I decided to take a short break after the meeting. Given that I made the official decision to take the Viking Elves’ capital, which was a significant gamble, I wanted to take a few minutes to relax.

And given that I didn’t want to just sit around and do nothing to relax, I went for a different way of relaxing: learning. More specifically, learning more about those who were working with me. I wanted to get a better insight into their backgrounds and cultures since everything I knew was at a very surface level, and knowing more about them would help me better understand them and assimilate them into our melting pot.

I wanted everybody, regardless of their race or home world, to feel welcome and at home within our growing community. Rather than wait for even more different people to join up with us, since that usually happened with my preferred playstyle in 4X games, I chose to learn about those who were already with us.

As for who I started off with, I started off with the ones who I knew the least about.

The Viking Elves from Hylrmenel. While Volcano Hounds might have been the species being produced up there as new population units seeing as how I had no access to growing any other species type at the moment, there were still the original founders of that settlement living there.

They were worth learning about no matter how tiny of a minority they were among us. Not to mention that, if we succeeded in taking control of the capital and other settlement, then we would have even more of their number with us.

So, from the Council Pavilion, I opened up a screen with Hylrmenel that allowed me to communicate with the population up there.

The same man I talked to before chose to take the lead and was the one I talked to—the man who believed that being on the winning side was better than any sense of loyalty. Only winning and conquering others mattered.

I wanted to learn more about that.

“First,” I said to him while anybody who was interested in listening in hung out around me, “what’s your name?”

“Eroilan,” he answered.

“Nice to meet you, Eroilan. I’m Clay.”

“I know. What questions did you want to ask?”

It was clear that he just wanted to get straight to the point. “Not a fan of small talk?”

“Such trivialities are for the family, not warriors.”

“Your soldiers never casually talk to each other?”

“The talk of warriors should be talk of battle and conquest. Discussing anything else between warriors is pointless.”

“And as far as you’re concerned, everybody here in this game is more or less a warrior.”

“That is right.”

I was tempted to give him an order, considering that he saw the conqueror’s orders as absolute going by our previous conversation, to stop seeing everybody here as a warrior. I wanted him to just see himself and everybody else as… well, themselves. Not warriors, but normal people. Doing that, though, would explicitly go against the intent of wanting to learn about his culture on a deeper level. Simply ordering him to do that was pointless and nothing but masturbatory for my own beliefs. Instead, I asked, “What makes it pointless?”

“The goal of battle is to dominate the other side. Engaging in petty conversations with one another does nothing to fuel that cause. Discussing battle tactics, training with one another, and sharing relevant information are all more important. If there is time to talk with one another about familial topics, then there is time to talk about tactics or to train instead.”

“So, if I asked you what your opinion is on the weather, that would be a topic only worth discussing with your family?”

“Yes.”

“And what’s more important between conquest and family?”

Eroilan looked offended that I even asked yet gave me the answer I was hoping for despite expecting to hear the opposite. “Family.”

“I have to admit that I expected to hear the other choice given how much you talked about conquest before.”

“What purpose is there behind conquest if not to provide for your family?”

“Care to elaborate?”

He took me up on my offer, thankfully. “Conquest eliminates or subjugates threats that would pose a risk to your loved ones. It acquires new land to grow crops and raise animals to feed your people. To partake in conquest is the most honorable thing one can do, so long as it is done to protect your people. Your family.”

“Then why switch sides so easily?”

“This is a game to most of us. Nothing more. Even if it means Ull gaining more worlds, he does not use those worlds to support our own. He uses them for his own games where the victors may come to live with us on our own world.”

“He doesn’t care about you switching sides? Isn’t he basically your god?”

“He understands that whether we win or lose does not truly affect us. Our people—our home, is safe regardless of the outcome. Watching honorable combat is of higher value to him and most of our people than staying loyal to our faction within this game.”

“What if there were stakes for you? What if your people were at genuine risk?”

Eroilan paused for a moment, maybe to think about it, before answering, “That depends on the situation. If we were against a force that wishes to slaughter us regardless of the outcome, we would fight until our dying breaths. If our enemy was clearly stronger and impossible to defeat, but also gave us an option to serve them instead and vowed to not harm our people nor take our land, then we would abandon Ull for them.”

I was impressed. “Are you allowed to say that? What would your god think?”

“Again, he would understand. Ull himself is a man who betrayed our gods of old when they wished ill for our people. He ascended to godhood for the sake of protecting us against the many threats we once faced. He himself would bend the knee to a superior enemy if it meant protecting our people and our ways.”

“A god willing to bend the knee for his people’s safety. I think I can respect that. And he ascended to godhood? He wasn’t always a god?”

“You will find few in the universe who were born gods.”

“It’s true,” Zira said, standing behind me. “Though, it would be better to drop the word ‘god’ altogether. Members of the Divine Pantheon rarely qualify for such a title, yet they hold as much power as any other member. One that I am sure you would be particularly impressed by is the elected representative of the Galactic Democracy of Charoobal. A galaxy of civilizations who have all come together under a single banner with equal voice. Whoever they elect serves as their representative among the Divine Pantheon, and I assure you that the power they have access to, even if not supernatural in nature, is just as great as any god’s. After all, not even a god would be able to survive having an entire fleet of starships opening fire on them.”

