"I was hoping for a little more fanfare when I brought the plans for a warp dissipation device, especially now that my team is starting work on Impulse Drives. I think I'll go sit in a corner and mope for a bit, alright? Doesn't anybody like new discoveries anymore? Doesn't ... wait, what's that you say about Agent Lestrade? Isn't he out in Psilon space? You say he broke into a what?
"Wow! Robotic Controls 3 from a Psilon lab! That oughta give us a huge head start on factory building from the computer scientists' RC4 project! Send Lestrade my congratulations!
...
And tell him to upstage somebody else's discoveries next time, alright?"
2450
"Ah, good evening, Xantak. I see you've finally managed to reclaim Tau Cyg..... Wait a minute. You're not Xantak!"
"Well, then. Good evening, Saurak! It's a pleasure to finally meet a fellow pacifist ... instead of another lunatic like your Bulrathi and Klackon buddies. Um ... speaking of which ... you wouldn't be willing to break up your military alliance with the ursines, would you? What with their erratic war declaration on us a few years back and all, it seems like the pacifistic thing to do would ... a militarist you say? You're a pacifistic militarist?"
...
"Ummmm ... so I guess I have to take back what I said about 'instead of another lunatic,' eh?"
2451
"Yup, hi, Saurak. Sorry we didn't try to establish trade with you or anything last year. One problem is that we don't see you holding on to Spud Cygni very long. Oh, you have alliances now, yeah, fine. We'll see how long those last with your erratic neighbors though. But the other problem is those exact alliances. See, we figured it wouldn't be long before ... what's that you say? Going to war with us already? Very pacifistic of you, buddy. Anyway, yeah, I think you've just covered my second point for me - wouldn't you say?"
2452
"Hiya, Bullux. What's up? Oh, I see. So, just as we're finishing development of a Repulsor Beam and starting work on a class-ten planetary shield, and incidentally just one year after bringing your Sakkra friends into the war, you want peace? Mmmmhm. You're crazy like a fox now, aren't you, mister bear? Well, far be it from me to reject a peace offer anyway. Let's get trade going again, shall we?"
...
"Um, sure. Yeah, I'll join you in donning the Googly-Eye-Glasses of Peace and the Dance of Stumbling Blindly Around the Room While Singing Hail to the Chef. Just assume I'm with you on that if the audio and image on my transmission suddenly cuts out, alright?"
2454
"Agent Tyler reporting in from Ursa! Terrific news! We've got a real battle computer now! I just lifted a Mark 3 from ... guys? Guys?! Where's everyone going? What's this I hear about Robotic Controls 4 and Cloning technology? Is that party music in the background? Hey, why can't I be in on the party? I'll bet you couldn't have gone straight on to an Advanced Scanner along with Advanced Soil Enrichment if not for the computer I just brought in. You'd be ... hey! Will someone at least listen to me?"
2456
"Hi, Bullux. If your patience is exhausted, I guess that tells us something about its half-life anyway; we've only been at peace for four years. Anyway, I believe you that it'll be war if we keep expanding. Given your history, it's going to be war at some point for no reason anyway. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some factories to help assemble with our new IIT6 technology. Have fun competing with our production base, okay?"
2462
"Heh, and get this: Tyler called an old Mark 3 a 'real battle computer.' Riiiiiight."
"Yeah, you and I know what 'real computer' means! Thanks for the Mark 6; I'm sure you Psilons will have a great time experimenting with your clones. Just remember not to get 'em wet or feed 'em after midnight, okay? Oh, and I wouldn't worry about losing contact. Not with the Stinger missiles we developed for our bases four years back, and the Mark 3 ECM plans we got from Tyler out in Bulrathi space this year. We're pretty confident these days - even took Tau Cygni's orbit. It's still a spud for now, but we'll see what happens when our troops show up to take the place!"
