The Ukrainian Fermi Paradox
“Hey, I was watching that!” I said, as Tom Cruise’s blinding grin was replaced on the TV screen by CNN.
I grabbed for the remote control, but Frank shoved it across the coffee table out of my reach — something that took a great effort for such a diminutive lizard.
“Come on, Frank, CNN is boring, and I’ll miss the end of the movie!”
Without looking away from the TV, Frank said, “Spoiler Alert: The sexy prostitute convinces the rich high-school boy to become a weekend pimp go-between with her gorgeous prostitute friends and his rich trust-fund underage buddied from school while his parents are on a vacation. The prostitute falls in love with the stupid kid, helps save him from her actual pimp, Guido, and offers some free illicit sex to the Princeton recruiter who shows up to interview the boy. After sampling some of the young sex worker girlfriends (who all seem to be absolutely thrilled by their demeaning profession) Rutherford decides that the spoiled rich kid has exactly the right stuff to make it in the Ivy League. The boy’s parents are none the wiser when they return home — proving that crime, prostitution, and bribery definitely does pay.”
“That’s a pretty cool ending,” I said, since I like it when the good guys win.
From the television, Inna Sovsun, a female Ukrainian know-it-all blonde nerd member of Parliament, gazed directly at me with pathetic desperation. “We are slightly disappointed to hear that the West will only step up in case Putin is using chemical weapons, because it doesn’t really matter in what way he kills the hundreds of people. He did kill three hundred people in a theatre in Mariupol as we now know. There was no chemical weapon but still three hundred people killed in one single strike. So we want the world to understand that it doesn’t really matter the means by which he is killing us and our children.”
An unwelcome guilt forced itself into my consciousness. If only I could get that damn remote away from that confounded lizard and change the channel to the uplifting story of Tom Cruise winning capitalism while also winning the girl prostitute of his dreams. What could I do about any of this depressing genocide stuff anyway?
Frank glanced at me, “Her argument reminds me of the history you wrote about in your novel, ‘Nihala’ when Kayla and Tem discuss the Second Ecumenical Lateran Council of 1139 AD.’”
“I never wrote about any such thing.”
Frank shook his head in his usual disgust. “Chapter 16, page 169.” Then the lizard began reciting the non-existent passage from memory.
“Weapons-bans are nothing new to history,” Tem pointed out. ‘I assume you’ve read of the Second Ecumenical Lateran Council?”
“Where the Pope outlawed the use of the crossbow among Christian combatants in 1139,” Kayla said. “He denounced it as an inhumane and cowardly weapon.”
“Did you ask yourself what made the crossbow inhumane in a world where knights routinely impaled their enemies with lances, tortured prisoners, burned people at the stake, and all the gruesome methods of warfare considered morally acceptable?”
Kayla went silent for a moment. “Because the crossbow could penetrate a knight’s armor?”
“Precisely. The crossbow was a weapon of the lower classes, being inexpensive and requiring far less time and infrastructure to master than the knightly arts. As with most weapons deemed immoral by the establishment, they threaten those at the top, who rule by virtue of their monopoly of force.”
Kayla nodded. “Which is why the Pope made an exception for the crossbow’s use when fighting Muslims, since that didn’t threaten the feudal system, but helped to maintain it.”
Tem led her into a new cavern far from the settled areas of Middlegard. Only the spheres of light set it apart from a natural cave.
“What about biological weapons?” Kayla asked.
“Are you any less dead when killed by a biological weapon than a sword, gun, or nuclear bomb? There exists no noble means by which one human takes the life of another. The morality of a particular weapon or a tactic is a matter of which side you fight for.”
Frank looked at me in triumph.
Certain that Frank was pranking me, I snatched my novel off the bookshelf and turned to page 169 . . . and there it was, just as he’d said. “I have absolutely no memory of writing that, and certainly no recollection of any obscure Second Ecumenical Lateran Council.” I looked at the book with a bit of fear. Was I losing my mind?
Frank burst into laughter, the colors of his skin turning a neon yellow.
The truth dawned on me. “All those times I fell asleep at my desk while writing, you . . ?”
“I decided your vapid sci-fi action adventure piece of pulp crap needed a bit more depth sprinkled in here and there.”
My mouth fell open in shock. “How much did you add?”
The lizard shrugged. “Twenty or thirty pages.”
I frowned. “That’s why the one sci-fi publisher that agreed to read my novel said all the philosophical conversations slowed the plot down too much, which made me think they hadn’t actually read it, since I knew there was no such conversations in the book!”
