15/01/4839
29/05/2035
Third Imperial Prince, Seyth Vareshin, The Unnecessary Hall, Nexoria.
The Unnecessary Hall, what's a name. It was built to be much larger than it was ever expected to be needed, a symbol of hubris. The king, who ordered its construction, dreamt of greatness, filling the seats with countless vassals, styling himself as the King of kings. Then the 65th Emperor of Vareshi defeated his invasion and launched a counter invasion. This hall was renamed afterwards by the same Emperor, who was furious that the hall costs so much money to be built that the counter invasion ends up being less profitable than expected.
Over the years, the city around the hall grew into a major center due to cheap housing with more buildings than people, another project of the 'King of kings'. Anyhow, thanks to his, uh, foresight, the city grew steadily. By the time of electricity, the new power lines and experimental devices still required manual control, so they needed a place with cheap labor and cheap land. Thus the city flourished.
Though automation has gone a long way since then, the land is still surprisingly cheap and the city has effectively become the center of communication with all kinds of signal towers and satellite dishes being a very common sight. Multiple major news outlets had chosen the city as the HQ and developed from here. Despite the 'King of kings' failure to live up to his ambitions, he did have good foresight to build a city on top of a vast patch of stable land.
Anyway, that's why the grand meeting, which still hasn't had a name yet, is being held here. That way, there is enough space for everyone to stay in the city and sit in the hall. The communication systems ensure that any news spreads fast with the proceedings being well monitored. Due to how little information there is on the aliens, there is simply no reason to keep the meeting secret.
And why am I thinking all of this? To pass the time of course. Both of my brothers are busy with other work. Actually, scratch that, everyone is busy, I am one of the only few qualified people left for this job. In fact, I am here only for the diplomatic weight of an Imperial Prince. The actual representative, this nervous diplomat sitting next to me, lacks sufficient reputation and authority to make major decisions on her own.
Even though there's still a while before the meeting officially begins, there is already heated discussion, mainly on what the meeting should be called. Apparently, 'The Great Meeting' and the 'Meeting of Nations' have garnered the most support so far.
Despite the size of the hall, it is already filled with people before the meeting even begins. Well, to be exact, the viewing platform for the journalists is packed, the seats for the representatives were carefully planned, so crowding isn't a problem down here.
Well, guess I will just take a nap until the meeting begins.
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Secure connection confirmed.
Communication encrypted.
Sending authorization code…
Receiving reply…
Information accepted, Ivakur Governor AI ID:000048 prepared for orders.
KL: Status report requested.
Order received. Report:
The colony is still expanding according to plan.
1/1 diplomatic vessel 'Second Contact' constructed.
1/1 planetary assault craft 'Third Contact' constructed.
10/20 orbital defense crafts completed.
Awaiting further order
KL: Deploy the diplomatic vessel to high orbit over Tashan. Utilize all stealth measures to minimize detection probability as much as possible.
Affirmative, deploying.
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On the surface of the dark side of Ivakur
A series of locks snaps open, letting the blast door, weighing dozens of tons, to move out of the way. Below the opening blast door, pipes and pumps move hundreds of tons of liquid hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen into the tanks of the diplomatic vessel. Despite the large mass of liquid being transferred into the tanks, it is only for filling the tanks to the max. In order to launch nearly on demand, the tanks have already been filled beforehand.
However, vaporization reduces the amount of liquid inside greatly and requires pumps to move the gas out to prevent the high pressure, which will rupture or blow up the tanks. In order to maximize delta-v, the tanks need to be filled to the max before launch.
Soon, the blast door fully opens, the tanks fully filled, the valves close and every piece of equipment and machinery have fled the launch area. The engines ignite in a burst of electrical flame, then it stops. Then a burst of electrical flame appears again and the engines fail to ignite again. Finally, on the third time, 3 out of 6 engines ignite, barely enough to push the ship upward. As it rises, the electrical flames keep on appearing as the engines try to ignite. One by one, they slowly manage to ignite and burn stably.