2464
"Sir, this is Captain Amur reporting from Tau Cygni. It seems some Klackon transports managed to slip in and take the planet again. I hope that doesn't cause too much trouble on the interspecies relations front, what with our transports already en route there and everything. On the plus side, the Sakkra won't be able to blow up any more of our factories for a while - not that we care that much about the two they got on Berel last year - and it looks like we managed to trade our old Hyper-X rocket design to the bugs for their old mark 2 computer technology. I know they're allied with the other races in the theater, so our ground forces are probably going to be going up against bugs, but ... you know, we'd be at war with them soon enough anyway. The bugs are crazy."
2467
"Special Agent Jack Trapper reporting from Tau Cygni. I was all set to head out and transmit the good news from a secret installation in the Ixilixitixilixil Ice Field (now known as the Dudeitstotallycoldouthere Ice Field) until I saw our transports dropping in. So I figured I'd save myself a trip and report from the Central Planetary Relay. I snuck plans for a Mark 4 computer out of the computational lab here before the battle, and set myself up for a front-row seat watching our boys take the planet by sheer weight of numbers. Not a bad way to break contact with the Klackons; they obviously needed an alliance to reach this place. Plus we got to meet someone new in the crazy bugs' place!"
"Okay, so he's a xenophobe, but Darquan's already agreed to a huge trade package anyway, not to mention non-aggression. What can you say? I guess everyone loves monkeys! In fact, I hear you traded cloning around some more, for Zortium armor from the bears and a trick for doubling our terraforming capabilities again from the lizards. Not bad at all, I must say. But don't be too eager for those kinds of trades. Don't go and put us intel agents out of work, okay?
"Oh, and you might notice some Klackon transports about to show up here too. I wouldn't worry. See where their fleet is retreating? Our starforce isn't letting anything through."
2472
"I have a report in front of me from the Primodius garrison commander. It appears that the Bulrathi are sending an enormous fleet, but he remains unconcerned. The Class X planetary shields our tech boys developed three years back should hold off just about anything the bears can throw at us, and we'll have ours set up long before they get here. It should be fun to see the looks on their faces when we develop Class 7 deflectors to layer with them, too!"
2474
"Hey guys, Agent Tyler here. I just want to say, I'm sure it wasn't related, but I kind of heard some snickering in the background when I transmitted the plans for sub-light drives last year. I know they're kind of outdated, but it's not my fault the bears are so lame. Anyway, I hope you appreciate the work I do on these backward Ursine worlds even if the fruits aren't so great. At least it's something, right? Even if I don't know what it's good for. Like this inertial stabilizing thingy I pulled the plans for here. Let me know if you ... what's that? Medal of Honor?! Really? Are those starship engineers in the back there doing a dance? Are you saying the inertiawhatsit's really valuable or something? Clue me in, okay?"
2476
"Tyler again, reporting from Ursa. Any truth to the rumor one of my colleagues nabbed Controlled Dead Environment over at Sssla earlier this year? Oh, and I picked up some plans the Bulrathi had lying around in a high-security core somewhere, for making something called a Battle Suit. Think it'll be good for anything much? I heard the guy at Sssla had a chance to pull a frame job, and passed it up since it would be gauche or something, so I did the same. I hope that's okay."
2480
"This is GNN Correspondent Rob O'treporter coming to you live from Sol 3, where the Human people are celebrating an extraordinary achievement."
"For the first time in their history, the ape-people's GNN power ranking exceeds every other race's in the galaxy - even above the Psilons themselves, though only by the slimmest of margins. Both the Psilons and Darloks threatened their Human trade partners today with retaliation for their extraordinary success, but Human diplomats took it in stride. One source, who prefers to remain nameless, explained it thus: 'They can complain all they like. We had to crawl out of the basement, and we're still on the way up. It only gets better from here.' This year saw the development, by human construction engineers, of another improvement to their factory construction techniques, which will be followed by still another in due course, but the biggest news from human space comes from their little starfleet. Other races have far larger - but for some reason typically far less effective - star forces, but the Humans feel so confident in their defenses nonetheless that they have volunteered to remove the scourge of pirate activity based out of the asteroid fields of Celtsi. For further reports on the pirate situation, brought to light in a GNN exclusive earlier this year, let's go to Dr. O. I. Dexpert in the studio."
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Next: Warming Up
