2349-53: Hrrrrrrm. They seem to be coming out of the woodwork now ... and then crawling right back in. Darlok Scouts retreat from our Sniff at the Ryoun desert, the radiated neutronium worlds of Tau Cygni and Rana, and one of their Colony Ships runs from beautiful, likely-to-have-once-hosted-many-intriguing-cultures Celtsi. There's an exception to the crawling though! The Silicoids show up at Tau Cygni with a Colony Ship - and a Whale cruiser to escort it! Instead of turning around when they see us, the Whale's crew attacks, forcing our lone Sniff to flee! Well, there was nothing we could have done about that; we only discovered the place two years ago. That planet could make the Silicoids extremely dangerous ... so it's a good thing there are so few of them! Besides, rock-like people must have really well-preserved remains, and highly intriguing and different cultural histories! And we'll be meeting them shortly. Maybe when we sit down and talk, they'll even be friendly!
While we're getting whiffs of a delicous-smelling terran planet at Dolz in the southwest and the Mrrshans' ultra-poor arid world of Helos, the GNN droid comes back, up to its old tricks.
Apparently a virus wiped out over a thousand RP at the Darlok weapons lab. I breathe a sigh of relief that it didn't hit my planetology computers, but my biologist teams assure me that our computer systems are all too ancient and obsolete for a modern computer virus to affect them. ... Um, is this a good thing? That doesn't sound right. Let's see if we can get ourselves un-obsolete.
2354: Battle Computer Mark II, Class II Deflector Shields, and Hyper-V Rockets will be our new projects (gatling lasers are the only other thing my scientists could think of than these) as we colonize the honey-filled world of Celtsi ... but first, Yalara calls up to rapidly open and close her feline eyes at me (is this intended to communicate something?) and suggest that I join her for a "purrrrrfectly lovely night out with the other emperors." What is she talking about? I don't know any other emperors at all, though I expect I'm about to meet the Silicoids. She purrs something that is difficult to decipher - why can't she speak more clearly? - but the gist appears to be that everyone is getting together to vote for a ruler of the galaxy. Couldn't she have said that in the first place? Anyway, I of course will attend. I know just the kinds of historical preservation laws this galaxy needs, and I'm ready to proclaim them along with my candidacy. I'm sure everyone will vote for me.
Wait ... wait, no one even nominated me? What's going on here? Yalara is up against Sauron, a prickly-looking lizard, who receives 3 votes of support from the pricklier-looking Silicoids, plus 4 votes of his own. Yalara has 4 votes as well, and with the Meklar and Darloks abstaining with 4 apiece, she bends up the corners of her lips to show her teeth (is this meant to be aggressive?) and closes one of her eyes at me (is there dust in it or something?) and purrs, "Of course my dear RBO-14 will also vote for me." She is obviously confused: I am a bear, not a deer. On the other hand, since I at least know her, I should probably make an overture of solidarity. We're the only ones in the galaxy with proper fur instead of scales or rocks or metal casings or ... uh, what are Darloks made of? Cloaks, maybe. Plus, my three votes would put Yalara and Sauron in a virtual tie, which is appropriate. No election should have even the appearance of decisiveness if it's ignoring historical preservation policy. So I vote for Yalara after all, and she shows her teeth some more. I do not understand felines.
Anyway, the Silicoids stick around after the meeting to say hi, and I find out their leader is an aggressive technologist with eight stars to his name.
I call Mr. Rock on the holo-line, and Igneus (apparently his name) agrees to a small trade agreement. This reminds me to talk to Yalara again, so I dial her up, but before I can ask her, "What was that all about?" she makes a face that my advisors tell me is called a "sneer," and she purrs about how she played me like a harp from hail, or maybe from the hill - something like that; it's hard to understand her pronunciation, and I don't understand her feline metaphors - and purrs that she knows what I came for and that I'm not going to get it. I think that's what she says. I scratch my head and ask, "So ... you don't want to increase our trade agreement?" But it turns out she does want to do that, so I must have misunderstood. I ask about the harp thing, but she just laughs (I think that's a laugh) and purrs about how we're going to have a great time at the next council meeting in 21 years. I close the connection because I still have no idea what she's talking about, and that gets on my nerves. Figuring out cultures in real time is exhausting. Give me a cave painting by an eons-dead artist to examine at my leisure any old day.
2355: I spot my first Meklar fleet at the red star north of Dolz. It's just a Scout, which retreats from my Sniff, revealing the fiery world of Berel. Better yet, my scientists have come through with their Terraforming project! And the only way they can find to continue is exactly what I hoped it would be: Controlled Inferno Environment!
2356-9: My alert screen gives me a confusing message: I'm being attacked by a race that didn't appear at our election meeting! Perhaps I misunderstood Yalara when she said everyone would be there? And ... what exactly is a Guardian anyway?
... Oh.
Now that I think of it though, it was mentioned on the Grunt County artifact, so I guess that star must be Orion. Also, my Sniffs manage to scent out Silicoid Rha and Firma, Mrrshan Mobas, and the rich desert of Incedius in the south, while a Den is bringing the little desert of Ryoun into the Bulrathi fold.
2362: Reduced Waste technology is finally discovered, and our scientists eagerly start work on Improved Industrial Tech 8 since they can't think of anything better to do. That's okay though; it's pretty useful - and so is what they just learned. Not only does it make all our factories better, it allows me to design a new colony ship, the Deep Cave 1, to dig our bears in at Icedius and Dolz! Selia had been working on an old Den for Spica, but switches over immediately, strapping reserve tanks right onto the hull!
2363: Grrrrrraaaaaaarrrrrrrrr... There's a Silicoid fleet two or three parsecs from Celtsi, and I suspect it's coming for our world! Celtsi's still too new to build any kind of planetary defenses, and too far from the core to be sent a defensive fleet - and the incoming ships are a big Shark and three armed Colonies. It looks like our people may have to fight for our archaeological treasures! We start terraforming heavily to ensure as large and friendly a reception as we can give the rocky fleet. If they try to attack me, they'll rue the day they chose to do so ... and chose unwisely!
2364: Hrrrrrrumph! I was mistaken! That fleet's not bound for Celtsi at all ... but for our Ryoun colony! The little desert world is even newer and more helpless, and might not even survive a ground invasion - but we'll take plenty of rocks with us if they do try to come in! Grrrrrrrr... There's not much we can do there, but we'll do the little we can!
2365: It's worse than I feared!
The rocks fire on the planet from orbit, endangering countless irreplacable relics of the ancient galaxy! They murder a million innocents from space, destroying the planet's only factory, and then slaughter more millions of helpless colonists in transports before they can land! I'm learning what Silicoid culture is like in real-time ... and I'm not enjoying it one bit!
2368: We finally have Nuclear Engines, which means if our forces survive the battle of Ryoun, we may yet evict the Silicoid fleet! Though Dotomite Crystals are not without value, our next project will be Sublight Engines, so our fleets and transports will be able to deal with the Silicoid threat more effectively! Then the battle for Ryoun arrives, and the Silicoids have numbers and luck on their side (a lot of luck if I'm calculating the odds correctly). Ryoun is lost, though not without cost to the enemy. Grrrrrrrrrrr! We shall have our revenge! We had barely begun to sift the sands of that desert for its archaeological treasures! Our return to Ryoun must wait however: We have more important colonies, with greater promise of ancient pottery and fossils, still to acquire!
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Next: War!!!
