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Leaving Maretta, 2356: How can they be so blind to the danger? I've just learned that the Humans are beginning to trade with the Meklar already - a 35 BC trade package, just like the Silicoids - as if completely unware that the machine-collective is preparing to take over the galaxy! Our best hope is for Emperor Strader to lead his allies into war against the Meklar as soon as possible, while they still have a sizable edge over the machines. Yet how can I help them to see the truth when I can't even get an audience with Emperor Strader? The captain won't divert from his course, so it may be years before I can reach Sol and apply directly. Sasha empathizes with me, but she can't convince the captain either; the best she can say, though it's something, in her kind, soothing voice, is, "Perhaps we can find another way." I will give it thought, with help from her; she doesn't seem to like the idea of talking to Emperor Strader for some reason anyway.
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Helos Orbit, 2360: None of us can survive on the toxic surface of the planet far below, but its Silicoid merchants come up regularly in shuttlecraft to make deals with outworlders like us. It gives me chills whenever I see a "trade ship" belonging to the Collective, but they are fortunately rare. Through them, I've managed to learn still more of RBO-23's progress, and that news is more chilling still. Last year, even as we received hopeful news from the planet that a Silicoid fleet had secured Klystron, just south of the Meklar core, I discovered that the Meklar had achieved a breakthrough that cut factory construction costs by a fifth, and were gathering momentum on a project to allow their repair nanites to heal their ships in moments, even in the heat of battle! Worse, just this year, I learned that the Meklar starfleet had been entirely converted for Irridium fuel cells already, and that it was beginning development of the most powerful sub-light engines that can be achieved in the realspace galaxy. Who knows what this will allow them to achieve?
Deep Space, 2362: More troubling news, I fear. The Psilon-Silicoid brush war continues; Dynalon has just taken the Ryoun system by storm, and is using it as a base for contact with the Meklar! RBO-23 has initiated trade with him to the tune of 40 BC per year, and Dynalon appears not to recognize the danger. At least the Silicoids have restrained themselves from declaring a hot war over the loss of their most valuable eastern colony. Still, if only I could get to Silicoid Emperor Carnax! Sasha has convinced me to seek it out before Emperor Strader. The Meklar suffer from extremely poor armament, there are known to be armed Morey and Shark destroyers and cruisers in the Silicoid fleet, and they hold worlds close to the Meklar core; if they would attack, with support or even peaceful acquiesence from the other races of the galaxy, we might end the threat of the Meklar once and for all! Yet I can't travel in a Silicoid vacuum ship, and the captain won't change course for Cryslon; he seems to care more about his profit margin than the fate of the galaxy!
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Hyades Spaceport, 2366: I'm up on the observatory again, looking out over the landscape of this small, arid world and up at its spectacular rings. Sasha is with me, and together, we are trying to make sense of all we've learned in the brief years since we came to this world - both from my tricks for eavesdropping on Meklar trade ships when they come in and from Sasha's Human acquaintances around the colony. It seems that three years back, the Silicoids claimed Toranor, the world at the heart of the nebula north of here - a world swimming in minerals, with no atmosphere but that of the nebula's thick, toxic gasses. Only a Silicoid could live there, and I'm glad they do, the better to build starfleets to bring the war to RBO-23. In the meantime though, the Meklar collective has been improving their defenses, doubling the strength of their deflector shields even as Carnax founded Toranor, and of their ECM Jammers just last year, and upgrading their rockets to class Hyper-V at the same time they improved their shields. It is rumored besides that they are now developing ion cannons, a personal combat shield, and - most recently of all - an improvement to their space scanners that will more than double their range and automatically gauge the speed and trajectories of ships in hyperspace. Yet these are no longer my greatest concerns.
