Chapter ERROR (Gestalt)

>CONNECTION TO HOST HAS BEEN ESTABLISHED

>HIGH SECURITY LIMITED FUNCTION CHAT ROOM ESTABLISHED

>ENCRYPTION/PERMISSION KEYS GENERATED

>MANTID FREE WORLDS - HIGH SECURITY HAS BEEN ISSUED KEY

>TRAENA'AD HIVE WORLDS - HIGH SECURITY HAS BEEN ISSUED KEY

>RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT - HIGH SECURITY HAS BEEN ISSUED KEY

>TERRASOL - HIGH SECURITY KEY ISSUE FAIL

>CONFEDMILINT - HIGH SECURITY KEY ISSUE FAIL

>MANTID FREE WORLDS - HIGH SECURITY HAS LOGGED ON

>TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS - HIGH SECURITY HAS LOGGED ON

>RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT - HIGH SECURITY HAS LOGGED ON

>SIX USERS PRESENT: MANTID, TREANA'AD, RIGELLIAN, TERRASOL, CONFEDMILINT,

MANTID FREE WORLDS - HIGH SECURITY

OK, I sent five invites, why are six of us here. Who is running hidden? Maybe I should remake the chat-room, but these secure rooms take forever to generate.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRASOLINT HAS SET STATUS TO -I

>TERRASOLINT HAS LOGGED ON

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

So, do you like, you know, lurk in like every chat room.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRASOLINT

Do you bitch at people you find in your house?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS - HIGH SECURITY

Depends on if they brought good ice cream or not.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

MANTID FREE WORLDS - HIGH SECURITY

Man, these codes are itchy.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRASOLINT

Hang on.

>MANTID FREE WORLDS - HIGH SECURITY HAS BEEN ISSUED NEW KEY

>MANTID FREE WORLDS - HIGH SECURITY HAS LOGGED OFF

>MANTID FREE WORLDS - HIGH SECURITY HAS LOGGED ON

MANTID FREE WORLDS - HIGH SECURITY

Eep. That felt weird.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRASOLINT

That should do it. Anyone else?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS - HIGH SECURITY

No, no, I'm good.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRASOL

What do you want?

/////////

CONFEDMILINT

I'm busy. I take it this is important.

/////////

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Why aren't you guys running your high security overlays?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT - HIGH SECURITY

Think about it for a second, sis.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Oh. I get it.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRASOL

What do you want?

/////////

RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT - HIGH SECURITY

She's going to freak out about some other Black Box Project.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

MANTID FREE WORLDS - HIGH SECURITY

I'm going to just talk to you about something. Something that TREA and I have experience with but you have trouble recognizing.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRASOL

All right, go ahead.

Hang on, I'm going to adjust your headers so your encrypted keys aren't hanging over your head.

/////////

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Thanks. All right, truth time.

OK, we have something that isn't unheard of. It's like P'Thok and the ice cream.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Or when Daxin ripped the head off the Omniqueen.

Or when you blew that hole clear through the Wemtarran psyche to the point that they flinch if you so much as mention Terra.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

To be honest, the Wemtarran run shrieking at the sight of bipeds now.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

MANTID FREE WORLDS

And that happened nearly two thousand years ago. You smashed them so badly they don't even do air travel any more. A Wemtarran will have a complete hysterical catatonic breakdown at a weird shaped cloud.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRASOL

They started it. We finished it.

/////////

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

No shit. We aren't bagging on you over that. They thought they were tougher than they were, thought they were more committed, and thought they had a more martial culture. They'd already genocided two races, they wouldn't have stopped at you.

You just smashed them so badly that some of them break down into quivering jelly at their own shadows sometimes over 2,000 years later.

Not your fault. Don't pick a fight with a warrior caste if you're a grub.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

The Lanaktallan have obviously taken on someone with much bigger jaws than they thought who doesn't do warfare like they think. You've got Black Box Projects, irregular forces, reserve forces, inactive reserve forces, planet crackers, nova-sparks, all the big toys. They've got billions of troops, hundreds of millions of ships, and tens of thousands of planets. They think you'll get done eating and they'll be the pig that splits the snake.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

MANTID FREE WORLDS

All three of us know better. The longer it goes, you start to get frustrated. Your population becomes apathetic to how the enemy is treated as long as they don't have to listen to any more whining and their taxes don't go up.

