The First Superhuman: Rebuilding Civilization from the Moon

After bidding farewell to the sociologist, Jason decided to pay a visit to Black’s office.

He had a few pressing questions he wanted to ask the ancient alien. He was curious to know how older, well-established interstellar civilizations handled this exact moral dilemma. Perhaps an entirely alien perspective could offer some fresh insights.

Knock, knock, knock!

Jason tapped on the door a few times, and finding it slightly ajar, walked straight into the Department of Diplomatic Relations.

The head of the department was still Peter, making Black technically just his deputy director. In truth, the entire department was currently a sinecure; they wouldn’t have any real work until the Federation made contact with another space-faring civilization.

Because Black’s security clearance wasn’t high enough, and due to his unique status as an alien prisoner-turned-advisor, he wasn’t permitted to attend high-level strategic meetings. As a result, he was completely oblivious to the intense ethical debates raging among the upper echelons of leadership. At that very moment, the alien was slouched in his chair, leisurely munching on a bag of potato chips and chuckling at a video playing on his monitor.

Seeing Jason’s deadpan expression as he entered, Black violently flinched. With a loud thud, the entire bag of chips spilled onto the floor.

"Captain Jason! Please... please, have a seat!" The chubby alien hastily scrambled to his feet. He couldn’t hide his intense embarrassment, looking exactly like a teenager caught watching something inappropriate by their parents.

For reasons unknown, the alien was utterly terrified of Jason. He awkwardly reached behind his back, frantically wiping his greasy hands on his clothes.

Ignoring the alien’s slovenly appearance, Jason got straight to the point and asked the question that had been weighing on his mind.

Black blinked, looking thoroughly bewildered. "What? You’re actually stressing over a problem like this? So you’re looking to colonize a planet... Big deal. Life-bearing worlds aren’t all that rare out here. Honestly, they aren’t even as valuable as a resource-rich metal planet."

Jason nodded slowly. "True, but what’s wrong with securing a backup planet for our species? As you well know, our original home world was annihilated by an unknown weapon... and our long-term resources are severely lacking."

Mentioning Earth’s destruction jogged Jason’s memory. He leaned over and typed a specific URL into Black’s secondary monitor. Instantly, a video began playing on the screen.

It was a video every single citizen aboard the Noah had watched countless times. It was even integrated into the standard curriculum for young children.

It was the horrifying satellite footage of Earth being blown to pieces.

"I just thought of something," Jason said, his voice lowering. "Did your previous civilization ever have any massive capital ships crash-land on Earth in the distant past?"

Black stared at the screen, a sudden wave of cold sweat dampening his palms. He violently shook his head in denial. "No! I have no idea what you’re talking about! My scout ship was shot down almost immediately after the interstellar war broke out."

"Does the Noah being buried on our moon have anything to do with your people?"

"No... absolutely not! We know absolutely nothing about that Ark!" Black stammered hurriedly. How could his empire have possibly engineered something as monumental as the Noah?

"Then tell me, how massive were your flagships , and what type of energy cores did they run on?" Jason stepped closer, staring intently into the alien’s eyes, his expression deadly serious.

Crushed by the sheer weight of Jason’s commanding presence, Black felt extremely uneasy. He didn’t know how to lie his way out of this one.

After a brief hesitation, he decided to just tell the truth. "...Our super-capital ships were primarily powered by massive anti-matter reactors."

He swallowed hard. "If one of those reactors went critical and detonated on your Earth... yes, it would absolutely have the yield required to cause an explosion of that magnitude."

As the words left his mouth, a chilling dread ran down the chubby alien’s spine. He was terrified Jason was about to hold him accountable for the destruction of his home world. He thought Jason was finally going to execute him now that the Federation had successfully extracted most of his Level-4 technological knowledge.

"Captain Jason, you can’t pin this on me! I swear, I didn’t know anything about it!" Black shrieked hysterically.

"Alright, calm down! I didn’t come here to interrogate you about the past," Jason sighed, immediately recognizing the alien’s panic. So much time had passed since Earth’s destruction; dwelling on ancient vendettas wouldn’t help humanity survive now.

