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SPACE_RACE

                                                March 9, 2017

  And upon re-reading
  "Skylark Three",                        (In a manner of speaking:
  I'm impressed that                      I listened to the librivox
  it's a story about                      recording, often in a
  our brave heroes                        half-awake state of mind.)
  engaging in genocide.

  They stumble across some nasty aliens,
  the Fenacrone, who are poised to try
  to conquer the galaxy.  They're genuinely
  pretty nasty, and clearly opposing them
  with force is justified.  Our heroes
  conclude that they're too dangerous
  to live, and the entire species needs
  to be wiped out so they can't regroup
  and try again.


      There is actually what you might call a
      "moderate faction" of the Fenacrone,
      there's a group that thinks this "conquer
      the galaxy now" scheme isn't a good idea:
      they pile into a big spaceship and get off
      of the planet before it can be destroyed.

      Our heroes go beserk chasing after
      them, to make sure this splinter
      group is destroyed also-- the logic        I might make the point
      is that they're just a "let's wait         that even though they're
      and conquor later" faction, so they        only slightly less
      don't deserve to live, either.             viscious, they might
                                                 turn into something
      If you let any of them live, they          better, if given time.
      might engage in reprisals against
      our wonderful heroes.                         In the Doc Smith universe,
                                                    biology is destiny, and
                                                    hence badness is an
                                                    irredeemable condition.

                                                    The deck is always
                                                    stacked via telepathy:
        Another interesting feature is a            no one needs to guess
        race of wise, advanced aliens who           about the character of
        are so far beyond this sort of              the opposition.  Our
        barbarism that the very idea of             friendly telepaths check
        engaging in violence throws them            them out and pronounce
        into a tizzy.  They are, however,           the death sentence.
        happy to assist our heroes, and
        empower them to engage in
        genocide.  Wise, advanced races
        like to have some proxies around
        to avoid getting their hands
        dirty.  And advanced as they are,
        a concept like "indirect
        responsibility" has not made it
        into their consciousness.







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