So I finally get to take over and get ready for some real diplomacy, and what do I find? We're at war with two of the alien leaders we've met, neither of whom will even talk to us, and we've actually exterminated a third. Of the remaining two, one is a restless xenophobe, and the other is so far away, we'll probably have to settle Mentar or something before we can meet him. Sounds like the perfect time for a diplomat to take over! Well, I can think of one thing to do: Espionage funding ceases. I might let our spies do something again later on, but after the decades of frustration I've watched, it is my conclusion that they're just not worth what they cost. The savings are used to boost our own research, which is far more important and worthwhile. If we hadn't spent so much energy trying to acquire sublight engines from the Psilons, we'd probably have Impulse Drives by now. As for everything else ... well, I'm a diplomat, driven to my last resort. I'm sure you all know what that means.
One question for the Surgeon-Repairman General: Why is anyone building Surgeon 2.0s at this point? The 2.1s are far, far superior, and not much more expensive. I wouldn't go so far as to say that everything else looks fine - Incedius is clearly toast - but there's not much else I can do this year that'll help things. All right, then: Here goes!
2431: We let the Human Dreadnought scout Stalaz. And we face the battle for Tyr, with little hope of preventing sporing, though we should be able to save the world.
They kill a million people. Just a few more 2.1s or some better luck for our gunners, and we would have killed them before they could even begin to spore us! Meanwhile, the Psilon fleet at Maretta seems to have taken off for Mentar, so I establish a colony there. Wouldn't want to lose diplomatic contact with the Psilons when Incedius disappears, after all! And hey, great news! This puts us in touch with Lasitus, the honorable, industrious monkey! All right! That's everyone who's still alive (at least while Incedius stands)! Sol isn't where we thought it was; the Humans, Alkari, and Psilons somehow developed practically on top of each other! So, let's see what the simian's empire looks like!
...
...
What the...?
He's got ten worlds! No wonder the other aliens were stunted! Lassie's been running the table on 'em all! Either that, or this entire galaxy's as hostile as our neighborhood, and he was just the first to Controlled Tundra or Dead or whatever it was. Our relations are also discordant on first contact, thanks to our extermination of the bugs. Thanks, Refairs; thanks a lot.
Now, Refcon has kindly provided some power graphs, which now include every living race in the galaxy for the first time in history:
Notice who's winning - for now at least! There are still those fast spore ships to deal with, and they're incoming immediately!
2432: A Tourorist snaps a picture of Sol, from which Refcon infers that the humans have Terraforming +10, but no advanced factory controls. 19 bases are present, so our bomber retreats. Then comes the real battle of the year, at the cloud jungle of Incedius! Our Surgeons give me a pleasant surprise as the 2.1s take out the Star Blade in one volley, and the 2.0s take out the slower Dark Star in two! The colony is saved! (For now!) After that, it's no surprise that the Psilons' colony ship retreats from 22 of my Surgeons at Maretta. Our fighters seem to know what they're doing!
2433: Did I mention that we're attacking Mentar? I think it was my predecessor who arranged this. I mention this only because we sent nothing but Tourorists and the Navy - not nearly enough to deal with the Psilons' fleet in orbit and Hyper-X bases. Oh, we take out a couple bases and more than half of the fleet - we also get our first look at the Star Blades' specs, though we already had a good general idea just from fighting with them - but our obsolete bombers all perish, and even the Navy is forced to retreat. Luckily, our 13 little Surgeons kill off the Psilon colony ship at Arietis, and when I say those Tourorists are obsolete....
I mean they're obsolete! Anti-Matter Bombs are ready for installation on our fleet! Refrens is singing the praises of Anti-Matter Torpedoes and giggling about the purposelessness of Fusion Rifles, so I pretend to know what he's talking about and agree. I'm just a diplomat really, and making these kinds of research decisions is not the first, last, or any other resort of diplomacy.
