[ WP ] There 's an old adage in the galaxy about humanity : roughly translated , it means `` Never push the pink-skins to the thin ice . ''

Thirteen Wishes, the Valorian's cultural attaché, hovered closer to the viewscreen. On it, the Taj Mahal evaporated in a stream of ionizing radiation. Beside Thirteen Wishes, the handler hovered, nervously preening a mandible. Separation from the pod-waters gave Six Blue Stones anxiety. 
 
 `` They have no idea what they've done,'' whispered Thirteen Wishes. 
 
 `` The Candelans have a very good idea what they've done. Every cultural bastion on every public database they could access is gone. Within four minutes of entering orbit.'' 
 
 Thirteen Wishes signaled for the viewscreen to pause, and turned to Six Blue Stones. `` Pod-plus,'' Thirteen Wishes said, as it corrected its elder. `` They've awoken a monster, and they do n't know it yet. The humans need their culture. It's what turns them away from atrocity and violence. You're going to have to tell the council to expect atrocity in reprisal. Unsanctionable atrocity.'' 
 
 `` I do n't think there'll be much sympathy in the face of Candelan aggression.'' 
 
 Thirteen Wishes agitated its antennae-fronds emphatically. `` Pod-plus, there might very well be. Do you remember, playing as a sylph? The push-game, on the ice? Sometimes, sometimes in every pod you have the quiet sylphs that will dig their legs in, near the water. They stop pushing, and start biting.'' 
 
 `` I lost a leg until my molt, to one like that,'' Six Blue Stones said. 
 
 `` Do you remember how it felt? To be so dumbfounded that someone of your pod would snap back so cruelly?'' Thirteen Wishes asked. 
 
 `` I remember,'' Six Blue Stones said, quieting. 
 
 `` Well then, you can understand. You should never push the pink-skins to the thin ice. Humans took the chance to see other sentient species as part of their pod. I've spent forty-one cycles on their world, seeing their culture, seeing how they pour the energy of violence into art instead. They're a tribal species, in every level. But their tribality is arbitrary: Family units, extended family unit, then other arbitrary extensions encompassing coloration or landmass, mostly kin-selection enforcement.'' 
 
 `` As expected for a k-selecting species,'' said Six Blue Stones. 
 
 `` No, not as expected,'' retorted Thirteen Wishes. `` Instinctually, the tribalism instinct is *absolute*, but their psychology allows it to apply it *arbitrarily*. Their entire species is under assault.'' 
 
 Six Blue Stones flattened its fronds. `` Cultural assault.'' 
 
 `` No, pod-plus. Even if the fatalities are limited, and the Candelans are appropriately avoiding civilian casualties, the Humans wo n't perceive it that way. To them, it's an assault, on their tribe. The Human tribe. Please take my word for it, as your cultural attaché. Right now they are looking to the stars, and they are plotting absolute vengeance. Disproportionate retaliation. The Candelans took away everything, every reason, for the Humans *not* to go to total war.'' 
 
 `` Over some cultural artifacts and constructs? ``, Six Blue Stones asked. It was used to trusting Thirteen Wishes, but the extremes that its pod-minus was suggesting seemed hyperbolic, and not at all credible. 
 
 `` Yes, pod-plus. Over the soul of their species. I'm not sure they could be made any angrier without every one of their k-selector investment offspring being murdered in front of them. This would be very close on par.'' 
 
 `` *Oh*,'' said Six Blue Stones, fronds going a vibrant yellow of fear. 
 
 Thirteen Wishes turned back to the viewscreen, and dropped its voice lower. `` Humans turn everything to art and violence, pod-plus. Both. They call fighting techniques'martial arts'. They speak in respectful tones of'the art of war'. Their military officers are expected to have some grounding in the creation of fine arts, as well as military maneuvring. Their warriors go to war to audible art, music. They decorate their carapaces, their clothing, their equipment, with art that means war.'' 
 
 Thirteen Wishes turned back to Six Blue Stones. `` The Candelans have never joined art and violence. The humans have never known anything but art-violence. While the Candelans think they're engaging in a polite appropriation of a species through cultural conquest... to the Humans, they've just declared an extinction-level war. Extinguishing human culture will be indivisible to them from species.'' The pod-minus's voice turned pleading. `` Please, do n't let the council block what's about to happen. This is, and should, be treated as an extinction war. That's how the Humans perceive it.'' 
 
 Six Blue Stones went yellow from antennae-stem to frond. `` How much threat can they realistically pose to the Candelans?'' 
 
 `` In military superiority, under these circumstances? None. But it wo n't matter. I told you, pod-plus, violence and art are indivisible for them. They will do what they have always done, when faced with violence; they will create new ways of it. They'll start with suicide strikes. They'll surprise the Candelans with domestication. See the brief on their'canis familiaris', dogs. Other lower life forms. Sabotage. Destruction and denial of assets and materials. They'll inevitably capture some Candelans. They will *definitely* figure out their biochemistry. Chemical warfare will follow, even chemicals harmful to their biosphere. Fission and fusion weapons. Biological weapons. Informational and memetic weapons. *Everything* they can think of, they will try, pod-plus. *Everything. * Their reprisals will not stop.'' 
 
 Six Blue Stones waved a frond, and the viewscreen changed. `` Our satellites indicate they're already boosting drives onto... what are those?'' 
 
 Thirteen Wishes examined the small metal cylinders. `` Barrels, pod-plus. Just a welded drive onto a barrel. Scan it.'' 
 
 The computer puffed a dose of saline mist into the air in acknowledgment, and the screen changed. 
 
 ``... just, biomass. Dirt. What are they hoping to do, sling mud at the Candelan ships?'' 
 
 Thirteen Wishes fronds went so yellow they became nearly golden, and then in a voice barely loud enough for Six Blue Stones to hear: `` At the Candelan home world. To violate their biological integrity, their biosphere.'' 
 
 `` But that will take hundreds of cycles for it to begin to damage their homewor-'' Six Blue Stones began, and then cut off, aghast. `` They do n't care, do they?'' 
 
 Thirteen Wishes agitated its fronds. `` No, pod-plus. They are already *far* past the point of caring. I told you. Atrocity. Extinction. Nothing less. They can make those barrels by the thousands, within a day. A simple drive, sensor package, basic computer, and a barrel of dirt.'' 
 
 `` Stop them! We have to stop them!'' 
 
 `` We *can't*, pod-plus. We ca n't. This is just the start.'' 
 
 They hovered in silence, as fifty-four new barrels arced away from the planet. Most would never survive the journey. 
 
 A few would.
