Febrruarry 19th, 2399
They're coming again! Da says they came when I was a baby and they're back again and now Momma says they have a new Defesater with all the things for killing that the Meckar can make!
We're lucky we have ships to protect us! There are lots and lots of the best kind now. They have foosin drives and Rana says foosin drives are super fast and the best of anybody!
The new ships with the foosin drives saved us and made all the bad Meckar killing things go away so it's a party! But ten pilots died. That is sad. Rana is happy and he says it was only ten because our ships are so good now but ten is a lot! Why did he say only?
Septemberr 12th, 2401
Rranaar is being mean again. He pats my head when I don't want him to. Momma says big brothers can be like that and he's trying to show he likes me but if he likes me he should not pat my head when I don't want him to.
Momma saw an important thing at work today but I don't get it.
She says the Sakkra promised not to hurt us or any of the Mrrshans and we promised not to hurt them. But I thought the Sakkra were our friends and we are trading with them a LOT and friends don't hurt each other. But Momma says now it's different because it's a promise and they won't break the promise except on accident or if they tell us the promise is over first. But friends don't hurt each other and they don't HAVE to promise!
Maybe Sakkra are like big brothers. Maybe if Rranaar promises not to pat my head anymore, he can show he likes me by being nice to me instead.
Octoberr 20th, 2401
Momma was super excited when she got home today. She told Da all about a thing she saw. It is about the Darloks. They are our friends like the Sakkra, and we are teaching each other things, like school but with grown-ups. We are teaching them to make better guns for their ships and they are teaching us to make better computers and we both are teaching each other old, different ways to do things we both can do better already because learning is fun. But also we are teaching each other some things that are very important!
We are teaching them our best way of cleaning up waste and they are teaching us how to see spaceships coming from far away so we'll be able to find out where all the bad Meklar ships that want to hurt us are really going! That means the Darloks are very good friends and we will be a LOT safer. We didn't teach them how to make duralloy armor, but maybe that's because we just figured out how to do it ourselves last year.
I want Rranaar to be a good friend too, but when I asked if he could be like the Darloks he just put a sheet over his head and got up on tiptoe and said, "What should I steal from you?" in a hissy voice. I said stop it and don't steal anything because it's bad and it's mean, and he said he thought I wanted him to be like a Darlok. I don't get it at all.
Aprril 11th, 2403
Rranaar found out I snuck in and looked at the letter he wants to give to Prrilla, and he was really mad, until I told him I thought the poem was pretty. Then he looked surprised and started asking me questions about the letter and what was good and what wasn't, but it was just that the poem was pretty and when he started asking too many questions, I started laughing because he was silly, and then he got mad again.
Momma is very proud of the people at her job. They did something to do with translations and the no-fighting promises everybody's making.
I think the way it works is this: We used to have these old data translators, and Momma wrote down their name for me which was Multiple Oracle Overlay 1.3, and they had a bug where if someone broke their promise with us, the translation would make it seem like WE were the ones who broke our promise with THEM. But the tech group came up with this new device that Momma also had to write down its name and it's called the Kilohertz-Yield Radiation Unspooler/Broadcaster 1.40M, and I guess it fixes the bug so everyone can tell which side actually breaks a deal. Anyway, the whole point is that the diplomats feel safe making no-fighting promises with people like Meson the Mad Psilon, who seems to base his decisions on the number of green hovercars he sees in the morning, because if it's the wrong number and he attacks us, at least people will know it wasn't our fault. And the promise will make sure none of his people try to attack us as long as the green hovercars are okay.
Januarry 28th, 2408
Well, Momma may dress like it's the twenty-fourth century, and she may embarass me in front of my classmates every three or four days, but you've gotta admit she's doing important work, and it's GREAT for getting on top of the news and the interstellar gossip. I was the first in my class to find out about the merculite missiles and class 3 deflector shields the Fierias labs came up with for our bases over the last few years, and the first to know when Hissa asked to increase our galaxy-record trade package up to twice what we have with the Darloks, all the way to 500 BC, and the Mrrshan Interstellar Merchants Association agreed. I was the first to find out last summer when off-the-shoulder claw-cut blouses took the Maretta catwalks by storm. And NOW I'm the first to find out again about the latest tech off the line!
