Psyops

Created Tuesday 23 November 2021

Humans literally burst onto the interstellar scene, so blattids know as little about us as we do them. So, their psyops starts off being very weak---even funny. Not funny in an stupidly obvious way, but funny in really weird things happening that often don't make things worse---just weird. Strange patterns in popular songs and fads, unintelligible messages in strange places. So, hardly Bene Geserate stuff.

But they do know about Succubi, for example, so can tweak things related to them.
Still, for most of the war, their psyops mostly just makes for weird things happeninging. Sometimes it's clearly alien (even if it's not clear from which aliens---sometimes to the chagrin of thingings like Succubi), sometimes it's so subtle no one seems to even notice.

And some wierd attemts at infiltration as they learn about us. Weird sex things with even weirder drugs. Strange news stories through religions and them sereving as pets and day laborers. Setting up moral dilemmas (and even sacificing some precious, successful implants to see how we react). Finding how we are best confused and finding out that---yes---we too respond powerfully to simple learning the same way many lower lifeforms do. (So, um, what kind of learning---outside of Lamarkian---do higher life forms use, Billy?)

Yeah, so their weapons are (nearly) all psychological. That is their main mode of warfare.

And so one story line is "weird things happening"---and some just plain weird---as they stumble and move forward with learning about a totally alien race (us) from priors that are nothing or biased of them. A bias tyey try hard to remove. In no small part because that's also the trail back to them. Where they can be attacked in turn. Being good at a certain type of warfare does encourage others to be good at it, too.

So it's the Blattids agaisnt the AI and the Deciders. One battle front. But not the only. And they all matter: A skilled enough enemy can fit through a pretty small crack.

I have long thought about you. And so when you wrote to me, I flipped. It blew my mind. It blew my mind to think that I could actually be with you. But I can't. And I can't not tell you that: I don't know why you contacted me, and I really feel too fortunate to think that that might be why. But I know that if you did, I would do my best to make this work forever. But I can't. And I can't not tell you that.