2386: Well, it's all fun and games until fighter pilots start coming home from the Vox defensive screen in urns - a few at first, and many more this year before the Turret, finally in place, got a grip on the largest fleet the birds have yet sent to that world. But at least we've by and large been winning our Alkari defensive war.
The Psilons sent too many ships to Rayden for my local forces to repel - about two hundred too many - and razed my latest colony to the planet's lifeless surface. Where millions of peacefully amorphous Darloks once lived, nothing but glass remains. It's high time we did something to bring a lasting peace!
Hmmm. After discussing the matter at great length with all of my advisors, I'm finally convinced: The best way to achieve peace is through the development of advanced technology. Specifically, the ability to deploy defense ships with high strategic speed will act as an effective deterrent - or obviating force if necessary - to alien attacks. So ... uh ... all I have to do is wait for some of my scientists to get in touch with me. I'd like to call up the propulsion teams, but they never leave a forwarding address ... and then I'm never sure who is a propulsion team, what with everyone always asking me what kind of scientist I want them to be....
2387: Well, at least they didn't make me wait! The black-cloak out in Psilon space is offering to be some kind of scientist already! He's willing to do anything but computer science and planetology, so it's awfully tempting ... the Psilons have have better improved industrial tech than me, personal deflectors, and weapons guaranteed to be an upgrade over what I've got already, and their propulsion guys do scattershot research, seemingly, with a bunch of useless range tech in addition to what I need. The safe bet would definitely be to collaborate with the guys from one of the other fields ... but fortune favors the bold!
I would like to take this opportunity to say, "Oh, yeah, baby!" No more waiting around for my ships to crawl across space! Sub-Light Drives are in - and you know what that means: That means Warp-2 transports, and defense ships running around at warp 3!
Oh, and the GNN droid keeps telling us all these statistical things. Last year, it was talking about advanced technology, where we were supposedly second to the Psilons, and now it's talking about fleet strength, where we're dead last - the brains have the lead on that one too - but honestly, I can't be bothered to pay any attention. Sorry. The main thing is, next year, we're going to finish a Deadland 3, and send it forth to reclaim Rayden as our own!
2389: Yet another Alkari fleet reached Vox this year, but I finally finished a missile base there, so even with 37 of their destroyers, there's nothing left to fear. Hopefully this will soon be true for Rayden also, where I built a colony this year for the second time; may it last forever this time ... or at least more than two years!
2390: Black Cloak the well-traveled reported from Fierias on the Mrrshan collaborations that yielded Merculite Missiles. The cats may not be good at much else, but they know their weapons! Hmmm ... now, what use will advanced weapons technology be to me?
2391: Well, there's an election coming up in less than a decade! You know what that means!
It's time to go out and do some campaigning with the other races! My advisors say these Warp-3 Diplomat smallcraft should be just the thing! I thought they could do without the inertial stabilizer, battle computer, and nuclear bomb that each one carries, but apparently they're necessary to qualify the quantum disruption associated with sub-light quasi-spacial field quotas. Whatever works, I guess. As long as they convince people to vote for me! Oh, and I took the advice of one of my black-cloak scientists; he said we should spend as heavily as we can on our cooperative projects with the Psilons, since there's some force field stuff they're working on which seems really promising!
2392: Wow! What a quick pay-off! One of the black-cloak guys is at Willow now, that ultra-poor Steppe way off in the west that the Psilons colonized with a big escort fleet last year, and he's managed to work with the Psilons to develop a Personal Deflector Shield! Plus, I was right that there's more than one of them, because another one reported from Paranar, with Mrrshanese plans for a Mass Driver! Our partners will keep getting better, too; the Psilons are going to just barely beat us to Crypto in the far southwest next year while we chase their fighters away from our Vox colony.
2395: Our first major diplomatic mission is underway!
It's a good thing we put those bombs and things on our Diplomats after all - the missile bases at Proxima tried to shoot at them! Luckily, we were able to clean up that misunderstanding - and the bases - and our first wave of election campaigners will arrive to spread the word there soon. It feels kind of weird not to spend any scientific collaboration money on the kitties though. We've gotten along so well for so long. But just last year, after finishing the cooperative project to develop Stinger Missiles, my Mrrshan-region Black Cloaks reported that the Mrrshan scientists didn't have any more shared projects in mind. Hopefully, we can come up with something later. I guess the idea is, anyway, we're concentrating all our efforts on the Brains: Our Diplomats, and the election campaigners, and now our research collaborators ... although of course since we're technically at war with Meson, the Black Cloak guys had to shape-shift into Meklar and pretend to be cyborgs while they were working out the details of Hydrogen Fuel Cells (Range 4) down at Crypto. It's pretty obsolete technology, but it's an important start, for establishing trust and that kind of thing.
2396: See what I mean? With trust fully established, our pretending-to-be-Meklar Black Cloak Guys worked together with the Psilons to get Fusion Drives at Willow this year! Now, that's a major step forward, in just one year!
2397: Great news! My election campaign at Proxima is a huge success!
The wise Psilon people of Proxima 5 have come to realize they can't in honor follow an emperor who insists on war with the peaceful Darlok people, and have therefore abandoned the war and petitioned to join my empire instead! They've even taken to wearing cloaks, sort of like the old-fashioned Darlok soldiers', apparently, in some kind of tribute to history and how we've abandoned war and everything. I gladly accepted their petition, naturally, and they turned over the plans for Hyper-X Rockets and Improved Industrial Tech 8 from their factories. This is truly a great date in galactic history!
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Next: The Ballots are Cast ... and so is the Die!