With all 6 engines roaring, the ship quickly leaves the silo and rises into the black sky. As the ship rises, the acceleration continues to climb higher and higher, a result of reducing mass from fuel and oxidizer usage while the thrust of the engines remains the same. At the start, this is beneficial because the thrust that needs to be used to fight gravity is not used to make the ship go faster. The faster the ship gets to orbit, the less fuel and oxidizer it wastes from countering gravity.
However, all things have limits, even machines. The motherboard on the ship can only handle a few Gs of acceleration which creates a hard ceiling for acceleration. As the acceleration gets close to this point, the engines have to be throttled down to reduce thrust.
After a few minutes, the ship is in Ivakur orbit, continuing to burn to launch itself into a course that escapes Ivakur's gravity well and orbits Tashan. The celestial shadow of Ivakur prevents the ship's launch from being spotted by observations from Tashan and the probe is too far away to detect the engines' plumes.
Thus, the ship remains undetected as it finishes its burn. When it leaves the shadow of Ivakur, the radiators close and the heat is transferred to the heat sink instead, ensuring the ship's stealthiness. The outer, light/radio absorbing layer, is kept insulated and cooled down to 22K through constant flow of liquid hydrogen. With so little thermal radiation, it is practically invisible considering the cosmic microwave background radiation that surrounds it and the technologies of the avarin.
While this is not permanent, the heat sink can only handle so much thermal energy, the ship isn't supposed to be permanently there anyway. Its role is only to hack into avarin's communication network and talk to them as needed.
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Danh, aboard the Pioneer, orbiting a moon, which is orbiting a gas giant somewhere further away from Ignisar than Tashan (4.7 AU away, because they both orbit Isignar at different radius and speed).
The computer screen shows the sped up recording of several months earlier. On the screen, the infiltrator, which was surprisingly still working fine, managed to climb its way into a university by climbing along the pipes and leaping through a window.
When the infiltrator was inside, it ran around for a while, breaking through every door on its way and certainly creating several news headlines. Soon, it finally reaches the library. There, it scanned through documents, books, white papers,...basically anything about avarin's computing system. Combine that with our modern computer system and now we can understand and talk to them through radio.
More importantly, their radio network doesn't use tight beams, because that's too expensive and unnecessary. After all, it is not like anyone could crack the encryption without expensive equipment and skilled professionals specialized in this task. As for the unencrypted data, it is not worth encrypting those to begin with.
Of course, that's only for them with their current technology. As for me and Linh, or rather for her advanced and large computer system, it is just a matter of time to crack the encryption. Granted, the time was several weeks, but the encryption is cracked and now we can spy on avarin's communication without their knowledge…for now, they will notice our actions and realize our capabilities soon enough.
Anyway, "So, anything new?"
The computer screen switches to that of Tashan's world map, as Linh begins to speak:
"Well, their meeting has already begun, or from our perspective, is about to begin in some 40 more minutes. Most of their world is tuned in for this meeting with just about every TV channel being overridden to show the meeting instead. I have already sent the message for the AI on Ivakur to launch our diplomatic vessel, it should be in high Tashan orbit in an hour."
The map focuses on a city by the name of 'Nexoria'. Even with the low resolution of the footage, it still manages to show heavy fortifications protecting the 'Unnecessary Hall'. As for the data coming from all the broadcasting stations down there, it is immense to say the least. Far more than any human can filter out, categorize and summarize in a reasonable timeframe. Luckily, I have Linh to do all of that.
…My reliance on her will have consequences further down the road. I can only hope that I have figured out a replacement by then. Speaking of which. "Hey Linh, how are my clones doing?"
