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Irkens didn’t have gods. The concept began to die out when reproduction became artificial, and declined further with each generation. If any semblance of religion remained when the Office of the Tallest became fully autocratic, it was quickly crushed beneath totalitarian boots. Zim could not name the gods of his ancestors, nor could he tell you what their domains, legends, and ceremonies were. He doubted any icons or temples remained. The only exposure Zim had to his people’s faith was a holy book he had seen once. He was a young smeet, and the book had sat in a crystal case in a great state museum. It had looked old, and small, and very unimportant. He struggled to read it, but did not recognize the script on it’s open pages. Neither the plaque beneath the case nor his nearby adult minder could tell him why.
The Irken Empire found many gods on the planets they conquered, and would usually grind them into dust. Not on purpose, mind you. It was just that interplanetary conquest and enslavement tended to extinguish the flames of faith. Even in species who maintained said practices, worship became far rarer under the Empire’s shadow. Zim suspected, based on his observation and research, that Earth would retain their notions of faith. The tenacity of human worship was one of the things Zim rambled about in his reports. Towards the end, he almost began to admire it. It was a sign of their primitive and unevolved nature, but no species worshipped like humanity. Zim could acknowledge skill, even when it was in a useless art.
Irkens did not have any gods, but they had heroes. All empires did, dictatorships even more so. It was easier for a mind to rally behind an idea when it had a face; Thus, the empire built a factory for icons right beside the ones they’d built for guns and armor. They called this factory The Citizen’s Morale Division. The CMD would choose a handful of exceptional cadets from among every graduating class. Now and then, they did sweeps of service records, or would receive a recommended candidate from an officer or official. These exceptional Irken would be coached, styled, and screen-tested. When they were deemed ready, Irk’s unparalleled brainwashing engine would kick in and blast their faces across the galaxy. Zim could still list the heroes he’d grown up watching and loving and envying: Chief Science Officer Zou, Invader Talla, Major Kret of the Irken Tundra Force.
Not one of them held a candle to Captain Cea. Held a candle. When did he start saying that? No matter. Irkens had no equivalent expression and it was the only suitable one.
Captain Cea, born Smeet Cea, was in the same generation as Zim. Where his eyes had been the common pink, Cea’s were an odd, soft orange. She was smaller than Zim at first, but was soon twice his size, which he always resented. Same early years training group. Cea had stood beside him, looking at that same holy book in that same museum. She had looked so sad and Zim never knew or cared why. Same class at the Academy. She had been a rabble-rouser, a trouble-maker. Cea spent much of her education half a step from expulsion, but was considered too charismatic and talented to be lost. When Zim entered into military engineering, his lab was, in fact, guarded by Trooper Cea. Cea smiled at him every time he passed her. She had settled down by then, was throwing fewer stones, considering falling in line. She needn’t have worried; The Citizens’ Morale division already knew she was special.
They had no idea.
The lab experienced a higher level of targeted attacks in those years, and it was the perfect opportunity for the security division to prove themselves. Among the many talented recruits, one was standing out. Cea was fearless, Cea was clever, Cea was lucky. Cea lived for danger and would risk life and limb if it meant a victory for The Empire. But Cea was no omnicidal gun monkey; she adored her fellow Irkens. They were her true priority, and Zim never fully understood that. But he could only be grateful for the personality trait; after all, it saved his life.
Faulty wiring in the lab. Fires catching in moments; inspection had been skipped that year. Setbacks from the constant attacks meant they were on a time crunch, and it was mostly staffed by recent graduates, easy to replace. Safety could wait a few moons. Zim was pinned under toppled equipment, eyes streaming, skin tightening, unable to breathe. He was barely coherent when he saw Cea’s shape running through the blaze towards him. She barely seemed to notice the burns she received tossing the object away, just seized Zim and lifted him. The cold, clear air outside blew the soot from his skin, as Zim coughed and shook in Cea’s arms. Someone shouted at her for having gone back inside. That it was foolish to risk her life for an Irken like Zim. He shuddered in her arms, briefly wishing Cea had let him die. “No Irken is disposable,” she said coldly, before she passed Zim to the medics.
No Irken is disposable. If Red and Purple had been in charge back then, she might have been shot that night. But it was Miyuki who held the office then. So, instead of a quick execution, Cea got a medal and Zim got sent back to work. After he’d healed. Once his hands no longer shook at the sight of the laboratory doors.
