In fact, emperor Nazgur of the Darloks held the whole galaxy in contempt: His people were the last descendants of Orion, and regarded all other races as filthy interlopers on his territory at best, and dangerously feral creatures, little removed from beasts, at worst. He was thoroughly unimpressed with RBO-31 and the Mrrshans, and their development of Hyper-V Rockets the following year did little to improve matters, though he would accept the designs three years later in exchange for new terraforming techniques. In the meantime, the Mrrshans had developed hydrogen fuel, and were building their first interstellar colony ship since 2300, but it was still three years from its destination in 2338, when a flurry of messages arrived from around the galaxy: From Quayal, the local scout craft reported another colony ship and fighter arriving to claim the system; from a white star just south of the eastward nebula, another scout reported a Guardian - as it happened, an artifact of the Darloks' long-lost ancestors - moments before its own destruction. And from seemingly everywhere, a holovid message from the GNN newsdroid, reporting the latest development in galactic power.
Quayal was the Darloks' sixth star system; no other race had stretched so far, and the Mrrshans had only two. As if to underscore their disdain for the Mrrshan people, the Darloks declared war just two years later, even as work on another colony ship at Fierias was finally complete.
With typical holovid heroics, instead of seeking slow, peaceful, defensive solutions, the Mrrshans sent a wave of transports to try to take Collassa by storm. When their unarmed colony ship was chased from Ukko the following year by yet another Darlok colony ship and fighter escort, the cats responded with another transport fleet for that world. Their engineers would improve Mrrshan industrial technology the very next year, but the advance was of minimal use: The Mrrshans were no longer thinking of such peaceful matters as industry.
Mrrshan troops arrived at Collassa in 2344, where they found themselves outnumbered almost two to one, and facing entrenched opponents armed with laser rifles more powerful than anything Mrrshan engineering had yet devised. Unsurprisingly, the cats were slaughtered. Their colleagues-in-arms did manage to capture Ukko the following year, outnumbering the opposition by more than three to one, but the victory was short-lived.
In 2349, even as Mrrshan colonists planted their flag at Neptunus - five years later than the Paladia desert colony, which had been the first new feline world in almost half a century - Darlok reinforcements re-took Ukko from the Mrrshans and began to dig in once more. By then, Mrrshan engineers had put together a deep space scanner and deflector shield improvements for their worlds and potential fleets, but neither could turn the tide of the losing battle with Nazgur's people. 'Lok Needle fighters clouded the skies of Collassa as they repelled an orbiting Mrrshan fleet, a pair of factories burned on Esper, obviously due to Darlok sabotage, though bumbling Mrrshan investigations never turned up definitive proof, and yet another wave of Mrrshan transports died in the fields of Collassa even after the Needles left the system - yet the Mrrshans still seemed oblivious to the insane costs of the war for their bleak and backward economy. It wasn't until 2358 that any truly hopeful signs appeared for the felines.
A small Darlok invasion fleet, including fighters and an armed colony ship, was completely destroyed by Esper's small force of defensive fighters, with no losses on the Mrrshan side, even as the ocean world of Rayden Prime was discovered at the heart of the galaxy: A treasure trove of artifacts from the pre-collapse Orion civilization. Silicoid and Darlok scouts had already rifled its most accessible treasures, but the secrets it could still reveal with time and effort would have been an irresistible temptation for the Mrrshans of the mid-23rd century. A hundred years later though, Mrrshan curiosity had atrophied, and there was hardly a murmur in response when the Silicoids claimed the planet with a large armed fleet just two years later.
In spite of the rock peoples' innate mistrust for creatures of flesh and blood, their obsession with industry - perhaps in emulation of the Darloks whose ancestors ruled Orion - and their possession of the Rayden star system, RBO-31's first act upon achieving contact with Silicoid Emperor Crystous was to initiate the largest possible trade package, good for some 75 BC annually.
In the meantime, signs of Mrrshan frailty abounded: The Alkari stars of Altair and Morrig just beyond the Orion Nebula, holding terran planets with multiple missile bases and powerful defensive fleets, had been reached by long-range scouts, suggesting just how backward the Mrrshan empire was becoming. The latest feline colony was at the ultra-poor jungle world of Herculis II, which would never pay back the cost of its colony ship for the Mrrshans. And to make matters worse, a clerical error in 2356 had temporarily cut off all science funding. Demands for their paychecks were lost in the bureaucracy, as the heads of Mrrshan government had long since ceased to pay much attention to its scientists and engineers, and science teams were reduced to foraging for food that year, and forced to burn important notes for heat over the winter. The resulting setbacks in every field of research left the Mrrshan people more vulnerable than ever.
_______________
Next: Flickering
