“The time has come for treasonous ideas,” said Otha Durham, from his lectern.
An amused murmur rippled through the corps of Colonial Union diplomats, assembled in one of the State Department’s conference theaters. Durham, undersecretary of state for the Colonial Union, and speaking to the crowd on the occasion of an otherwise-standard assembly to award a medal to one of their number, smiled along with them.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he said, and then assumed the part of a bored diplomat in his audience. “Oh, God, there Durham goes again, pretending to have big thoughts and presenting them with such drama.” He smiled again as laughs emerged from his audience, and held up his hands as if to acknowledge an affectionate criticism. “Fair call. Fair call. I don’t think it’s any secret that I’ve made dramatic statements a calling card of my career. But work with me for a minute here.”
Durham looked out over his audience, becoming serious. “For decades—scratch that, for centuries—the Colonial Union has been charged with the role of keeping humanity safe and secure in our universe. A universe which was and continues to be hostile to the idea that humans exist within it. Ever since we have made our presence known in space, other species and other powers have sought to remove us—to eradicate us. And if we know anything about humanity it is this: We don’t go down without a fight.
“And so we have fought. Humanity has fought, for centuries, to earn and keep our place in the universe. The Colonial Union and the Colonial Defense Forces has fought that fight for our species, for centuries.”
Durham shrugged, acknowledging the fact of centuries of near-constant warfare. “So be it,” he said. “But where does that leave us, the diplomatic corps of the Colonial Union? We have existed all this time, alongside the Colonial Defense Forces, but as an afterthought, an also-ran—because not only was the idea that diplomacy with the alien races we encountered might be a useful tool ridiculed, it was indeed considered very nearly a treasonous thought.
“How can we seriously think diplomacy could work when time and time again the other species out here with us attacked us, killed our colonists, and claimed the planets and systems we had claimed for our own? In this light, how could diplomacy be seen as anything other than an abdication of responsibility for the species? How could it be anything other than treason?”
Durham looked out at the diplomats assembled before him, quiet now.
“Diplomacy as treason. Reaching out with an open hand instead of a fist, treason. The idea that intelligences that evolved on different worlds, in different ways and in different environments, might yet still find a common ground, treason. If you consider all these things almost fundamentally a betrayal of humanity, it makes sense that in the end, all you have left is the war. The fight. The struggle that leads to ruin, for one or both species.”
And here Durham smiled. “But this is the thing,” he said, and then motioned to the diplomats attending his words. “We know better. We have always known better. The Colonial Defense Force’s battle for us is often necessary, and sometimes inevitable. But when the opportunity comes for the open hand rather than the fist that, too, is often necessary.
“And now, also inevitable. The Colonial Union has long—has too long—relied on the planet Earth to provide it with the soldiers the Colonial Defense Forces needs to fight our battles and enforce our will. But we no longer have that option. Colonel John Perry’s appearance in Earth’s skies with the Conclave trade delegation put our relationship with the Earth on hold; the destruction of Earth Station, the planet’s sole egress into space, destroyed it.”
Durham looked directly at Ambassador Ode Abumwe, sitting in the front row of his audience with her team, nodding to her in recognition of her presence on Earth Station when it was destroyed. Abumwe nodded back.
“The Earth wrongly blames us for its destruction, but right or wrong, we can’t go back to what was before,” Durham continued. “Now the Colonial Union will need to find soldiers from its own colonies, from its own planetary populations—a transition that will take time, and is already causing no small amount of unrest in the Colonial Union’s previously peaceable ranks.
“And in the meantime, the formerly treasonous idea of diplomacy becomes the Colonial Union’s primary tool. To make allies. To buy time. To secure our place in the universe, not with a weapon, but with reason. Diplomacy is now the primary resource by which the Colonial Union, and by extension humanity, keeps its place. What was treason has now become a treasure.”