The Silicoids' twelfth world, won by the last surviving batallion of invaders, was taken from the talons of the Alkari. From all indications, it happened at the same time that another Silicoid star fleet was arriving in the Zhardan system, and yet another invasion ordered to claim it for Silicoidkind. Not until three years later did the first Alkari combat ships arrive at Zhardan, only to narrowly lose the space battle, in the same year that Alkari engineers, far behind the curve, apparently learned to improve their industrial construction techniques for the first time in their interstellar history. While this was happening, the Silicoids apparently were taking steps to cement their rule over the galaxy.
A council of leaders was convened in the year 2375, ironically triggered by the advent of a new Alkari colony at Rayden - their tenth in the galaxy. According to an article on the subject preserved by a miracle on solid-state media, the Mrrshans and Humans supported Granid's bid for galacitc rule as "High Master," but the Darloks, Meklar, and Alkari all abstained from voting, perhaps in protest at the suddenness of the council, thus invalidating the election. The fact that Granid's nominal opponent, Regent Bitternson Osprey the 26th of the Alkari, garnered not a single vote - not even the five cast by his own people - is suggestive of the power of the Silicoids of that period in the galaxy.
All of this is difficult to reconcile with the events of the following year: The Alkari, perhaps anticipating the possibility that their first fleet would not suffice, had dispatched a second, larger combat fleet to the Zhardan system - and instead of falling before the might of the local Silicoid assault craft, it proved victorious. A commemorative mural preserved for eons beneath Zhardan 4's bone-dry sands, shows the final exchange of the battle, as well as new ships winging their way through the deeps of space to intercept Silicoid combat transports already en route.
With their fleets in orbit, and ground troops outnumbering the invaders two to one even before the fleets opened fire, the Alkari held the system easily in the same year they developed a deep space scanner to provide early warning of future hostilities. As their scientists continued to come through with a new rocket design and the best available sub-light engines, the Alkari saw the tide begin to turn in their favor in the year 2381, when long-preserved transcripts of mining reports on fertile Neptunus - the first interstellar Alkari colony - indicate the discovery of unexpected Neutronium deposits deep beneath the planet's surface. As terraforming research completed, the Alkari appear even to have taken the lead in imperial production among all the races of the galaxy, before the year 2390. At this point, all indications suggest that their research and colonization efforts took off, culminating in this image, apparently a long-preserved hard copy of RBO-26's actual voting presentation for the 2400 election:
Though the Alkari appear to have abstained in protest after again receiving no support from any other race, they held more votes than any other species in the galaxy, and a full veto on all Council proceedings. The course that matters took from there may well be imagined without the aid of any revelations from artifacts of the era. Yet we are left with a number of mysteries:
The star of Talas - the same system that had been struck by a plague some years before - nearly exploded in a supernova before Meklar scientists invented a solar rejuvenator and restored it to its former glory. Common wisdom would have it that lightning does not strike twice in the same place, but our archaeological findings seem to suggest that on the contrary, lightning seems drawn to certain places, such that they are struck again and again.
Another mystery is that of Alkari-Mrrshan relations.
Empress Prrsha's surviving memoirs, as well as every reference to Alkari we've been able to find among Mrrshan artifacts and writings, speak of the Alkari as a race of demonic avian beings, desiring only the ruin of all things Mrrshan and deserving of nothing but death. Yet the Alkari writings typically refer to the Mrrshans with a kind of wistful affection, and the increasingly powerful Alkari empire refrained for decades from responding to Mrrshan provocation, even when this "provocation" consisted of a declaration by Prrsha of open war, soon after the two races met. The war was entirely phony - Professor Arrchibald, our best authority on the subject, believes this was because Alkari fuel and environment technology had been necessary to establish contact in the first place, leaving the Mrrshans unable to attack, while the Alkari themselves had no wish to prosecute war - but neither the Mrrshan hatred nor the Alkari forbearance in the face of it can be readily explained.
It must also be remembered that the Silicoids remained a power in the galaxy, though the Alkari had begun to eclipse them in certain areas.
The date of this document is uncertain, though radiosynchronous dating places it somewhere in the 2430s, and its nature is likewise unclear, but whether it was meant to be an intelligence report for government officials or a motivating factor for scientists, it lists all the techs possessed by the Silicoids at that time which the Alkari lacked. Especially in the case of force fields - an area of research which the Alkari inexplicably continued to shun - the list was obviously extensive, including numerous dangerous weapons, biological and otherwise. Yet the Alkari appear to have remained largely unconcerned until an event likewise hinted by this document that shook the foundations of the galaxy.
_______________
Next: War and Doom
