The Truth (Tall Tales)

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=Story By JA Baker=
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Oh, and why did they send you to see me?
Cocky? What exactly does a psychologist have to do to be considered "cocky"?
Really? Well, yeah, that'll do it. So, the Head Head-Shrinker sent you all the way down here, to where they keep those of us deemed too crazy for prison, and too dangerous for a normal mad-house. Well, it's nice to see a new face, at least. I don't know if you noticed, but the guards and orderlies are all a bit... checked out?
Yes, it's painfully obvious, and makes them horrible conversationalists. Sometimes, I wonder if I talk to myself so much just to have an intelligent conversation.
Sorry: the meds they have me on really do a number on the old sense of humor. I'm not quite the sparkling whit I once was. Medical chart is right there if you want to... Why yes, it is a rather large dosage. Makes you wonder what I'd be like without it?
Oh, they showed you the photos? Even the one with the nuns? Yes, not exactly my best work, but I was working against the clock at the time. The Coalition was closing in on Terra, and the Word was still convinced I was working for them, when I was actually using them.
So, here I am, locked away in a place that doesn't officially exist. Which is the perfect place for someone they claim they executed for, well, I did kill an awful lot of people, didn't I?
They've sent you down here to ask why? Why did I kill so many people that I was deemed a one-man war-crime? A plague upon humanity, the Butcher of New Bealton? Why yes, I was the one who released that wonderfully effective little bio-weapon on Odessa III. I don't know exactly where they dug that little relic up. It was something particularly nasty from the Age of War, and a true work of art.
I just wish it hadn't presented so quickly. It really could have done some real damage if it had had the opportunity to spread.
No, no I don't feel any remorse for what I've done. I'm sure you know that I was declared utterly and irrevocable insane at my trial? Even the prosecution couldn't say how many people I've killed, but when you take Odessa into consideration, it has to be in the billions, doesn't it. So yes, I am officially the single most prolific mass murder in all of human history.
Hitler? Stalin? Amaris? Bush league in comparison. And it wasn't like they actually killed all that many people directly. No, when the history books write about me, if they haven't already, I'm sure they'll try and explain away what I did. Try and find some explanation they think they can understand. But you... you've been sent down here to learn the truth.
Are you sure? Last person I told, well, she's in one of the rooms upstairs, drooling into her straight-jacket. People don't like hearing the truth, no matter what they say or think of my own mental state. Because, truth is, I may be the only truly sane person in the entire universe.
Oh I know every crazy person thinks that! I have doctorates in history and psychology, thank you very much. I know that, on paper and out of context, my actions must seem, well, evil is the most common term batted around. Certainly was at my quote—unquote trial. Yes, the hand gestures are important and necessary. But, that's what your here for, isn't it?
Context always has been, and always will be, king, after all.
So, the Truth? The reason why I went from mild mannered academic to the most hated man since Stefan Amaris, with the blood of an entire world on my hands?
Reality. Is. Fiction.
Okay, roll your eyes and write me off as just another kook if you want. You know where the door is: don't let it hit you in the arse on the way out. Go tell your boss that I'm just another "life is but a dream" madman and see how far that gets you. No, you were sent down here to get a look under the hood at how my mind actually works, probably to see if you had the mental fortitude to survive.
Still here? Okay then, let us begin, as is tradition, at the beginning.
As I said, I am a student of both history and psychology. Meaning that I look at the thought processes behind the actions of historical figures. I try to get inside their heads, just as you are trying to get inside mine, and try and see history through their eyes. Only problem is, it just doesn't work, not after a certain point around the late 20th century. People suddenly stop thinking and acting like people, and start acting like characters in a book. Their motivations, their drives, stop making sense, unless you presume that some random and inexplicable plague gave the entire human race a permanent case of the Stupids. Leaders, generals, entire nations, start making decisions that just do not make sense.
It's not just people, the numbers stop making sense.
Take a world. Any random world in the Inner Sphere. Let's say it's got a population of a billion. Nice, round number. How big a military should that would be able to support? A couple of militia Regiment? Maybe a line unit? What if I told you that there were nation states on pre-Diaspora Terra that fielded armies that would put some Successor States to shame? Okay, maybe only the old St Ives Compact or Rasalhague, but my point still stands. By economy of scale, somewhere like the Federated Sun's or Lyran Commonwealth should have militaries several orders of magnitude larger than they've ever had. Some goes for the economy, even underdeveloped world's should be a net boon to their nations GDP, not a drain upon it.
It's almost like our entire economy was created by someone who only had a layman's understanding of how such things really work, and plucked numbers out of the air.
So, we have people acting like characters in a cheap paperback, an economy and military that makes no sense when you actually take a step back and look at the damn numbers, and a series of events that seem almost perfectly geared towards ensuring a near constant state of war throughout the last thousand years. That's not something that happens naturally. Nations don't just wake up one day and collectively decide to go to war on their neighbors.
Real people don't act like that.
I would guess that's the problem is we're not real people. We're figments of someone's imagination. Someone who, for whatever reason, wanted to establish a very specific set of circumstances leading up to where we are now. That's the realization I came to in a moment of perfect clarity. I saw all the lies and deception and contrivances just fall away, leaving only the truth, in all its horrible glory.
What else is a man to do when he discovers that not only is he not the master of his own destiny, but little more than a nameless faceless background character in someone else's story? A number on a spreadsheet, doomed to be nothing more than a statistic in some epic story?
When you can't beat or change the system, the only options are to surrender, or fight back. To break the system, to refuse to follow the script set before you by some unseen, unknowable author. To deny the part they created for you. How best to do this?
The answer is simple there can be no play if you kill the cast!
Yes. Yes, I can see you starting to understand now. Understand why I decided to bring about the extinction of the human race. How better to upset the story than to end it! After all, we're all just figments of their imagination, so is it really murder, any more than pressing the delete key is? If nothing is real and our actions have no consequences, then one must ensure that their actions have consequences! Refuse to read you lines and play your part. Refuse to be what they intended you to be. It's only when we break free of the life set before us that we are truly alive!
So, there you have it. The truth behind my actions my actions.
Now I'll give you another Truth. You weren't sent down here because you were "cocky", but because the director of this fine institution saw that you. Like he, was ready to accept the Truth, ready to see behind the curtain. That other young lady, the one I told you about? She wasn't ready to accept what I told her, and that's why the director declared her insane and had her committed. Well, claiming that a man the entire Inner Sphere saw die is not only alive and well, but taking over an asylum from the inside certainly sounds crazy, doesn't it?
Huh, yes, I think you're do nicely, my dear. Now, take a seat while I explain how we're going to move forward.
Tell me, what do you know about the HPG network?
The End
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