Januarry 22nd, 2440
You have to laugh at the Darloks. They're so dumb it's almost cute.
They just tried to attack us at Ursa with retro rockets and a bunch of ships that can't even touch our missile base. Okay, a couple of those ships could maybe scratch the paint, but not when we blow them to bits before they get close. Mom is mad that she's not allowed to sell off all her Darlok trade futures. All the dumb 'loks are going to go out of business or attack us and get killed. Supposedly popular sentiment is we should keep communication lines open because it's not like their dumb attacks are even hurting us anyway. All my friends say just burn them and who cares though, so there must be a lot of dumb Mrrshans out on the streets.
Marrch 5th, 2440
Yrina had better invite me to her garden party or she'll never be at my ski parties when we go to Proxima Preparatory! My mom has a huge ski lodge there. Anyway, our gardener knows about the new soil enrichment techniques too, so ours is going to look even better than Yrina's pretty soon.
Oh, yeah, and the Meklar broke our non-aggress-whatever today. What is with these aliens? Do they want to die on purpose?
Aprril 3rd, 2441
Funniest thing ever on the news today! The big ugly crazy bear guy, what's his name, Grunk? He was droning on about the Psilons because we're both at war with them. Even though he's at war with us too, right? Anyway, the difference is, Grunk is hiding scared on tiny little Maalor, and we're kicking the idiot Psilons around like soccer balls in a free-for-all.
An incredible threat to both our worlds, huh? Sorry, Grunk, you got that wrong: They're just a threat to yours!
Oh, a bunch of troops are gonna get sent to Pollus too I guess, way up in the Imra nebula. I hope they don't get too much Psilon blood on them.
Febrruarry 9th, 2442
I'll bet Meson's feeling really good about declaring war on us now.
Oooops, were those your homeworld defenses, Meson? So sorry about the mess! We'll send some troops to clean that up right away!
Yrina is acting really weird. I told her that great Bulrathi joke my mom heard at work the other day, and Yrina didn't even laugh! She said the joke was "in bad taste!" What does she know about taste anyway? In fact, I'll bet Bulrathi shoulder steak tastes great!
May 12th, 2445
I dunno. I think Rrarlim was trying to flirt with me, but maybe he was just adjusting his ski hat? He is so awkward out there. I guess I should shun him either way? Except his mom just landed this huge contract to build more personal absorption shields. I laughed at him last year for those, if you remember. I mean, they were Psilon technology -- we'd just learned about them by conquering Pollus, along with some lame way of living on toxic worlds without our advanced radiation shielding, right? -- and I still remembered how his mom's company made a big push two years ago when our scientists developed fusion beams, and then found out nobody even needed a ship with the things. But this time his mom guessed right, and they are rolling in the credits. What the point of those shields even is, I don't know, but supposedly they used a whole lot of them over at Mentar this year.
All they got out of it though was a bunch more dumb Psilon technology. They're supposed to be super-advanced weapons and whatever, and some armor that's supposed to help our troops survive a little better, like those shields Rrarlim's mom is manufacturing, but come on/ It's not like our troops are dying anyway. I'm sure when we show up and our starships scream through the sky the aliens are just surrendering. I mean, they can't be that dumb, can they?
May 17th, 2445
Ha! Dumb old Grunk has more sense than I thought! The news says he just appeared before the RBO-37, begging for peace. They took pity on the poor dolt and said yes, so that's one less non-threat to continue not worrying about. Yay. That's like the third year in a row he made a formal appeal to us. It's like he's really terrified of the Psilons. Come on. They're just sit-at-home egg-heads, plus they've got their hands full surrendering their planets to us when our ships crack their shells one by one. It's not like they're going to do anything to him.
Marrch 15th, 2446
I ... I just saw the news on GNN. No, that isn't even true. I saw the news eight hours ago. It's just that I don't think I've even fully grasped it yet.
I ... did you know in the battle for Pollus we lost 52 battallions of Mrrshan troops? And taking Mentar cost us a hundred and twenty six?! The Psilons didn't surrender. They killed our troops, and they died. And died. And died. Like almost a hundred and fifty million of them! I told my mom, and she knew already, and she was like, "Who cares? They're just grunts and stupid Psilons." But they're not! They're dead Psilons who were smart enough to make all this tech we reverse-engineered from them, and they're dead troops who were fighting for us, to stop the Psilons from doing to us what GNN says they just did to the Bulrathi!
Maalor was the last Bulrathi world. There are no more of them anywhere in the galaxy -- no more Grunk, no more super-soldiers, no more merchants like the ones who used to trade with us all the time, no more anybody! I ... I didn't know. I didn't understand. I have a scary feeling that even now, I still don't ... and neither do a lot of people.