The Lanaktallan method of warfare is to commit atrocities on civilians. Your method of warfare is wiping out military targets and infrastructure.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRASOL

You aren't saying anything that you don't say with every war.

/////////

MANTID FREE WORLDS

How many fights are you in right now, across Lanaktallan Space?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

CONFEDMILINT

274 Planetary Landings

172 Space Battles

3,458 CONFEDMIL occupations

2.946 Non-CONFEDMIL occupations

867 Sterilized Systems

Five fronts, not including Deep Strike Operations

/////////

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

That's... that's a lot of fighting.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

MANTID FREE WORLDS

And not one of us here thinks you won't win every one of those fights.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Every one of us here has fought you, either by accident or design or misunderstanding the fundamental nature of Terran Descent Humans.

We know what you can do.

We also know that the longer this war goes on, the higher your tech will climb. Unlike before you came up with the creation engines, it doesn't require entire factories to retool in the old method, so your turnaround time to fully integrating new technology into your military, which, by the way, is entirely modular unlike everyone else in the known universe, is extremely short before you've tested, integrated, trained, and deployed next-Gen hardware.

Even if the Lanaktallan were to be given the plans for warsteel laminate armor, they would not even be ready to do testing until after a century or two of computer modelling, commissions, investigations, and politics.

They're in a losing position right there.

They just think that their massive amount of metal and bodies means you can't fight them.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRASOL

Most of the species we take prisoner just want to go home.

/////////

RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

And be somewhere where the rampaging primate firing guns in the air isn't.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRASOL

We've got over a dozen EPOW planets with millions of prisoners.

We've got systems where after we smashed the Lanaktallan and drove them out of the system, the native race actually poked their heads up and said "Can we come out?" and now we're taking care of them too.

But none of this is something that's never ever happened before.

Why are you so worried?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Fine, I'll tell him, you cowards.

>MANTID FREE WORLDS sighs

OK, you've already won.

There, I said it.

The war is over, they just don't know it.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

We've been watching those Nazgul, and man, you won. I mean, REALLY won.

You aren't planning on replacing them with someone more in line with Confed values, are you?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRASOL

You mean slowly supplant them with a Lanaktallan more acceptable to us in order to force an entire species numbering in the trillions to slavishly follow our whims? Introduce a psionic Herd Stallion with the capacity to use psionics on every Lanaktallan on the planet as well as physically alter and read the minds of ordinary rank and file Lanaktallan to control their population.

Sounds good, doesn't it?

Nine Nazgul, each with their own slight twist on philosophy learned in the Black Citdael from reading ancient texts, each imbued with psionic and nanite backed powers, recreated by the forces of Dead Space, all Lanaktallan Herd Stallions. Each of the Nine on their own planet, collecting their own followers to their philosophy.

Eventually they'll start fighting and ask me for assistance, both monetarily and militarily.

I can just choose the one most amicable to Confederate goals and designs.

Worst I might have to do is assassinate the others and pay bribes to the guy I want.

Foolproof.

My very own controlled Lanaktallan ruler.

////////

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

OH MY GOD SHUT UP!

THAT HAS NEVER WORKED IN THE ENTIRE OF THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE'S ENTIRE HISTORY IN ITS ENTIRETY!

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

OH MY GOD! HOW MANY TIMES DO YOU HAVE TO SCREW THAT UP TO LEARN NOT TO DO THAT?

I NEVER WORKS!

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

MANTID FREE WORLDS

OH, FOR FUCK'S SAKE!

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRASOL

////////

MANTID FREE WORLDS

OK, OK, you got us.

MANTID FREE WORLDS giggles

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS lights a cigarette and shakes its head

RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT laughs

CONFEDMILINT shakes his head chuckling

TERRASOLINT grins

OK, OK. On to something serious.

The nine of them have only been at work for a little while and they're already seriously disrupting the Lanaktallan society.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COLLECTIVE

How did you choose your targets? It seems extremely effective, it's rippling through their entire society in measurable waves.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRASOLINT

Based on the Lanaktallan emergency withdrawal plans a covert agent convinced them to implement. The Most Highs were to retreat to those worlds and activate the emergency protocol.

