The idea of an entire society coming to a belated epiphany like that stretches suspension of disbelief. It would flow a lot better if there was a vocal minority screaming the whole time (or at least toward the end of the war) for humans to back off and not genocide another sapient species, but they were ignored until it was too late. After the war, with the threat of the aliens gone, the people who were trying to get the military to back down come into power and turn humanity against itself by demanding that those responsible for the genocide be punished.
But as for symptoms of a societal BSOD, you've hit the high point. Births dropping below the replacement rate (ie, people are dying faster than they're being born) is a great one, as it tends to indicate that people have just stopped caring. Vicious political battles in regards to what to do with the military (opinions ranging from "give them all medals for saving humanity" to "execute them all for genocide"), up to and including riots and revolutions is another good one. High crime rate, poor economic performance, and other general indications of a troubled society are a given.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.What I forgot to mention about the epiphany is that it's similar to what happened to the West in World War One. Realizing that the most enlightened and culturally developed civilizations ever known had just spent five years slaughtering each other pointlessly was enough for historians to believe that Western Civilization lost all confidence.
"Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person that doesn't get it."Yeah, I had considered that. Maybe first contact was instead peaceful, and they tried to experiment with mixed-population/shared colonies. A group of xenophobic Sload terrorists saw the shared colonies as betrayal and began a string a bombings or whatever. Xenophobic elements within the human military manufactured evidence saying they were puppets for the Sload military. They then, having significant influence, used the false evidence and terrorist attacks to pressure the higher-ups in both the military and government into a war.
"Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person that doesn't get it."You could also have a situation where:
- Humans thought they could hand the Sload a few defeats and the war would be over. We were very, very wrong. Humanity literally only barely won the war, and the human infrastructure and military has been 50 - 90% destroyed in order to do it. Human caualties far exceeded worst case scenarios. So widespread are losses nearly everyone knows someone who died, was injured, missing, etc., and the available workforce is noticably reduced.
- A military the humans had ignored as too small to be a factor in the war attacks and defeats the shattered renants of human military. We realize we can't defend our forward outposts and colonies anymore.
- It quickly becomes obvious it will take many years to rebuild, and the economic and spiritual will to do it just isn't there.
- A natural disaster wipes out millions in the wake of the war and the humans are unable to prevent it / repair the damage.
- The human economy collapses.
Some thoughts on possible postwar cultural effects:
- There's sense of innocence lost, that even considering attempting to return to what we once were is impossible, stupid, or even immoral, because to do so would mean forgetting what must never be forgotten.
- There's a sense that perhaps this is the end of both races, perhaps it is impossible for humanity to recover, to grow, etc., and extremists argue that for the sake of the galaxy, we shouldn't even try.
edited 2nd Mar '11 1:44:45 PM by FrodoGoofballCoTV
I like this idea.
If this is supposed to mirror First World War, that if you're not afraid of a bit of recycling, you may take a look at how it began. A string of diplomatic mashups and imperial posturing.
Let's say both species are in their expansive phase - understandably, for both have just reached out for the stars, and both are sure the future is so bright for them - and try to outdo each other in colonising attempts.
Then pile some diplomatic misunderstandings and low-level clashes. Then add the militaries honing their weapons, "just in case they try something". Then all you need is a spark to this barrel of gunpowder, like a spectacular terroristic act or an overeager commander causing a massacre.
It could even have been by accident.
In Babylon Five the Earth - Minbari war began something like this:
- Both cultures were a bit xenophobic at the time for different reasons.
- The minbari and humans knew each other only in rumor, legend, and secondhand stories.
- Curiousity led Earthforce to search for the minbari. Unfortionately, rather than send seasoned explorers, diplomats, etc., they used the regular military.
- The minbari, being advised by the vorlons, set out to contact the humans unaware of the Human expedition.
- As a warrior race, the minbari approached with weapons ready, a sign of honoring a worthy opponent.
- The human commander, believing he'd been ambushed, ordered "prepare to return fire" or similar.
- A human gunner, perhaps misunderstanding, fired.
- The minbari, believing the humans had betrayed their trust, struck back in revenge.
edited 2nd Mar '11 3:16:32 PM by FrodoGoofballCoTV
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I've studied WW 1 far more than I would care to for quite a long time. I wanted to focus more on how it affected the West rather than how it began. A billion contradicting secret alliances dragging all of europe into war for anything as minor as two different nationals bumping into each other on the street doesn't really work for two different space-faring races who only have minor contact with each other.
You pretty much hit the nail on the head. Look at World War II - everyone was so desperate not to get involved that the conflict escaped the point where it could have been easily prevented. Sudden cultural epiphany does seem a bit forced though. Maybe a slower progression or the aforementioned idea about the vocal minority taking over?
