PROLOGUE
In a fit of exasperation, Germany’s Iron Chancellor, Prince Otto von Bismarck, once remarked, “There is a Providence that protects idiots, drunkards, children and the United States of America.” Bismarck’s comment has a special relevance for our current situation. For, if not an act of providence, how else to explain that we learned of the Broa before they discovered us? And, having become aware of their existence, what were we to do with that knowledge?
How should we secure our future against a species that enslaves every star system of which they become aware? Do we abandon our own colonies among the stars, retreat back to Earth, and pray the galactic overlords overlook us for a few more generations? Or do we take a more activist approach and risk immediate annihilation?
This conundrum became known as The Great Debate. And if the answer seems obvious in retrospect, consider that it was far from clear at the time. Those who faced the choice lacked our advantage of hindsight. Indeed, the fact that we even had a choice was something of a miracle.
Had a Broan craft stumbled across one of our interstellar colonies, the first we would have known of it was when their war fleet appeared in our skies and demanded our surrender.
Human nature being what it is, our species would never have submitted meekly. Our first impulse, and last, would have been to resist. In so doing, we would now be extinct. The Broa would have turned the Earth into a burned-out, radioactive cinder; and those of us who so loudly hail our recent victories would now be mere dust, blowing on a hot, dry wind.
Therefore, fellow revelers, when you celebrate tonight, consider for a moment what might have been—
From a Victory Speech by the
Right Honorable Samantha Ries-Morgan
To the World Parliament
12 October 2356