The most precious resource of all is Life. It is the responsibility of Man to safeguard and work for the good of all Life. Even if it costs the loss of some life and men.

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"Are you sure? The analysis of the samples could still be considered insufficient evidence, right?"

"Doctor, I'm afraid that in this case I have the backing of the council behind me, it is time for intervention."

"What are you going to do then."

"What we always do, what we're best at really despite your own philosophies, we'll destroy the infection."

"They may die then."

"They are already dying Doctor, Damn it man, don't you think I don't know what will happen when my boys get to work. You may be content to sit here and watch them die slowly but the council is not; so the decision has been made. Either we stop the infection here before they go further uptech, or we stop them." For the first time the emotions of the man in the black uniform came through the static of his com channel to the doctors orbiting station. The doctor rocked back on his chair, rocked by the verbal broadside just delivered, and prepared his own reply.

"The council is too aggressive, they may cure themselves the way we did, their tech level is just now going to enable mass spread of knowledge and ideas." and here the General at the other end of the line cut off the doctor.

"Doctor, they have no good ideas to spread. They don't form communities except as an adjunct to their armies movements. They cooperate politically only to eliminate those they perceive as inferior, and that's an irrational argument for war. The worse of it all is that they are so similar to us in appearance. Perhaps that is what we would have become if not for Hammurabi, and Buddha, and Jesus, Ghandi, and all the other figures from history who showed us a better way." The doctor knew that the general was right, had known it from the start of the conversation but had felt bound to try and stop the more immediate violence that intervention meant. He didn't need the video feed that the general pulled up on the com screen, it's window blocking the lower right corner. "Look at this Doctor. This isn't file footage, I pulled it randomly from our scancams. Look at what they are using their tech for, look at their knowledge and ideas."

Displayed in the window was an image of something close enough to be called a man on some sort of tracked vehicle. It were accelerating was accelerating on other 'men' riding lizard like mounts, with 8 legs moving in steady staccato progression. The men's limbs were long in proportion to their main bodies and were holding projectile weapons that they fired to no effect on the metal behometh behind them. The man on the machine was behind a cupola type wall and it rotated as he tracked the reptile riders. There was a tremendous series of flashes over a matter of seconds and when they stopped the machines was shrouded in smoke, the riders and their mounts lay in a pile mixed with dirt and landscape torn up by whatever the machine had fired. There wasn't enough congruency among their parts to even differentiate between rider and mount. The doctor felt sick.

"They're killing each other Doctor, and we must act before they get any better at it, and god forbid they make it out here with those kinds of attitudes. We must Protect Life."

"Even at the cost of life, I know, I know. Good luck General, for you, for them, for all of us."