I guess I'm looking at it more from an ideological point of view.
Your own ideology? Or one that you assume the author has, for some reason that's unclear to me?
I got the idea that the author started with a point: "The ends justify the means in military conflict. How can I demonstrate that?"
That doesn't make any sense (as motivation for the author, not as a position, though I disagree with it) - if that's the intention, then the author chose a really bad way of going about it.
As I said, this was the impression I recieved. It is not unheard of for writers to try and use a story to illustrate a position. When I see all the pieces necessary to illustrate a position, I entertain the idea that this is, in fact, the intention of the author. I do not wish to imply that I know the author's state of mind. This is simply my best attempt to understand the piece at hand. In this case, my impression was further reinforced by the attitude of the farmers who did not resist, and by the point cryptoengineer makes. To borrow a phrase, why not glass it from orbit?
To whit:
To that end, some ETs were created to embody the perfect threat, stripped of any sort of intellect, desire, motivation, or any other trait. The only thing anyone knows about the Shardies is that they kill people and steal their heads for computers. In the face of such an absolute, existential threat, the author/main character can rationalize anything. I'm not saying I agree or disagree with the authors position, I just didn't like the way the question was handled.
So, in other words, you believe that the author was trying to say "in military conflict, the ends justify the means", and he went about doing that by setting up a scenario that has little in common with actual military conflict? Why assume that the author has a motivation that the story he created doesn't support? Do you have any reason to believe he is not particularly competent at getting his point across?
I guess I don't understand how the story does
not suppport that line of reasoning. Under such circumstances as those presented, the actions of the characters are completely necessary and entirely justifiable. If I were attempting to construct a hypothetical situation to support the statement that "The Ends Justify the Means," I might present a very similiar situation. As to his competence, I don't question it at all. I think the point is very well made.
As to this bearing similarity to real miliary situations: It doesn't have to. All he has to do is set up a situation in which a person of presumably ordinary morals/ethics could approve of that actions taken by the principals, and he does that quite well. I probably shouldn't have specified military conflict, but that
does appear to be the context of the story.
I think the author's motivation was "What is a case where the ends would justify the means?" The fact that the author had to create such an extreme situation indicates to me that he doesn't think that real wars are such a situation. If he did, he could have written a story situated in a facsimile of one.
Why use a facsimile of one? Sadly, there are plenty of real ones he could use. He creates a fictional situation to eliminate other variables: politics, race, religion, philosophy, etc. Who could argue against the necessity of preserving humanity? That allows his question to be examined in a sort of vacuum.
By the way, I'd like to point out that, as I stated in my first comment, I did enjoy the story. The language was used well, and the dialogue had good flow. Characterization could have been stronger, but you have to let some of that go sometimes to avoid cluttering things up. On the whole, the story was well written.