“What you should have become is an elder statesman. You’ve seen far too many humans, soldiers, warlords, and otherwise, grow older, and seen how their viewpoints change. They realize that conquest doesn’t solve all problems, subjugation merely makes more of them, and building a prosperous kingdom is, in the end, far more rewarding than conquering one, and unlike conquests, can be reliably left for future generations as both legacy and example of the one who raised it up.

“It’s also pretty damn hard to do in the long run, something only someone with long years could likely pull off.

“You’re not that person. You were first held back by the gods, then by the Celestials being around, and now too many people on Terra have grown past you. If you want to conquer, you’ll have to wait for an apocalypse to come, everyone who is stronger than you to die fighting it, and then you’ll realize that you aren’t meant for rebuilding, only conquest.

“You’d keep the world in primitive stasis until that Seed hatched, a new Celestial was born, and you all died to see it done.

“There’s no Seed left, and you’ve no mission left, but they haven’t bothered to reprogram you, so you can only flounder along, caught between being unable to change yourself and their unbending dictates.”

“You are saying... that I was meant to rule the world, and defend it against those who would endanger their Seed? The thing that was taken away by Galactus?” he asked in only some disbelief. The cruel and practical aspect of it didn’t actually surprise him.

“Yes. You have no purpose in their eyes now, En Sabah Nur, and as big as they are, you are simply too small to worry about or repurpose, like an extra set of pliers hanging around the workshop.”

He grimaced mightily at the comparison. “I...”

“Look inside yourself, En Sabah Nur. The programming is there. That lack of purpose and frustrated futility you have inside, that gnawing feeling that the last four thousand years have amounted to nothing? That’s what all that is.”

He fell silent again, staring at the vastness of the stars, of the technology and building around him that he had nothing to do with, was not responsible for, and did not command, nor ever would.

It was humanity and more, rising up to the stars, and while he could be proud of it, the sinking feeling that he was supposed to make it Not Happen did not escape him.

Another failure on his part? To keep all of humanity as primitive as the world he came from, instead of trying to rise like gods on their own?

“I have seen many with clever tongues, woman. You have a plan for me,” he finally whispered after so long.

“Do you know of the Negative Zone?” I inquired of him.

“I have read the many papers put forth on the topic after Richards won the Nobel Prize for discovering it. A dying universe, opposite us on the dimensional axis, with dangerous inhabitants,” he confirmed, only a little sourly, as if defending the idea he wasn’t a brainless primitive.

I nodded. “They are coming here, attempting to escape their dying universe. From multiple galaxies, they are gathering armies, navies, ships, bioships, worldships, and the like, making ready to cross the Crunch and emigrate to a younger universe where they and their species may live on.

“Consider this, En Sabah Nur. You were not truly equipped to be a conqueror or a warlord.” His gaze turned on me. “You have no overwhelming charisma. You have no enhanced tactical or strategic ability. Your intellectual ability is the result of millennia of exposure to high science and the examples of others throughout history, not anything greater than a human genius. You have no inbuilt enhanced communication ability, be it telepathic or electromagnetic, nor any enhanced ability to make use of technology that can do so, your power in that area gained merely as a result of your long years.

“Your masters are not fools, En Sabah Nur. If they had wanted you to conquer, lead, and rule, they would have given you the right tools to do so.”

His jaw clenched and his fists creaked. I was right, of course. It was a glaring flaw if he truly was supposed to be a god-like leader of humanity.

“If you look in the mirror at what you originally were, you were a massively capable and adaptable melee combatant optimized for hand-to-hand combat in any environment.” I let that hang there. “En Sabah Nur, you didn’t even have built-in ranged attacks of the simplest sort. You had to attach Celestial technology to gain the ability of a basic rifleman. You were, in essence, one of the least-equipped soldiers that could be imagined for the role you believe you were chosen to play.

“Is it any wonder you’ve had difficulties trying to do your job? You were a marine with an entrenching tool walking onto a battlefield with tanks, mines, guns, and cannons. You’ve adapted to becoming more, but it was not your Masters who made you so... and if their purpose was merely to test you to see if you could adapt to your role, that was very stupid of them, and Celestials are not stupid.”

I could almost see him slump as he processed that. He’d looked right past it, of course. He was a supremely dangerous brawler to the unprepared, and he’d made himself more. If you couldn’t get past his Celestial armor, he was practically unbeatable.

“And this ‘survival of the fittest’ crap you still spout. You’ve had uncountable years to analyze it, had exposure to other philosophies, and you have to realize that mathematically it simply does not work. It’s an excuse to act like an arsehole and do whatever you want, and it’s only good when you’re the one on top.

“Other species are coming here to genocide the native races and ecologies of entire galaxies out of existence, using that philosophy of yours. If that means overrunning and wiping Terra away like an anthill before a flood, so be it.

“Your philosophy comes from a tribal outlook with very limited resources whose members competed between themselves to stay alive. When resources are plentiful, there is no need for such primitive codes, and the whole of society should be based on increasing numbers to both generate and take advantage of the plenty, until you reach a harmonic equilibrium that can be maintained.

