Scientific endeavors were more heavily funded by a government increasingly terrified of its enemies' technological advantages, and the results seemed initially promising, with ecological improvements developed the very next year, followed by gatling laser designs two years later. While the effect was real, it was also small; mere government funding of top-level research couldn't combat the sheer cultural force of Mrrshan disinterest in the sciences and general apathy. Regardless of funding, the top-level scientists actually performing cutting-edge research kept dwindling in number as those who retired were replaced by fewer, less competent, or more image-obsessed Mrrshan people.
At the same time, the galaxy's other races were thriving. The Silicoids in particular received yet another boost in 2362 ... though the newsdroid needed a new events icon to describe it, as the rock people - while benefiting from the increased habitable area of their planet - could not have cared less about its actual fertility.
Darlok spies meanwhile continued to wreak havoc, destroying five factories at distant Paladia in 2365, and spotting an opportunity to strike when a cruiser and three of their colony ships took control of the ultra-poor Herculis system's orbital pathways. Recognizing the inevitable, the Mrrshans evacuated as many people as they could from Herculis toward nearby Neptunus. The Darloks, having recently developed duralloy armor for their troops, would inevitably take the hapless colony and its complete absence of mineral wealth. Traveling through the nebula, they did just that in 2371 ... incidentally wiping out years of progress in Mrrshan-Silicoid trade.
RBO-31 continued to do everything possible for a mere head of government, but still failed to recognize the true threat to the Mrrshan people: Their own culture of ignorance that continued to strangle them in their cat's-cradle. Even when new means of reducing industrial waste were discovered in 2373, the few materials physicists still capable of doing meaningful research in the empire had to set their sights on a minor improvement to industrial techniques rather than on duplicating Darlok duralloy armor simply because the project promised a swifter return - one they might at least accomplish before the last of them retired with no competent replacement.
In the short term, the Mrrshans were holding their own again: When a Viper cruiser and a vast cloud of Needle fighters arrived at the Esper system, its defending forces - including a brand-new Scritch gatling destroyer - were able to wipe out the cruiser, and force the fighters - incapable of penetrating the planet's Class II shielding with their lasers - to retreat.
The larger picture however was much bleaker. The latest non-Mrrshan colony built the following year left the galaxy so nearly full that the galactic leaders agreed to assemble by holosuite to seek a peaceful means of dividng the stars among them. The notion of uniting under a single government, as had the ancient people of Orion, passed unanimously, and a vote was held to decide which leader - of the two most popular races - should be elected High Master of the new republic-to-be. Nazgur controlled a third of the votes on his own, and it surprised no one that he also received votes from the Alkari, since his opponent was RBO-31, and Alkari hatred for felines of all kinds was legendary. Nevertheless, all the other pre-Orion races abstained, judging neither ruler yet fit to lead the entire galaxy. The meeting broke up with no conclusion reached ... but not before the Mrrshans themselves voted for Nazgur, in recognition of his civilization's obvious superiority.
Four years later, the Mrrshan's once-famous weapons engineers demonstrated the true state of the Mrrshan nation, completing work on their most potent weapons system yet - the Hyper-X rocket - only to embark on the simplest project before them, the soonest to complete, even though it was the only one that couldn't truly advance the state of Mrrshan knowledge.
Still worse was the plight of the Mrrshan planetologists who, just four years later, on developing controlled tundra environment technology, discovered the potential for several projects of enormous value, each of which would advance the Mrrshan state of the art tremendously. Instead of taking any of the three, they were forced to research death spores - a form of biowarfare that no Mrrshan would ever employ - simply to have an earlier opportunity to again claim they had accomplished something. In spite of the flicker of brightness shining from recent scientific development, darkness was about to fall on Mrrshan science.
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Next: Darkness Falls