-
Zim was somewhat sad when their paths diverged. He was quite fond of Cea, and it was always good to be in proximity to a great member of the Irken race. Not only would her power and presence rub off on him, increasing his own by association, but the competitive nature of their society would spur him on. To beat Cea in any capacity would be a boon to him. Still, he suspected she had been selected by Citizen’s Morale. Zim knew the signs, had learned them so he could be prepared when the state inevitably began grooming him. Cea was getting missions far too important (and glamorous) for her current station. Those in heights closest to the Tallest were introducing themselves to her suspiciously often. This was good, Zim decided, so he could stomach his envious rage. The presence of Cea in the hearts and minds of the Irken race would improve the empire as a whole. That competitive urge would have the rabble chasing the impossible dream of eclipsing her.
In a way, Zim was not completely wrong. The name, the face, the idea of Captain Cea would send the Irken race into a new age.
No Irken is disposable. Cea had repeated that often in their youth. But Cea never said those words on her broadcast appearances. Never in her interviews, and never when cameras or her superiors were near. Only when she could be alone with those she doubted would turn on her. In the coming years, Zim was grateful he remained one of them. Perhaps he should have questioned her sanitized message, and questioned who did the sanitizing. Was it Miyuki who silenced her? Was it Citizens’ Morale? Or the military chiefs? Maybe Cea silenced herself. But Zim never asked her. At the time he was simply relieved. Largely because her charitable and equalitarian views grated on his nerves, and in a small part because he feared for her.
No Irken is disposable. Zim wondered if those words were behind her teeth on her last day. Likely. Those words, at the end of the day, were why she died.
Cea was glorious. She rose through the ranks like a flare from a stranded soldier; red-hot, star-bright, and unstoppable. Though she was called Captain Cea for the rest of her days, she died a Major General, the youngest in the empire’s history. Cea travelled the media circuit, encouraged to expound on her glories. She appeared to cheering crowds and was photographed with society's elites. Any show Cea wasn’t on still made excuses to talk about her. Her strength, her beauty, her perfection, and how she was the future and the face of Irken supremacy.
Her battles were sometimes streamed live, when Cea allowed it. Watching her demolish enemy cruisers and outflank fleets of gun ships had the populace mezmorized. Who could doubt the greatness of a race that produced this invincible and lethal force? But Cea’s most popular victories were her rescue missions. Even Zim would take a break from scheming and sneaking to watch those. There was a look you could see on the faces of Irkens she saved. Awe and gratitude, wonder and disbelief. He knew what they were feeling.
The Irken had no gods. But sometimes they witnessed miracles. And Captain Cea, swooping in to snatch you back from the jaws of death, felt like a miracle.
Cea called, sometimes. Zim never realized it was because she didn’t want Zim to be lonely. He thought Cea saw him as an equal, and was sensible enough to consider it a compliment. To be compared to Captain Cea would be the highest praise. On these calls, Zim talked about Earth, about Dib, about himself. Cea did not comment when his claims about his prowess didn’t add up. Nor did she comment when his tales turned from vitriolic hatred and impassioned plans of destruction to tales of saving the Earth and engaging with Dib as a peer. Cea herself talked about the empire, about Red and Purple, about her actual feelings on both. Time had loosened Cea’s tongue and stoked her fire. She questioned things no Irken should question. Zim would argue with her, curse her out, tell her she was a fool to criticize their perfect leaders and perfect empire.
It never occurred to him to tell the Tallest about her heresy. Irkens had no gods, but they had heresy. The punishment was usually a beating, a fine, imprisonment. For Cea, who was supposed to empower the state, the punishment would have been much worse.
In the end, the punishment was death, but not just for Cea.
The streamed battles gave Cea a propaganda platform of her own. No Irken Is Disposable never left her mouth, but she said it in other ways. Cea sang the praises of the Irken people. Not the Empire; only ever its people. She thanked every medic who put her back together, every mechanic who repaired her ship, every engineer who completed a new weapon for her. Cea pressured military command into promoting those who deserved it over those who aided the narrative. She spoke up about overcrowding in the youth academies, about out-dated equipment in the spawning facilities, about food shortages in non-central systems. When Cea complained, the people complained, and the Empire grudgingly threw resources at the problem.