I almost fell in love hearing those words. “I don’t suppose they’re accepting new members?”

“They are not. They have no interest in the events that take place beyond their galaxy and do not even partake in any of our games, such as this. They are incredibly isolationist in that regard.”

“And that’s an entire galaxy? Different from the Milky Way?”

“Indeed.”

“And where is Hell in all of this?”

“Hell is in a plane beyond space. Oh, and just to continue on my previous statement, warlords who have amassed great power and even hivemind entities may count themselves as members of the Divine Pantheon. All that truly matters is how much influence one holds. Should somebody have as much influence as my father, for example, then they will be welcomed to the Divine Pantheon regardless of who or what they are. There are also gods and other supernatural entities who wield great power, but not the influence worthy of being a member of the Divine Pantheon.” Zira looked at Eroilan through the window. “I am not too familiar with the history of your people, but if my memory serves me correctly, your original gods never ascended to the Divine Pantheon, did they?”

“Right,” Eroilan answers. “They were gods, but they did not have our worship wielded little influence over us. They were little more than spoiled children with powers too great, and they abused their powers and demanded our respect. Ull showed our people what it means to have a leader worthy of respect and worship, and that was long before he ever became a god.”

“You speak as if you witnessed it personally.”

“No. I am only in my five thousands. My grandparents were alive during his ascent, though, and they often speak of those times with pride.”

“I forgot just how long you all live for. I would be lucky to make it to my two thousands.”

“Clay,” Eroilan spoke up, looking straight at me. “I have to admit… I am curious. How long does your kind live for? You seem experienced with the art of war and leading others.”

Zira almost laughed but placed a quick hand over her mouth to shut herself up as she crossed her other arm over her chest.

The humor wasn’t lost on me, either, and I couldn’t help but to smile. But before I gave him an answer, I wanted to joke with him first. “That’s not a battle-related question. What happened to only talking about battle?”

“Just because it would be more efficient and worthwhile to discuss conquest does not mean that I dislike the more casual topics,” Eroilan answered.

“Fair enough. Anyways, I’m in my early twenties.”

“Impressive! Your early twenty thousands? I did not expect such an age to still look so youthful and—”

“Just my twenties. Only two digits.”

What little color was left in his pale face drained from it. “You… your… twenties. Such as twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, and so on. Not… twenty-two thousand.”

“That’s right.”

“You—we… were defeated by newborns.”

“What age do you guys consider the start of adulthood?”

“Five hundred.”

“I’m pretty sure basically everybody here is a child to you then. Most of us are probably newborns.”

“That… but…”

“We consider people adults when they’re only eighteen. You stop being a newborn after the first year.”

“How… is there enough time for any education? How could you learn everything there is to learn in such a short lifespan? How could you experience the world? Study all the different cultures? Learn all of your people’s history? Please tell me that you at least have a long lifespan.”

“Most of us die around our eighties.”

“What—what pitifully short lifespans. That may be one of the most tragic things I have ever heard. To only live for such a short time… I could not even begin to imagine how much there is that you will miss. Even at my age, there is still so much I have yet to experience.”

It was time to test just how compatible we might be. “Now, what if I told you that we spend most of our lives working for eight hours minimum a day, leaving us no more than about six to eight free hours a day, and a decent amount of that time is spent doing more work instead of anything meaningful?”

With that, he officially looked appalled. “What?! You—your people choose to do busywork with such short lifespans?! We do not even begin formal, daily education for our youth until they hit a hundred! That time is better spent socializing and developing their own beliefs and experiences! And even when we do consider their education complete, the only work to do is the work that needs done!”

“Ah, nope. For us, you have to look and act busy all the time. Even if you have nothing to do at your job, your boss is probably going to expect you to look busy at your desk for eight hours.”

“You have come from such a cruel world… you are strong, Clay. To be subjected to such torturous treatment at such a young age is something that nobody in the universe should have to suffer.”

Zira finally calmed down and told me, “Keep in mind that their people are perfectly content living simple lives. I would not be surprised to hear that they lack even air conditioning. They do not have infrastructure to maintain nor a global economy to run.”

“So, primitivists who put the security of their people above all else, with pointy ears and a Viking aesthetic. They’re not quite monke, but still based.”

“They’re not… what and are still what?”

“Right. Human shitposting probably won’t make much sense to anybody else here.”

Eroilan tilted his head. “Shit… posting? You post… your feces? Is that… a tradition of your people?”

He seemed easy to mess with and I couldn’t resist. “Yep,” I answered. “Human tradition is smearing our shit all over the internet and making everybody else look at it. It’s also called ‘social media.’”

While Zira looked like she caught on to what I was talking about, Eroilan looked more disturbed by the second.

I was going to explain the truth to him, of course, but it was fun to see him look so worried for humanity.