He redirected the conversation. "Just answer my original question: how should an advanced civilization deal with a primitive, indigenous one?"

Since fleeing the Solar system, humanity had faced all manner of cosmic horrors, natural disasters, hostile alien ruins, and the lingering scars of ancient wars. While the universe might not be an actively malicious ’dark forest,’ it was incredibly dangerous. Because of this, the Federation had been tirelessly developing new weapons to ensure their survival. Securing a stable, habitable backup planet was a strategic initiative supported by over 90% of the civilian population.

Black took a few deep breaths, his panic slowly subsiding as he seriously considered the question. "Wanting a backup planet isn’t a bad idea."

"The raw resources of a single, healthy star system far exceed whatever you can store aboard the Noah," Black continued. "But you have to realize that this sector of space is essentially the galactic slums. Like I’ve told you before, the true hub of interstellar civilization is clustered around the center of the Milky Way. We are currently nearly 10,000 light-years away from the galactic core. That is an agonizingly long distance!"

"Even though your warp drives are fast, they aren’t meant to cover that kind of extreme mileage. At this rate, are you just resigning yourselves to never interacting with the wider galactic community? Life-bearing planets are a dime a dozen. If push comes to shove, you can just terraform one yourselves... There are countless prime candidates near the galactic core."

Jason paused. If he was being completely honest, he hadn’t even thought that far ahead. The Federation had endured so many near-extinction events in such a short period that their society had developed a severe case of collective "social anxiety."

Was this overly cautious mindset just a lingering symptom of a primitive civilization?

Black noticed Jason’s hesitation and pressed on. "And... you want to claim this planet, yet you’re actually losing sleep over the feelings of the indigenous natives?"

"You people are still too young! Oh, forgive my bluntness... but since you have officially ascended to become an interstellar civilization, you need to start adopting the vision and ruthless ambition of one! You are a L civilization now, no longer a primitive K Level society trapped in the mud. You have the right to harness the resources of the entire star system! To a higher power, a Level K civilization is nothing more than unexploited biomass. They do not stand on equal footing with you."

Seeing Jason deep in thought, Black drove his point home. "Tell me this... when you butcher a hog for bacon, do you stop to consider the pig’s feelings? When you clear-cut a forest to build a city, do you hold a moment of silence for the displaced monkeys and birds?"

Jason was momentarily left speechless. How could this alien so casually compare intelligent, sentient lifeforms to livestock and wild animals?

Finding the analogy repulsive, he immediately retorted, "But they possess higher intelligence, don’t they? I firmly believe that no sentient civilization should be casually exterminated..."

"So what if they have a spark of intelligence? It entirely depends on where you draw the line," Black scoffed disdainfully.

"Pigs are technically smarter than ants, and monkeys are smarter than pigs. To an ant, a monkey is an unfathomable genius. But do you care about a monkey’s intelligence? Of course not. Since these natives are just a primitive Level K society, they are only marginally smarter than monkeys. And just like monkeys, you don’t need to care about them."

Black’s tone turned dead serious. "Captain Jason, basic sentience is not a rare commodity in this universe, nor does it require obsessive, moralistic protection. Yes, they possess rudimentary intelligence; they can build tools and form tribes. But they’re nothing more than slightly clever monkeys. Even if they’ve managed to build nuclear weapons, that just makes them monkeys with big sticks."

"If a species cannot independently surpass the Great Filter... they are functionally no different from a monkey!"

Jason found Black’s ruthless pragmatism deeply unsettling. The alien was openly advocating for a scorched-earth genocide... and he was doing it with absolute, unshakeable conviction. What kind of twisted logic was that?

"You’re just too young. You’ll understand eventually... I’m dead serious!" Black muttered as Jason turned to leave, clearly enjoying the rare opportunity to lecture the human leader.

Jason walked out of the department, his mind more troubled than when he had arrived.

"Let’s just go take a look first," he muttered to himself.

Even if the Federation only stayed in orbit to run passive observation scans and collect sociological data, it wouldn’t be a bad thing. At the very least, it wouldn’t be a wasted trip.

"Deep Space, continue on course!"

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