I ... right now, I don't want to go skiing or make fun of the tomcats or especially have a snowball fight or anything. All I really want is for the fighting out there to somehow end.
It's been, what, two months since our advanced space scanners started showing us the galaxy? We can see Orion with it, but we can't get past the Guardian. We could see Maalor already, but we couldn't save the Bulrathi. Maybe if there were some way to turn the scanner around - to make everyone in the galaxy see what it's really like for everyone else in the galaxy....
I don't know. I've never even really thought about this before, and part of me wants to just go back to not ever thinking about it again. Some of the jokes I made about the Bulrathi though ... I get sick to my stomach now just thinking about them. It's almost too much for me.
Febrruarry 2nd, 2448 Of course we've known it was coming, but that doesn't make it a whole lot easier. We still have our non-aggression pact with the Sakkra, but that doesn't change anything. They sent their war fleet to Mentar back when it was a Psilon colony, and they wouldn't retreat even when they saw they were facing a Mrrshan world and a Mrrshan fleet. Our worlds have now been attacked at one time or another by literally every other race in the galaxy.
There was nothing for it but to blast their fleet into ether, which was easy with the swift-moving fleet we'd assembled there. Their Titan never even got a chance to fire its tachyon beams. There's talk now of launching a retaliatory strike, as if they'd actually hurt us or as if there hasn't been enough fighting already. Isn't it enough that we took Rotan last year? We left the Psilons with no stars to their name at all but tiny little Maalor - the colony they took when they killed the last of the Bulrathi. I've heard some say it's poetic justice. A few years ago, I'd have been making jokes about it. Now I ... I don't even want to write about it anymore. It hurts inside to see what's happening, to remember how, not that long ago, one of the ones cheering it on and giggling about it was me.
Septemberr 28th, 2449
I laughed today for the first time in a while. This Meklar merchant named R81-3V is visiting from Meklon, taking in the sights with its family (yes, they have families) and it cracked a joke about its emperor TVC-15. I wouldn't have thought they even could make that kind of joke ... and I think there was a time when they couldn't. It wasn't a mean joke either, which is good since TVC-15 actually agreed to reinstate our non-aggression pact this year. It sounded a little confused and said it was bowing to popular pressure, which didn't seem to be a concept it fully understood, but R81-3V says confusion is TVC-15's normal mode of operation anyway.
This sort of thing's been happening - slowly, I think, over years and years, but I'm starting to really notice lately - all over the galaxy.
We still have combat fleets on their way to Sakkra military bases and troop training grounds, but there's been a slow sea change in Mrrshan popular opinion over the past few years - I'm not the only one, though the change may have come over me more suddenly than in most, and later than in some - and though outmoded Darlok fleets may be crawling slowly toward our worlds, I've heard Darlok merchants griping openly about Morfane's refusal to reinstate their non-aggression pact with us. One even said that their emperor would have to change that attitude soon if it wanted to go on being emperor of anybody. Even Sakkra merchants have been getting more chatty, more friendly, as if we might have things in common beyond an interest in each other's trade goods.
And the Psilons? Well, they're still at war with us, sending over a steady stream of ineffectual little fleets. But maybe....
Marrch 1st, 2450
It just about brought tears to my eyes when Morfane made its High Council speech about independence and unity and the uncertainties of war, and how its people were demanding the freedoms that we Mrrshans enjoy every day. It was as if it actually understood what it was voting for! Its people must be terrible at terraforming since it only had three votes to add to TVC-15's two (TVC-15's speech was about bluebells singing in the factory casserole, but I don't think even it knew what that was supposed to mean)...
...but that was enough, with all the voting power of more than three billion Mrrshans, to declare a galactic extension of the RBO-37: An advisory braintrust elected by the people of all forty-four now-independent inhabited worlds the galaxy! Even the past few months' military raids on Sakkra territory may have helped: They taught Hissa enough humility to step down as ruler of the Sakkra in deference to the will of the galaxy. He'll probably run for election to the new representative council, but that's fine with me.
Then when all the votes were cast, Representative Lrriya of Jinga made the most stirring speech of the evening.
She also thanked Prrilla Sharl for making the new era possible with the undercover educational institutions she organized all around the galaxy, mostly staffed by her most capable and devoted fans. I'm not sure if she was serious or telling an inside joke though. I thought Prrilla Sharl was a legend, not a real person - and even according to the legends, she retired to Berel decades ago. It isn't that important though. What matters is that the wars are over - and I have a feeling, with all the peoples of the galaxy working together, we're all going to experience the kind of prosperity of which even wealthy families like mine have never dreamed.
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