Kamigawa from Magic The Gathering does this to some extent. Whereas it is well written is YMMV.
A single phrase renders Christianity a delusional cult.The only problem I see is the sudden cultural epiphany. Sudden cultural changes like that don't just happen seemingly overnight. It takes months to years for the small changes to come about and many years for it to reach full fruition.
Basically what I'm getting at is the epiphany naturally would be progressive and growing. There might be a vocal minority winning converts, there might be people just coming to conclusions later with the benefit of hindsight, there might just simply be a case of Delayed Reaction of the My God, What Have I Done? sort, or it could just be a case of So What Do We Do Now? coupled with serious hindsight over what happened.
Historically, the larger timescales is proof enough it follows along those few examples of many paths to take. For example, it took over a decade for Japan to get out of its funk after their warrior pride was completely smashed in the aftermath of World War Two at the hands of Americans wielding self-loading rifles, heavy use of machine guns, accurate artillery (both naval and land), skilled use of aircraft and aircraft carriers and ultimately nuclear weapons. The Japanese people didn't turn into what we know of now starting at sunrise September 2nd 1945. It took many years for the changes to rack up over there.
Yeah, I agree that the sudden epiphany is unrealistic. Using some of you guys' suggestions, I'm thinking of having that vocal minority growing in influence throughout the war. However, they were isolated, fragmented, with their beliefs scattered. Then a philosopher and social critic by the name of Akodeons Falleaux, whose two sons were killed in the fighting, published the philosophical book "In The Doubt of Man" and an essay called "Dead Sons of a Grieving Father". In both he outlined his utter disgust with the mutual slaughter and the pointlessness of the whole affair, with both works filled with borderline rampant emotionalism. However, they grew in increasing popularity, and behind them the entire minority rallied. Disillusioned war veterans joined their cause at the end of the Extermination when Falleaux published another book, "A Thousand Burning Planets". Within the next year, this feeling of dismay and lost innocence and idealism had swept throughout most of humanity.
"Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person that doesn't get it."You're right. I think I'll crank it up to five years for the societal depression to really "blossom", both for realism and because a decade of the social BSOD is enough for the African Solar Empire to be as run down as I want it to be. Also, I'm thinking of putting in a new, hyper-oppressive Space Police force (in a matter of speaking) that was formed directly as a result of the constant insurrections. The Counter-Revolutionary Initiative's sole purpose is to suppress any rebellion as soon as it grows out of hand. They're brutality has become legendary despite having only been around for less than a decade. In a sense, they're considered to be the ASE's last, desperate attempt to keep humanity from completely balkanizing.
"Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person that doesn't get it."

There is a science fiction project of mine, currently titled Pillar of Heaven. Twenty two years prior to the main events of the story, humanity encountered a sentient space-faring race known as the Sload. The Sload initiated a first contact blitzkrieg, rapidly seizing control of several human-occupied planets. Relishing the opportunity to fight their first non-human enemy, the military responded with a ferocity and bloodlust that mankind had never experienced. This vengeful fervor held nearly all of humanity in its grasp.
Humanity hardly ever relented, having only several significant defeats. We recovered swiftly and continued pushing them back. By the end of the seventh year, the military had knocked out their last two strongholds with experimental superweapons code-named Wrath and Judgment. They surrounded their homeworld and last planet with a large fleet, cut through their orbital defenses and pounded the planet's cities to rubble. Only a handful of the Sload remained.
A month or so after the Extermination of the Sload, a month of unceasing celebration, mankind was hit with a chilling sobriety. It was then that mankind realized what they had just accomplished, what the population had unflinchingly promoted. The realization that they had just systematically exterminated a space-faring culture at least as great as theirs, with untold millions of their own men and women killed, planets razed, and resources expended...
It was then that the first cracks appeared in the pane of humankind. Society, in a way, fell silent in regret and guilt-fueled depression. Humanity's can-do spirit, enthusiastic seizure of manifest destiny and belief that Humans Are Special reached its logical extreme. That human spirit flung itself from the mountain peak it just scaled and broke upon the ground.
Here are several ways in which I'm trying to depict humanity as a society with a broken spirit: -Greatly reduced colonization efforts and investment -Greatly reduced military recruitment -An alarming level of drug use (which was bad enough prior to all of this) -Greatly reduced birth rates -Resignation or court-marshal of experienced military personnel for "war crimes" (military was trying to blame individuals and not the entire military itself) -In conjunction with the above point, scapegoating and blameshifting among the general populace -Widespread disillusionment and bitterness -High rate of suicide among war veterans -Economic depression -An unprecedented amount of insurrections and formation of insurgent groups
Any suggestions or critique?
"Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person that doesn't get it."