In the aftermath of battle, when the laserfire died down and the body counts were final, Cea would again make her message known. She took time to voice her grief at loss of life, and never once dismissed a single death as needed to fuel the empire’s great machine. Cea mourned her soldiers, and the civilians, and did so openly...but never went so far as to blame the state. For her entire career, she danced a very narrow rope. Cea was careful. But not careful enough. In a world like theirs, there was no such thing as careful enough.
Zim never noticed her tightrope act. But the Tallest did.
Maybe, in retrospect, Zim thought that it was Cea’s fascination with the extinct Irken religion that truly spelled her doom. This was a quirk she never hid, and she was not shy about her desire to see it revived in some capacity. If only in ceremony, she’d add, when the room would go silent. It’s part of our history, our identity, our greatness, Cea would argue, when Zim or someone else would dismiss this notion as nonsense. The office of the Tallest is rooted in the old faith, she’d insisted, when whatever Irken she was talking to called such things archaic and irrelevant. We did not need to abandon our traditions or our sense of culture in order to achieve mastery of our universe, Cea had screamed at Red, when he told her, in no uncertain terms, that art and music and worship were the chains of lesser races. That was in a closed door meeting. Zim only knew about that because Cea told him about it.
“We used to speak different languages,” she told him, on that same call. “Different regions had different tongues. Called themselves different things. Wore different clothes. We didn’t used to be these...copies of each other. Of the Tallest. We had identities beyond Irken.” To Zim, that sounded like a dreadful lie. But some careful research revealed that Cea spoke the truth. When he could no longer call it a lie, he told himself that homogeneity and sameness were, indeed, the key to Irken success. It was easy to pretend there was no ache in his chest when he found there were no recorded images of his home peninsula’s traditional clothing, and no recorded audio of its now extinct tongue. It was easy to pretend that ‘Irken’ was a big enough and deep enough identity, even after he discovered he could have had other options.
Irkens had no gods. Irkens had no art. Irkens had no music. Irkens had no diversity. Irkens had no culture. And while Zim made peace with that, it seemed Cea never truly did.
The very last time she called him, it took him several minutes before he noticed something wrong. Cea’s antennae were flat to her head, her hands were digging hard into her pilot’s seat, and her teeth were locked together tight. “Zim,” Cea said. “Do you remember when I said I owe you my career?”
“Yes, of course I do,” Zim sneered, idly wondering why she was bringing that up now. He’d gotten a million little favors from her for that. Including his trips back to Earth every time he’d been stranded in space. Sometimes, Zim wondered if she really believed that saving his life was what got her noticed. As if that random, insignificant medal was what made her her . If she did, Zim didn’t plan on correcting her. Cea could be his way into power, should all other routes fail him.
Again, Zim was not wrong.
Back on the last call they ever shared, Cea spoke. There was a strange look in her toxic orange eyes. “Well. I need another big favor out of you.” Not for the first time, Zim wondered if her eyes had been another boon to her popularity. Orange eyes were a rarity on Irk, present in only 5% of the population. Irkens were not as vain and lustful as most species; far, far from it. But rarity and beauty were often synonymous, even on Irk. It was not mad to consider that her notable appearance made her a “better” hero in the eyes of the state.
“...Well hurry up, I’m BUSY, Captain,” Zim snapped, because that was who he was, and that was how he talked, and the only reason he was talking at all was because of Cea and he had no ability to tell her how very afraid he was.
Because she was going to see the Tallest soon. Her ship was orbiting the Massive. The Tallest were waiting inside a smaller ship, one usually reserved for highly sensitive matters of state. They had refused to tell Cea why they had summoned her, but she had her suspicions. Once inside, Cea would be alone. She’d be stripped of her weapons and left alone with them and their personal guards.
And suddenly, Zim didn’t think she was coming back out.
-
Captain Cea died in a horrible tragedy. She was in a closed-door meeting with the Almighty Tallest and their chief advisors when their small ship was attacked. Only the Tallest survived, shoved into the only escape pod by the glorious Captain. The empire was devastated, and at its epicenter of their grief was the loss of Cea.
