Classification 10

High Merchant Vincent Wood had gotten off his ship, he was the first human to ever to walk through the hallowed halls of the galactic community. For nearly 100 million years the station had been the beacon for all civilized life. It was an artificial moon, with warp abilities. Heavy on defence and evading rather than attacking. Its builders were all dead, but each race left their own mark on the building, each technological breakthrough of thousands of races was present in these walls. It is a testament sapient life itself. Vincent allowed himself a moment to collect himself, the sheer size of the place showed each and every individual their own place in the cosmos. As he walked through the halls, guided by an artificial voice, he found statues of races that were long since passed, but were still leaving their mark, of gardens of supreme beauty and paintings that even made him tear up. However, he steeled himself. He had a job to do, and any mistakes could cost humanity everything.

A new races being added to the community was an exciting moment, all 9 races had gathered, awaiting their new arrival. Once there had been thousands of sapient civilisations, then the ancient war left hundreds. The instigators of the conflict survived, and life a virus attacked again, in the great war only 5 races were left. This made up the elder races. Slowly rebuilding what was lost in the mass extinction event.

Vincent walked into a brightly lit room, thousands of empty seats all in a large circle. He could see that there was a pond at the bottom with plant life, a waterfall and some form of fish type life at the bottom. He wondered which race had left that particular mark on this station. His eyes glanced to the 9 aliens huddled him the room. He had been preparing for this for decades, and now humanity’s game of life and death would begin.

‘I extend a warm welcome and thanks from all the members of the human trade league, we wish for a peaceful coexistence with our fellow sapient brother and sisters. We hope that we can one day leave our own mark on this mighty station’

Between the clapping, pincer moving and nodding, it seemed to have gone down well.

The first to talk was Ambassador Glaxidor a Vineer. They were the oldest of the elder races, and some of their population had limited psychic abilities. They could not read minds, but they could connect between psychics and move objects. The file said they were a divided people, 4 religions are fighting for power, and one believes that psychic abilities is the means to divinity. Glaxidor was bright blue herself with a gecko like head, each scale shone like a sapphire. ‘We welcome humanity to the intergalactic fold, we hope you grow to your full potential under our protection and wisdom’.

Vincent preformed a small bow and thanked her for her kind words. Next the Balhing spoke. He had dark fur all over his body, his nose took up nearly a third of his face, and he had massive ears that pointed upwards like a bat. Three eyes and sharp teeth made him look like a carnivore. They were in fact insectivores. Evolved from a bat like creature. Their government was the Republic of Aliv. A democracy that recently elected Uter Bloodtail as their president. Many factions believed they had stagnated, Uter argued that they could build a ringworld. Even if it failed, they would have come together as a people and advanced the sciences and pushed the possible.

Vincent’s file showed them to be a hopeful people. He liked hopeful people. He liked technological advanced hopeful people. The difference between naïve and hopeful truly was paper thin.

Atler Razoreye stood up with a smile, ‘we are extremely glad to have you as a new edition to our community, we hope the younger races will be able to learn from your peaceful ways’.

Vincent had to use every ounce of will power to not burst out laughing. This was going to be a long game, and we had a long time to prepare. The top brass thought they would check our ‘history’ and we were right.

A large orange ant like creature began clacking its pincers towards him, Vincent had never seen something so ugly before, small bristle hairs all over the orange shell, 6 eyes staring at him. He knew they were a hivemind, that was doing everything it could to not move up in classification. It was a peaceful killing machine Vincent thought to himself, more likely a fearful killing machine.

Before he could ponder further on the grotesque insectoid before him, an artificial voice sounded from above. ‘We the Grashi Hive welcome humanity to the stars, we truly in awe of how much food you can produce.’ Vincent answered back from what he knew was not a threat with a beaming smile, ‘Humanity welcomes all trading opportunities and but we will have to discuss it at another time.’

The Wento were from what Vincent could tell large crocodiles in human form, they had metallic teeth and sharp blue eyes. Their scales were like armour, each interlocking in deep brown, making the creature before Vincent truly terrifying. This wasn’t even their warrior caste, but a noble. He was called Ajatar Gis Xalh. His speech was short and to the point, a simple welcome and asked us not to cause issues.

Finally, the youngest of the elder races was the Eclak. They looked him Ganesha, a humanoid elephant. However, they lacked tusks and instead had three trunks. Despite being the youngest of the elder races, they were somewhat more technological advance. They were a technocracy that valued advancement over nearly anything else. The Kree technocracy was only a few planets, mainly due to the fact that the Eclak had lost their home world during the great war. Bombed with a viral agent. To them hunting the remnants of the attackers was far more important than research, but they knew they could not return in kind the same treatment.

Matriarch Fitherside spoke in a way that sounded almost like singing, ‘We welcome humanity as one of us, we welcome humanity as another mind within the stars, we welcome your own innovations.’

Vincent once again said his thanks, while not buying anything the psychopathic elephants had to say.Just before the younger races could introduce themselves to their new comrade, all the elder races stood up, the classification was to be shown.

The Balhing spoke in a booming voice this time, ‘Humanity, you have come to us and we have judged you. Your history, your actions and your abilities, we believe you are a classification 5 species.’ With a huge smile, he furthered, ‘The elders have chosen to allow more technological research to you and for you to hopefully be a goal post for the other younger races.’

Vincent pretended to be shocked and confused, and asked ‘What are these classifications?!’ The Balhing made a ear ringing sound and said, ‘My apologies, I got too far ahead of myself, allow me to explain what the classifications are why we use them.’

‘A classification is given to a race to determine how much of a threat that race is, to itself, to use and to the galaxy.’

Vincent eyes grew wide, ‘To the galaxy?! Could there be a threat that large’ he shouted almost panicked.

Ajatar the Wento spoke first, ‘Sadly yes, there are galactic threats to all civilisations and life. They are extremely rare but we must exterminate them before they end us all!’ Atler the Balhing stopped smiling for a moment and continued with the classification; ‘classification is between 10 levels.’‘Level 1 – No harmLevel 2 – Village destructionLevel 3 – Town destructionLevel 4 – City destructionLevel 5 – Continent damage and destructionLevel 6 – World damageLevel 7 – World destructionLevel 8 – Planet killersLevel 9 -Solar killersLevel 10 – Galactic threat’

‘We have viewed your history of peace and trading and the small damage your farming and city building to be merely continent damage. Humanity had no history of extended warfare, has never developed nuclear weapons, for this reason you are level 5. We are extremely pleased by this because your classification you will be protected from any warfare for 150 years.’

Vincent pretended to both be shocked and grateful. Before a long beeping noise was made, and the session came to an end. The Grashi ‘ambassador’ clacked away, ‘We should end the session here and you will have time to develop links and ties with the younger ones next session, it would be a good moment to digest what we have learned.’

The elders all nodded and everyone was sent back to their rooms. Vincent sat down on an luxury chair, looking over to a vacant garden. He knew that humanity was going to one day burn this entire galaxy down.