“The point is,” Frank said, “it perfectly illustrates the current situation in Ukraine.”
“You’re saying chemical and biological weapons are like crossbows because they threaten the establishment’s supremacy?”
“Precisely.”
“Then why aren’t shoulder-fired stinger missiles banned? They allow a single fighter to take down the modern equivalent of the armored knight in the form of tanks, jets, and helicopters. That seems a lot closer to the crossbow.”
“A single stinger missile costs around $120,000 US dollars,” Frank said. “Plus the fact that smaller nations can’t produce such a technologically advanced weapon, let alone an individual person, which is why Ukrainian freedom fighters must rely on major powers to protect themselves from Russia.”
I considered this. “A primitive form of nerve gas or biological weapons like ricin can be made pretty easily by anyone with some scientific training.”
“Which is why large nations are so threatened by them.” Frank motioned to the television, where Inna Sovsun was still attempting to convince the world that it was in their interest to keep her people from being wiped out. “She doesn’t realize that the world cares less about stopping Putin from killing peaceful Ukrainians than it does about keeping themselves safe from chemical or nuclear weapons, higher prices for food, and from not being able to use their cars and heaters to slowly destroy the planet.”
“Okay, I see you’re point,” I said. “But still, you can’t seriously believe it’s moral to use nerve gas in war?”
“Suppose a Ukrainian soldier — lacking any high-tech artillery, missiles, or jets — flies a drone with nerve gas over the Russian soldiers manning the missile launchers targeting those civilians? Are you saying that the Ukranian soldier should simply let all those innocent women and children die at the hands of war criminals because the nuclear-armed nations that are safe from such attacks have declared that nerve gas is illegal because it threatens their monopoly of weapons of mass destruction?”
I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. “When you put it that way . . .”
“Also consider the fact that Putin is using the threat of nuclear weapons against any nation that directly sends soldiers to stop him from illegally invading a peaceful sovereign democratic nation.”
“But isn’t the risk of escalating to a nuclear conflict too dangerous?” I asked.
“Remember, when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Ukraine inherited thousands of nuclear weapons left on its newly-independent soil, making it briefly the third-largest nuclear power in the world. In exchange for completely de-nuclearizing in 1994, the U.S., U.K., and Russia guaranteed Ukraine’s sovereignty and security to pursue a path as a free democratic nation. Have you considered what will happen if Putin is allowed to bomb every city in Ukraine into dust because it now has no nukes? What message would this send to China when it decides to the same to its neighbors? What do you think all those non-nuclear nations will do?
“I suppose there’d be a mad rush for every nation to acquire nuclear weapons.”
Frank yawned and settled into a napkin on the table to take a nap. “Which will greatly increase the odds of an eventual nuclear Armageddon.”
“But what if he’s not bluffing and nukes one or two major Western cities to send a message?”
Frank’s eyelids drooped. “It’s possible that no matter what you humans do, the result will be the same. Maybe the universe is littered with the radioactive ruins of planets that evolved lifeforms with brains smart enough to unlock advanced technology, but annihilated themselves before their primitive tribal minds had time to adapt to such a perilous new environment.”
That got my attention, since I’d long suspected Frank was actually an alien astral projecting his consciousness into the body of a common Earth life-form as a convenient disguise to spy on humans. “Are you saying you’ve seen such worlds yourself?”
But the lizard had fallen asleep, and I knew from experience that no amount of prodding would wake him until he was ready. Was he even now surveilling other planets across the universe in the hopes of finding one that successfully bridged the gap of technology without wiping itself out before leaving its nest?
Author’s Note:
“Russian forces have bombed at least 23 hospitals and other health care infrastructure, 330 schools and 27 cultural buildings as well 900 houses and apartment buildings. The paper also detailed Russian forces have used cluster munitions, which are imprecise and amount to indiscriminate bombings of civilians.” CNN, 3–28–2022
My novels can be found lurking on Amazon as well as audiobooks on Audible.
Nihala — God’s Dark Algorithm
https://www.amazon.com/Nihala-1-Scott-Burdick/dp/0996555412
https://www.audible.com/pd/Nihala-Audiobook/B01AIM6D00
The Immortality Contract
https://www.amazon.com/Immortality-Contract-Scott-Burdick/dp/0996555420
https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Immortality-Contract-Audiobook/B075KLGV6B
My Artwork can be found at:
https://www.ScottBurdick.com
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