The planet's bishop was a real genius, the very picture of treating the symptoms rather than the cause.
He figured that if he could kill all the grain the Barbarians grew across the planet, he could force them back to an age of eating raw flesh and drinking blood, preserving the quality of his recruits.
Then this genius came up with a masterstroke. Using the planet's extremely limited resources, he somehow cobbled together a chemical plant and began producing Agent Orange.
Yes, Agent Orange-the stuff America used on a massive scale in Vietnam.
It was very effective at killing weeds, and pretty good at killing people too.
For adults exposed to it, milder consequences included skin diseases and infertility, while severe cases ended in death from liver and kidney failure.
And that was getting off lightly. The substance posed the greatest threat to babies and growing children.
Babies contaminated by Agent Orange were either stillborn or born severely deformed.
Growing children exposed to Agent Orange ended up with enlarged heads or undersized hands.
As soon as the chemical plant was completed, the planetary bishop mobilized every aircraft at his disposal, loaded them with Agent Orange, and sent them out to spray it.
Even more monstrous, to increase coverage, the planetary bishop lied to the Barbarians who came to the Hive City to trade. He told them Agent Orange was fertilizer and that spreading it over their wheat fields would make the wheat grow exceptionally well.
The Barbarians had no concept of chemicals. They only knew that things made by the Sky People were powerful.
And so, during that period, the Barbarians were heavily exposed to Agent Orange.
Until the wheat in their fields began dying, women began miscarrying, the elderly began dying, and their babies cried incessantly.
Only then did