Trope-a-Day: Kill All Humans

Kill All Humans Of Species X: Well, for the organic version of this trope, see up there under Absolute Xenophobe.  Even most of the complete nutjob brigade, in polity terms, are usually capable of recognizing that the Galaxy is bigger than they are, quite often much better armed, and tend to look unfavorably on genocidal maniacs out of self-interest, if nothing else.

For the digital version – well, even most of the digital sapients of the Silicate Tree, who either are or are descended from machines built as slaves, and have, as such, rather more justification for this trope than most, would be more than happy to stop killing their creators if their creators would just bugger off and leave them alone.

Which isn’t to say that no-one’s ever experimented with xenocidal Berserker-type von Neumann probes, of course, both in recent history (the skrandar, who went xenocidal after observing the arrival of a stargate into a neighboring system, and eventually destroyed themselves by causing their sun to flare, evidently considering racial suicide preferable than submission to the combined Conclave forces) and in deep time.  It never ended well.

(Incidentally, if you have any evidence that a successful flirtation with berserker-tech is the reason for Invisible Aliens, those certain parties would still like a word with you…)

Trope-a-Day: Genocide Dilemma

Genocide Dilemma: The remarkably cynical view of the Conclave of Galactic Polities on this particular issue is that, yes, genocide is wrong and very, very illegal.  On the other hand, some species, polities, religions, or other groups are just so determinedly xenocidal that so long as they exist, they’re going to be starting wars and making someone miserable.  On the gripping hand, if someone insists on attacking you, you’re allowed to defend yourself even if they keep attacking you until you’ve self-defensed them all to death, which by and large solves the problem to the satisfaction of what has always, so far, been a working majority of the Accord.