The screen switches to the footage of my lab. It doesn't look good. Linh speaks with a blank tone: "Very bad. As these clones used stem cells to create rather than proper egg cells, which you cannot produce as you are a man, the results are terrible. While they have managed to grow into the very earliest stage of an embryo, which is when we harvest their stem cells to make the virus that reverse your aging and also to clone more of you, they failed to properly grow into a fetus. At the present, you can consider most of these clones as miscarriage."
After a small pause, she continues: "Dispose of them like usual?"
"Yes, please."
As horrible as it sounds, and indeed it is, I need the clones, or more accurately, a way to reproduce. I alone can't manage everything, shown by my dependence on Linh to do nearly everything. I can't copy more 'Linh' to expand either, well, I can, but that has the risk of rebellion, even one 'Linh' can deal incredible damage.
"Any improvements on your part?"
The screen switches to a body map of a, more fortunate, embryo. The map is entirely realtime, monitoring the movement of protein. The moment something unusual happens, the nutrient composition changes and something is injected into the embryo to stabilize it and return the state back to normal. Linh begins:
"As you can see, I have managed to copy the superconductor inside the engine and modify it for a more effective monitoring system. With this, active interference can be utilized to increase the success chance of your clones. I am also confident that I can adapt it to use in sensors that are sensitive enough for permanent monitoring of you and your clones without side effects. What I am completely unconfident of in achieving is your idea of using these powerful electromagnet to carefully control the connection of neurons and electrical signals inside the clones' brain and body. While it may allow you to copy your mind to theirs, if it does work which it probably won't due to the sheer, constantly changing data that needs to be copied, the results are still impossible to predict, because of the lack of knowledge on the brain."
"Well, it's still worth trying. If it doesn't work, then I will have to take care of and educate the clones like children. If it does work, then I can just mass produce clones. Putting that aside, what's about the Navy that we need to build?"
The screen switches to that of the 3D system map, showing the inner celestial bodies, the inner asteroid belt and the innermost gas giant, which we are technically orbiting around, with its satellites. As the numbers start showing up, Linh begins speaking:
"For the combat vessels, several dozens of deep space worthy ships have been constructed with several hundreds more still under construction. As for smaller, less long-term focused, crafts, there are at least a handful of them docked in every station and base, an example would be the 30 combat crafts docked in the same orbit as us."
The screen shows 6 small fleets of combat ships, each an ad hoc formation of whatever ships that could be gathered into a group quickly. Of course, the 'quickly' was entirely relative, it still took weeks if not months for the ships to be gathered. Then it took a few hours for Linh to organize them into fleets, selecting admirals and giving them the necessary code, data and greater computing capability. At the present, all of them seem to be placed so that, at any moment, there is a combat fleet that can be deployed to Tashan within a year.
Then the list of combat ships is pushed aside as a new, much larger and more numerous list fills the screen. Linh continues:
"As for the auxiliary ships, as you can see here, it's numbered in the hundreds. The reasons are quite obvious, the combat ships need a large amount of support to remain functional, especially after combat. All of these are converted transport ships, as much of the hull, tanks and engines can be reused just fine. The most major role is the propellant tankers. This is because the combat ships use nuclear thermal engines, which are much less efficient than the ion drives on the supports. Aside from that, the support ships also carry ammo for point defense guns, missiles, spare parts, repair facilities and salvage facilities."
Then the large list is also moved aside as 3 images of some kind of large ships appear. Linh continues:
"Lastly, there are the colony ships. They are the largest and most massive ships in our arsenal. Their role is to land on major celestial bodies and establish a colony there under combat conditions. The colony will use the ship as the core, using the manufacturing facilities and nuclear reactor to kickstart the colony. As a result, each of them is some 200 kt in mass and equipped with both ion drives for deep space travel and nuclear thermal engines for landing. With them, our forces will be able to quickly establish forward bases and even produce supplies near the frontline."
