Tall trees had been planted by the highway to soften the noise of passing cars. Corpses hung from their branches, wrapped in red banners.

From inside his limousine, the US representative to the People’s Republic of New Czechoslovakia watched the trees roll past. Around the limo was a cordon of escort vehicles: some American, some local. One of the marines flipped off a Czechoslovakian truck as it passed. If the soldiers inside took offense, it could not be seen—the Czechoslovakian vehicle was closed topped with tinted windows.

Perhaps, the representative thought, there were no soldiers inside. Perhaps the vehicle was entirely automated.

“You are offended,” observed the man who sat on the other side of the limo. He was the representative of the People’s Republic of New Czechoslovakia to the United States. Neither of them were ambassadors, due to each countries official refusal to acknowledge the other’s existence.

He was a wiry little man, who wore a cheap suit and cheap glasses. Nothing seemed to fit him right. Perhaps because it wasn’t tailored, or perhaps because he was very thin.

Regardless, yelling at him would accomplish nothing.

“You know it will only make things worse,” the US representative said. His name was Smith.

The wiry man folded his hands, then opened them as if to shrug. “How so?”

“You’re making martyrs of them,” Smith replied. They both kept their voices calm, being too professional either to shout or to pretend they didn’t hold each other in contempt. “Public displays of brutality only inspire more people to become insurgents.”

“Ah. Then you assert that the insurgency will grow, and our government will be overthrown.” The wiry man glanced at a passing drone. It escorted one of the Czechoslovakian vehicles—a tilt-rotor model the size of a large dog with a submachine gun mounted under its chassis. “Tell me. Did your government’s displays of brutality against the Native Americans lead to your destruction?”

The wiry man smiled, and when it was clear Smith was not going to take the bait and answer, he continued: “Martyrs do not inspire people to change sides in a conflict. They inspire people who were already inclined towards their cause to become devoted to their cause. But if there are great numbers of people who are inclined to rise up against the Republic, then we are already in peril, with or without their…” He drew out the words. “Noble sacrifice.”

“You can’t kill them all,” Smith replied. It was a slip of the tongue, and he regretted it at once.

The wiry man smiled. “Tell me. Are you familiar with the history of the Holocaust? Of course, everyone knows the general outlines, but here’s a fact you may find curious. At peak operation, the Auchwitz camp required just over three-thousand guards to kill two thousand people per day. And that’s with every guard working a full eight hour shift. Does that seem low to you? That’s less than one kill per guard, and shooting a man does not take eight hours.”

Smith did not reply, and so the wiry man pointed at the drone outside. “Once they are detained and can no longer fight back, that drone can kill one person every 2 to 5 seconds. That one $200 Boeing infantry support drone has more deadly capacity that the entire Final Solution.” He laughed. “And you say we can’t kill them all.”

“Someone will stop you.”

“When war was a human thing, maybe that would have been true. If we lived in an age with colorful uniforms and pageantry and rousing patriotic music.” The man shook his head. “But that age is gone. This is an era for war machines, not warriors. An unrelenting tide of grey.”

When Smith didn’t answer, the man asked him: “Will you stop us? With your supreme air force and your nuclear weapons?”

Smith said nothing.

One by one, the rebellions of the world fell, to a force that could do what no soldier ever could. Most governments didn’t bother displaying the bodies in public or wrapping them in colorful banners.

Such frivolities hardly mattered.