Bob McDob
Better Health Through Less Flavor
Also posted on http://www.spacebattles.com 
Tolwyn loved humanity more than anything. Having lost his family during one of the first attacks on Earth, he vowed that the Kilrathi would never again be a threat to the innocent. He fought against the 'Cats' even before the war officially began. He was promoted to Admiral, commanded battlegroups, saved Earth numerous times thereafter, once when the Kilrathi tried to sneak through an unguarded back door, another during the famed Battle of Earth, Confed's version of the Battle of the Line. By this time he had nothing to lose but the war, and the war was going badly.
The Kilrathi Empire's massive resources were being brought to bear. Humanity was being crushed in a war of attrition. Tolwyn could not bear to see the race he loved so much, that became his true family, destroyed.
So he did something.
The Behemoth Project was our last, best hope for victory. A self-propelled gun eight miles long, firing a beam capable of wiping out an entire planet. Tolwyn banked everything on this desperate gamble for victory.
And he lost.
The Behemoth was destroyed and Tolwyn humiliated. Perhaps even worse, one of his greatest adversaries, Colonal Christopher Blair, the 'Heart of the Tiger', succeeded where he failed. This understandably made him bitter.
That bitterness, combined with years of sending millions of young people off to die and the realization that in the end it probably didn't matter one bit, ate at him.
Something snapped.
Tolwyn became increasingly involved in Black Ops projects. The Behemoth was not the only sucker punch being prepared in a last-ditch effort. Among these was Genetic Enhancement. Men conceived for war, to be genetically superior to the rest of humanity. The warrior elite, the strong, survival of the fittest.
Like many who spent years fighting a war and then realizing it to be practically in vain (among them a young Adolf Hitler), Tolwyn was intrigued by this Fascist idealism. An old warrior, what else to live for except war?
To this end he took matters into his own hands. He conceived of a 'cleansing' fire, much like the Kilrathi prophecies, to destroy the weak and reward the strong. Darwinism taken to its natural extreme. He engineered a war to take the role of the fire, and its kindling would be the Black Lance, supermen warriors who would only know death and destruction. To Tolwyn, who himself knew only death and destruction for much of his life, this was but the logical course. He began to idolize the Kilrathi he had fought against, and by then who were engaged in vicious civil war, as superior, strong, powerful, surivors.
The rest is history. The Amadeus, where a passanger transport carrying civillian refugees was ruthlessly annihilated. Telamon, where a biological (and extremely selective) virus was spread, engineered to weed out the strong from the weak, and kill those deemed unworthy in an extremely gruesome fashion. The war between Confed and the Border Worlds, many dying in the span of only two weeks, all for one man's vision of a superior race.
Tolwyn was captured, tried, and sentanced to death, but he commited suicide before ever telling his story. Which leaves us where we started, a distinctly moral dillema:
Was Tolwyn a tyrant or a patriot?
The answer, at least to me, is both.
Tolwyn was a deeply scarred man. His family died, many of his friends died, his race almost was exterminated. Over time he came to knoe death as an endless cycle, and like many raised in hostile environments, it was kill or be killed. He saw life as an ever-growing line of challangers to humanity, where the only choice was fight or die.
Yet by choosing to fight, Tolwyn was essentially destroying the one thing he had believed in all his life. The Tolwyn who tried to destroy 90% of the human race was not the same one who risked his life and career to rescue a relative handful of people. He didn't see that what he was creating might ensure the human race's survival, but purge it of all its humanity. He saw that in the end.
Thoughts?
Tolwyn loved humanity more than anything. Having lost his family during one of the first attacks on Earth, he vowed that the Kilrathi would never again be a threat to the innocent. He fought against the 'Cats' even before the war officially began. He was promoted to Admiral, commanded battlegroups, saved Earth numerous times thereafter, once when the Kilrathi tried to sneak through an unguarded back door, another during the famed Battle of Earth, Confed's version of the Battle of the Line. By this time he had nothing to lose but the war, and the war was going badly.
The Kilrathi Empire's massive resources were being brought to bear. Humanity was being crushed in a war of attrition. Tolwyn could not bear to see the race he loved so much, that became his true family, destroyed.
So he did something.
The Behemoth Project was our last, best hope for victory. A self-propelled gun eight miles long, firing a beam capable of wiping out an entire planet. Tolwyn banked everything on this desperate gamble for victory.
And he lost.
The Behemoth was destroyed and Tolwyn humiliated. Perhaps even worse, one of his greatest adversaries, Colonal Christopher Blair, the 'Heart of the Tiger', succeeded where he failed. This understandably made him bitter.
That bitterness, combined with years of sending millions of young people off to die and the realization that in the end it probably didn't matter one bit, ate at him.
Something snapped.
Tolwyn became increasingly involved in Black Ops projects. The Behemoth was not the only sucker punch being prepared in a last-ditch effort. Among these was Genetic Enhancement. Men conceived for war, to be genetically superior to the rest of humanity. The warrior elite, the strong, survival of the fittest.
Like many who spent years fighting a war and then realizing it to be practically in vain (among them a young Adolf Hitler), Tolwyn was intrigued by this Fascist idealism. An old warrior, what else to live for except war?
To this end he took matters into his own hands. He conceived of a 'cleansing' fire, much like the Kilrathi prophecies, to destroy the weak and reward the strong. Darwinism taken to its natural extreme. He engineered a war to take the role of the fire, and its kindling would be the Black Lance, supermen warriors who would only know death and destruction. To Tolwyn, who himself knew only death and destruction for much of his life, this was but the logical course. He began to idolize the Kilrathi he had fought against, and by then who were engaged in vicious civil war, as superior, strong, powerful, surivors.
The rest is history. The Amadeus, where a passanger transport carrying civillian refugees was ruthlessly annihilated. Telamon, where a biological (and extremely selective) virus was spread, engineered to weed out the strong from the weak, and kill those deemed unworthy in an extremely gruesome fashion. The war between Confed and the Border Worlds, many dying in the span of only two weeks, all for one man's vision of a superior race.
Tolwyn was captured, tried, and sentanced to death, but he commited suicide before ever telling his story. Which leaves us where we started, a distinctly moral dillema:
Was Tolwyn a tyrant or a patriot?
The answer, at least to me, is both.
Tolwyn was a deeply scarred man. His family died, many of his friends died, his race almost was exterminated. Over time he came to knoe death as an endless cycle, and like many raised in hostile environments, it was kill or be killed. He saw life as an ever-growing line of challangers to humanity, where the only choice was fight or die.
Yet by choosing to fight, Tolwyn was essentially destroying the one thing he had believed in all his life. The Tolwyn who tried to destroy 90% of the human race was not the same one who risked his life and career to rescue a relative handful of people. He didn't see that what he was creating might ensure the human race's survival, but purge it of all its humanity. He saw that in the end.
Thoughts?
and in SO. And we did it without sacrificing our freedom, without killing trillions of our own, and without opressing neibouring nations. That's a win-win situation. What Tolwyn planned might be for the better as far as those who are part of the Master Race are concerned, but not for the rest of humanity.