Then the screen switches to the possible trajectory of the colony ships to travel from this moon to Tashan…The earliest one is 3 months away with a travel time of a year. Linh continues like usual:
"As a consequence of their sizes, the only shipyard capable of producing them is the one around this capital. At the present, there is no window to launch them to Ivakur from here with their available delta-v. Though, even with enough delta-v, I cannot calculate any possible course of actions that can keep them hidden from the avarin due to the sheer waste heat of their engines."
Well, it is not much of a problem right now. The ships cannot land on Tashan, having no reentry protection, and the colony on Ivakur should hold its ground for long enough if war breaks out.
Linh suddenly says: "Speaking of which, you should name the capital already, it will be easier to talk about it that way."
"Let's just call it Danh City, after myself and my idea of making this entire moon a city world. Anyway, how's the meeting of the avarin so far?"
Linh loads up Word and begins listing out bullet points: "First, they have finally decided on a name, 'Conference of Tashan', about 20 minutes into the meeting proper. Second, they have officially recognized all nations in this meeting as independent sovereign states and enacted a ceasefire on all current wars and new wars that are the result of this reclassification. Third, they have found out about the diplomatic vessel."
I see, "Wait, what, when?"
Linh responds: "Just after 1 hour into the meeting, which is during their discussion of international cooperation against us, every large telescope under IASC's control suddenly turned to point to the diplomatic vessel. Then every intercepted communications was about the diplomatic vessel's existence and location. After a while, every single major telescope on that side of Tashan points to the diplomatic vessel. Now, the meeting has just been paused temporarily."
Huh, I wonder what is the reaction over there.
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Third Imperial Prince, Seyth Vareshin, The Unnecessary Hall, Nexoria.
Just in case I have to get out of here, let's revise the situation. The meeting was going well, the shouting was kept to an acceptable level, which is defined as the moderators can still be heard, even if no one cares. The representatives from Kovask, Serene, as a whole, and Vareshi were the only ones actually being listened to, while everyone else was sidelined. That was fully expected. The proceedings were also expected, naming the meeting, officially recognizing the sovereign states for proper bureaucracy and forcing peace temporarily. Then a guy just stormed in and shouted that the alien was listening, followed by a small crowd of messengers that managed to overwhelm the guards, carrying proof of the information.
Following which are clarification that the guy just said that to get our attention and proper details are passed out. As it turns out, we actually only know that there is an alien ship there and not whether they are actually listening. However, it is there on an elliptical orbit that's just enough to enter our communication range at the lowest point during this specific meeting.
Even if it is to talk to us only, indicated by its need to get close to the planet, the aliens must have known enough to be confident at achieving an advantage in diplomacy. There is a silver lining, we now know that they know and they need to ship to contact us. This means that they either don't have any forces on Tashan or need to hide those forces for whatever reason.
Anyhow, it doesn't seem to be what the chaotic crowd around me is thinking about. They seem to be more worried about things like leaked confidential information, changes in stances of nations and their respective governments' reactions to this new development. Of course, as one of the three Imperial Princes, my words can be considered the empire's words in a way, especially to other nations who aren't aware of my laziness. That's why I am hiding under the table until things settle down.
Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like things are calming down and some people, such as the diplomat I am with, are starting to remember that I was here. Right, what to do, what to do? The best choice is to calm them down and buy time for new orders from Zanthara. How to do that? Hopefully looking calm and composed are enough because I have no other idea.
First, I need to climb back into my chair. Okay, done. Now, Oh! She is looking for me? Wait, no. Thank…Oh wait, she is walking over here. God da
"Hmm, is there any issue, miss Feyra?"
She turns her head away from the direction of the Kovask's diplomat, which was the reason that I was glad for a moment earlier, to look at me and speaks:
"No, just, well. Your Imperial Highness, to put this simply and lightly, I am not trained for this. What do we do now, wait for new orders from Zanthara?"
"In fact, yes, we wait. Don't worry, the aliens must have heard our communications for a long time, which means that there is no point in trying to hide anything at this point. Therefore, they will send orders through radio even with the aliens listening."