“Numbers and will are a great strength all their own, and your philosophy totally ignores that. The incoming invasion does not. We shall see if you few strong and mighty can compare against billions or trillions of the weaker and desperate, shall we?”

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He eyed the stars and thought on that.

“Furthermore, it is the power of science and invention to turn the weak into the strong. Every single human being born has a potential X-gene inside them, waiting to be turned on. Even if the resulting mutation is useless, it immediately opens them to psionic potential, and they become beings who, if properly motivated, can change the world.

“In your scheme, because they weren’t born with power and aren’t ruthless enough, they just die. In ours, they are locks to be opened, and even if the lock must be later shut... the door has still been opened!

“Ruthless and powerful people don’t have the numbers, time, ingenuity, or wherewithal to do this.” I waved my hand at the things being done around us.

“You still have not told me what you want me to do, woman,” he pointed out moodily, comparing what he had done to what had been done here, and coming up lacking.

“Mmm. Your masters also have a cosmic role of sorts, En Sabah Nur. They are, to an extent, cosmic defenders of this reality, fighting against other cosmic intruders impinging upon it, correcting errors in time and space, and maintaining the harmony of Eternity, as it were.

“Take up that role. The Celestials cannot fault you for it. You can be both a champion and a commander of armies up to planetary in size. Your opponents will be absolutely fanatical believers in your own cherished philosophy, utterly alien, seeking only our deaths so that they can live.

“It is your very own fight for survival taken up all the way to the limit. You want war, Apocalypse, well, it’s coming.” I was looking in a particular direction or two, and despite himself, his eyes followed mine in those directions, as well.

“An interesting point concerning the Negative Zone. There are no cosmic beings there.” He glanced at me again. “No Celestials. No world-devouring Galactus. No profound entities of Law and Chaos. No Phoenix Force, no Enigma Force, no Nova Force. None of the cosmic entities that ‘might’ interact with mere mortals.

“They have all been slain by the denizens of the Negative Zone over the eons, in their desperate fight against a dying universe, looking for someone and something to blame, or merely just hungry for their power.” That widened his blue eyes slightly.

“So, they know how to kill the Celestials and beings like Galactus, and doubtless intend to do so, taking their energies and power for themselves, to strengthen their position and races in this new reality.

“If the Celestials come take this fight, they’re going to die. The N-Zoners are prepared for them.

“So, this fight will have to be won without them.”

I pointed in a certain direction. “The home planet of the Whoberis is out there. Most of their people were genocided by the Badoon, a race of reptilian conquerors who believe emphatically in your philosophy, who wiped them and took their planet for their own.

“I, in turn, slaughtered every Badoon on that world, freed up their slaves, and hey, I even sent them a mad genius to take them over. He’s big, mean, green, and fiendishly smart. I think you’d like him. Very much of ‘the Fittest’.

“The Badoon tried to invade the little spot of land and the freed slaves living there he’d taken over. He mauled them badly, impressing them so much after his tale of the coming Annihilation Wave that they basically have given him a whole navy to prepare for the fight.

“How’d you like to fling a billion high-tech aliens at the enemies of existence, and show them how ‘strength’ doesn’t mean ‘my gun is bigger than yours so I am stronger?’ They have no more genetic potential, anyway.”

He actually smiled slightly at my words, his overly-wide blue-lipped mouth twisting up in a dire portent for someone. “Battle and slaughter to my heart’s content on the horizon?”

“You will likely be vastly outnumbered and fighting in hopeless defensive positions, depending on how much you think you can get done in a year or two. Happily, the initial engagements should not be in the Milky Way Galaxy, so you’re going to be leading a pack of reavers at the start, with all the potential carnage you can imagine and inflict.

“You’re going to watch whole worlds perish in service to your philosophy, trillions die, war and slaughter, and maybe affirm your place in the universe as one more ant before the uncaring tide of interdimensional politics and survival. I’m sure you’ll have fun.”

He had the look on his face of someone who suddenly realized that the power of ‘survival of the fittest’ was far, far greater than merely his own power... and something that could kill his masters could certainly kill him!

Or enslave him...

“Then we shall see who, in the end, is stronger,” he ground out fatalistically, even as he considered the scenarios I was painting. “Give me what proof you have of this, and I shall ‘reason’ with the recalcitrant.”

I waved my hand, and thousands of hours of video and analysis was downloaded to his systems. Just the number of alien N-Zoner species participating numbered in the thousands. He began to run through it, and his face turned very grim after just the first minute.

“Send me where you need me to go. I will gather what forces can be gathered for this war,” he rumbled.

I flipped my hand, and another Portal opened. “There are five major Badoon factions. The Maestro has taken over one of them, and is rapidly co-opting another. The females constitute one, and do not fight.

“Take over the third, strongarm the fourth, ally with the Maestro, and take the fight to the Annihilation Wave when it comes. If you wait for them to reach this galaxy, it’s too late and everyone is going to die.

“As for who will be in command at that time... If you like, we can send you a super-soldier to handle the tactical and strategic affairs. They are equipped to be ultimate warlords, while you can be the champion and the sword.”

He paused for a moment, considering that grimly. “I... will need an aide,” he conceded, and stepped through onto a world of the Badoon.

I had little doubt he’d be running the place within a week.