2397: New fusion drives speed our transports and open up new ship designs as Paranar brings the age of expansion to a close.
Every star that harbors a world has a colony now - most often one of ours - except for the one where the Guardian resides.
So the age of concentrated attention must end at last. If a rumbling rolls in the mountains with every moment, it will not be long ere the peace is broken with explosive power. I must again be calm within the deep peace of the mountains, and let time and the galaxy come my way.
2401: Disappointment, but no surprise. The Psilons attacked rich Incedius with a fleet of sixteen cruisers, and the world was still too small to defend itself. My Silicoids traded for a few defensive technologies, and assembled a few fighters and a missile base at the world, but it wasn't nearly enough. They bombed the world, eliminating the few dozen factories we'd finished along with any chance of stealing our technology, but had they not, enough of our people might have survived to repel their invasion this year, and our fleets from the east and the south might have had time to arrive and end the threat once and for all.
Instead, we lose the world - but we shall return here, for Incedius is rightfully ours. There was a vote last year as well, or so I am told. We hold a veto over the proceedings which we shall not relinquish until the end of time.
2406: A large Alkari fleet arrives at ultra-poor Aquilae, but one of our new NPG/auto-repair Neutron Star dreadnoughts is present, the N-Star 4.0, and the enemy quickly flees. Every one of the soft-skins responds in quick succession to complain that we're too strong for them - except of course for our blood enemy, who expresses the same feeling by breaking our non-aggression pact, just a dozen years after it was formed.
2407: Still must they trouble me? Shortly after learning from GNN that the world of Vulcan has rebelled, denying the Prophecy of Cryslon and rejecting my oracle words, the present incarnation of Bladrov II goes from breach of NAP to all-out war. Vulcan will be retaken immediately, but population is what we can least afford to lose, and this will cost us millions. The humans' actions, of course, surprise nobody.
2415: Over the past several years, critical combat technologies have been developed, and work began on the study of cloning rock beings, while our dreadnoughts and missile bases repelled human and Alkari fleets. At last, this year, we achieve a breakthrough of our own against our blood enemy.
Our spies bring us our first space scanner, finally giving us intelligence beyond a three-parsec range of our colonies. We can only hope an advanced scanner will someday be ours as well.
2417: Trying to return to the long peace, I missed a human attack on poor Talos until it arrived. There was never any doubt about who is merely a misguided soft-skin and who is our blood enemy, and the humans make it clear again by bombing the poor little world from orbit and erradicating the colony. An empty victory for mankind: The colony will be rebuilt soon enough, and better defended.
2428: Tyranid becomes the third emperor to break a non-aggression pact with us this decade - Klaquan was the first, in 2420 - including Tachaon the dishonorable Psilon, who discarded his pact two years ago after asking us to make it just seven years before. The rock beings now have more than half the vote in the galactic council, thanks in part to the development of cloning in 2420. It led the way toward advanced soil enrichment, which we cannot use ourselves, but in the long term, my long term, may be of very great value. Our spies too have been continuing their good work, following up more computer thefts from bugs and humans by stealing designs for an inertial stabilizer from Altair and for a mass driver from Mentar. Tachaon reacted at once, the year after breaking our NAP, with a declaration of war.
As the power graphs from that year suggest, this was not a wise move on his part, but he is young, after all, only ninety. His predecessor died in 2418, and like all soft-skins as it seems, passed his name on to his successor.
2430: The time has come. Our spies continue their thefts, and our scientists add to their recent successes with two of the most critical breakthroughs in our long, long history: An advanced space scanner, and advanced soil enrichment. The first will give me warning of all incoming fleets, and explore the farthest reaches of the galaxy for me. The second is unusable by Silicoids, so I make peace with the humans and trade it to them for Class V deflector shields. After this, it will just be a matter of waiting for them to enlarge all their worlds for me. As for their fellow dishonorable soft-skins, we are done with waiting. We will not invade the Psilons' worlds, but Incedius is not theirs by right, but ours; they merely took it by force after we had declared the humans our blood enemy. An invasion is launched, supported by hundreds of bombers and fighters and an N-Star 4.1, coordinated to arrive in three years - three mere moments for me.
2433: The Klackons declared war two years ago, but do not worry me; more technology thefts were outclassed by my scientists' work: Anti-matter bombs for the future, and a personal absorption shield ready to be fitted on the andrium exoskeletons of troops already en route to Incedius, plus Ion drives to speed our conquest of our blood enemy.
First, of course, we take back what is ours from the Psilon interlopers, claiming Incedius easily. Psilon fleets are due to arrive again, but the fighters I'm leaving behind, together with the bases soon to be built at this rich world with 106 intact factories, its population already high and soon to be maximized from off-world, with maximum reserve spending, mean there shall be no repetition of the planet's conquest. The disappointment of finding no technology among so many factories is more short-lived than even a soft-skin, thanks to our spies' efficiency. As for the rest of the fleet that took the world, they are on the move. They will soon be needed elsewhere in the galaxy.
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Next: The Great War