That's what we've been basing our targeting on. I don't want to take every single world and wade in the blood. I knew they'd have a new place to run to, it's herd instinct.

And I've been hunting herd animals since before I picked up a rock and completely negated nature's evolutionary arms race by hucking it at the nearest deer's head.

/////////

MANTID FREE WORLDS

What are you going to do if any of these Herd Stallions go at you?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

CONFEDMILINT

It's complicated, but we're going to very publicly rip the guts out of their infrastructure while doing as little damage to the populace as possible. Show them that to take us on means going back to eating face with their face.

We'll do surgical strikes then back out while leaving probes and drones in the systems subservient to that herd stallion.

To be honest, we've got a five front war going on, and it looks like a sixth has opened up.

/////////

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

A sixth? Where?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

CONFEDMILINT

Data you aren't privy to yet.

/////////

TERRASOLINT

Tell them.

////////

CONFEDMILINT

Here, look at this.

CONFEDMILINT SHARED AUNT-BETTYS-SPICE-CAKE.DOC

/////////

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Oof. That's a big file.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

-

--

---

----

MANTID FREE WORLDS

WAR! WAR TO THE HILT! PACK THE JELLY AND SING THE SONGS OF WAR!

KILL THEM! KILL THEM! KILL THEM! KILL THEM!

BURN THEM FROM THE UNIVERSE! PURGE THEM WITH FIRE AND BLOOD!

BURN BURN BURN BURN

WAAAAAAAAAAAAA

TERRASOLINT slaps MANTID FREE WORLDS

STOP THAT!

/////////

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Huh. Look like mechanical versions of the what the Doki Marines were calling Dwellerspawn.

I wonder if

DOKIDOKIDOKI HAS JOINED THE CHAT

DOKI?

DOKIDOKIDOKI HAS ACCEPTED FILE

DOKI!

DOKI DOKI DOKI!

┏(＾0＾)┛┗(＾0＾) ┓ DOKIDOKIDOKI (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

---DOKI DOKI DOKI---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

WTF? How did she get in here?

┬┴┬┴┤( ͡° ͜ʖ├┬┴┬┴

STOP THAT!

( ͡° ͜ʖ ( ͡° ͜ʖ ( ͡° ͜ʖ ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ͜ʖ ͡°)ʖ ͡°)ʖ ͡°)

HEY! Stop that, I'm trying to (⊙△⊙✿) talk, dammit!

---NOTHING FODOKIDOKIDOKILLOWS---

TERRASOL

Go play, sweetie.

/////////

DOKI!

★~(◡△◡✿)

>DOKIDOKIDOKI HAS LEFT THE CHAT

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

How did she do that?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRASOL

She is what she is, nothing more, nothing less, and we are all responsible.

////////

MANTID FREE WORLDS

She and the... umm.... (Let's not say their names) Wig Wearers give me nightmares.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

Why? I mean, yeah, they're tough fighters, but if they jumped you, we'd all come to help.

And are you OK now?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Yeah, I'm OK. Genetic memories. Sorry.

It's a particular nightmare of mine that has only been getting worse since we found those Type-II AWM's and the Lanaktallans.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

What nightmare?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRASOL

That we'll lose and be wiped from the Galaxy.

/////////

RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

Well, aside from the damage it would take to wipe you out, why?

RIGEL LOOKS AT MANTID> Why, sis?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

MANTID FREE WORLDS

OK, follow my logic chain. This is worst case scenario flee the galaxy and head for Mayall's Object under complete EMCOM type stuff.

The Lanaktallan wipe out Terrans everywhere in the galaxy, even take out Digi and Bio and Cyb.

Then we're left here.

It's a particular nightmare of mine.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Wait, just all the humans gone, not even their cities destroyed, why would that be...

oh...

oh fuck...

Oh, Digital Omnimessiah, protect us from this fate. Protect your faithful servants of the Milky Way Galaxy and the uncaring universe.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

That gives me the cold shakes right there.

