Andy's Shorts to GA Prompts - 8. Prompt #110

Official report to sector Admiral Monroe (classified code red):

What we found when we arrived on Mordax Three turned my stomach. There were shallow graves filled with men, women and children - all Mordaxian.

The rumours regrettably seem to be true – the Governor General of Mordax is responsible for the deaths of a significant portion of the planet’s population.

From my enquiries it seems that there had been a plague of space locusts which had decimated over 85% of the planet’s growing crop and even worse, 100% of their harvest. The Alliance received a planetary priority omega disaster call and the Mordaxian council were notified we would arrive within 21 Earth days.

The ruling council immediately enacted their disaster plan, and began both food rationing and stock checking. Unfortunately, it quickly became clear to the ruling council of Mordax that what food they had would not be able to sustain their population for more than 7 days, let alone the 21 days they needed to last until our arrival. The situation worsened as somehow that information entered the public sphere of consciousness and planet-wide riots broke out.

Instead of trying to calm the situation the Governor General simply enacted Protocol 86 – the Extreme Measures Protocol. It was enacted solely on her order, without the mandated ratifications of both the Law Council and the Clergy Council. As you know, it essentially has three aspects:

1. any crime, no matter how trivial or insignificant, is punishable by death

2. any person currently awaiting trial, awaiting sentencing, or already serving a sentence of incarceration are to be executed

3. the Governor General is placed in complete control of the planet, and has carte blanche to act as they see fit

It seems that by the end of day 2, the Governor General had authorised the execution of the entire criminal population; an estimated 3% of the planet’s population. With the enaction of Protocol 86 there were an estimated further 110,000 executions taking place on a daily basis planet-wide.

Due to the Mordaxian’s high metabolism they naturally consume more food than humans do, and the Governor General it seems calculated that one Mordaxian consumes the same quantity of food as eight humans. She therefore issued secret orders to have the entire population of Mordaxians eliminated (including those on the Three Councils), in order to try to save as much of the human population as possible.

We have completed a planet-wide survey and the surviving population has been tallied at just over 3 million; that is barely 5% of the original population.

Reminder: This report is classified code red.

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