The Navy heads for Altair just to see what's going on there, and because it's nice and close. The Circus at Incedius heads over as well, in case there's something for it to do there. I don't expect there will be, but it'll get the poor, slow-moving thing into the right part of space at least. Meanwile, most of my fighters are gathering at Maretta.
2435: Altair's defenses are hopeless, so the Navy attacks. When I say hopeless: Their small fleet of Pelican popguns retreats immediately, and their nuclear missile bases can't get through the Navy's autorepair even while all 19 are standing. Since their class 2 shields can't stop my NPGs, the outcome is inevitable. The bombing that follows leads Lasitus to call and say some nice but self-contradictory things about me. The Alkari are slightly less happy about it, naturally.
Of course, they did have that fleet coming after Maretta already, so it's not as though their war declaration really changes anything. Also, the Psilons and Bears are merely wary of us now. I could probably achieve peace with them! Yeah, not happening. Sorry.
2436: We meet the Alkari fleet at Maretta, in a battle that will be especially exciting since the commander of the Surgeon 2.1s accidentally hits the "D" button on his control panel as soon as the battle starts, and spends some time struggling to get his fleet controls out of Diagnostic lock-up. Fortunately, for as-yet-unexplained reasons, the Alkari seem to like firing on my obsolete Neutrinos instead of the more dangerous Surgeons. The enemy ships were all armed with lasers, by the way - heavies on the Sky Masters, gats on the colonies. Note the past tense. We did lose a number of fighters, but the number is small in the case of the Surgeons, and anyway, it doesn't matter anymore.
Like I said. Impulse Drives mean no longer having to envy the Psilons' strategic speed. They also mean we're about to conquer the galaxy. Refrens has nothing to offer but fuel cells as our next never-to-be-finished research project, so I go with Trilithium Crystals as the shiniest and latest technology.
The Navy bombs Altair some more, and Lasitus calls again, I suppose to compliment me again in cryptic language ... but no: He declares war instead (first offering sincere apologies). This is helpful, as it determines who my next target will be.
2437: Sometimes, when it rains, it pours. Refrens enters my office to report the development of Class IV Deflector Shields, and I ask him to start work on a Repulsor Beam. In the south, we find that the Psilon colony of Guradas ... has no missile bases? Decent-looking Arid world, too. Must have been some heavy war going on down there.
With a Psilon fleet - including a newly-designed Coraona - incoming to Incedius, it's time to start work on our next-generation fighter. Lacking a stabilizer, the Consul 5.0 (which I meant to name the Envoy, but it'll do) is barely more maneuverable than our superb Surgeon 2.1s, but it has two and a half times their strategic speed! We're going to have a lot of them in a minute.
2438: More of the same. A really big Psilon fleet (including 10 Star Blade gatling/spore ships!) is now on its way to Incedius, but it's moving so slowly, we can handle it anyway.
2439: At Incedius, the (first, smaller wave of) Psilon ships think they're going to attack. The Consuls carefully explain that, on the contrary, they are going to die.
2440: Wow - the Humans have a huge Warship at their homeworld! Sadly, its designers seem to have put it together from plastic cups and used napkins instead of actual weapons and armor and shields. My Circus retreats, being unarmed, but the Navy takes care of everything without trouble. The aliens retaliate - one of them manages to sabotage some easy-to-rebuild factories on Kakata - so we retaliate back!
I like our method better. Sol's going to have a lot more trouble putting itself back together even if my successor leaves it alone for a while (please don't) ... and of course there's nothing with which to put Altair back together at all except glass. So...... That's all for my reign! You can see for yourself the results of my brilliant diplomacy:
Among the races at war with us (i.e. all the races we haven't yet exterminated) every single one is merely wary! Not bad, eh? Oh, also notice our spying budget: I have some token funds going to our bear spy network since (believe it or not) we haven't even bothered to find out what they've got yet. We should probably do this for each race now and then, just out of curiosity. If we steal something, that's a bonus, but ... yeah, our spies are stupid, and our pilots are smart. Let's hear it for the last resort of diplomacy!
_______________
Next: Coming Full Circle
