Ultimate Weapon

Diplomacy was always the hardest. Fighting was easy, but talking, especially to make peace with or even talk to an enemy as ancient as those across from him. 300 million years produced a deep, foul hatred. There was no bridging it. Until, perhaps, today.

Coyote looked to mouse, moose, monkey, bat, elephant and tasmanian devil. They had been elected to see if the enemy was finally willing to surrender. They were deemed the best to negotiate the surrender. To dictate terms. To bring them all to peace.

Coyote looked back across the space to where the enemy was arriving: crane, kiwi, crocodile, turtle, eagle, robin, and raven all found their place. They arrayed opposite from Coyote and his kind. Raven's eyes burned and seemed to bore into coyote. Coyote lolled out his tongue in a smile in the manner of his kind.

"Let us begin," began elephant, "we are here to find terms for the final session of hostilities between our Great Clades, our Great Peoples. No longer can the world bare the brunt of our devastating war. We have won the war, but do not wish to commit genocide. The bitterness within us is not so great or so deep. Even so, we have won and shall be dictating the terms of your surrender."

Crocodile hissed.

And the negotiations began. In earnest.

Their side would have to give up their potential for leviathans and behemoths. The great backstab of the dinosaurs and their rise when we were the most vulnerable would never be repeated. We would, in turn, reign in our most devastating weapon of mass destruction, one we unleashed 2 million years ago, when they, the enemy, were vulnerable and we were able to strike back. Finally. The project had taken that long once we had some modicum of dominance to develop and we'd warned them and warned them well at the onset of the Pleistocene Ice Age: negotiate an end of The War or be destroyed.

And they were devastated.

During one of the breaks in negotiation, Raven approached me. I growled. We had a long and bitter history. Raven cocked its head and hopped closer, but carefully.

"Coyote, I do not think your kind realizes it may not be able to fulfill its promise. The withdrawal of the weapon may not be possible."

I yipped a ..crowing...laugh. "They are like us. They will listen and stand down. We have won and they made it possible."

"Yes, you fur brain, they have. But how many of your own side did they kill? Do they kill?"

I lolled out my tongue once more, "War has casualties. A herbivore would never had brought you down. A carnivore would have been nearly impossible to control. No, we made them well and they will listen to reason."

"I hope so, Coyote, but I have my doubts. I have watched them. We have watched them. They do not seem to be as controllable as you think." And raven hoped away. We were going to wrap up and finish the negotiations with the pronouncement.

Monkey stood up and read off the treaty between our two great clades, the archosaurs and the therapsids would end the Great War. Now and forever.

There would be no more dinosaurs or other great archosaurian monsters again.

And in turn, the therapsids, the mammals, all that was left of that once proud clade, would reign in their ultimate weapon: the humans.