John Ringo - There Will Be Dragons

Sheida thought about that for a moment then shook her head. “I don’t see anything off the top of my head. But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. Later, maybe. But not right now.”

The room had a table where during the Faire Tarmac would sometimes retreat to play chess. But the rest was filled with barrels. After rummaging for a bit Talbot came up with a cup and poured some liquid out of an unmarked barrel. He took a sip and wrinkled his face but didn’t pour it out.

“So, talk,” Edmund said.

“Why didn’t you come here when I asked?” Sheida said. “The answer didn’t make any sense.”

“You, we, have huge problems,” Edmund said.

“So far I’m keeping up,” Sheida said dryly. “Maybe you should go slower, though.”

“Glad to see you’re keeping your sense of humor,” Talbot replied. “But I’m not just talking about the ‘war.’ I’m talking about the famine.”

“Yesss…” Sheida sighed. “So, any answers?”

“Why do you think I brought Myron,” Edmund said with another chuckle.

“Right now our greatest problem is farming,” Myron replied. “Or rather, lack of it and where it does exist it’s of no use. We’re going to have to have food, and soon. We still have some supplies but we’re going to burn through them fast. And other places don’t have anything .”

“We’re getting started on that,” Edmund noted. “We’ll be putting the refugees we get to work.”

“Well, Edmund, you know farming is an art more than a science, especially at this level,” Myron contradicted with a shake of his head. “Every farm, every patch of soil, is different. And it’s not as if we can run up a soil analysis. Chemistry, conditions, weather. It all comes down to knowing what you’re doing with your farm. Learning that… well… I’ve been studying it a lifetime and there’s still things I don’t know.”

“So you’re saying that everyone is going to die of starvation,” Sheida said, shaking her head. “Maybe we should just give up.”

Edmund frowned at her angrily and shook his head. “War… you know, Paul knows, nothing about war. It is said that war is the most evil thing ever invented by man. That statement is fatuous and downright ignorant. Man has created much worse things than war. More people have been killed by totalitarian regimes, during times of peace, than in all the wars in the world combined.”

“But…”

“This war will be… awful. Worse, I think, than the AI wars. The lack of industry, transportation methods other than teleportation and the explosives proscriptions mean that we’re going to be forced to a preindustrial or at least pregunpowder lifestyle.”

“I… hadn’t thought it out that far,” Sheida admitted.

“Many people are going to die in the first two years…”

“Two years?” Sheida asked. “We… I was hoping that… Well wars don’t have to take that long!”

“Are you winning? Right now? Decisively?” Edmund asked.

“No, I told you that. If anything, we’re losing.”

“If you don’t lose in the next three months, and I pray you don’t, then it’s going to be a long war. And until the Council stops sucking up all the power, we’re not going to be able to recover.”

“What about more plants?” Myron interjected. “I mean… why can’t you just build more? I know it will be a race who can build them the quickest…”

Sheida sighed in exasperation and shook her head. “More proscriptions. I didn’t realize how many we worked under until this. Power usage peaked shortly after the AI wars during the regrowth period. Usage eventually got so high that it was affecting the biosphere; the heat from all the energy usage was melting the ice caps and to prevent flooding Mother was having to divert more energy into various ways of preventing it. So the Council of the time, and it was a very controlling period in Council history, when the explosive prohibitions and several others were introduced, placed a cap on construction, requirement for Council approval for new construction and roll-back targets. We were well under the roll-back targets, and still had an abundance of power, before the Fall. But now, if we lose a power plant it’s gone . We can’t get it back. And power distribution, under the Council… severance proscriptions means having physical control of the plants.”

“Ugh,” Myron said, shaking his head. “I’m beginning to understand why Edmund hated the whole system.”

“So am I,” Sheida admitted. “There’s also a fuel problem.”

“Why? The plants run off of hydrogen don’t they?” Edmund asked.

“No, they don’t,” Sheida sighed. “They run off of helium three. It’s produced by the sun and drifts out on the solar winds. It collects in various places, notably the lunar regolith and in the upper atmosphere of gas giants like Saturn and Jupiter. Hydrogen produces radioactive byproducts, H3 doesn’t. So they’re more ‘green’ this way. The problem is…”

“Who controls the fuel?” Edmund asked, warily.

“Right now, each plant is fueled for several years of maximum output,” Sheida admitted. “But the tanker will return in… five years.”

“If this isn’t over in five years,” Edmund mused, “there is going to be one hell of a battle for that tanker.”

“Yes, there will be,” Sheida admitted.

“Not a problem for right now, though,” Edmund said. “The point is, are you going to see this through? Are you going to fight to the end or give up out of weakness?”

“I’m not weak, Edmund Talbot,” she snapped. “The question is…”

“The problem is, you don’t even know how to frame the question, ” Talbot cut her off. “Because you don’t understand war.”

“No, I don’t,” Sheida admitted. “That’s what I have you for.”

“The question is, is this a just war? Would you admit that?”

“I… guess,” Sheida said. “But is there such a thing as a just war?”

“There are two types of war, purely defensive and policy difference,” Edmund said. “Lecture mode time.”

“Okay,” Sheida smiled. “As long as it’s short.”

“Purely defensive is ‘you attacked me and I did nothing to cause it.’ In one way, that is the war that you are in. But not really. What we have here is a policy difference. Both sides believe their cause is just. The question is, is it a just war for you to fight?”

“I don’t know,” Sheida said after a moment. “There will be… have been… so many deaths.”

“There are preconditions worked out over history for a just war,” Edmund explained. “In short, there are seven. Just cause; right authority; right intention; reasonable hope of success; proportionality of good achieved over harm done; efforts made to protect noncombatants; and aim to achieve a justly ordered peace. I’m not going to cover all of them, but let me tell you that when the Fall happened I thought about what you had told me and what Paul said. And this war meets every item. At least on ‘our’ side. Just one thing: What is your intention?”

“To return things to the way they were,” Sheida said.

“Virtual utopia, while I found it personally boring, has got to be better than a worldwide, omnipresent, omnisicent dictatorship of the ‘right’ people, wouldn’t you think?” Edmund chuckled.

“Yes… but…”

“No buts. Remember what I said about defeating the enemy?” Edmund snapped. “It works in both directions. If you were just going to give in, you shouldn’t have started. But given what Paul did, you have to know that it’s the best thing to do. Paul is well on his way to replicating every totalitarian state in history, with the full power of Mother behind him. And that we cannot allow! Paul’s way leads to dozens of separate species of specialized insects . Not human beings with free will and the rights of man. We will survive this, and so will the human race. And we will win!”