"Sir, where should we put the bodies?" the soldier asked. He was young enough that the fringes of his gills were greenish from nausea after the slaughter.

She sighed. Always the way. They were ordered here to murder a populace of creatures, sentient creatures in their own way even if they failed to pass some of the most critical tests to ensure Sentient Protection. The recruits were filled with stories of glory and battles for the good of the sentient alliance and told they were doing the right thing, the good thing, the thing that would allow more of their children to spawn. It was even true. They just weren't told that it would feel like murder.

She looked around the campsite. River, no, didn't want to contaminate it. Hard ground, no good for digging. Very little fuel to burn the bodies, and it would waste precious time for her soldiers to dig. She pointed. "Throw the bodies around the tree."

The clinging to their belief in tree gods that would walk among them and save them was one of the things that showed they weren't real sentients.


Inspiration: https://www.hcn.org/articles/scientific-research-tossing-salmon-for-science
Story potential: High
Notes: The bodies (maybe usually in graveyards) accelerate the growth of the "tree gods" from the trees that the "foolish natives" worshiped. Ooooooo .... spawning pools, have it lead to her coming to terms with some of her spawn dying, eating each other, but also deliberately feeding one--the kinder, more charitable one--against custom, to help it to grow. "There are worse deaths than those that bring something better into the world," she whispered to it. (Okay, that twist/character arc makes this story strong.)