Sticky mouse button "clicked" on "I accept" before I could even read what the Darloks were asking for. Oh, well. Fortunately...
It turns out we now have a 275 BC/year trade agreement with the Darloks, and neutral relations. Not bad! Apparently, he was hypnotized into a trade upgrade I would have accepted anyway! I give him a relatively local patrol instead of an asteroid outpost, and write a thank-you note to Narzina. While I'm at it, I call up Igneus, and see if he's willing to trade in light of our new peace agreement - and he is, to the tune of 110 BC! While I have him on the line, I do a minor miniaturization trade as well: His Hyper-X Rockets for my NPGs.
As this year-old image shows, Rrrhet's spies have scouted Paladia for us as well as taking out some of its bases, so with Dolz's defenses seeming impenetrable, Ursa sends transports here instead. We'll also have plenty of fighters around to make sure our troops aren't shot down by anything other than bases.
2469-72: Various enemy fleets make their choices to retreat or perish at the hands of my point worlds' numerous bases and defensive fleets. Paladia's fate is sealed of course, as almost two thirds of my troopers land through its defenses; I can't understand why Yalara declared war in the first place, never mind refusing so often to make peace with me. Yes, we're outnumbered almost two and a half to one on the planet's surface. No, it doesn't matter. Since last we fought the cats, we've upgraded from Zortium to Andrium armor, and they've upgraded nothing at all. Our kill ratio is six to one. Though she's down to a single world, Yalara still won't talk peace, but with no more transports on the way anywhere, I'm soon ready to make a similar proposal to CB-715, and at least it agrees. I'm not going to attack Yalara's last remaining world, and she has no effective means of attacking me. The Sakkra worlds are too far away to worry about, and their fleet too is helpless against my defenses. So, in spite of our two still-active wars, I am ready to try the path of peace.
2473-5: In spite of my attempt to start down that path, and in spite of the manifest superiority of our rich culture and capabilities, informed as it is by all the galaxy's history - so manifest that even these lunatic aliens should be able to see it, if only in the sheer power we've shown we can project across the galaxy...
...the other emperors refuse to listen to me. We can now support a factory for every 200,000 bears on each of our worlds, and develop Gaia environments simultaneously, rejecting an incredibly powerful battle computer and extreme ecological restoration techniques in favor of Hyperspace Communications and Improved Terraforming +60, the fastest ways to improve Rrrhet's agents and our worlds' populations, respectively, but no one outside our empire seems to see how overwhelmingly powerful this will make our people. Indeed, just as Arrrt devises a way to cut our factory costs in half, some enemy agent takes out eight Obaca factories; for some perspective, an earthquake that happens to hit Klystron the same year destroys almost 27 times as many, as well as killing millions. Considering the aliens' intransigence, Powered Armor might be a good idea for our next technology, but I'm trying to take the path of peace and hoping that they learn, so I seek to advance the field as quickly as possible with Advanced Damage Control instead. It seems however that the path I choose is closed to me; rather than recognizing my ascendance, Igneus complains about how powerful I've become. I sigh and direct him to the grizzly. With my attempts to make peace with Sauron and Yalara also failing, I am forced to recognize, as always, that nothing will come of our foolish council meetings unless I conquer the galaxy.
Even with Narzina's support, I am three votes shy of victory. Of course no one else will ever win one of these elections, with more than half the votes belonging to me. I attended on my own this time, as Yalara didn't ask me to join her. Considering we're officially at war, and I lost a bunch of fighters destroying most of her fleet when it attacked Paladia earlier this year, this comes as something of a relief.
2476-80: Alien fleets keep arriving at our worlds, only retreat. Where Swipes are present, they destroy some of our enemies before their warp engines can engage, mainly just for practice and to prove our space superiority. There would have been a more serious battle at Incedius - with almost 50 Annihilators, CB-715 would have done some damage before I (ahem) annihilated his fleet - but our recent peace treaty holds, and no combat takes place. He nonetheless calls to complain, along with his buddy Igneus, so I put up a sign to help them find our complaints department more easily in the future.
Arrrt brings in designs for a cloaking device, and starts work on a Zyro Shield but at this point, I think he's only keeping up work in the field for his own amusement - not the worst reason in the world, actually. Rrrhet also brings me plans for Anti-Missile Rockets from some backwater Sakkra lab someplace, but it's hard to imagine actually caring about them.
2481: What's this? What a pleasant surprise!
Yalara calls and appears to believe she has the upper hand in some fashion - something to do with not accompanying me to the council meeting; I'm supposed to have been "stewing" over it or some such feline metaphor, suffering terribly. She offers me a stinking, disgusting pile of raw meat, which I infer is the cats' version of an olive branch, and I accept it gladly: We are finally at peace! As soon as I've made sure everything's working properly in my empire, I call Yalara in turn, and offer her an even smellier pile of disgusting meat as well as a 25 BC per year trade package. She accepts both, and is feeling neutral toward me, so perhaps there is some hope for her after all! Of course, her feline pride would never allow her to admit it, but is it possible she finally noticed she's down to a single world, and my colonies are completely immune to attack from her fleets? Hrrrm. Whatever. I'm just glad we've got this peace thing to work out, finally.
2482: Wellllll ... that was a pretty quick turnaround. So much for galactic peace. Oh, Yalara's fine, and of course our peaceful projects keep bearing fruit: We'll probably never build any Star Gates, but I do agree with Arrrt that they're pretty neat, and they've opened the way to High Energy Focus technology. Even Rrrhet's spies are helping out with our peaceful initiatives, helping us grow our worlds via Improved Terraforming +40!
This is quite a nice bonus from our largely phony war with the lizards - phony because Sauron's fleets can't hurt our worlds, and apart from all this spying, I'm ignoring the war completely. No, the trouble is that our peace treaty with the Silicoids has apparently expired, at least according to Igneus, as he declares war on me. His decision is regrettable, but inevitable, I suppose; he wouldn't break his Sakkra alliance, Sauron wouldn't make peace ... and Igneus was my election opponent anyway; he wasn't about to vote for me.
2483: Spy hits against the lizards on consecutive years earn Rrrhet my congratulations, but he shrugs it off easily. He points out that we do have at least four separate spy rings in lizard territory and a significant advantage in computer technology, so his job is pretty easy. Hard Beam isn't too impressive as a weapon, but I'll take it, certainly. More importantly, his agents come through against our newest enemies: One base goes down at Silicoid Tyr, the green star closest to our own territory, and the agents responsible report on landing sites from the planet's surface. So be it! Even with eleven bases remaining, I'll get transports underway immediately! Peace just doesn't seem to convince these aliens of anything unless I prove I can crush them by actually doing so. It's time to return to conquest! ... Which makes it more than a little ironic that this is the year Sauron surprises me with an offer of peace! Naturally, I accept his offer; I don't want to be a hypocrite, and I've been promising peace for years now, if only my neighbors would accept it. When an idiot like Igneus declares war, then war he shall have, but when a foe is ready to concede a war I'm not even really fighting, there's no reason not to demonstrate how peaceful our people can truly be.
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Next: Endgame
