[Taqwus]

More fun:

The Phong and the Ukra-Tal made peace, no doubt tired of getting a stream of such Messages from my diplomatic corps for several years. Said peace Lasted for approximately 0.2 years until war was declared again between them. Perhaps I need to subsidize the weaker Phong to deter the Ukra-Tal, and to station some warships, complete with Heavily Armed Ambassadors, by their homeworld as observers. *sigh* Or if they had a common enemy, perhaps they would set aside their differences.

The Sergetti may be getting worried, because they managed to go for an alliance with the my nominal allies the Jraenor. The Jraenor need to be watched carefully. In the meantime, the Segretti nation appears to be politically unstable as colonies revolt every so often, usually declaring themselves as free states. Two in one system revolted; one elected to join me and was welcomed accordingly, while the other chose independence -- but was promptly blockaded and cruelly attacked by a Segretti warship.

Rather than condone the massacre of largely helpless millions, a nearby fleet of mine intervened, destroying the warship and landing Heavily-Armed Ambassadors of Friendship and Fun to help restore order to the hapless colony. After a brief but intense negotiation between the Ambassadors and roving bands of 'militia' -- led by the same misguided folks who apparently believed they could hold off the Segretti alone -- with minimal losses among the Ambassadors or civillians -- the Ambassadors persuaded the locals to join my empire, and are now under my complete protection. My engineers have promptly set about restoring and improving the local infrastructure.

In domestic matters, a couple of Grand Projects have begun. First, two teams of mobile shipyards have begun construction of Dyson spheres, and a third team is being assembled. And second, an Armada is being formed. Much of the support ships -- repair, construction, minesweeping and medical -- and lighter combat vessels -- Battlecruisers and below -- have already been constructed and are undergoing the standard thorough training in individual and fleet tactics, while construction has begun on a dozen Janus-class battleships, each of which has the technology to open a gate up to 500 light-years out, or to close a similar gate. This Armada will therefore have extreme mobility, drastically increasing the amount of protection offered to even outlying member worlds against such disparate problems as invaders, rioters, or plagues.

It is still unclear when peace will be brought to the quadrant, but a fair bit of the galaxy is, at least, safe for now under my aegis.

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night