Pretty much nothing. Everything's burned to the ground. We've been at war for a thousand years.
[It isn't even the tea that makes him drop it that casually. It's just normal to be at war for that long, because that's how war works, right? It's normal to spend part of your childhood growing up in the small amount of civilization clinging to the wreckage. He'd spent half of his early years there before his father had moved them to Tera Con Prime, but even compared to the far more developed colony, Ventrexia had felt normal, just one way a world can be wrecked. Lots of worlds are wrecked in different ways, right?]
[Besides, there had been some leftover society. That's the only reason they'd been able to carve out some normalcy for the kids there, hence the Thimbles league that Little Cato had dominated as the planet's junior champion. The war had slowed and changed due to presence of the Lord Commander.]
[Because he had ended the way it had been equal, the Ventrexians versus the Tryvuulians, tit for tat, an eye for an eye, a hand for a hand, a life for a life. After the Ventrexians started working for him, they had become enforcers in his empire. It had become one-sided after that.]
It's been against all different people, but recently it was the Tryvuulians. But then Ventrexia started working for someone...bad.
[He frowns, wondering why he's talking about this, about him. He can tell he's being more open than he'd usually be. He has no idea the tea is responsible.]
Then we were at war with everyone. Working for the Lord Commander meant Ventrexians were fighting anyone that wouldn't join the empire. It kinda went pretty bad for them when they didn't agree to, 'cause a lot of species and people were working for him.
["Bad." As in their worlds faced a heavy bombardment by a fleet of heavy incinerators in orbit. "Bad" as in everything burned to ash, transformed into a place like Ventrexia in the space of a day.]
no subject
Pretty much nothing. Everything's burned to the ground. We've been at war for a thousand years.
[It isn't even the tea that makes him drop it that casually. It's just normal to be at war for that long, because that's how war works, right? It's normal to spend part of your childhood growing up in the small amount of civilization clinging to the wreckage. He'd spent half of his early years there before his father had moved them to Tera Con Prime, but even compared to the far more developed colony, Ventrexia had felt normal, just one way a world can be wrecked. Lots of worlds are wrecked in different ways, right?]
[Besides, there had been some leftover society. That's the only reason they'd been able to carve out some normalcy for the kids there, hence the Thimbles league that Little Cato had dominated as the planet's junior champion. The war had slowed and changed due to presence of the Lord Commander.]
[Because he had ended the way it had been equal, the Ventrexians versus the Tryvuulians, tit for tat, an eye for an eye, a hand for a hand, a life for a life. After the Ventrexians started working for him, they had become enforcers in his empire. It had become one-sided after that.]
It's been against all different people, but recently it was the Tryvuulians. But then Ventrexia started working for someone...bad.
[He frowns, wondering why he's talking about this, about him. He can tell he's being more open than he'd usually be. He has no idea the tea is responsible.]
Then we were at war with everyone. Working for the Lord Commander meant Ventrexians were fighting anyone that wouldn't join the empire. It kinda went pretty bad for them when they didn't agree to, 'cause a lot of species and people were working for him.
["Bad." As in their worlds faced a heavy bombardment by a fleet of heavy incinerators in orbit. "Bad" as in everything burned to ash, transformed into a place like Ventrexia in the space of a day.]
["Bad" as in genocide.]