Well, and now also a risk with the Humans. Thanks to me...
...Lasitus now rules a One Planet Empire too. And my conquest of Sol has somehow brought me a hoard of actually new Human technology! Irridium Fuel Cells will extend my ships' range, Automated Repair System might theoretically matter to me if my pitifully backward enemies figure out a way to damage any of my future ship designs, Class V Deflector Shields will help ensure they never will, and a Class V Planetary Shield design will mostly just get in my way. I also find the secrets of the Humans' outmoded Improved Terraforming +20 technology, but even that suggests ways to improve my workers' efficiency.
Over the course of next few years, I erase various massive Human fleets from the face of the galaxy, and develop my first Advanced Construction technology! It would take me seven years just to explain the basis and purpose of Advanced Construction Tech II, but rest assured that I understand it myself well enough to make some headway at least, and am proceeding! Also in this time, I colonize some of the one-time Silicoid colonies that were recently demolished by my allies' fleets, as well as a Human one I took care of personally.
And so in the year 2449, with my enemies' mandibles removed for all of time, with my billions of eyes and the piercing vision of Nexus itself to warn me far in advance of any further agression on their parts, still repulsed by the notion of genocide, I make peace. The Silicoids, grateful to me for ending the Humans' designer plague programs - Lasitus had been developing one specific to silicon-based organisms among others! - even agree to a non-agression pact after peace has been established!
And though Lasitus continues his sub-moronic bluster...
... Merculites are ages out of date, and might even help him keep his tiny empire from being destroyed by my allies, so I agree to his insane demand, and he at last admits to growing "weary" of "this senseless destruction" - of his entire empire, by me - and accepts my offer of peace. My wars are over at last, for the good of all the galaxy. My battle fleet...
...is scrapped as a peaceful gesture, and so that its component parts and energy sources can be used in my research laboratories. My allies insist that their wars will continue, but our enemies are no longer a threat, and I am finally at peace.
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Next: The Great Reckoning
