It wasn't the human's fighting style that convinced us of their worthiness.
It wasn't their technology either.
It wasn't their tools built solely for taking lives, nor was it their politicians who preached peace. Many species have these things.
A species may be great warriors, worthy of great titles, and still mock their homeless.
A species might be able to protect their people from illness, but still hide before a battle.
A species may have voices given from their god, but use it to get people to stray from the path.
How can you judge a species based on how they treat their poor or how well they croon?
It was their resilience, their willingness to scorch the sky and destroy their monuments before they sacrificed their gods.
It was as their monolithic fleets were ground to dust in the fire red sky that we realized that while they had prowess, it wasn't what we should judge them on. As the sky was filled with ash and smoke, the scrawny creatures kept coming, avenging their dead.
All the while, a single demand rung in their ears.
Surrender. Bend your knee. Recognize that you have been beaten. In doing so, you will spare your children.
The human diplomat came to us, his hair grey from the ash, his back bent from the deaths he had caused. In our shame we told him to tell his people to back down. It wasn't wrong to bend your knee to the strongest, we argued.
Humanity ignored us.
"Honored members of the Counsel, my fellow brothers." He began, painstakingly, and his voice was filled with a joy I hadn't heard since the beginning of this damn war. It was the joy of a man who knows they have dedicated their life to a cause worthy of everyone they knows deaths. It was the voice of a man who saw his death in his mirror every morning, and would go to Hell with his head held high and a song in his throat.
"It is wisdom, you proclaim, to bend our knee to that of a higher power, to let them do what they please to our families and friends. A life as slaves is better then no life at all. There isn't dishonor in surrender to an evil greater than us, as long as we are breathing."
There was a slight waver in his deep voice, one that echoed around the court for all who were capable of hearing such things anymore.
"My fellow members of this Counsel, you call your plan accommodation and say if we surrender, if we let the enemies into our homes and hearts he will love us.
"Humanity has considered your plan, and we respond to it with a resounding 'no, thanks'. We are not the type of people to go quietly into that great night. We are not the type of people to let our children grow up with the rope of slavery tight around their necks without a fight.
"We are all retreating under the strain of this war and so you say we should just surrender. You have heard from your own people pleas for peace at the cost of innocent lives. You have heard them say that they would rather live on their knees than die on their feet.
"Honored members of the Counsel, those voices may speak for your own people, but they sure as hell don't speak for us. There are things in this life worth bleeding for, worth fighting for, worth dying and the honeyed taste of freedom is such a thing. We won't surrender. This has been our position from the beginning, and it won't change.
"There is no price too high to maintain our freedom, for as we die it is the only thing worth of value we have left. One day, as we are all taught, we will fall into the arms of our creator. I, my father, my mother, my sisters, my brothers, my daughter, my people, will go into those arms with our head held high. Our children will fall, our children's children will fall. This is accepted.
"The question isn't 'will our children die' for they will. This is our burden to carry. The question that lies before us is how they will live. How can we, or anyone for that matter, look into our children's eyes and say truthfully 'we did this for you' as their back is broken beneath the heel of evil?
"So members of the Counsel, we will send our children to flee. They will live free far from where the terror can find them.
"And what about us, the ones who can fight? We will fight. We will fight in the blood colored sky, in the ashes of our predecessors. We will fight until the evil has gone or until we are gone.
"And we will pray hard to whatever god is still listening. We will pray to be accurate and fast. And we won't pray for victory, for victory isn't something you leave in the gnarled hands of fate. We will take our bloodied victory, and our victory will be in the free lives of our children.
"So don't tell us to bend our knee to them. They'll have to break it before it bends."
