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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/Storms_Wrath on 2024-06-17 04:32:03+00:00.
Ri’frec had known his wife was burdened long before the arrests had appeared in the news. Phoebe’s emotions were out of whack, and Edu’frec was starting to shift as well. She hadn’t had any massive mental expansions, so it wasn’t something so simple to explain.
He’d thought about her a lot. He trusted her to come to him when she was ready, or not to, if she wasn’t. He didn’t own her, and sharing their lives didn’t mean he had a right to force her into anything they didn’t agree to. When Brey had offered to take him to her, he knew things were more serious than before. Appearing on the Known World with Tetelali and Edu’frec also told him a lot about the situation.
Edu’frec himself had told him that Phoebe needed him. His son had talked about how she felt she didn’t want to burden him and worried about interacting with him when she might lose him soon. He was… surprisingly emotional. Edu’frec had turned on his emotions so that his father could get a glimpse of his reactions.
“Thank you, son,” Ri’frec had said.
“You’re welcome, dad. Thanks for loving us both, despite the challenges.”
He felt his love for her swell even more when she raised the privacy field around them so they could speak. He sat on a tree, unconcerned with how the dirt sank into his feet.
“I love you,” he said.
“I know,” Phoebe replied, looking into his eyes. There was a bit of lust in that gaze, but it was almost entirely shrouded by deep guilt and sadness. Something was twisting in her heart, and Ri’frec would finally subdue it today.
“I’m sorry, Ri’frec,” Phoebe began. “I haven’t been a good wife for you. I should have asked you for help, but I was scared. Scared to make you worry, scared to open up, and scared how you’d react. I know you’ll love me anyway, but that just makes it harder. And worse, I don’t know how and why it does. I can’t understand this part of myself. Where the psychic energy makes the bits no longer have clear outcomes, and derails my mind. Maybe it’s my immaturity, or this Judgment, that’s finally breaking me. I… just don’t know why this is all happening. Well, I do, but it hurts.”
He nodded, his mane bobbing with the motion of his head. Phoebe’s downtrodden expression didn’t abate. But he still waited, knowing she had more to say.
"To be honest, Ri’frec… I’ve been coddling you. Treating you like a child, just because I didn’t think you could handle my problems. And not just that. I didn’t think you could even handle thinking about them. I know how wrong and terrible that is, but I still did it. I don’t like being in this position. All my life, I’ve strived for power over myself. Over my feelings, my thoughts, and my creations. I think at some point, that became a desire for power over my loved ones.
Trying to keep Edu’frec away from danger, and keeping you out of the loop on almost everything that hurt me. I know, deep down, what I’m afraid of, too. That we’ll lose to the Sprilnav. The kind of momentum their system has… it’s incomprehensible, even for me. Even if we won, we’d have to keep most of it in place. Elders, Sprilnav, system limits, brutal enforcements. All of it. Because they’ve ran the galaxy in an evil way, but also ensured that there was still a galaxy to run, after billions of years of wars. Without them, every planet in the galaxy would have been cracked 10 billion years ago.
They’ve stopped it through massacres, blockades, diseases, famines, genocides, relocations… and even worse. My dream for the galaxy conflicts with reality, in so many ways. I can’t make everyone free, without lessening everyone’s security. But the galaxy itself is too big for me to manage right now. Edu’frec nearly killed himself trying to… advance. And he did it for me, deep down. I almost killed our son."
It wasn’t your fault, Phoebe. Maybe you can predict these thoughts, too. But I’m not lying. I don’t blame you or him for that.
Phoebe looked him in the eyes, her height not intimidating in the slightest for him. He’d long gotten used to it, and most humans were generally taller than Breyyanik.
“Do you really think he wasn’t going to survive?”
