[b]Lunar Station[/b]
"Humans are stubborn. Those religions won't go away unless every last follower is killed, something that we consider an unforgivable crime. As for your terms, we accept. There is an old station in high orbit above Earth, it was supposed to be deorbited decades ago, but the company hired to deorbit it instead boosted it into a graveyard orbit. It doesn't have a gravity ring, and the computers onboard are like stone knives and bearskins, but it's the best we can do. I'm kind of surprised that you even considered giving a species like us any kind of technology, we fired first, and you've seen our past. Are you sure you want to uplift us?"

[b]Sazkarjhit Contact[/b]
"Understood, I don't exactly have the right to give you construction rights, but I don't think the government will object. With what happened on Pluto, they would probably be happy if the entire system was occupied. We'd have more protection that way. I have business as well, if you need to contact anybody, send a message to the largest grouping of spacecraft in the belt."

[b]Drydock 003, Earth Orbit[/b]
A frigate-sized vessel floated in the drydock, held in place by magnetic grapplers. It was half finished at best, missing large parts of it's hull. It was going to be one of the first vessels designed purely for the purpose of space-space and space-ground bombardment, it's main armament a spinal tungsten-load railgun. A single load would be capable of destroying an entire city, just through sheer velocity. Officially, it was being built in the event that a hostile species took a human world. In truth, it was for total war. Everyone knew that there would be a war with the species contacted at Saturn, and the sole purpose of this new vessel was to assist in the inevitable genocide of that species.

A giant ring was pulled into place by grapplers, having been brought up secretly by an [i]Armstrong[/i] booster rocket. Only those working at the drydock stations knew it's purpose. It was to be part of the vessel's FTL propulsion system, using an updated version of Edward White's old design. Instead of requiring contact movement, it could stay in place, and would use a manageable amount of fuel. However, concessions in the design of the rest of the spacecraft had to be made. Since the ship had to be compact, the plasma drives would take up most of the vessel. The crew would be forced to sleep in a single room without artificial gravity, certainly a major step down from existing vessels.

As for weaponry, it had the spinal railgun, but also a large complement of missiles. The one thing nobody would admit was that every singe one of those missiles carried a nuclear payload. This wasn't just a starship they were building, it was a weapon of mass destruction. Even the drive system seemed to be designed to kill billions, if it didn't shift particle buildup to the aft of the ship, then it could potentially destroy an entire star system. An atrocity such as that was so unimaginable horrific that the government refused to authorize it even if humanity was in danger of extinction. 

Every once in a while, one of the workers would stop and think about what they were doing. Everyone knew an interstellar spacecraft would be built, but nobody expected that the first two would be built to fight. Even while the government drew up interstellar courses with the hope of finding the homeworld of the species that had threatened them, terrorists still killed people by the thousands, with no end in sight. Humanity would have to adapt to survive, and the course that adaptation seemed to be taking was sickening.

[b]Mars, Contact[/b]
Oumou smiled, interpreting the pictures as an attempt to explain their culture. She knew the protocols for such an encounter, but now that it was actually happening, she didn't want to show them what had happened. However, the faces of her colleagues told her that she had to do it. She took out an electronic tablet, and tapped on it's screen for a few moments. She then displayed it so that the aliens could see.

"Who we were." She said, knowing they couldn't understand. Regardless, she tried to make it obvious that she was saddened by what she was showing them.

A picture of a rocket launch appeared, with thousands of humans cheering at it. After a few moments it changed to a picture of Sputnik, and then to Yuri Gagarin. The picture switched to the Apollo 11 Moon landing, with Neil Armstrong stepping onto the lunar surface. His famous first words played through the tablet's speakers, just before a picture of an old space shuttle appeared. 

"Our punishment for daring to escape."

A picture from the destruction of Challenger appeared, then one of Columbia. The Space Mirror Memorial appeared, the names of every astronaut who died displayed in such a way that it appeared that they were floating in the sky.

"Our retaliation." She said proudly

The ISS was shown, then the first Lunar colony. It continued on, showing the first landing on Mars, then the first pictures of Europa's oceans. The two SETI transmissions sent to the Gliese 581 system played, showing a video of a male human happily speaking in hundreds of different languages. The Voyager and Pioneer space probes, and the first manned mission to an asteroid.

"The evils we are capable of." Now her voice was almost unbelievably sad, with disgrace in every word.

The pictures changed tone drastically, now showing missiles, then mushroom clouds. They likely held little cultural significance to the aliens, but every human cringed and shifted their gaze downward at the sight. 

Pictures of deformed children, people with blood flowing out of every orifice. Railgun shots falling from orbit, cities vaporized in the blink of an eye. Hundreds kneeling with rifles pointed at their heads, their spirits broken. A man leading an army, then that man being killed by the same one that appeared in the message earlier. Somehow, the faces of the humans showed even more disgrace than they already did.

Before continuing, she quickly drew something on the tablet, then threw it down on the ground. It was a crude drawing of what the alien had done to her, the 'mind meld' as humans would refer to it.

The humans knelt on the ground, and Oumou held up a sword, made of steel like one would expect of a pre-gunpowder civilization. Making sure the aliens could pick it up, she spoke again.

"You have a choice." Was all she said.