Flush with the optimism - to say nothing of the memory and attentiveness - of youth, Raiju began her fourth life by finally realizing she still had an inferno world to colonize, and had known the secrrets of inferno landings for years. The Hearthstone colonyship she ordered would provide a warm and cozy place for her happy citizens to curl up and sleep, safely out of Xudax's burning flames. In the meantime, prropulsion scientists finally brrought us a stable form of irridium fuel in 2392, and much to Raiju's pleasure, began work on Sub-Light Drives. In the meantime, more Scratch fighters were being produced so that the empire's cardboard cut-outs of defenders would at least be more numerous.
The Tao that can be repeatedly forced to repel Darlok and Psilon war fleets is Not the Tao.
Unlike the Darloks, who had only begun to mount serrrious attacks several decades into their war, the Psilons wasted no time in sending their battle fleets. This is likely because the far-more-powerful Psilons simply had more fleets on hand to send; they were ready for battle as soon as they declared. Raiju's rich point world was equal to the threats however, destroying or driving off every enemy fleet that approached, even as one of her long-range tundra lander made a bold move into the heart of the galaxy. The reach colony of Kulthos, driving deep into Psilon space, had been planned, and its SnowLeopard launched, back in Raiju's third life, before the war declaration incrreased the planet's risk factor and importance overwhelmingly, and its completion triggered a grratifying GNN report in 2393: The Mrrshans were the first to control 12 planets in the galaxy, finally edging out the Meklar by a single world.
The ice world of Kulthos also gave Raiju contact with Kelvan's allies: An equally crazy Bulrathi ecologist, and a reputedly pacifistic diplomat named Tyranid, neither of whom had any affection for the Mrrshan people. The Sakkra reluctantly grranted an annual trade agrreement amounting to 35 BC, but the bears refused to even trade, and would accede to their Psilon allies' demands, declarrring warrr on the Mrrshans the following year.
War and Peace
Fiery Xudax was soon added to the empire, with the northern fleet running interference for the latter, seeking to ensure the far northwest remained available for Mrrshan colonies. Spirrrits were high as the Sakkra ended their Psilon alliance on their own while Newscouts discovered yet another toxic world ultra-rich in mineral resources, at Escalon. The very next year however, Tyranid changed his pacifistic mind, and declared open war.
The galaxy as Raiju knew it, circa 2399. Note the peculiar status of Fierias.
Both Kakata and Stalaz were under attack in this period, from Darloks and Psilons respectively, and the discovery of the Guardian was of little consolation, especially to the relatives of the Newscout pilot who made the discovery. Then our knowledge of how to survive on a radiated world arrived not a moment too soon, as the old Rrrasp-era factories on Fierias, which - unbeknownst to Raiju - had been built far below accepted safety standards, suddenly lit up the sky of our one-time homeworld. Thanks to the planet's sparse population - after peaking in the fourth decade of the 24th century, Fierias had constantly exported catpower to other colonies, and rarely had a population exceeding 40 million - no lives were lost in the massive radiation accident, with residential property built comfortably far away from the world's few industrial zones. Nonetheless, the planet had become a radiated world, and work had to begin immediately to clean up the worst of the waste and assemble radiation shields for the planet's living communities. The Soil Enrichment prroject Raiju had elected to purrsue immediately lost a little of its luster as one of the two largest soil-enabled worlds in the empire was suddenly rendered incapable of using the technology-to-be.
The industrial accident also crrippled the Mrrshan's chance to achieve a veto in the election due to come up the following year, and with total population so high there was no guarantee she could avoid a nomination even if she took the lunatic measure of shipping half the empire's total population back and forth between worlds in transports, Raiju was almost desperate for peace.
Raiju agrrees to Darquan's demand for the secrrets of Inferno bases, knowing that if all fourrr of her wars continued, with her one friend expected to be her opponent, she would receive no support at all in the upcoming election.
She achieved it with the Darloks by teaching them to survive on such fiery worlds as Xudax, thereby ensuring that she survived the election, abstaining with exactly one third of all electoral votes while Darquan gave her his promised pair of votes, CB-715 voted for itself, and everyone else voted against their feline enemies ... in favor of their machine enemies. Her estimation of the danger had been right on the money.
One year after cleaning up the waste their factories created, the people of Fierias watched eight of the things get blasted into atoms by enemy agents (or maybe Darlok agents with time on their hands who didn't feel like hiding in spite of the new-made peace). The factories would never be rebuilt.
Fierias experrriences a rough turn of the century, grraduating from hopeless backwater to open joke.
Enemy ships continued to ply the stars, including a Psilon Sun Fire, the first battle cruisers we had encountered in the war, but Stalaz was up to five missile bases, the enemy didn't muster any really overwhelming fleets, and the Tao that can blow enemy starships out of the ionosphere contininued to be Not the Tao. A pair of armed Bulrathi colony ships tried to take the reach colony of Kulthos, but were met by our Southern Defense Fleet, and torn to pieces in 2404.
Our defenses were further bolstered that same year, as our latest shield technology was completed, and work began on Class IV Deflector Shields, to Chief Advisor Rrref's grreat disappointment (who, like most of Raiju's advisors, had hoped for a way to design a planetary shield instead) ... and Regulus was founded: The second rich world in the Mrrshan imperium. The battle for Kulthos was not over however. A Psilon colony ship arrived the next year, whittling down the remaining Scratch fighters before being destroyed, and the following year, they arrived with a significant fleet.
Though they could still turn aside feeble probes with ease, by the 25th century, the Mrrshans' slow, outdated fighters were too old and spread too thin to resist a war fleet without support from missile bases.
Sublight drives were so close to completion that there had been no point in trying to reinforce the world with more hopeless Warp 1 ships, and the remains of the old defense fleet were forced to retreat. Receiving heavy emphasis but long refusing to cooperate, the Drives would finally arrive in 2408, opening the way to Fusion Drives in lieu of an energy pulsar. With two more military technologies on the brink of completion, the Mrrshans were nearly ready to join the warrr in earnest.
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Next: Flashpoint!