All of Terra's stuff. Ships, devices, cities, Niven-Rings, weapons, just laying around, waiting for some poor bastard to stumble across them.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Some explorer finds a hundred or so pink and green frilly warships powered down orbiting a black hole or neutron star and wake it up.

TENS OF THOUSANDS of cute cat-girls with guns, completely crazed, descend upon a universe that forgot they were out there.

Wipe out the civilizations they find, go back to slumber.

Repeat.

Forever.

And that's just them. Think of all the terrible stuff that would survive even if you planet cracked every planet you found with a Terran near it.

They'd be even more forgotten.

Then, one day, some explorer, millions of years from now, find a silent black warsteel object orbiting a red giant star and scan it.

It wakes up.

And begins following its directives.

Repeat.

Forever.

None of it appears linked to one another.

The undying indestructible legions of black metal warborgs/warmechs with red eyes. Wig wearing green people. Cat-girls with guns. The Dead Fleet. Whatever the hell The Engine is.

Wiping out civilizations and then vanishing till they're forgotten and someone wakes them up again.

It wouldn't make any sense. It would just be "Who hated each other this bad?"

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRASOL

You guys make me sound like some mysterious Precursor Race that the galaxy lives in fear of. Like we're some kind of boogie-man lurking out in the Long Dark, just slumbering.

But, I kind of get it. Here I am fighting what looks like a 6 Front war because you Elders couldn't clean up your messes.

But if we get wiped out, that's it. We're gone.

/////////

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Bullshit.

Except humans don't die. We know that secret you're keeping from everyone else.

You don't die.

And allow me to quote something: That which is not dead can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die.

Let me go even further and quote Linus Tiklakit Shoemaker: And in the depths unsearched doth the forgotten lie in dreamless sleep until awoken by those who's eyes outstretched their reach and into madness and death did they fall as the dreamers awoke with nightmares in hand. Beyond the warmth of suns they slumbered, dreaming dreams unknowable, until the puny insects swarming the galaxy touched them and awoke them once again, their nightmares spilling out into reality until only the nightmare remained.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

CONFEDMILINT

That's fiction.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGELLION SAURIAN COMPACT

Two words: Overproject Dandelion.

No, I get sis's nightmare.

The Lanaktallan wipe you all out. Time goes on. The Gestalt channels go dead. SolNet goes dead. The Black Boxes are just out there. Thousands of years go by.

Out in the darkness, Terran Descent Humanity is waiting.

You aren't really known for your restraint when you're really pissed off, you know?

You're like a Precursor Race turned up to 11.

After all, the Dominionaters were unbeaten, the Mar-gite were probably unbeaten, and the Shrantak were unbeaten, and you crushed their goddamn skulls so hard there's never going to be an archeologist who'll be able to figure out what they looked like.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRASOL

You guys are so dramatic.

Are you going to get to the point of what you want? This war's requiring a lot of attention and I'm still handling my Citizen Recall.

/////////

MANTID FREE WORLDS

OK, we just wanted to tell you something.

You won. You beat the Lanaktallan. They just don't know it.

Like the Dominionaters were beaten and didn't know it.

I'm not saying suspend all military activity. Rimward on the Galactic Arm Spur is what you're going to have to take.

But you don't have to wade through blood for this.

Those Herd Stallions, you releasing them has basically destroyed Lanaktallan society.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRASOLINT

They don't have a society, a culture, that's why it's so effective.

So you think we've won?

/////////

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Like when you planet-cracked the Dominionater Dyson Spheres. It was over.

If they had been smart, they would have surrendered when you showed up to the planet-crack the Kemplemerer Dyson Singularity Rossette with your guns cleared for action.

You'd already won. You'd proven you'd won.

And now, one of the Precursor races who were Omnimessiah only knows how old

TERRASOL

9.2 billion years, they were from an extinct proto-galaxy.

/////////

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Wow. Anyway, an incredibly ancient race just gets curb-stomped out of existence by a race younger than the jewelry the Dominionater's wore.

I mean, only the Digital Omnimessiah knows what the hell their goals was.

TERRASOL

Same with the Lanaktallans. There is only enough for one.

Turned out, they weren't the one.

