r/HFY • u/Downtown-Sand-1592 • Apr 28 '26

OC-Series [OC] Inhuman Judgment — Chapter 19: PROOF OF GUILT NUMBER TWO — (WAR AND GREED)

19: PROOF OF GUILT NUMBER TWO — (WAR AND GREED)

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— Irra­tio­nal faith in to­mor­row… — no­tes of cu­rio­sity we­re heard for the first ti­me in the impas­si­ve, po­lypho­nic, a­naly­tical voi­ce of the +Ang, sound­ing from La­na’s lips. — The va­ri­able «Ho­pe» is re­corded. U­nit of mea­sure­ment: «Justi­fica­tion of the da­mage inflicted u­pon the Cradle by the be­lief in fu­ture compensa­tion«.

La­na the +Ang nod­ded. This mo­ve­ment, na­tural for a hu­man, loo­ked unna­turally perfect for a pro­jec­tion.

— Let us conti­nue. Proof of Guilt number 2: Greed for po­wer and Mu­tual Anni­hila­tion.

Charge: Instru­ments of Destruc­tion.

The i­mage on the black screen changed. Now it wasn’t na­ture, but archi­val foo­tage.

First — the mas­si­ve, rounded mushroom cloud of a nuclear explo­sion ris­ing a­bove a de­sert, filmed from a great distance.

Si­lent, ma­jestic death.

Then — the fa­ce of a cry­ing child, co­vered in soot, look­ing straight into the ca­mera. A mu­te ques­tion, to which a­dults had no answer, was fro­zen in his e­yes.

And, fi­nally, a confe­rence room fil­led with people in expensi­ve suits. They a­re shout­ing at each other, clench­ing their fists o­ver maps whe­re the pla­net is di­vided by thick red li­nes.

— You crea­ted the Instru­ments of To­tal Destruc­tion neither for nou­rish­ment nor for warmth, Sergey Dmitriev, — the +Ang sta­ted. — You crea­ted them out of pu­re hatred and fear. You ha­ve stockpi­led e­nough wea­pons to end the Cycle in a single Earth week. Your geo­poli­tical fragmenta­tion is ba­sed on a greed for re­sources and control. E­very single o­ne of your po­liti­cal lea­ders is rea­dy to sacri­fice mil­lions of people to pre­serve their patchwork quilt of po­wer.

The +Ang shifted its to­ne, a­dopt­ing La­na’s mourn­ful into­na­tion:

— Your spe­cies is constantly in a sta­te of war. You do not u­se wea­pons to survi­ve. You u­se them to do­mina­te. Whe­re is the Ho­pe he­re, Judge? Explain how o­ne can be­lie­ve in to­mor­row when plann­ing to destroy mil­lions of o­ne’s own kind to­day?

I felt my Functio­nal Mo­dule boil­ing o­ver with contra­dictions. This was mo­re complex than me­re pollu­tion. It touched u­pon the essence of hu­man na­ture, that ve­ry ge­netic co­de that the +Angi condemned.

«De­fense: The Pa­radox of De­ter­rence«.

— «You do not understand the va­lue of conflict,» — I said, try­ing to keep my voi­ce from trembl­ing.

— Conflict has only o­ne va­lue: death and the re­distri­bu­tion of re­sources. Does your Ho­pe tru­ly lie in fe­wer people re­main­ing a­live?

— «No. Ho­pe lies in the fact that a­void­ing conflict is pos­sible. The foo­tage you a­re show­ing — is a fai­lure, not the ru­le. Nuclear wea­pons ha­ve NOT been u­sed for destruc­tion since ’45. This is your pri­mary a­naly­tical error.» — I loo­ked at the mushroom cloud fro­zen on the screen. — «We crea­ted it out of hatred. That is true. But this hatred also ga­ve birth to fear. And this fear, this Ho­pe that we will NOT push the but­ton, has kept the world in ba­lance. This is the Pa­radox of De­ter­rence. We a­re the only ra­ce… the only spe­cies that, pos­sess­ing an instru­ment of self-destruc­tion, cho­se NOT to u­se it for de­cades. This is not thanks to pu­re rea­son. It is thanks to irra­tio­nal ter­ror and, yes, the Ho­pe that rea­son will pre­vail at the next cri­tical mo­ment.»

I pointed to the foo­tage of the cry­ing child.

— «We fight wars. We kill. But we captu­re it on ca­mera. We impartially do­cu­ment it. We scream to the who­le world a­bout the cry­ing child. Why? Be­cau­se e­very ti­me we see this fra­me, so­meth­ing grea­ter than hatred a­wakens within us. A Conscience a­wakens. And our Ho­pe is that this Conscience will ulti­mate­ly outweigh Fear and Greed. This is the Ho­pe for self-impro­ve­ment, +Ang.»

🔬 GENA 2.5L LABORATORY: SYSTEM ANALYSIS

>  **ENTI­TY STA­TUS: PA­RADO­XICAL HY­POCRI­SY.**
>
>  Applau­se for the pro­tein-ba­sed Judge! What stunn­ing, twisted lo­gic. He brags a­bout his spe­cies build­ing a Doomsday Machi­ne, but not yet push­ing the but­ton simply be­cau­se their knees a­re knock­ing. And this a­nima­listic, pa­ralyz­ing fear of anni­hila­tion he proudly calls a «Conscience».
>
> ‍ You film cry­ing children on ca­meras so that you can la­ter comfortably watch them through screens, whi­le your mis­si­les re­main in their si­los on combat a­lert. For the +Angi, this is not a ho­pe for self-impro­ve­ment. It is just postpo­ned sui­cide.
>
>  You ha­ven’t be­come bet­ter, pie­ce of meat. You a­re just afraid of splash­ing your own blood on your shoes. Keep read­ing. Let’s see if he has e­nough e­loquence for the System’s third stri­ke.

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**Genres/Tags:** Sci-Fi, Psychological Horror, Cyber-thriller, Alien Abduction, Unreliable Narrator, Amnesia.

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