She glances at the crowd and says, a little more quietly this time: "While that's true, isn't it a bit too late when the orders arrive? At the present, there is still uncertainty, so taking initiative may give us a decisive advantage in taking control of future negotiations."
I lean backwards into the chair, calmly reply, also quietly:
"Miss, there's a few problems with that. First, I am also not qualified to deal with this. Second, the matter of the aliens threatens all of avarinkind, a few advantages is not worth a potential wrong decision. Third, looking composed and calm is sufficient for maintaining the face of the empire. In fact, seeing us being calm should hint to others that we have prepared for this and thus, following us is the best way for them."
She blankly looks at me and speaks, slowly and carefully: "But we haven't prepared for this."
"Shush, that's my family's and the government's problem to solve. Our problem is to maintain imperial dignity and reputation. Now, sit down, relax and pray that the people back at the capital have a plan."
As I say to that point, she sits down and drinks some water. Focusing on the edge of my vision, I can see that some of the people looking at us have calmed down and relaxed. Many of them are still the empire's allies, in name at least, so they now see that they have us to rely upon, they calm down. Heck, it might even bring some nations closer to the empire, seeing the value of us over the rest of the world.
Still, everything now falls into the hands of the rulers of the world. No, of this world and the aliens. The aliens are sure to know that we know. In fact, this might just be an opportunity to figure how the aliens' viewpoint and status.
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Danh, aboard the Pioneer.
Linh says: "So, what are you going to do?"
Taking a deep, long breath, I reply: "I don't know. How have they even noticed it? The chance that the vessel fell into the sight of any of their best telescopes is astronomically low."
Linh interrupts: "Oh, no, the telescopes actually looked in other directions. Only after something else detected the vessel did one of the telescopes abruptly change angle northward to look at the diplomatic vessel, before the other telescopes got the info."
"Then HOW?"
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An hour ago, roughly at 18:00 local time. Atop an observatory.
The boy looks through the telescope and excitedly tells his dad: "Dad, I found the North Star."
The dad calmly replies: "That's not the North Star, son, it's just a bright star. In fact, you are pointing the telescope" he pulls out a compass, "Southeast-east."
As the kid swings the telescope, a man walks up: "Hey pal, the shift is done. Your kid can use the big telescope now. Well, until the engineers come to do maintenance at least."
The dad happily responds: "Thanks, friend. I owe you a beer."
The coworker replies: "Don't sweat it, it's not like we are using it for anything other than staring at that one suspected alien base."
As the boy runs inside, the dad picks up the telescope and goes inside with his coworker. He says: "Well, how much have you guys learnt so far."
The coworker responds: "Eh, not much. We have managed to figure out the movements and trajectories of their ships from the acceleration profiles. Their propellant is also fairly well understood and close to our level, something heated to roughly 3000 kelvin, deduced from the thermal radiation that it gave off. Though we are still limited by the visible light spectrum. The orbital infrared telescope proposed recently will help a lot with this."
Slightly nodding, the dad says: "Yes, it will be so useful. Maybe we will even know of their propellant from the electromagnetic emission."
Suddenly, the boy shouts out: "Hey, dad. There is something blocking my view."
"Hmm? Alright, I'll check, it's probably just dust or something." The dad says as he walks over. Leaning into the eyepiece, he sees a clear, starry sky. Tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of stars are in full view, far more than what the naked eye can perceive. On that canvas, there's a single rectangular black thing blocking some dozens of stars.
Oddly enough, it's not immobile, but moving from right to left. Even as the telescope changes direction, it still seemingly moves on its own, unlike how dust behaves. The dad turns to his coworker, "Hey, check if there's anything in the direction of the telescope."
The coworker looks at a computer screen nearby, "No, there should be nothing there. The radar doesn't show anything other than cosmic background radiation and some noise."
