build. We didn't give them 'mechs, we didn't give them the extensive databases their ancestors took on the Exodus, we gave 'em books."
"Why books?"
"Books don't require batteries." She told him. "Plenty of basic knowledge there. The refugees that settled Kowloon initially started with less in terms of raw information. If these guys want machine guns and tanks they're going to have to learn how to do it from scratch. they'll have to master steam engines before they can even think about fusion reactors. In the meantime, they can run their society any damned way they want to-those reservations are official 'no go zones' enforced by the LCN and the Coast Guard. nobody goes in who isn't on oversight duty. we did make sure to remove or inactivate their contraceptive implants before we put them there. Give it a few generations and they might be ready to rejoin the human race. The standing order is to wait for them to rediscover radio and start calling."
"You put them out to die-"
"No, we gave them good planets." Sharon countered. "They can be civilized or they can be barbarians, but whatever they can be. tTey have to do it themselves, and on their own, without the loot of a thousand planets backing them up. Trillian didn't go with my plan."
He stared at her, "What was that?"
"Put 'em down naked, with no tools at all and no books, and then let them start from the pre-stone-age." she said evenly. "She said 'no' to that, so we compromised. They get basic hand tools, a small library, seeds for crops and animals that can be tamed and used...and a set of frequencies that require a twenty-first century level of tech to transmit. They're on their own, they can have their society, such as it is, if they can build it, and the Quarantine Detail keeps anyone from entering the system and interfering. I expect the Archon is right, it's better than genocide. They can have their culture if they can keep it. nobody's taking that away." she held his eyes across the table, "We're just making sure they don't bother anyone else while they work that out."