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While humanity tore itself to shreds the War Dog emergency didn’t just disappear. In fact, it quietly escalated, often lost in the shuffle of local and galactic headlines. It was difficult for local governments to keep track of a few hundreds or thousands of ex-soldiers stealing their old ships when entire planets were on fire, consumed by genocide or civil war.

Throughout the chaos, only the Federation Military was keeping tabs on the movements of the rogue War Dogs, following the headings of their stolen ships as best as they could. Over the several years of the Unmooring over 40 million War Dogs went rogue across the galaxy, taking with them just over 1 million nuclear-armed ships.

Sometimes these War Dogs would decimate the world they left, other times they would slink away in the middle of the chaos without so much as a radio transmission. Once they were in orbit, the majority of the War Dogs appeared to pick a random heading and disappear to FTL speeds.

But it was not this dispersed majority of the War Dogs that worried the Federation. Although no one was excited about small bands of humans roaming the galaxy freely armed with nuclear missiles, the bulk of the War Dogs were acting independently and without any larger plan. The damage they caused on their raids or periodic acts of violence was unacceptable but often confined to smaller systems where there was only a small defensive force. Moreover, these small bands of War Dogs were practically impossible to hunt down – like looking for half a million nuclear needles in the haystack of the galaxy. The great majority of these War Dogs were never accounted for and their ultimate fate remains unknown.

Of much graver and immediate concern to the Federation was the sizable minority of War Dogs which did appear to be working together. Amounting to a fleet of approximately 350,000 nuclear-armed ships, these War Dogs were all insurrecting from the densely populated core or near-core human planets. As these planets self-destructed, the War Dogs would take off and, invariably, plot a course for System One – the Federation Capital.

Even more disconcerting was that the War Dogs were staggering their jumps. Meaning they were going rogue on a schedule – first from the planets farthest from System One and then from planets closer and closer, each new contingent of War Dogs breaking rank and stealing their ships just as the wave of War Dogs in FTL was upon them. No one knew how they were coordinating such a massive and complicated tactic, but the implications quickly became clear – the War Dog fleet was going to arrive in System One altogether, at almost exactly the same time.

In the chaos of the Unmooring, by the time the Federation uncovered this fairly complex pattern, it was almost too late. They did manage to get ahead of the curve a little – to the detriment of human life. Any human core world in the path of the War Dog advance was purged of any War Dogs that could be found, and the old War Dog ships removed from dry dock and held in orbit. Of course, the Federation had no system to distinguish loyal veterans from potentially disloyal ones, and so they took no chances. They slaughtered millions – but no one cared – what was a few more million slung onto the corpse pile of the Unmooring.

In the end, however, the purges were too little too late. There was already a massive nuclear fleet headed to the very heart of Galactic governance and no way to stop them en route. System One was extremely well protected, in theory – but the Federation military knew well enough what the War Dog fleets were capable of, even without the mobility afforded by Loloth escorts.

Several plans were tossed about, including the complete evacuation of the system. In the end, it was, of course, the Lima Beans who offered the solution.

The Loloth argued that the War Dogs were a human problem caused by frail and bloodthirsty human psychology. Who better, they reasoned, to counter the War Dog threat than other humans.

At first, the Federation Council was hesitant, feeling that humanity could not be trusted with such an important task. But the Lima Beans put them at ease. Humanity would not need to be trusted at all. In fact, trust would have nothing to do with it. Instead, the Loloth claimed, they would force humanity’s hand – en masse – a psychic rape of the human mind, the turning of human against human by force of Loloth will.

The Council required proof. They did not believe – perhaps they did not want to believe – that the Loloth were capable of such an astounding feat of psychological control. The Loloth were more than happy to oblige – which brings me back into this story on a personal level.

I remember when the Loloth fleet entered orbit around Mylex. There had been violence during the Unmooring of course, but where most planets saw millions or even billions of deaths, Mylex only suffered a few hundred thousand. In part, I think this was the result of a strong local government that cracked down on partisan groups hard and fast. Whatever the root cause, the planet had been one of very few left relatively unscathed by during the Unmooring.

When the Loloth arrived, we thought perhaps they’d come to provide civilian support – maybe talk to our local governor and export his brand of planetary control. No one could have imagined their true purpose.

When it started, before I lost control – before my arms and legs were no longer my own – I remembered the feeling well. It was similar to the sensation of Commander PanCouLol’s sweet psychic voice urging me to fire on the Gorax.

Except this was no gentle nudge, but a violent mental assault. There was no dulcet voice urging me to push a button. Instead, there was a terrible chorus of voices – thousands of voices – overpowering my most basic instincts. Over the sound of those voices, I could no longer feel myself. I did not exist.

In recounting the events of this historical memoir, I have tried to be objective – especially in the assignment of guilt. It is dangerously easy, as I’ve said, to offload responsibility to others, especially when the others are as invidious an enemy as the Loloth. To that end, I have been unequivocal in accepting responsibility for the slaughter fo the Gorax, and I have not shied away from humanity’s sole, ugly responsibility for the suffering of the Unmooring.

But I say to you, without any hesitation, that responsibility for what happened on Mylex falls on the Federation and the Loloth alone. On Mylex the Loloth revealed their true capacity for ruthless, total control.

Parents burned their children alive on Mylex, and children stabbed their parents like demons. Neighbors eviscerated neighbors, best friends decapitated best friends, strangers ate each other’s corpses in the streets.

I have no memory of what I did on Mylex. This is the one mercy the Loloth afforded us. The last thing I remember before it started was standing behind the counter of my fruit stand watching the news feed. Then came the voices. When the voices stopped and I returned to reality, Mylex was a graveyard. My clothes were soaked and heavy with blood, my muscles spent, the taste of hot iron in my mouth. I was on my knees, a pulverized mass in front of me and a large paving stone still in my hands. The atmosphere was more screams than air.

Over the next few weeks, I would come to discover everyone I knew was dead.

Meanwhile, the Federation Council would swallow their bile and deemed the Loloth experiment a success. The Loloth were given the green light to amass what remained of humanity’s self-ravaged members into a final, unwilling fleet kept under direct Loloth control. Using their near instantaneous travel, the Loloth jumped from planet to planet, amassing their slaves. Some planets proved more mentally resilient than others, and these suffered the same fate as Mylex.

Soon enough, the Loloth had their Slave Fleet – after leaving chaos and destruction in their wake on thousands of human core worlds. The Slave Fleet numbered over a million ships, almost all repurposed War Dogs vessels, manned by men, women, and children alike.

Soon, like me, like all of us eventually, they would be forced into the wholesale murder of their fellow man.

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