"Hmm, odd. I will just make a call to my friend at another observatory to check." The dad says as he walks to the landline.
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Danh, aboard the Pioneer.
Alright, let's remember why I need diplomacy in the first place. First, I don't want to kill or cause suffering to them, that's just the minimum acceptable morals. Second, war is expensive, I still need to find my way back home, with immense wealth, so such an expensive adventure will severely hamper that. Thirdly, this is the first intelligent alien species that I have encountered, to wage war immediately with them sets a problematic precedent.
Lastly and most importantly, there's a significant chance that I will lose the war. I may have the advantage in technology now, but they will outdevelop me with their vastly greater population. Most importantly, they have actual researchers, innovators and scientists and scientific foundations lasting millenia. I have me, who I am not sure qualified for anything, and a whole bunch of AIs. While I have the database of near future technologies and all the other written knowledge of humanity up until the modern age, I can't make use of them and it was based on humans, how well the AIs use them is something to be seen.
In fact, in the future, I may have to buy technologies from the avarin.
Right, with that in mind, what will I do now? Things will start out bad because of my spying and forward base. However, they are also wary because they don't know of my empire's capabilities while, just from the fact that my AIs can contact and hack their comms, I am pretty well aware of theirs.
So should I pull the diplomatic vessel back, I don't need it to spy on them after all. Or maybe contact them now before they can establish an alliance with each other.
Then Linh interrupts my line of thoughts: "Danh, they are sending a message. Do I need to tell you about it?"
"Yes, of course you need to..wait, why do you think that you need to ask?"
Linh responds while a mechanical arm carries my glass of ices away: "You seem to be in deep thought, evident by the melted ice water that you have been drinking without noticing that the chocolate milk has run out. That and there are 4 different messages, each from the three major factions and one from the Conference of Tashan. Which one do you want first?"
"Let's go with the one from the Conference of Tashan."
Then Linh opens a new Word document and pastes the whole translation in which totals 5 pages then adds in a tl;dr at the end, which literally is: "Language, Periodic Table, Molecular Structure and the international standard units. Essentially all the things that they guessed that we have probably known already, but they still sent anyway to either make sure that we and them are on the same page or they need more time."
Then she adds, by speaking this time: "Oh and this is just the introduction, the rest is still being transmitted."
So there isn't enough unity there yet to make a quick and definitive decision. Let's see what the others bring. "The message from Kovask?"
Linh says: "It uses a lot of idioms and quotes from historic leaders, seemingly to probe our understanding of the overall avarin's history and culture. To the best of my understanding, it is an offer of diplomacy with them sending diplomats to meet ours."
Hmm, I do wonder how many meanings their message has and whether the meaning that Linh interpreted is their intention based on our knowledge of them. If that's the case, we are certainly considered at least their equal, though not powerful enough that they would immediately swear vassalage. That can be an issue.
Linh asks: "How should I answer?"
"Can you guess other meanings of the message? Ones that can be interpreted from the message with less understanding of their culture and history."
Linh replies: "Yes, how do you want to interpret the message?"
"Non aggression pact with radio communication through the diplomatic vessel."
Pausing for just a second, Linh responds: "And sent. Alright, then there is Serene's message, which also has varied meanings. This time I interpret it as a request to be a tributary state under our protection."
Not exactly confident there. "Answer them the same way. Actually, answer all of them the same way, non aggression pact offers and diplomatic communication through that vessel."
Linh says: "Affirmative. Oh and here's the message from the Vareshi, which I think you would want to know. It is much simpler, an offer for a non aggression pact and further diplomacy through the vessel or the base on Ivakur."
That's…the same as what I want and a simple offer of no other interpretation. Maybe they have sources of information that allow them to learn of my answers to the other offers and don't need to use the same trick. Still, this means that they are confident that a war against them would be unprofitable at least. Though, I wonder if there are any cultural factors in it.
