It's funny. This was written about a science fiction conflict, but it may as well have been written about the world today and the Paris attacks in particular.

Here's the thing, you want to defeat ISIS? Show them our way is better.

Yeah, we can bomb them back to the stone age, but they're already there and we really can't make their lives much worse.

No terrorist group in history has ever been defeated through force of arms. Unless you are literally willing to completely wipe a population from the face of the earth, you end up having to hear them out.

Because this is the uncomfortable truth: no one becomes a terrorist without reason. Religion? It's just a tool, a lever. If someone is willing to kill innocents or even themselves in the name of a cause, it's because their life is so hopeless that they don't see any other way.

So yeah, as painful as it is, we have to forgive ISIS. We have to sit down and talk with them, and hear their legitimate grievances, and then we have to learn to live with each other.

And no, it's not simple or easy. It's incredibly complex and it's damn hard to do.

But every other way has failed.