Firma is ours, with all its factories, and we have discovered the secrets of the Silicoids' Fusion Bombs among the ruins! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! To think that he might equip his star ships with such horrifying weapons, with no purpose other than senseless destruction of the valuable living history book that is a planet's surface! We shall never use these, but neither shall we forget that he has made them!
Well, with the century at an end, I reluctantly accompany Yalara to another stupid council election. I'd rather not attend at all - we never decide anything anyway - but she insists that I must go, and I suppose it would look bad if I didn't, since everyone always shows up - probably for the same reason as me. I'll bet if we all voted on a resolution to not bother holding one next time, it would pass unanimously.
It's no surprise at this point that I'm nominated again, and as for my opponent, it's ... hrrrrg? Yalara? The Mrrshan lady who keeps dragging me to these things? Urrrrm ... well, okay. She votes for herself while showing her teeth and doing that closing-one-eye thing at me. I just don't understand it. Doesn't it make it harder to see? She has five votes of her own, and I guess I'm not surprised to see Igneus give her his four; he is at war with her opponent - that is to say, me - and CB-715 is officially her ally this year, so she's up to a total of 13 ... but the scaly Sakkra abstain with four votes - I don't think they've spoken to either of us officially - and Narzina for some reason gives four votes to me - probably just because she hasn't met Yalara outside of these meetings. So that leaves me to cast my ... urrrm, 10 votes - not quite a veto, but close - for ... hrrrrrrm. Well, Yalara is saying that of course I'll vote for her again, and doing that one-eye-closing thing which doesn't make any sense, but wouldn't that make her emperess of the galaxy? Also, it isn't proper protocol to vote for your election opponent; at least, none of the others ever have. I'm not sure exactly what the protocol is really, so I abstain. Yalara does something with her lips which my advisors claim is called "pouting." Apparently it's not supposed to be funny, so I try very hard not to laugh. Honestly though, I don't think a cat would be a very good ruler for the galaxy. It's one thing to go into hybernation from time to time, but it's another to just go off and take a nap in the middle of an important cabinet meeting.
As you can see from this map from the turn of the century, I've saved such archaeological treasures from Igneus as I can for the time being. I'm going to have to wait for superior technology, as I certainly don't plan to damage his remaing worlds' surfaces by attacking them with a fleet! Seeing how severely the war has swung my way, I therefore offer Igneus a chance for peace, and ... hrrrrrrrumph. He demands 200 BC before he'll agree. Reluctantly, I submit to this extortion. I'd rather have the money - and peace of mind - I'll save by building fewer defenses at immature colonies in the north than the credits he's requesting here as a flat fee.
2402: Hurrraaaaaaaaah! Sublight Drives are finished! This presents me with a tough choice, as Fusion Drives and Warp Dissipator might each be extremely useful, and though Energy Pulsar is probably a device of little importance, I'm concerned about our lack of range - still restricted to a 5-parsec radius without reserve fuel tanks. I therefore suggest that our scientists backtrack for Dotomite Crystals and put off the next decision until I have more information.
2403: Hurr...rrumph. Well, it's great that we finally got a new computer technology, but ... it's still just ECM 2. And worse yet, the only project we can devise as a result is ECM Jammer Mark 3!
2404: Hrrrrrrrm? Igneus is calling, is he? What could he want? Probably to start trading with me, I suppose, since he rejected it as my idea three years ago. ... Hmmmmm, no. He wants a non-aggression pact, does he? ... What kind of trick is this? Ah ... naturally he wants those rich radiated worlds scattered around the galaxy. Welllll ... I don't think I'm prepared to defend them from him right now, and if this is an overture of true friendship, he's welcome to it. I could use another friend in this galaxy. Before we get too excited about it though, remember what he did at Ryoun ... and what we had to do just to get peace!
He's still feeling restless, so it's hard to imagine this lasting unless I take corrective measures ... but the pact itself should help a little at least.
2409: Ha! We now have Class 4 deflectors! They won't save us from the Heavy Blast Cannons on the new Meklar Tornado dreadnoughts, but they'll help, at least! We'll go to work on a Repulsor Beam mainly because it's something different and simple enough to advance the state of the art as quickly as possible: I want planetary shields as soon as I can get them! Fortunately for my hopes of peace in the meantime, Igneus seems to have settled down a bit, though he's still wary of me. He gives me a semi-normal greeting and finally agrees to trade again. We'll see if we can drag relations out of the sewer, but it's going to take a while even in the best case, and I know very well that there's no guarantee.
2412: We've learned to enrich the soil of all our habitable worlds, and will go on to develop Cloning techniques to swiftly grow soldiers in case of another war, to grow replacement organs for the sick, injured, and elderly - and most importantly, to recreate ancient species from any tissue samples we might find at fossil sites throughout the galaxy!
2413: Hrrrrummmmph. Yalara cancels our non-agression pact. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised; it was just a Cat NAP, after all. You can't expect a feline to be consistent. Oh, well. I design a Snuffle 3.0 to take the place of the old Scent - just another long-range scan ship, this one armed with an Ion cannon, to see what the cats are using for a fleet.