/////////

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Man, what is with these idiots? There's several dimensions we know of that you can scoop all the matter you need out because their Big Bang didn't go off right.

Anyway, you won.

The Lanaktallan Unified Species Council is finished. The Lanaktallan people are going to be unrecognizable within a few decades and probably be like we are, a loose conglomeration of aligned ethos and species.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

MANTID FREE WORLDS

You basically nuked their culture. Nuked their species.

How do you rationalize using genetic warfare to bring back their stallions?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRASOL

We didn't.

We sent him to the Black Citadel to be rehabilitated, the Nazgul are what came out. We just weaponized what came out of his time in the Black Citadel by giving him nanite systems.

Not like a creation engine.

It's a... special package.

Besides, he killed billions of us.

Don't expect me to cry for what they're doing. Don't expect me to feel sorry for them.

You know why?

You know who taught us to not feel sorry for anything that happens to some of the species we encounter any more?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

The Precursor Races.

Every one of them has tried to xenocide everyone else and now that someone bigger, tougher, and meaner than them has shown up, they all start whining that you're outside their weight class and shouldn't be able to compete.

Pretty funny hearing Precursor Races complaining it isn't fair and to please, oh please, Mr. Nuclear Powered Warsteel Robo-Gorilla with Chainsaws for Arms and Laser Eyes that Fires Anti-Matter Missiles and Who Are Immune to Psychic Manipulation, please don't hurt us, uwu, we soft and cuddwy. No step on Pwecusow, pweese.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

MANTID FREE WORLDS

We taught you that?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

Oh, you know, the Glassing of Terra and Her Child Colonies, what happened to the Dogs and Cats, the Mar-gite, the Dominionaters, the Shrantak, the Precursor Autonomous War Machines, the Lanaktallan Bioplagues, the Squidwards, and every other race that thinks because they designed a laser popcorn warmer and managed to get some tinfoil junk into space they can take us new races.

You asked, sis, what the Terrans are an answer to?

Let the only other Young Species in here tell you what they're the answer to.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

MANTID FREE WORLDS

quietly> Go ahead

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

You're fucking "Orderly Universe". That's what they're the answer to.

The whole "There is only enough for one!" and "We are the dominant species in the galaxy" and "Oops, we might have left thousands of mechanical butchers lying around, but it totally isn't our fault, guys, we didn't program them to kill you, they're just big meanies!"

You guys fucked shit up, went inside, shut the door, and said "This is fine" and now we have to deal with it.

We have to finish this war that started before the Extinction Events that led to our rise on our home planets happened.

THAT'S why TerraSol and I don't feel ANY sympathy for them.

To be honest...

...I'm all for finishing the war you guys started.

Our way.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRASOL

We agreed Total War, not 1%, not even 10%.

We will abide by rules.

So you think we won?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

MANTID FREE WORLDS shivers

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Yes. They don't know it yet, but they're done.

There will still be fighting, after all, they have billions of ground troops and millions of ships, they haven't realized yet, because pattern recognition apparently isn't a thing for us Precursor species, that their numbers don't matter.

Eventually, though, the Herd Stallions will fracture apart their societies as each of them gather supporters.

I doubt they'll be very cooperative with one another.

Will they?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRASOLINT

Probably not. We have no idea. Exposure to Dead Space made them regress to pre-manipulation levels. Who knows if they'll cooperate or what.

/////////

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

I doubt they would. But maybe.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

CONFEDMILINT

Herd species rarely cooperate between herd stallions until the pecking order is established.

And we may have 'won' according to you, but we're not calling off the remainder of Project Nazgul.

////////

MANTID FREE WORLDS

What else is there? You have your nine.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

You forget the dwarves and elves, sis.

And the One Ring.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRASOLINT

What he said.

Besides, if I'm going to return their Stallions, let them build societies, shouldn't I return the Herd Matrons too?

/////////

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Oh. I get it. To prevent the subjugation of the females.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

Already what they do to the females would be considered a Crime Against Sapience.

Personally, us Rigellians can barely tolerate it and would insist that is put a stop to.

And don't say "Well, it's kind of like your ducks" because our ducks evolved like that naturally. We didn't use gene-therapy and drugs and selective breeding to make half our species dumb. We love them dearly and take pride in them and would die enmasse before we let them come to harm.