Zim watched the Tallest, miraculously unscathed, blame the attack on the rebelling Pinnation military. He watched them speculate that it was in revenge for Captain Cea besting their forces as they fought to reclaim their homeworld. He watched them sing her praises and thank her for her great sacrifice. He watched them announce her funeral, broadcast live across the cosmos. When the transmission ended, he went outside and walked through town to an abandoned, half-built housing development. Zim spent the night smashing windows and screaming curses to the indifferent stars. No Irken is disposable. Especially not one as grand as Captain Cea.
Irkens had no gods. But they still had funerary rites.
Captain Cea’s body was not recovered, lost forever to the vacuum of space. In its place, a dress uniform and duplicates of her weapons were laid in a massive crystal coffin. The casket was displayed in the galley of the Massive, atop a raised dais, shining beneath an array of expensive and cold lights. Zim was abruptly reminded of the holy book and felt the inexplicable urge to start tearing his base to pieces around him. Zim let the Tallest yammer on for several minutes, not even paying attention. When the empty drivel of the speech bored him, he broke into the stream. The Tallest and those assembled on the Massive looked outraged and disgusted, and the insults and jeers began flying.
Zim did not address the Tallest, and spoke over the volatile crowd. “My fellow Irken, it pains me to interrupt our mourning. This is a dark day for the Empire. But Zim possesses a final message from our beloved Captain Cea.”
“You what?” Red demanded, as the crowd fell silent.
With every eye in the Empire trained on him, Zim hit play.
-
“They’re liars, Zim,” Cea said. “They lied to the Empire. We ask our Tallests to do one thing. We have one tradition left, Zim, and they spat on it. You can defend their incompetence, you can defend the way they treat you and me and everyone, but you cannot defend THIS.” Cea’s face twisted, and Zim had never seen such bone-deep disgust from her. “We’re destroying the universe, planet by planet, for them. And they can’t make one little sacrifice for us? The laws are clear, Zim. If they fail to perform the rite, they cannot be the Tallest.”
“You are lying or mistaken, Captain Cea,” Zim said stiffly. Though, he could not recall if he had ever seen the Tallest without their forearm bracers. On another screen, he began pulling up footage and stills of the two Irken dictators and started to click through them. Looking for anywhere their hands were fully exposed, searching for a clear shot of their missing thumbs. “Our Tallest are beyond reproach. We must not lose faith in our leaders. By the ancient laws, they are endowed with the highest--”
“No,” Cea said flatly. “They are not our leaders. They are our slave masters, Zim. They weaken the Empire by failing us.”
Zim was silent. She was lying or mistaken, he’d said. But he had found no footage to prove Cea mistaken. And she was not a liar by nature. “And you are fool enough to tell them this?” Zim asked finally.
“Somebody has to be. I’m not going to slaughter for them anymore, Zim. The Empire is on the brink of collapse already. We’re finally drowning in the blood. Be grateful you got out when you could.”
“What is it you wish Zim to do.”
“Just...stay on the line.”
-
The video Zim had captured of Cea’s death and then remotely recovered from her PAK was brutal, to say the least. Cea was screaming accusations as she was forced to her knees, and a gun was presumably pressed to her skull. “I know about your hands!” Her face was ground into the carpet, but she kept yelling all the same. Several Irkens in the room had not been informed of the extra-legal execution, and were shouting in confusion and outrage. The Minister of Urban Development attempted to tackle the soldier holding the gun on Cea, screaming “I will not allow you to do this!” The minister was shot, and so was Cea. Afterwards, most of the room was slaughtered, while Red and Purple complained bitterly. They had, somehow, not anticipated the negative response and were angry at needing to replace most of their cabinet.
At one point, Red walked over to Cea’s limp corpse and actually kicked it. “Mighty Captain Cea,” he sneered.
“How many times did we tell her shut her trap, huh?” Purple asked off-screen. “Like...she drove us to this.”
“Right you are.”
-
Zim switched the recording off. The rest of the tape was Cea and the others’ bodies being hurled into space, and then the ship detonating. The important part was over. The silence on the Massive was ringing, the faces of the crowd nakedly stunned. Purple wore an almost comical expression of horror, and Red’s face was impossible to read. Somewhere between exhaustion and denial, maybe. But there was not a single eye on the Tallest. Zim finally had what he wanted; every Irken alive was looking at him, waiting with rapt attention and growing fear. “My Tallest,” Zim said. “How do you answer Captain Cea’s accusations?”
