Given their mixed reactions to foreign encounters, we need to be careful. Cooperation and war are two very different choices. It’s likely that their fleets are free to do what they want. Either their government is giving them free reign, or the government has no means of controlling them.
We have salvos prepared and our readiness is at the level of expecting battle. We have three carriers waiting to provide us a strike if needed.
Well we’re here to try diplomacy, not go to war, so let’s hope we don’t need to fire anything.
Oop, approaching drop position, let’s get to our stations.
The Akropii 7th Battlefleet dropped out of pseudospace into the Envari System. The Battlefleet glinted like a small iridescent star in the system’s sky, their shielding glimmering. Almost two dozen ships made up the Battlefleet, with three large battleships heading the group. Their signature wasn’t hidden in any way, in fact it seemed amplified slightly. These ships wanted to be seen. The fleet sent out a message, translated through a Drakari translation package to a language known to the Envari.
“This is the 7th Battlefleet of the Akropii Republic. We come with the goal of diplomacy. We would like to hold a meeting between us. Violence will be met with retaliation.”
What the Akropii didn’t know, was that this system had a colony in it. And not just any colony. This was Ost, the Oblex homeworld and the capital of the Eastern Directorate.
Wagner was the planets governor for a pretty long time. He liked his job. It was fairly easy and much less boring then being an admiral. Well, given the current situation, being an admiral was the most exiting and dangerous job since the Era of Domination. He was glad he was a governor. He didn’t want to be the one cause the next Victoria Crisis. And he liked ruling over all those pityful xenos.
That is when he got the message. He was furious, it could be smelled throught the entire room. How dare those xeno scum just fly into Envari territory like that.
“Activate planetary defences and contact the nearest Territory Protection fleet,” he ordered. “I also want the Comissar notified immiediatly. And turn on transmitting over to that fleet.”
“I am Wagner, the governor of Ost. You have trespassed into Envari territory. I understand your diplomatic intent, but I have to wait for a response from my superiors before doing anything. Until then, power down your weapons and remain in the system. Don’t try anything stupid, or you will be destroyed xeno.”
“We are willing to wait for as long as needed, Governor Ost. Weapons will be powered down.”
“Are you sure powering down weapons is safe? I suppose they have gone for diplomacy, so we should be fine.”
“Doesn’t really matter, should they resort to violence we have a carrier strike group waiting.”
The vessels powered down their weapons, the blips of electricity retreating from the protruding guns. The fleet rearranged itself to orbit the central star, preparing to wait for however long necessary.
A message arrived on the governor’s comms: “Attend this meeting that they request. Try engage in some diplomacy, but do not reveal too much. Try to find out what they and what sort of technology and firepower they posses. The fleet is waiting nearby.” It was from the Comissar. He had no choice now. He had to follow the orders.
He send a message to the fleet.
“Send a transport ship and dock it in our spacelift. We will hold our meeting there. You are allowed to bring up to ten soldiers as your honor guard.”
A small dropship descended from the leading battleship. Its engines fired, turning the small craft towards the spacelift. It was simple, a plain steel ship lacking the iridescent glimmer of shielding that the rest of the fleet had. Its twin engines left a glowing streak through the sky as it approached the spacelift.
Its thrusters fired to slow it down once it entered the hangar, and the door slid open. Three synthetics walked out, two who looked like they would be diplomats, and one hulking guard.
Wagner was shocked and his smell reflected that. He ecspected xenos, but those were synthetytics. Maybe they could be reasoned with?
Wagner looked like tipical Envari, dressed in a long coat with a golden medal depicting a planet attached on his chest. He walked up tp the delegation and said “Welcome to the Comissariat. Follow me, we will talk in the command centre, I believe it wil be more comfortable then a hangar. All hail the Grand Comissar.”
The ten Black Guards behing him all said in unison “All hail the Grand Comissar” and followed behind Wagner and next to the Akropii delegation, as they walked into the comnand centre. There, Wagner sat down at a table and showed two free chairs to the Akropii. The Black Guard stood behind him and in the corners of the room, filled with various screens and pannels.
“Would you mind telling me some more about your nation at the beggining of our talks?”
The light glinted off the synthetics’ metal bodies as they followed behind the Comissar, surprisingly noiseless for pieces of metal. When they reached the command center, they sat in the chairs the Comissar referred to, the guard standing behind them and observing the room.
“We are emissaries of the Akropii Republic, a nation located in the southeast of the sector. Our nation is made of primarily artificial intelligence. Everything living was killed off in an apocalyptic event roughly six hundred years ago, and the vast majority of planets no longer support life. We come on behalf of allies to give you basic astrocartographic data, and an advisement to respect foreign nation’s sovereignty.”
