But the universe never promised you this would be easy. After all, you are the hero here.

In this universe, the trickiest challenge of all is survival.

We're going to fight this battle with everything we have, and we will probably lose. But then we will fight it again, and we will lose a little less, for this battle will win us many supporters. And then we'll lose *again*. And *again*. And we will fight on. Because as hard as it is to win by fighting, it's impossible to win by doing nothing.

'Destroying the whole universe' – an always tempting scenario when you realise in SF you can do anything – just seems too easy.

Unfortunately, it appeared that she was going to be around when they learned the hard way that interstellar wars of aggression were much easier to lose than to win.

I want to show you that the battle we are fighting is not as easy as we might think,” she said. “Mind-set does not change overnight, which hinders our many strategies.

We cannot afford weakly to blind ourselves to the actual conflict which faces us today. The issue is joined, and we must fight or fail.

After a time it became unbearable, the lesson blinding in its cruelty: but if the universe didn’t get you, other sentient beings would.

Now they [the Powers] have started the aggression, and the extinction of our nation is imminent. If we just fold our arms and yield to them, I would have no face to see our ancestors after death. If we must perish, why not fight to the death?

(Pericles:) And do not imagine that you are fighting about a simple issue, freedom or slavery; you have an empire to lose, and there is the danger to which the hatred of your imperial rule has exposed you.

Neither can you resign your power, if, at this crisis, any timorous or inactive spirit is for thus playing the honest man. For by this time your empire has become a tyranny which in the opinion of mankind may have been unjustly gained, but which cannot be safely surrendered.

(Book 2 Chapter 63.1-2)

I’ve been thinking about the war a lot recently, and I think I’ve decided it’s wrong. We are defeating ourselves in waging it, will destroy ourselves by winning it.