You Precursors have really weird ideas about species sex and dimorphism.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

MANTID FREE WORLDS

So, you're OK with the fact you won?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRASOL

Wait, you think I'm going to stop keeping up the pressure on them?

AHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA

That's so fucking cute.

No.

See, we're going to do to them what happened to us.

//////////

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Um... what?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRASOL

Evolution requires:

mutation capable genome

non-random mating for specific traits

gene flow

finite population size with genetic drift

natural selection

Pressure

We're reintroducing all of it and applying it to their culture and society.

We're going to keep up the pressure. We're going to keep taking worlds from them. We're going to wipe out any Lanaktallan that so much as looks at a sharp stick and liberate their slave-soldiers. We're going to culture-bomb them with our own culture through GalNet while the Nazgul hit them.

Evolve. Adapt.

Or die.

/////////

MANTID FREE WORLDS

And if they don't adapt? If they return to this homeostasis?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

They made it pretty plain, sis.

"Or die."

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

MANTID FREE WORLDS

You mean, xenocide them?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRASOL

No.

Ethnocide.

To be honest? We're tired of this shit.

We're sick and tired of old as dirt races showing up, killing millions or billions of us, then rolling over and showing us their belly when we haul out the chainsword, only for them to try again when we put the chainsword away, turn around, and start to walk away.

That's IF they even bothered to talk to us in the first place. Three of you have just ignored us when we tried to talk.

And that's what YOU know about.

/////////

MANTID FREE WORLDS

I'm not going to ask you to spare them if they go at you again.

CONFEDMILINT

The Stallions are considered an emerging government, so if the Lanaktallan species sues for peace then a Herd Stallion tries to jump us, it'll be the protocols of a new government, not an automatic 1% Line.

/////////

but as long as you realize that you probably won already.

It's like when you started killing the queens, the war was won.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Or when P'Thok made it back to the Home Systems with those ice cream truck he hijacked and loaded into a transport.

The war was over, we just didn't know it.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRASOL

It's just the mopup and waiting for it to all settle down.

The war is won, but the battles continue. Believe it or not, we're pretty familiar with the concept.

/////////

RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

We're with you no matter what, brother.

Do what must be done to keep our ducks safe.

ALL of our ducks.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

>RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT HAS LEFT THE CHAT

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

We're in it with you. We just wanted to let you know how it looks to someone who was beaten like they were. One MASSIVE disruption to our culture and society.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

>TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS HAS LEFT THE CHAT

MANTID FREE WORLDS

We know that in a way, this isn't even your war. This is our war, our responsibility, that we bear the debt and guilt for this.

TERRASOL

They had a hundred million years to change, like you did. They didn't. It isn't on you.

It's on them. All of it.

I'll liberate their slaves, show them that they cannot fight, and let Project Nazgul take its course.

//////

We still feel responsible.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

CONFEDMILINT

Don't. As soon as they decided that they were going to force us to submit to "genetic oversight" their fate was sealed.

Sure, if you'd have not lost control of your AWM's and xenocided them all those years ago, then I wouldn't have this problems.

But if Louis Telvemarina hadn't planet-cracked Nessian-7 then the Third Republic wouldn't have failed.

So it's useless to say "If if if" when talking about history.

/////////

MANTID FREE WORLDS

All right. I just worry about you. The Mar-gite War really hurt you.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TERRASOL

We'll be fine.

////////

MANTID FREE WORLDS

All right.

>MANTID FREE WORLDS HAS LEFT THE CHAT

>CONFEDMILINT HAS LEFT THE CHAT

RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

To tell the truth? I don't care if we butcher all of them if it keeps their grimy hands off my beautiful ducks.

They're a stupid and arrogant relic of a bygone age that we're all tired of dealing with.

>RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT HAS LEFT THE CHAT

TERRASOL

Well, this was fun.

>TERRASOL HAS LEFT THE CHAT

TERRASOLINT

Do it.

/////////

DOKIDOKIDOKIDOKI WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!

>HIDDEN USER HAS LEFT THE CHAT

TERRASOLINT HAS CLOSED CHAT

CHAT LOGS ERASED