As one, the heads of the crowd snapped from Zim to the Tallest. “They’re--they’re lies, of course!” Red shouted, and spun to face the crowd. “People…” He said. “Come on, it’s ZIM! You’re...you’re going to believe ZIM?!” He forced a laugh. “Let’s just boot him off the stream and--”
“I don’t believe Zim,” someone interrupted. “I believe Captain Cea!”
“That video wasn’t faked!” Someone else yelled. “Why did you kill her?”
Fear and shock were fading, replaced by anger. The question was repeated a few hundred times, the crowd whipping themselves up as they demanded answers.
“For lying!” Purple shouted. “We killed her for lying!”
“She was an agitator and an enemy of the Empire,” Red snarled, and he didn’t hide that he was speaking to Zim directly.
“Take off the bracers!” Zim shouted back, and the look Red gave him was almost pleading. “Prove that Cea told lies!”
“Prove it!” The crowd screamed in unison, an ocean of furious noise.
Red and Purple tried to call their guard platoon to quiet the masses, but, instead, their soldiers surrounded them. Put guns to their heads. Forced them to their knees. Zim did not recognize these Irken; The soldiers present at Cea’s death were nowhere in sight. Likely, their corpses floated beside hers. “Take off the bracers,” Zim repeated, and for the only time in his life, Zim was obeyed. The bracers were ripped off.
Thumbs. Four slender green thumbs, fully intact, fully functional. Cea had told no lies, and the Tallest had made no sacrifice.
Irken had no gods, but they had sacrifice, and a handful of ancient laws left standing. A Tallest who kept their thumbs was not fit to be a Tallest, and they must be removed to make way for their rightful successor.
The Tallest tried to explain, tried to threaten, tried to beg, but no one was listening. The crowd was screaming in anger and grief and betrayal.
Zim spoke, his voice carving through the din. “The laws are clear! They cannot remain as Tallest!”
“REMOVE THE UNWORTHY!” Someone screamed, and Irkens had no gods but they had prayer, and they had oaths, and that phrase was both. The stars shook as the entire Empire screamed for blood. Those who were on the Massive fell over each other to reach the Tallest, their eyes crazed and their voices warped. Purple was howling, incoherent, mind snapping under the horror of what was happening. Red was begging Zim to call them off. It was almost funny. But Zim had no more power than Red or Purple here. The crowd was beyond stopping.
On the deck of the Massive the Irken elite devoured their last gods.
-
Zim didn’t go back. But he watched what happened next.
He had no choice; everyone kept calling him. The new Tallest, Owi, was the most persistent, but Skoodge seemed bound and determined to drag Zim back into the loop. In the wake of Red and Purple's deaths, the Empire was undergoing some adjustments. Operation Impending Doom II was abruptly ended. Governments of the most recently conquered planets were finding their powers restored, their people freed, their resources returned. The Invader Program was suspended, indefinitely, barring “heavy revision”.
Zim doubted the Empire would truly give up the crusade. Not forever.
But Cea had spoken the truth. Red and Purple had been hiding a lot of troubling signs. The Empire was at its limits and on the brink of a major economic, environmental, and medical collapse. Most likely, the Empire would withdraw to hold to the homeworld, original expansion, and the victories of Impending Doom 1. After a generation or ten, when the Empire had healed and learned and planned, the conquest and expansion would begin anew.
Under better leadership.
From the Office of the Tallest, Owi began to undo the changes made by Red and Purple...and by Spork before them...and Miyuki before him. The drift from big, moderately conservative government to dictatorship to totalitarianism had not been overnight. This was tens of generations in the making.
It likely began when Irkens stopped being allowed to speak in other tongues, and got truly bad when the temples were burned.
Cea had romanticized the old faith. Painted it as the victim who must be revived to save Irk’s soul. This was naivety on her part. The old faith had been the state’s partner once, and had likely been just as ladden with snivelling and selfish cowards. If the state didn’t kill the faith, the faith would have killed the state. Such entities cannot coexist in oppressive regimes. At least not forever.
No god but the state. And it seemed the state would no longer be god.
That, really, was why Zim couldn’t imagine going back. The state had been his god, and he had been more devout than any other. His only identity as an Irken serving the Empire. His only goal was glory and power among the Irken people. His only fate was to die in its service. But he could not serve the Empire anymore. It had become flawed in his eyes, and Zim saw no point in worshipping an imperfect god.