RefSteel's Imperium 11 Report: The Hive Mind

[RefSteel]

With luck and hard work, everything is possible. With work and hard luck ... not really.

2436-49: War
I will not interrupt my exploration of Orion, nor will I hesitate in preparing to claim the world as my own, but I am a hive mind, and it is easy for me to agree that my local ambassador at Rha should come share in a critical Psilon discovery. Zygot explains that the Psilons found the ancient message he is about to show me soon after colonizing Rha, but kept it as a guarded secret, never until now knowing its meaning. It is a single transmission, received too late, when the children had been sent away and the last of the grown Rhans had perished, at a secret communications center on Rha itself. It had been sent by a Rhan agent operating at a distant star, and contained detailed proof of the origins of Rha's horrific plague, engineered specifically to destroy the people of that world. "They created it here," the agent says in the ancient transmission, sending deep scans of the lab where the work had been done. "They made it here and sent it, and -" and his head spins, and a burst of energy fire vaporizes his body. Another energy burst, and the transmission comes to an end. Its point of origin is listed only as Orion.

I inspect the transmission record in detail - it has lain unviewed for centuries, stored until modern times, and then viewed repeatedly, never with any tampering - my computer technology exceeds the Psilons' as theirs exceeds a flea's, and I can be absolutely sure of this, and am - and I know that, unlike with some races, the Psilons could be taken at their word. I have seen the sculptures on Orion's surface; I know who ran its labs; and the Psilons know as well, through me. Zygot asks if I will honor our alliance, and I am compelled to agree. I would not blame the descendants of even the worst of criminals if I could help it, but I can not refute the strength of the Psilons' case.



The Humans ruled the galaxy from Orion, and tried to commit genocide upon their very subjects by the most horrible of possible means. The Humans who live in the modern age have proven every bit as untrustworthy as I could imagine such genocidal terrorists could be - and if Zygot is right, they are working even now to develop engineered plagues specific to every other species in the galaxy. I hope they may be brought to heel - indeed, I hope Zygot is wrong - but for now, until reconciliation can be made for the unthinkable horrors of history, and until we can be sure that it shall not be repeated - war with Lasitus is an inevitability.

Besides, if I refused Zygot, Lasitus and his monkeys would probably have broken our NAP again by next year anyway.

Well and good, but with my chances of Uniting the Triad at "Slim and None" already, the recent Silicoid DoW against me, followed by this demand from the Psilons, mean that Slim has packed up his six-guns and retired to the country.

I scrap most of the Huntress designs for parts and savings in maintenance; they had one purpose, and fulfilled it beautifully, but with the discovery of Ion Engines, they're now also obsolete. The first new design is of course the Hive 6.0, a warp 6 colony ship, which fits aboard a medium hull easily. In 2437, I learn to terraform the atmosphere of my hostile worlds, and realize that using similar techniques might be possible on all worlds to increase their effective living space, and therefore start work on Improved Terraforming +50.

The following year, my new factory control plans are complete, rendering it possible to build sub-quantum photoreactive circuits, unattainable with any control mechanisms less precise, and therefore to design ECM Jammer Mark IX defenses. I also confirm my theories about the Andrium alloy, which leaves only Improved Industrial Tech 3 among the construction projects I can infer from Artemis or devise on my own. I'll think it through as a final test of my theories in materials physics, and then strike out as best I can into the unknown ... unless there prove to be more hints at still more advanced techniques among the ruins - and the more-than-ruins - of the world that holds my latest colony!



With two million Klackons established and safely dug in on the surface of Orion, I at last feel safe in beginning to explore the one place on the planet's surface which remains completely intact!