This morning, I witnessed a secret exchange between a member of the collective and a Human scientist. If the Humans are still using the Hyper-V Rockets they just acquired from the Meklar by the time RBO-23 attacks, they're going to be crushed regardless - and though the technology behind the hand lasers the Meklar received in exchange isn't quite as advanced, those weapons will likely help Meklar soldiers significantly in the battles to come. In the end, Sasha is still right though: I must somehow reach Emperor Carnax. I keep coming back to a GNN report from three years back: Meklar productivity was the lowest in the galaxy, but the Humans weren't far ahead - and the Silicoids were second only to the Bulrathi, whose hands are full with their innumerable enemies, who have no contact with the Meklar, and who can hardly be approached while my Human hosts remain at war with them!
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Sol Orbital Spacedock, 2371: It seems a shame to finally reach the Sol system only to seek passage into Silicoid space. The Human homeworld is extraordinary, a vista of cloud and sea and land incredible to see, lit by the sun on the dayside, and astonishing with its sea of gleaming, lighted cities in the night. I've taken a shuttle down there at times, when I despair of finding transport to Cryslon, but never tried to approach the Imperial Palace. It must be a sight to see! The trouble is that I hardly know what to say, even if I could approach Strader in spite of the advice of so many with whom I have spoken. Just last year, the Psilons conquered Laan from the Silicoids, a continuation of their long-time brush wars, and in retaliation, Silicoid Emperor Carnax declared ... an alliance with them. I still haven't gotten my head around that one, but Sasha assures me it makes sense: Carnax was losing badly, and benefits far more from a powerful ally than from a powerful enemy in war. This is surely true, and surely good news, and another good reason to approach such a wise emperor - if I can find a ship that will take me to the right star! But this year, all of Sol is abuzz with the fate of the raft of transports they sent some time ago to conquer the Silicoid world of Klystron, right on the Meklar front! The transports will arrive next year, where missile bases and just-arriving starships might shoot them all down anyway, but even if not, the waste of sending them is horrifying! It reminds me all too well of the wars that raged on Meklon. How can any of the free peoples of the galaxy hope to defeat the Meklar if they're fighting with each other constantly?
Astropolis, Mentar, 2381: I don't know what to say. Sasha and I took passage here in the hope of finding merchants willing to carry us to Cryslon from this, its nearest neighboring star, but now I find the Psilons here embracing the Meklar against whom they should be preparing war, forging a non-aggression pact, a 300 BC trade agreement, and an exchange of the most advanced Meklar industrial construction technology for a battle computer twice as powerful as the one the Meklars field! It appears they had only waited this long to make sure the Psilons could hold Ryoun - now with four missile bases in place - and wouldn't fall out of contact range. This in the same year that Meklar merchants are revealing the presence of newly improved scanners at their worlds and high-speed engines for their ships, as they seek means of building a battle computer more than twice as powerful as the one provided by the Psilons, together with still-more-advanced engines that would harness fusion power. The only faint hopes I see are in the galactic elections, which six years ago for the first time offered RBO-23 no opportunity to claim the galaxy, and the continued and complete absence of advanced robotic controls from Meklar society.
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Cryslon Center for Extraterrestrial Visitors, 2394: Communicating with the Silicoids is more difficult than I imagined. I can't even leave the CEV, as they have polluted the entire world beyond ecological disaster, into a vast wasteland of airborn exhaust particles, industrial refuse, and slag. The Silicoids themselves seem to thrive in this environment, but nothing else can live here. Intercepted communications with a local Meklar trade shuttle suggest that RBO-23 now has personal deflector shields available, and is starting plans for massive planetary shield generators, but the greatest concern is their possession of technologies they did not appear to research at all!
The Silicoids noted a security breach at Aurora last year, around the time the Meklar databases started featuring inertial stabilizer designs; could that possibly be related? And their knowledge of deuterium fuel seemed to follow unusual trade activity near the Hyboria system in 2390. But what to make of their fusion bomb designs, appearing just as the Humans offered a formal protest to their Mrrshan allies over espionage activities? Or the Mark III computer design the Meklar started deploying around the time in 2384 when a Silicoid electronics lab investigation revealed signs of tampering, while the Meklar computer scientists were known to have been working - then as now - on Mark Vs? Is this paranoia? Meklar spies seem to be everywhere!
