Believe it or not, I was pleased to see that the Darloks had re-colonized the glass world of Nyarl (although pleased for aesthetic reasons only). It certainly wasn't going to help them survive! As the instigators of the galactic war that had come to embroil us all and kill hundreds of millions throughout the galaxy, the vile Darloks were next on my List!
In 2439, we achieved space superiority at the Human colony of Thrax, losing some of our slow Bombards. With no interest in Human infrastructure, we bombed out all its factories and cut its population to less than a third of what it had been. Meanwhile, we lost exactly 3 little Newt fighters across the galaxy defending our worlds (and chasing a Psilon colony ship from still-spored-out Maretta) and destroying enemy fleets. We also colonized Maretta again ... and killed 100 million insects when our transports hit Lyae. The second wave was already on its way. The following year, we destroyed the Human defenses at Ryoun, the Psilon defenses at Dolz, and (though we lost so many Basilisks in the fight that - slightly - less than a hundred were left at the end) the Klackon defenses at Kholdan. We also wrecked or chased away a bunch of helpless alien fleets, (at the cost of 10 more small ships) ... and committed yet another utterly careless piloting mistake that cost us our small fleet (and incoming transports!) at Lyae! There was only one thing that could possibly cheer me up after losing so much for such an empty reason:
That's right! Aesthetic-Reasons-Only Colonies!
(And yes, I had intentionally timed them to arrive at Sol and all the ex-Bulrathi worlds simultaneously.)
Sakkra being Sakkra of course, most of my people didn't feel much better about the mistake as a result, though they did appreciate the extra room to breed. Fortunately, I found means of consoling them as well:
After destroying Trax and bombarding just about everything else still in enemy hands, I confirmed that, thanks to that piloting mistake, all my Lyae transports were destroyed by the Klackon fleet. Not so at Ryoun and Kailis, where our incoming troops killed 32 million monkeys. Not so at Jinga, where our ground forces killed 31 million bugs, nor at Dolz, where we killed 24 million Brains. Not so at the Darloks' colony of Nyarl ... nor their homeworld ... nor the Psilons'. This prompted the newsdroid to pop up again with a long-awaited announcement:
The Darloks, the originators of the terrible galactic war, were no more. Over a billion sentient lives had been lost since this backward race of shape shifters decided to pick a fight with the biggest lizard on the block for no discernible reason ... but they will never again cause such mayhem. And as he heard the news, Xantak appeared before me with a great example of his terrific Arthropodian humor!
"Ha, ha! Good one, Xantak! Peace! Hilarious! And hey, did you hear the one about the giant Sakkra death fleets going home instead of bombing your worlds into oblivion?"
...
"Neither did I."
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Next: The End of the War