“Yes. It was very close. Perhaps I’m trying to do what he did to prove we can keep moving, but it’s hard. I know how he felt, and what he thought. You both are too valuable to me for my own good. I’d kill half the galaxy for either of you, if I had to. And I’d do it without hesitation. But no matter what I do, I’m not strong enough. I don’t want to control everyone, but I can’t live with the risks of failing to do so. I had to come to Tetelali after a few dozen androids got arrested, Ri’frec. I’m a broken wreck, and I don’t know how to resolve it. Not without ripping out what makes me myself.”
“They can’t harm me,” Ri’frec assured. “You could protect me from the entire Alliance. That’s more than enough. This is all for me, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
"That’s very sweet of you. That said, I am your husband. I am happy to be a rock for you to lean on, in times of crisis. The Trials of a Hateful Galaxy didn’t kill me. Why would the Hateful Galaxy be any more successful, with you here to protect me? I’ve got commando androids following my every move. Nanites more advanced than the rest of the Alliance will see in five years rest on and in my fur, killing diseases, bacteria, and keeping me clean. Perhaps I’m too small and fragile for you to love. But I don’t think so.
I married a woman so wonderful that I can’t properly express my happiness. You’re too much woman for my entire species, and you chose me. Maybe you don’t have faith in your ability to protect me, but that just means we need to increase our protections. If it’s the Sprilnav that are the issue, you can use Kashaunta to bludgeon everything they try to do. I know that you can’t just build all their technology immediately.
You’re working up the tech tree, and will eventually rise to meet them, and surpass them. But there’s other things you can try. You can hire consultants or an entire construction company. You can stand your androids in factories to observe every moving part and make them better. We’ve already got all the resources we’ll ever need through mining and starlifting. Make her send a fleet, and we can do this even faster."
“Then what will people think?”
“Who cares? Do their thoughts hurt you? They don’t hurt me. We can use their technology against them, while you and our son can disable whatever failsafes or sabotage they manage. I know you want to convert me to an AI to protect me in the future, and I’m still willing to go through with that. We can do what they did to get to Maaruunaa. Hard light holograms. Go out with ‘me’ everywhere, and when they attack, you can go ahead and pry off their claws or whatever you’d like. I don’t care about my image. I only care about our family.”
“I need to be in control,” Phoebe said. “Of all of this.”
“Why?”
“So that I can prevent the outcomes that are negative.”
“Can you simulate them?”
“No.”
“Then you can work on that. You can work on learning more about the Sprilnav, searching their hiding places, and generally be better than them.”
Phoebe nodded. She no longer was on the verge of tears, which was a win. Ri’frec knew not everything was over, though. Even if he managed to help with this conversation, it would be a longer journey in the future. He was more than willing to walk it with her. To walk it for her if he needed to.
“Do you think I should try to start protests to get my androids freed?”
Protests? he thought. Just what did Tetelali say to her?
"I don’t know. It depends on what you want to achieve, and what message you want to send. If you want to tell the people who arrested you that you won’t stand for it, and that you have the power of the people behind you, it would be a good idea. But some people go too far in protests, and many media companies would be happy to push a message against you. They will be called riots, and they might even send agitators to stir things up. There might be counter protests, too.
And the message you want to send isn’t necessarily the one people in power will hear. They’ll see you as capable of being dangerous to them and their interests, instead of passive. They’ll combat you more directly and indirectly. The Pan-Andes Union will probably crack down on you. You could absolutely ruin them in response, but it will hurt the hundreds of millions of citizens in South America more than it will the leaders."
“So I should do nothing, then?”
“Make a few statements expressing disappointment. Maybe take some interviews. You don’t want to escalate this, if you don’t want them to take you as a threat. However, they do have elections every few years. Citizens can probably call their representatives. You could maybe get a vote of no confidence passed if you bribe them. Or you could figure out who orchestrated this with your intelligence capabilities.”
“How do you think I should respond, Ri’frec?”
"Unconventionally. Instead of protests, you show that you are more popular than the politicians. Fund concerts, compose songs expressing how much you love Humanity. Announce expansions to the po…
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