Why would you hate the [species]? The [species] aren’t eating everyone because they’re evil, they’re eating everyone because they’re fucking delicious.
“We need the meat alive for surviving,” said the Horg Captain. Griis. “Is forever the way.”
Of all the deathworlders they had ever met, these were on the most extreme scale. Their world was so badly a class five that it almost qualified for new categorisation as the first and only known class six. Before they left their planet, the chief survival tactic was breed like flies and eat anything that didn’t get out of the way fast enough.
They were only hunting other life because of a plague amongst their chief food animal. Selective breeding and monocultures had almost wiped out their food. And their metabolisms were like suns. They didn’t have the time to cook.
“Get all the tank meat, vacu-pack it and ship it over,” ordered Captain Jezebel. “Let’s see how they like steak.”
“On it, sir. The crew isn’t going to like Nutri-Food bags on the way home.”
“The crew can suck it for a week.” To the Horg, she said, “We’re sending over some high-density protein in a drone shuttle. If you can eat that, we have some factory planets growing this stuff in bulk. And in the meantime… let’s talk metabolic stabilisers…”
The Horg took their first Ambassadorial conference at the tables of Heretical Food Eat, where they could safely devour any protein they chose without the need for death.
Captain Jezebel ordered a Humanburger to show willingness. Griis had a family sample platter.
“See? You can digest cooked things faster. My species discovered this in the stone tool era. Cooked takes time, but cooked works better.”
“Liking cooked much,” agreed Griis. “Liking other world technology. Liking many of shiny things.”
“Yes. Ordinarily, eating intelligent people -cogniphagy- is a big no-no. This is cultured meat. Grown from donor cells. No death. No crime. All good.” And damnit… people were delicious. “There are two ways you can approach fitting in to the Galactic Alliance. Gengineering, medication, or medication used in combination with gengineering and selective breeding. Medication alone means that the rest of the Alliance will avoid you.”
“Liking many of shiny things,” Griis played with her fork. “Trade must be good, yes?”
“Oh yes. Trade very good. But trade won’t happen if everyone thinks of you as mindless eating machines. You have new situations. New planets. You can afford to curb your appetites.”
“Forever way ending, new forever way is needing.”
“Yeah, you get it. Now all we have to do is convince your elite to go along with it.”
“Not be hard much,” said Griis. “Sending freighter of grown meat. Plenty good peace offering.”
Captain Jezebel became the Horg’s sponsor. She was forever quoted as saying, “They’re not bad. They’re just hungry.”
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