They must have piggy-backed on each other because they came through at the same time. Maybe the radiated environment control systems needed advanced factory robotics to keep them running smoothly or something. Anyway, our engineers have all the information they need now to protect us in case of a major industrial accident or build a colony for an irradiated world, and our factory construction teams are ready to install new controls that can run a whole new belt of industrial plants all around the colony. And more importantly, I'm the only one in my class who knows - yet - about the break-up between Alarrar Starclaw and Rrelura Fursheen!
Of course, dumb old Rranaar doesn't care about Rrelura. He's still worshiping the ground Prrilla walks on, when he can find it at least. Prrilla Sharl hasn't been going to regular school lately; she got into some kind of special program or something. It's funny. She was really excited about it, but she never really talked about what it was. Rranaar never did get around to asking her out, but that's probably for the best. He's easier to get along with when his ego hasn't been battered by too much rejection.
Januarry 7th, 2409
I almost told Momma to stop and not tell me anymore. It was that bad. She'd mentioned the Meklar fleet bound for Maretta already last year, and I guess she said something about their new Nemesis dreadnought, but I don't remember and anyway we didn't know how bad it was.
It's the worst. It's fast and it's accurate - too fast to stop in time without incredible firepower - and it's carrying racks and racks of fusion bombs and death spore delivery units AND entire banks of heavy and point-defense lasers. And then they've got the OTHER dreadnought AND their cruiser escorts! Our fighters did everything they could to destroy the Nemesis, but by the time they did....
Marrch 1st, 2409
Something just got way out of hand and I'm not even sure I know what it is. I guess it had to do with the diplomatic corps. Someone got the idea that we could end the galactic wars permanently if we just let EVERYONE be independent - every single star system - and let them work out their differences by vote and through the advice of a representative braintrust organization like our RBO-37. And the idea was actually catching on when Hissa said HE thought we should just unite the whole galaxy by making everyone part of the Sakkra empire! He said then he'd be in charge of everybody, and he'd make sure they don't fight each other OR ELSE! And somehow it all turned into this High Council thing where everybody votes for which of the two ideas they like more and it's CRAZY! We have this thing that's called voting but most of the people doing the voting are unstable-at-best emperors who declare what their people want by personal fiat!
Mom literally saw Grunk FLIP A COIN when the Bulrathi's turn to vote came up, and then he refused to vote at all because he missed the catch and the coin rolled under the table where he couldn't reach! (I'll bet he wishes he had Mrrshan reflexes!) And then his two votes were the difference! Obviously there was no Mrrshan vote; there's no such thing as voting if your only choices are to force a new system of government on other people that they don't even seem to want or to make some guy the ruler of everybody. But if not for that coin rolling under the table, Hissa would have had a quorum of two thirds of the galaxy!
He shouldn't have had one anyway. We've been helping the Darloks for a long time, drawing Meklar attacks that would otherwise have crushed them at Gion before very long, but Morfane voted for Hissa anyway. The Meklar are at actual WAR with Hissa, but they voted for him anyway, because they hate us more and the thing where they get to be independent but peaceful was our IDEA! And the Psilons and Sakkra had an alliance, but that's only because Hissa happened to call on a morning when Meson had seen two blue water thopters, INCLUDING one with pink racing stripes! And that is how we're deciding the fate of the galaxy!
It was a terrible farce that came from a wonderful, hopeful idea, and the worst part is, all the alien emperors agreed we're going to do it again in sixteen years, and again and again after that if we have to, every quarter century, until we come up with an answer once and for all!
I guess what that really means is, we have sixteen years to build up enough population on independent worlds that the Sakkra will never have a quorum no matter what. There are five new colony ships just completed at different planets that can build a base on any world more hospitable than an actual asteroid in hopes of doing just that - and we're going to build more - but if the Meklar can keep sporing us with impunity from their forward base at Artemis, it will never be enough.
Januarry 15th, 2411
Rranaar's so funny. He's been trying to get Prrilla's kid brother Jayrrin to give him a hint about where she is. But Jayrrin's just bubbling about how great she is because she's going to send him some kind of souvenir from I dunno Whynil or something. Must be Whynil, since that's where all the Bulrathi traders stop. It's nothing much of a souvenir. Just some kind of funny-looking Bulrathi coin.
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NEXT: Seizing the Initiative
