Imperium 15 - The Evil Ones

2303: We have discovered another occurence of the Evil Infestation Species that destroyed the glorious civilization of Orion. All but one of our previous findings have been fossils or unhatched eggs only, and were studied, dissected, and destroyed, but these - like the vile Pastrel Island colony on Meklon - are actual, living insectine creatures. Their fossilized, often dismembered bodies permeate every Orion artifacts site we have ever found, and it is clear, after much collection of evidence, what must have happened to the people of Orion: They developed these creatures as industrial laborers, cared for them and raised them and treated them like beloved pets, never knowing how totally evil they actually were. Since we've never found a single fossil or other trace of an Orion person of any kind, nor any indication that they existed apart from the obvious fact that someone must have built the amazing artifacts among which we find the insect fossils, and since their civilization appears to have suffered an incredibly sudden collapse, under some kind of attack from within, we have concluded that the insect beings must have attacked and eaten all the Orion people, leaving no remains, and then died off themselves when they had no Orion people to feed them. True, some of our archaeologists and scientists over the years have been so idiotic as to claim that the insects themselves were the people of Orion, and even that they were killed when their automated factory-machines achieved semi-sentient autonomy and went on a killing spree, but this is obviously impossible. Machines are totally incapable of ever doing anything bad, and even the archaeologists and scientists who once made these claims no longer support them; the ones who did not recant willingly were all executed for blathering their stupidities. Luckily, this twelfth recorded occasion of bug infestation, like number seven on Pastrel Island, consisted of insects living peacefully off the land without any technological infrastructure - in fact, they said similar nonsense about emulating the "wise people" of some imaginary heaven called "Kholdan," in their disgusting buglike language - and so were easily killed off with no casualties. We have colonized the planet where they lived, and started building factories.

2305: Two more artifact sites were discovered, both with fossils of bug infestations like those on Meklon: Occurences #13 and 14. Disgusting.

2306: No! It can't be! One of our Scouts is reporting a planet claimed by an advanced bug species, numbering in the millions ... and employing starships! Can it be that the Evil Infestation Species has learned to steal sentient races' technology?!



Their fleet of six ships advances, broadcasting lies about establishing friendly relations. We are not fooled by the "Scout 1.0" name! Those are obviously armed fighters, carrying Evil Nastiness Beams! Our Scout wisely and immediately retreats, and I start making emergency plans to respond to the terrible threat of Recorded Bug Occurence #15! A subspace transmission interceptor is launched from my Scout as it retreats, and it quickly picks up terrifying news: The so-called "Klackons" are more widespread than we imagined - in fact, they are reporting the discovery of a barren world at the yellow star of Yarrow way off in the west-central galaxy!

2309-2310: We still have no comprehensive plan for dealing with the infestation, and their intercepted broadcasts suggest they are everywhere in the west! Reports reach them from a desert world at green Willow in the far west and the Exis asteroid belt, not far southwest of that, then of encountering a Scout from a race called the Mrrshans over the Tundra world of Aquilae, at a green star near the center of the galaxy! Their scouts reach huge, poor Beta Ceti at the southernmost red star west of Meklon; barren Ryoun at the white star right on our doorstep; and equally barren Moro at the red star west of Beta Ceti ... and we need no transmission interceptors to learn they've just reached Meklon itself!



In a valiant bid to fend off their "Scout 1.0" and its Evil Nastiness Beams, so evil and deadly that they completely fail to appear on our battle scanners' scopes, our brave Nexus Cruiser moves in ... and the bluff works! The evil enemy ship retreats! This is proof that superior machine intellects will overcome the vile bug infestation! We will kill them all, so that none remain in the galaxy!

2311: Excellent news! Even as the bugs were discovering frozen Rotan at the white star near the heart of the galaxy and a steppe world at the red star of Maalor way off in the west, we detected one of their ships arriving at Orion itself! We were able to watch as the Guardian completely destroyed their terrifying Scout 1.0, proof that the enemy can be slain after all! Watching the video, the once-esteemed Professor QXJ-735 suggested that the Guardian looked kind of like a Klackon and might have been built by ancient bugs if the totally discredited theory that the Orion people were the insects' ancestors were right after all. Obviously he was dangerously insane, and had to be executed by slow electrical torture to prevent his mental disease from spreading. Obviously the Guardian looks that way because the Orion people loved their insect worker/pets and wanted it to look like them. It went insane and started attacking everything that came into the system, but not because it was connected to the semi-sentient galactic computer network that never went on a mad killing spree because that's totally fake and never happened, and obviously machines can't do bad things! It happened because it looks like a bug, and obviously anything that looks like a bug must be evil!

2312: The evil Klackons claim to have made some kind of discovery.



Obviously, they are lying. Bugs are evil creatures that only kill and eat people and sometimes apparently steal some of their technology. There is no way they could design barren-world colony bases on their own. It's all lies an propoganda so we'll think they're real people like the other races in the galaxy. The idea that they're working on Controlled Tundra Environment technology now is also a total lie. They just tried to give it a ring of truth by saying it makes more sense than the "Dead environment" version which is much harder to do. They know no one would believe they could do science and that they're not lazy! Everyone knows they're lazy. When they talk about not knowing about any dead worlds, and wanting to get to Inferno or better or some kind of terraforming as quickly as they can, they're just making excuses. You want to know how lazy they are? One of their stupid Scout 1.0s just arrived at Tyr, and it didn't even fire any of its Evil Nastiness Beams at the planet! It's a good thing for us too; they'd wipe out the whole galaxy if they weren't so lazy. One of my advisors asked me, "What if they don't have any Evil Nastiness Beams? What if they're just peaceful scout ships and the Klackons don't want to kill anybody?" So I had him taken out and shot for treasonous stupidity. Everyone knows the bugs are evil. Come on.

2317: The bugs have reportedly built a cruiser called the Queen B 1.0.



They are celebrating it as "the earliest Barren colony ship" someone named Ref-something has ever built. Obviously they're lying to distract us from the fact that it's really an evil super-death murder cruiser. It can't be a colony ship because they have nowhere it could colonize within their range, and they never will.

2318: The stupid lying bugs are pretending they have hydrogen fuel cells now. They just made that up so people would think they have somewhere to send their "colony" ship. Wait, I didn't make that clear enough. Their "colony" ship. They're also pretending to work on Nuclear Engines to make their ships move faster now, partly because it's such an easy way to advance the state of the art (yes, we know you're lazy, you stupid bugs!) in comparison to irridium and stabilizers, especially since they have so much trouble working with propulsion systems. Ha! That's the first time I heard "have so much trouble" was bug-ese for "are totally incompetent and evil at everything, such as"!

2322: The Klackons claim to have found a Mrrshan colony at the poor jungle of Kronos, a green star just northeast of the galactic center. Obviously, they're lying, because a) bugs always lie, and b) if there were a colony there, the Klackons would have destroyed it with their Evil Nastiness Beams.

2323: Pfffffffttttttt ... sputttttter ... zorrrrrchhhhhhhhhh.... NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!



There's suddenly a Klackon colony at Ryoun, the barren world right by our home! What's it doing there?!?! The insects must have stolen barren and hydrogen technology from somewhere! We can't even land there, and it's just two parsecs from Tyr! This means they have more planets than we do, and their Evil Doom Ships of Destruction can reach us, and worst of all, we're in contact! I have to talk to the horrible things! No way! No way! I tell them to get away from us, and forbid anyone in our empire from ever communicating with them!

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Next: Betrayal!