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Outbound from Cryslon, 2403: All my attempts to warn Carnax have met with failure. It considers itself above the conflicts of carbon-based beings, and imagines the Meklar cybernetic systems to represent a kind of common cause with its people. Nothing I say gets through its stony surface to its thought centers; to it, I am not the last surviving member of a species that has otherwise been assimilated entirely. I am just another biological entity. Sasha empathizes, and her gentle touch, running her fingers through the fur on my head and back, always soothes me, but I must go against her advice now, and return to Human space. If anyone can persuade Carnax and the other galactic emperors to bring war against the Meklar, it is the charismatic leader of Humankind, Emperor Strader. It was the Humans who rescued me from Maretta, and Human medical technology that keeps Sasha and me both young and healthy, long past my natural lifespan and hers, and it must be the Humans who will lead the galaxy to victory. Sasha urges me to try harder here, believing in my success against all odds, but every fruitless year we spend here is another opportunity for the Meklar to grow in power, as with the ion cannons they developed this very year, or the MRVing rockets they plan to devise. She urges me to return to nearby Mentar and help wise Dynalon see reason, but since the past election, when RBO-23 voted for him instead of Carnax, wise Dynalon has been foolishly pleased with the machines. Sasha tells me there is no hope in a trip to Sol, but my mind is made up, and I am going. It would be a lonely journey, but Sasha still is traveling with me. She, at least, understands the danger of which I speak, and as we trust in each other, we must stick together at least.
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Sol Imperial Palace, 2410: At last I have my audience with Emperor Strader! His mighty, commanding presence nearly awes me. His voice is deep and powerful as he tells me, "You are welcome here, Imblugorju." Some approving Human term with which I'm not familiar, displaying his command of language as well as people. I explain why I have come and the warnings I must give, and he responds, "Have no fear! I am well aware that the Flopu are everywhere, stealing our brainwaves in our sleep! We are prepared for them! Soon, they will regret their gigagimamikimiki!" He is truly great. I am almost put at ease, but just to make sure, I ask a few questions more, and he ... and he ... I ... ... Why wouldn't I listen? Sasha tried and tried to warn me. So overpowering is his charisma, the common people voted him emperor despite...
Gravely, with such force that I almost accept it as some kind of truth, Emperor Strader explains, "The green ones poke you flavorfully!" He squeezes his mighty right hand into a fist and places it in his left armpit, then flaps his left elbow up and down repeatedly, going on in the same stern, powerful voice, the same grave, serious tones, "Wakka-wakka-wakka-wee-floom-yittee-meatball!" Even in my darkest fears, my worst nightmares ... and yet it's true. He's insane.
Strader was my last hope, and now all hope seems vain. Three years ago, the Meklar devised a highly advanced computer, and started working on applying it to equally powerful ECM. Two years ago, they developed the means of building filters into their cybernetic bodies that would allow them to survive on toxic worlds, and began plans for the enrichment of the soil of their worlds. Just last year, they improved their engine designs to take advantage of fusion power, and started casual work on a warp dissipator device ... and I suspect the theft of a minor industrial technology from Stalaz, the nearest Human world to Meklar space, wasn't truly the work of Mrrshans, as it seemed to be, with that reportedly cat-like race way off at the opposite side of the galaxy. And this year, if I correctly understand these intercepted messages from trade shuttles here at Sol, the Meklar nanites have been upgraded for swift repair of their battle fleets, with plans to reinforce their hulls in the future with a form of armor known as Zortium. They have a Probe 4.0 destroyer, with twin ion cannons, ready to scan their targets' fleets, and are drawing the Psilons ever more into their sphere, trading obsolete terraforming technology for an obsolete deep space scanner as a sign of cooperation while persuading Dynalon to break his alliance with the Silicoid people. The writing is on the wall. Memories from Meklon are haunting me.
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Next: First Strike!