2417-20: Grrrrrrrrrrumph! We finally have our new ECM defenses in place, and what are our choices going forward? Nothing but Battle Computer Mark V. At least better news is coming, as we eventually put together an autorepair system, and have hope of a way to someday make actual armor for it to fix!
Zortium Armor will be our next project, as more factory miniaturization seems fairly pointless to me at this stage. And after hanging just on the verge of a breakthrough for years on end, my engineers finally figure out how to refit our star ship engines for Dotomite Crystal fuel cores, and our missile bases with scatter packs. They're all relieved, and eager to start work on new things, so I assign them to development of a Warp Dissipator and Stinger Missiles, to help protect the valuable historic sites on our worlds from enemy bomber fleets. I also considered Fusion Beams, but didn't really give Graviton Beams a second thought.
With all of this accomplished, I try to convince Narzina to let us explore the stars she controls, and examine the planets' surfaces for archaeological records. I promise to share all our findings with her, to operate entirely within Darlok law while on her worlds, to ... bah! It doesn't matter what I promise. She refuses to allow any of our people to explore a single world. She won't even agree to exchange information about the galaxy's history! The Darloks seem to have a strict closed-door policy toward archaeological discovery. This is so disturbing, I request a meeting with all the officers of our government, and even Arrrchie takes time out to attend, even though he's got the latest results in from the newest Rha dig, reportedly including what appears to be an ancient metallic water basin beaten into its present intricate form directly by the ancestral Silicoids' rocky fists! I briefly outline the diplomatic situation in the galaxy, the speed of our ships and transports, the threat and size of the Meklar and Mrrshan fleets, and the current distribution of missile bases across the galaxy. I do my best to explain our options for future dig sites, and especially the need to make contact with Sauron of the Sakkra if we are ever to hope to learn about his worlds' histories, and after Arrrchie comments on the liklihood that the most valuable historical discoveries are likely to be achieved by field work near the heart of the galaxy, agreement is universal: We must take the coremost worlds of the Darloks. Our first transports are launched immediately!
2422-4: My old friend Arrrt comes by the office in person to surprise me with the news that we've developed a repulsor beam, and can start work on Class VI Deflector Shields! No other options, but that's okay: There's another project the new repulsors allow me to finish right away!
Just in time to meet my transports at their first destination, Rana and Selia each build a massive Kodiak 3.0, each with a repulsor, auto repair, and no less than 58 Ion Cannons! They'll be more than a match for anything currently in space except for a true Meklar death fleet! You can also see the Sniff 2.0s due to be scrapped as soon as the 3.0s arrive to take their places, the poorly-named Rocks that held the Silicoid front for us briefly, our most advanced colony ship design (the long-range Fire Den 3) and the Snuffle scanner that just examined the cute, harmless gatling-based kittens' fleet. Now that I've seen she doesn't build vile planet-wrecking, historical-artefact-destroying bombers or spore ships, I call Yalara up again, and she reluctantly agrees to talk to me. Still, she refuses to break her alliance with CB-715 because I "have broken so many past treaties"! Grrrrrrrrrrrrmmm? I've never broken a treaty yet! She must be thinking of the treaty she broke. I suppose her feline pride couldn't stand to admit that she had done wrong though. Oh, well.
2425: I'm in the middle of examining some amazing pre-Orion fossils from Firma - it was very kind of Arrrchie to share his discoveries with me - when Yalara calls to ask if I'd like to escort her to the council meeting again. Grrrrrrr. Stupid council meeting. I hate to put off examining those fossils, but I suppose it's my duty. Anyway, I guess it's nice that Yalara's still talking to me. I suppose that'll change after we have to face off against each other again ... except, she isn't nominated this time! Sauron is back in the mix, and I'm up against him! How they all decide these things is beyond me, frankly. As long as they keep nominating me and don't vote someone else emperor though, they can work it out however they like. Igneus abstains with four votes, and Yalara with five - she gives me an angry look as she does so, I guess to show me she's still mad at me for ... once having a non-aggression pact with her that she later found inconvenient and tore to pieces? Um, anyway, it doesn't really matter, since I have more than a third of the galaxy's population, only Sauron and his robotic ally vote for the lizards, with five votes each, and Narzina actually votes for me with her four, probably because she can see my transports coming, and she knows the only way to stop them would be for me to recall them by imperial fiat as the ruler of the galaxy. I'm tired of never even casting my votes at these elections, and I want to make a statement about how dumb they are, so I give my 13 votes to Sauron, leaving him still just short of the two thirds majority he needs. That leaves him grinning and chuckling to himself, but I don't get to find out what's so funny because he and the others all promptly leave. Yalara lets me accompany her back to our part of space as if she's doing me a big favor, but I don't try to talk politics - or anything else for that matter. I think she needs to cool down for a few years and get herself sorted or something. That seems to be normal for felines ... if "normal" is the word I mean.
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Next: The Darlok War
