Cupro's One-Shots: We Got A Little Mad

Democracies And Their Persecuted Scientists

"Communism is fine! It's human nature that's the problem!"

Frankly, if your system is incompatible with human nature, then it's a bad system.

Communism is famously known for starvation, totalitarianism, and almost ending human civilization - in general, not great stuff. It just doesn't work on Earth, for many, many reasons. Humans have the most competitive and individual-oriented culture out of any sapients in the galaxy by a large margin, and Earth's large size and high population (by galactic standards) do not allow resources to be distributed anywhere near as efficiently as they would on other species' home planets, among other things.

It doesn't really work for other civilizations, either, with few exceptions, because communism only truly works if everything is set up perfectly for it. Every other civilization is communist, though, because they couldn't pass up the level of control a command economy gave the state. Our discovery of this nearly broke the planet, as on the left, there was a resurgence of the long-thought-dead Marxists, which we barely avoided from turning into a Revolutions of 1848 situation, and on the right, there was almost a repeat of the Red Scare.

Thankfully, as always, democracy solved the problem as the government deadlocked and nothing happened until the issue was forgotten. However, while the internal crisis was avoided, the external crisis was not. Recently(ish), we came into armed conflict with another very new Federation member after they bombed a squad of our patrol ships.

Humans have a marked sense of pride in themselves that we do not allow to be stained, though not in the sense that we're full of ourselves. It's just that the concept of patriotism is somewhat alien to the rest of the galaxy. We also have strong militarist, individualist, and republican traditions, all of which were inherited from the superpower that spearheaded Earth's unification, the United States of America.

And if there was one thing that the United Nations was taught by America, it's that you do not let another nation mess with your ships.

The industry of Earth, Venus, Mars, and Luna kicked into gear as the United Nations mobilized for war. Sure, we may love our economic liberalism, which may cause a bit of trouble for our government, but in war, once we get going, our military industry works just as efficiently as any command economy's, perhaps even more so because everybody is richer due to the private sector still being, well, privatized.

Our enemies expected we would be unable to defend against their unjust attacks as our disunity would prevent an effective response. They thought our corporations would refuse to cooperate with our government to produce military equipment and our troops would scatter after every shot to save their own lives. They were not prepared for the hell we actually brought upon them.

Our ships blasted theirs to pieces with weapons that were the result of the competition and technological innovation that was stifled under authoritarian governments, and our ground troops proved at least an even match to theirs in nearly every battle. We easily wrapped the war up with casualties that were considered less than minimal.

Now, if there was a second thing the United Nations was taught by America, it's that you eradicate communism in any area under your mandate.

An occupation began with the goal of reforming the previously totalitarian regime into a friendly, democratic one. The previous institutions were dismantled and humanitarian aid to the star system, along with financial aid to those who expressed an interest in starting businesses (as we needed to jump-start the economy somehow after such a drastic shift), started.

It was the first time in living memory that a government plan worked without any major hiccups. The amount of aid we were giving to them, made possible by humanity's wealth as a result of capitalism, significantly raised their standard of living, and directly looping in their economy with that of the United Nations practically supercharged it, resulting in a very friendly capitalist republic just next door.

Now, without any scary capitalists to hate, communist nations will hate each other more than any competitors in a capitalist world could hate each other, and that was what we saw here. Civilizations starting trade wars left and right, seizing resources through raids, wars, or gunboat diplomacy, or forging exploitative relationships with civilizations that were not technologically advanced enough to have another choice. However, in fighting this war, we had given them scary capitalists to hate.

Despite us being the defenders in the war, we were unanimously branded as evil imperialists by the Federation and embargoed by every civilization in it, in the first show of unity in the Federation we had ever seen.

Not that the coalition embargo actually did anything, as they had completely refused to trade with us from the get-go.

What it actually did is that it trained the entire galaxy's eyes on us, sparking liberal resistance and letting us collect all the great scientists persecuted under their regimes. Given that it created problems that they didn't have before that won't simply go away if they reverse the resolution, we expect a declaration of war from any of the more powerful nations any day now.

Well, sucks to be them. Our people like us.