Ever heard the phrase, 'Species Pseudo-Differentiation'? I'd be surprised if you hadn't, although you might have heard it called something else, like: lies, rumor and propaganda... Get the idea? Not yet? Okay, what about some examples?
Say you want something someone else has - like, for instance, a boyfriend. This is really Sashi's area of expertise - stealing other people's boyfriends, that is - but for the purposes of explaining 'SPD', I think I know enough. Let's say, 'Billy-Anne' has a boyfriend called, 'Bobby-Jo', and you want him for yourself. Well, you can either seek out Sashi and take butt wiggling and booby jiggling lessons, or you can you can set out to steal him. You tell a friend that Billy-Anne is secretly seeing someone else, called Johnjo, behind Bobby-Jo's back, but please can she not tell anyone. Well, of course she does tell, and pretty soon, Bobby-Jo breaks up with Billy-Anne, you comfort him and he winds up crying on your shoulder.... Right? Well, it probably won't work out that well, if at all, because there's that little matter of Karma to consider. Anyway, that's 'SPD'. It's the art of making your enemy appear to be of lesser value than yourselves.
One of the worst insults one can level against someone relies on the almost universally respected tradition of not seeking to have sexual intercourse with your own mother. By calling someone a motherf**ker, you are accusing them of being so low as to have actually broken this fundamental rule - though I'm told that it's okay for Dachshunds. It doesn't matter why we have this particular rule - though it is clearly beneficial from the perspective of maintaining genetic diversity within a species, rather than stagnation. What's important, here, is that by painting one's opponents as being in some way 'in' or 'sub' human, your soldiers will probably have much less conscience about killing them than they would, otherwise.
There is also the situation, of course, where someone makes up a story about themselves, which is so appalling, so in-human, that it serves to instill fear in that individual's enemies, be they of his own clan or people, or another nation altogether. For instance, to create the impression he's superhuman in some way, he might claim that he eats the entrails of his dead enemies to absorb their life force. This only tends to work, of course, with primitive or superstitious populations. It seems to have less of an effect as they become more 'civilized'.
'Species Pseudo-Differentiation' came recently to Artogos III, by way of a trade mission from Otichea Prime, one of five planets in a nearby binary-star system. Otichea Prime had seen its fair share of death and destruction. In fact, it had just come off of a global conflict lasting more than one hundred years. It takes a lot of anger and distrust to keep nations fighting through three or more generations. That, of course, is where 'SPD' comes into its own. Make up a few rumors, spread the odd piece of disinformation, and, hey presto: a reason to keep killing until the enemy is not just defeated, but totally eradicated.
The trade mission from Otichea Prime arrived on Artogos III a few years after hostilities had ceased on their own world, looking to obtain large quantities of a particularly rare mineral ore, available in very small quantities on Otichea Prime, but readily available on one continent of Artogos III. Their mission to Artogos III was no accident. They had used remote probes to locate supplies of the mineral ore, and Artogos III came top of the list. The refined ore was needed for use in a newly developed water purification system. Huge plants were being constructed on Otichea while the emissaries were en route to Artogos III.
Nothing trashes an environment quite like a global conflict, and Otichea Prime was no exception. There was hardly any unpolluted free-standing water, including the oceans, which had been used as a 'limitless and essentially free' garbage dump for centuries before the conflict there even began. And once hostilities broke out, why polluting the enemies' water supply, with high levels of toxins, was simply one more weapon in the arsenal of war. The process for the removal of these toxins required the large scale use of the mineral ore, which was highly effective in removing certain heavy metal pollutants.
Now, of course, we come to the nub of the problem. The land under which the mineral ore was situated did not belong to those people the Otichea first approached. The Otichea chose to seek out the most advanced nation on the planet, Mazurta, because that was the source of the vast majority of the radio transmissions emanating from the planet, indicating at least a certain level of technical advancement. In comparison to the Mazurta, those who occupied the mineral rich continent to the west, the Emprecha, were still primitive and superstitious, hunter/gatherers, who loved, honored and revered nature, and far more than we do today, realized where they fitted into it. That is not to denigrate them, simply to pigeonhole them - one of humanoid-kind's favorite occupations, I think: pigeonholing.
For their part, the Mazurta were ready, willing and able to make a deal with the emissaries from Otichea Prime, and even arranged delivery and payment schedules during that first visit. With the initial quantity of ore due to be made available for collection in two month's time, it finally dawned on the leaders of Mazurta that they needed to talk with the Emprecha. The Emprecha weren't having any of this, of course. Dig up their sacred land for a few worthless baubles? That was a ridiculous idea. After all, they had no concept of ownership, nor of money. That left the Mazurta with a serious problem, which could only be fixed one way: take the ore from the Emprecha, by force if needs be.
So began the war.
At first, the leaders of the Mazurta could pass the conflict off as a small dispute over a drilling operation on Emprecha land. The news reports suggested that the Mazurta were the innocent party in this, having reached an agreement with a local chieftain, who was then attacked and overthrown by another, who then demanded bigger payments. When these demands were refused, the chieftain simply executed the entire workforce and burned the drilling equipment to the ground. It was a lie, of course, but the Emprecha had no radios and knew nothing other than they were being attacked without notice and provocation.
It did not go well for the Emprecha, once the Mazurta's initial attempts to take the ore by force had failed. A full-scale invasion was undertaken, five weeks into the two month delivery schedule. Though they fought bravely, the Emprecha were no match for the automatic weapons carried by Mazurta troops, backed up by heavy artillery. In short order, they were driven back towards the distant mountains, until, with the peaks behind them and the Mazurta in front of them, they were forced to make their last, glorious, and futile stand.
Three hundred thousand Emprecha died - almost half the population - and the Otichea got their ore on time.
When stories of massacres started to leak out, Mazurta's government used the mass media to characterize the Emprecha as evil ghouls, who ate the livers of their victims, and worshipped a 'fire' god who demanded copious quantities of blood from the broken bodies of innocent children.
In time, Mazurta's citizens were encouraged, both by their political and religious leaders, to gather their belongings and set oout to colonize Emprecha. It started in a small way, since life in Emprecha was very hard, and supplies and equipment had to be shipped from Mazurta. Self-reliance was a skill that had to be learned, the hard way. Today, however, there is a flood of immigrants to the 'New World'. The Emprecha are more marginalized and reviled than ever, and occupy less than ten percent of their land. Settlers often shoot them on sight, claiming they are, 'Cleansing the land of an abomination'.
Ah, species pseudo-differentiation: where would we be without it?
