The third reign of Raiju Bastet Ocelot XVII began with the same eagerr, youthful currriosity as her first and second, resulting in scientific pilot prrojects in the fields of computers, force fields, and weapons technology. In 2360, the results of the early tests came in, and Raiju ordered that work begin on a Deep Space Scanner for intelligence purposes, forgoing a battle computer for the time being, and Class II Deflector Shields as well as Hand Lasers to support the Mrrshans' increasingly important defense forces. Indeed, her currriosity would bearrr immediate fruit, as she returned from a meeting with Mad Kelvan the verrry next year with the secrrets of simple terrraforming technology - the first everr encountered by the Mrrshan people!
A Psilon scientist demonstrates the application of Improved Terraforming +10 in exchange for Controlled Barren Environment technology.
Two years later, with the Nordia jungle colony established the year before as its 7th world, the Mrrshan empire finally had a planet that was permitted to build starships again: With the completion of its 190th factory, Raiju's lone rich world began producing an IceCave or Litter colony ships every year or two until the Darloks' first probing war fleet appeared.
The Struggle Commences
Darquan had been at war with Raiju's empire for nearly three decades by the time he decided to send an armed starship into Mrrshan space. In 2372, his heavy laser destroyer, the Scorpion, arrived at our front-line rich world, and fled from our nuclear missile base and tiny defensive fleet. This was only as it were a shot across our bows though, to warn Raiju that the war was about to heat up.
Mrrina Stingrray demonstrates her trademark coy demureness, giving all the credit to her support team as she reveals the secrrets of Class II Deflector Shields, which she had stolen from the Darloks. Aggrressive and impetuous at heart, Mrrina reveled in the attention lavished on her by the Mrrshan media even as she prretended not to understand its cause. The ongoing Stingrray trimensional movie serrries remains a box office juggerrnaut to this day.
With their work completed for them by an espionage team, Raiju's force field scientists began work on Class III Deflector Shields in 2373. Vulcan completed the wall of Mrrshan colonies to the Darloks' east the following year, and was ready to develop rapidly, as improved factory-building techniques were finished in 2375, along with - to the Mrrshan's relief, as no Meklar ships seemed to be incoming - the Aquilae colony. Moreover, before the end of the year, that relief was turned to jubilation: Raiju's new colony had triggered a galactic election, and she was not only nominated to face the Meklar emperor, but the recipient of 8 votes against the 6 cast by Darquan and CB-715. With just enough votes of her own to push herself over the top and achieve galactic supremacy, Raiju instead cast them for the Meklar, in a gesture of goodwill and peace. It was her belief that the other races had voted for her only because of the war of All Races That Don't Start With an M vs. CB-715 - prrobably the result of Kelvan's place at the center of the galaxy. Many historrrians now believe that, thanks to the huge prroduction, export, and interstellar popularrrity of Mentar's many brands of runny cheese, Kelvan likely had alliances with every other species when he spotted a superrmarket adverrtisement for Ploofy Aftershave, decided it was a massive Meklar conspirrracy, and brought everyone else into his resulting war with the machine species.
In any case, though flattered, Raiju did not feel ready to take on the burden of galactic rule; many of her own Mrrshan colonies were barely getting started, after all; she'd have enough to do just looking after them.
The Northern Defense Fleet, shown here destroying an armed Meklar Colony Ship in the skies of Aquilae, would never have been adequate if not for its gunners' feline reflexes. All the more so for the joke of a Southern Defense Fleet, shown here taking out a Scorpion destroyer above Kakata the same year. With the empire's one source of ships much closer, the southern front was left all but unprrotected at first in spite of its hot war.
With her small fleets of Scratch 1.0 fighters stretched thin even repelling enemy incurrsions on her own worlds, Raiju was unable to prevent an armed Meklar colony ship from taking Nitzer, beyond her Aquilae colony and directly north of Mrrshan space. With the stars of the deep northwest suddenly contested by the Meklar, and growing threats in both the north and south, Raiju turned to Ion Cannon research to improve her fighters' weapons as soon as hand lasers rolled out, in 2381. Fusion Bombs had the potential to be useful, but not until far in the future, if a real war broke out when the Mrrshans were prepared to carry the battle acrross interstellar space. Hyperr-X Rockets would also have some value if the cannons didn't suggest a better missile upgrade to our weapons scientists. The then-currrent fighter fleet would demonstrate its inadequacy the very next year at Kakata, as a pair of Scorpion destroyers got in a series of lucky shots and took out Raiju's southern "fleet" before the second of the pair could be taken down. Another, much larger defense fleet was built and sent down immediately, while Kakata itself scrambled to assemble a missile base. Three years later, in spite of the armed colony ship that had joined the Scorpion, Kakata was saved; only one of the nearly thirty new Scratch fighters was lost, and the surviving defenders shot down all the incoming Darlok transports.
With Kakata's new defenses holding, Mrrshan scientists developed Inferno colony bases, and in spite of the value of soil enrichment to finally improve potential Mrrshan population, and of an antidote to the threat of death spores - in spite of having researched no planetology tech to date but environmental control technology - Raiju elected to continue with Controlled Radiated Environment, to claim the galaxy's most hostile worlds - two of which were already known to be rich and ultra-rich.
2387 brought the completion of the Mrrshans' first scanner upgrrade, just two years after they had developed inferno base technology. Research proceeded with Battle Computer Mark III as the only way to advance the computer state of the art, and tried to put a good face forward, but her declining health was catching up with her, and her scientists' failure to conceive new robotic controls may have taken a toll. The final blows came in 2388, when a wealthy Psilon merchant decided to live among the Sakkra, paying 800 billion credits to the lizard government for right of passage, and Kelvan decided to emulate the merchant. His new philosophy became, "Just enjoy yourself! Don't worry about the consequences! Try whatever fun idea first pops into your head!" And so he did.
The Psilon war declaration of TwenTy Three eighTy eighT.
As the technology leader of the galaxy, allied with both races whom the Mrrshans had yet to meet diplomatically, controlling the center of the galaxy, Kelvan prromised to be a serrrious threat, particularly in light of the continuing risk of cold war from the Meklar in the north, the ongoing hot war with the Darloks in the south, and warp 1 engines limiting Mrrshan defense fleets to holding a single front - and for the most part, a single world - apiece. With only a single world from which to build combat ships of any kind or civillian vessels like scouts and colony ships, and those same warp 1 engines keeping even these from contributing until years after they were built, the Mrrshans were in grrave danger. Raiju held on for two more years, but died for the third time in the year 2390.
_______________
Next: Under Fire