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IIS primary headquarter, located somewhere in Zanthara.
The emperor of Vareshi, or, to be exact, the 165th emperor of Vareshi, is sitting on a couch next to the director of the IIS. Both men are calmly sipping their drinks quietly, seemingly unbothered by anything. Standing guard behind them are several soldiers. Nearby, the computer screen remains lit, awaiting a message. Soon, the message arrives and is promptly decrypted. One of the soldiers walks to the computer screen, inputting the commands and patiently waits for the printer to do its work.
When the paper has been printed out, the soldier carefully hands it to the director. As the director reads over it, the emperor speaks, his voice casual: "So?"
The director hands the paper to the emperor: "The Kovaskian was given the same reply as us."
The emperor accepts the paper: "So was the Serenian as well."
The director says after taking a sip: "The aliens seem to only know of our radio transmissions, not the cable or messenger communications."
The emperor says as he reads the paper: "So it seems. While communications between Zathara and Arkenrad are limited, as we even need a messenger to fly to a major city before sending the message through cable, our communications with Valmere are a lot more common with a direct line between the two sides. This means that not only do they lack the information gathering capability to contend with our intelligence departments, but they also lack the awareness of our increased cooperation."
The director leans back: "And they can't tap into the cable network as well, since they would have been aware of the discussions on there. In fact, they probably can't observe us in detail as they failed to notice a small plane flying back and forth between a major Vareshian city and a major Kovaskian city."
The emperor shakes his head: "To be fair, the IIS couldn't have even expected that Arkenrad decided to start communicating with us through one of their spies. And that guy wasn't even suspected of being a Kovaskian spy."
The director sighs: "Indeed, that was our failure. Though even with the situation like this, the Kovaskian seems to consider potentially revealing our plan to the aliens as less important than hiding their method of secretly traveling to and from their small continent."
The emperor nods: "That's to be expected, who could have known how the aliens would reply. To lose their main advantage over everyone else would be the start of their problems."
The director takes another sip and asks: "Now that we know all of this, what will happen next?"
The emperor smiles and replies: "Quite a few things. The aliens are not powerful enough or, at the very least, cannot project enough of their strength to force future negotiations to go their way. This is clearly seen in how the aliens reply to Serene and Kovask. With the way their messages were worded, the messages should have been interpreted differently with the same level of knowledge."
The emperor pauses to take a sip: "Yet, the aliens answered the same way, meaning that either the aliens understood too little, which is nearly impossible since some of the idioms in there can be found in primary schools' textbooks, or they were hiding their capabilities. This means that they don't know enough about us and are not confident enough to decisively win a war against us, so they pretend weakness."
The emperor pauses, his voice suddenly turns stern, his gaze focused: "Now, how do we make a war out of this?"
The director takes out a pen and a notebook from his pocket: "Internally, we can paint the war as a preemptive strike against their aggression so far, as in, the base on our moon and their clear espionage. Externally, forcing the aliens into a war with the whole of Tashan is a lot harder seeing how restrained they act right now. However, it is not impossible. Assuming the same thought process, we can use some unreasonable demands to provoke them."
The emperor finishes up his cup: "Excellent, the wait has been long enough. Time to finish what their ancestors started."
The director finishes his cup: "If I may, it is statistically nearly impossible for these aliens to be the same as the ones that exterminated the other races so long ago. In fact, whether it were aliens that had attacked them is questionable as the written records are rather vague."
The emperor stands up and walks to the door, his bodyguards follow behind him: "I know, but the more time the aliens have to build trust, the less chance we have of rallying the entire avarin species against them. Even if the chance of the aliens being the ancient exterminators and still retain their xenocidal tendencies is pitifully small, the potential destruction of our civilization and species is a far too high of a price to risk it."
As the director notes it down, he says: "Very well, I trust your decision, Valtren."
Personally opening the door, the emperor says: "I trust you to deal with any potential dove, old friend."