The diplomat pulled up a holomap and pointed out roughly where the republic is located in relation to their current location.
“Would you be able to summarize a bit about your nation as well?”
So they were part of some kind of an alliance. And would provide data about other nations, as long as they respected the “soveirgnity” of other nations. So they cared about “xeno rights”. Based on that, Wagner decided it would be best to leave out some deatails.
“This is the Grand Comissariat of Enver, a nation of mostly biological species, but there are a few artificial inteligences to be found. We are usually suspicious of other nations, due to a massive war of extincion fought agsinst a technologically superior enemy around 3000 years ago, which also resulted in the unification of my species into a single state. Since then every girst contact resulted, sooner or later, in a war. The planet below us is a former capital of one of these nations.” He paused for a moment. “But the current Comissar decided that pointless warmongering will lead us knowhere and we have to try, if not cooperate, then at least maintain peaceful relations with other nations. We also didn’t have a first contact in around 3000 years, so we might be not the most experienced in these sort of situations.”
Wagner was proud of himself, which could be identified by the smell. This was a worthy description of the Comissariat, explaining the difficult past and providing hope for change, while hiding some of the nastier deatails. Lets just hope these emissaries fall for that.
The diplomats sensed a bit of pride from Wagner as he shared about his nation, however they were a bit unsure what sparked the pride. Perhaps it was the defeat of the superior enemy, or it could be their supposed effort to have diplomatic first contacts. More concerningly, it could be about their conquest over lesser nations.
“Would you mind telling us about this extinction war? And maybe perhaps a bit about your efforts on diplomacy as well?”
“Concerning the diplomacy part, we recently made contact with the Drakari Celestial Imperium, which went quite smoothly. We also met the Union of Emerald. We had some issues at the start, because of an admiral who was a part of an extremist group, but we managed to succesfully deescalete the situation.”
To be honest, these contacts were quite succesful. They didn’t lead to an all out war, which was a huge success, considering the Comissariat’s history. But now came the tougher part.
“The extincion war. Well, we call it the Hyperwar. Thanks to it, the around 100 of small, a few systems big Envari states united into the Comissariat. Our enemies were technologically superior, but we managed to capture their technology. Some of it is still used to this day. This war caused high amounts of xenophobia amongst the population, especially as we were betrayed by our xeno allies. But that was 3000 years ago, the Comissariat has improved a lot since then.”
Of the three major points, the diplomacy and the extinction war didn’t seem to elicit the same pride of Wagner’s first description of Enver. His pride seemed to stem from Enver’s victory over each of the minor nations defeated after their first contact with Enver. Enver seemed like quite the aggressor, or at least a nation that had no mercy for whoever it viewed as its foe.
“So tell me about these defeated nations, you said that we’re standing on a fallen capital, what happened to these people? I don’t see any other species than you.”
The situation wasn’t good. These diplomats were asking too many questions, digging too deep. Wagner knew he had to silence them or else the situation would become very difficult.
“These conquered people are a part of our nation of course. As to why there are only Envari here, just a coincidence. There are plenty of xeno workers in other facilities, I can assure you of that.”
The two diplomats quickly exchanged messages, communicating digitally and coming to an agreement between them.
[We need to lay off these questions. There’s something extremely suspicious here, but if we keep digging like this they’ll become uneasy and this meeting won’t be productive.]
[Understood. We can always dig deeper later when we have better footing.]
Their pause to communicate was too short for Wagner to notice.
“I’d like to give you that astrocartographic data we mentioned earlier. It contains only the borders of our allies, as well as the coordinates of our nation’s diplomatic hub. Respect the sovereignty of our allies.”
The diplomat pulled out a small chip and held it out to Wagner.
Wagner took the chip and hid it in a pocket in his long coat.
“Thank you for this data. The Comissar will surely respect their soveirgnity as well as yours. As I said, our warmongering days are over. Is there anything else you would like to discuss?”
He was relieved and his smell reflected that. He managed to get out of this difficult situation. If these diplomats found out the truth, nobody knows what could have happened.
“I don’t believe there is much else to discuss unless we wish to open trade. The planet marked on the cartographic data, Kourali, is used as a hub for diplomacy and international trade. If you wish to trade with us, just send them there and identify yourself upon entering the system. It’s likely some Akropii merchants would like to sell to you.”
“I suppose we should give you an FTL communications system to our government so we can inform you of any incoming ships.”
The synthetic held out another chip, this one an FTL communications system to the akropii government rather than data.