Cutting off your own limb: Viltrum and The Great Purge
You know why after Thragg's order Viltrumites looked at each other and then ALL started tearing each other apart?
Because they remembered every kind word, every gesture of empathy, every act of mercy a person to their left, to their right, had once offered to them. So they looked at each other and saw the same cancer Grand Regent Thragg was talking about. Because all of them at one point were kind. To each other. And maybe even to some "lower" being.
It wasn't forbidden before.
Not until Thragg started The Great Purge, anyway.
He says it himself, sickness (weakness) among us. He includes himself. Because HE decided to spare Thaedus, too, when he was talking to Argall. And he felt that Argall's death was his fault, because he had that sickness in him, too.
(And hey, he looks at his own hand as he says cancer)
He knew he deserved death, just like many others that were dying every second he sat inside the tower. But he was the Grand Regent. He could not just die like anyone else. He had to be the leader.
So while others slaughtered each other acting on his order,
... he sat on his throne, killing it in his own heart.
This "weakness" wasn't forbidden before. It used to be a normal thing. Maybe frown upon, especially when talking about the "lower" species, but actually normal.
Otherwise they wouldn't have tolerated Thaedus the Vegan for so long.
Thragg only says "It's troubling", nothing more. And Argall only Looks at Thaedus, nothing more.
As one Viltrumite kills another Viltrumite, they kill something inside them as well. Each time. Something warm, and kind, and strong weak. Until there's only a wound left. Bleeding, pulsing, hurting.
They killed not physically weak, they killed weak in spirit. The kind souls hardened, needing to survive, so The Great Purge was successful - it didn't just cut off the weak, it turned the weak (all off them. all of them were weak, that's why they all had someone to turn against, The Grand Regent Thragg didn't say "cancer" without a reason) into the strong.
An animal thinking it's in a steel bear trap, chewing off its limb. Not realising that there wasn't any trap, only its cubs not too far away. And now it's limping away from them, bleeding, starving, dying. Victorious yet blind and now mortally wounded.
It can't even articulate its pain properly. It's just hurting, and hurts everyone else within reach. All while crying and wailing. And longing.
That's Viltrum.
And after this disaster, after this civil war, after all those deaths, they, of course, go mad. You can't stay sane.
And you infect your younger generation with this poisoned blood from the wound you inflicted on yourself.
But you are still many. And you are strong. You are alive. If a bit hollow.
You have a statue now. It's a reminder. You did good, you killed yourself to be born anew.
"Good job, you made Argall proud!"
___________
And then the Virus hits.
and there is almost none of you left
and every and each one of you is so so lonely. and lost.
You thought you were destined for something so much bigger than this. You were supposed to spread the greatness of the Viltrum Empire. You were supposed to bring peace and order and perfection.
Instead you are here, smelling like death that surrounds you, death that became your world. Trying to stabilise crashing systems. Trying to restore data. Trying to repair machines. Trying to live for the dead, trying to execute their function.
But there were so many of you, before. you fought together, you ate together, you talked, you suffered, you cried. you hurt. you bled. you bled together.
and now there's only the void of space
and your poisoned homeworld.
the tomb.
