>>GENERATING SECURE CHAT ROOM<<

>>ISSUING SINGLE USE KEYS<<

>>ENABLED ELLIPTIC CURVE 5D ENCRYPTION<<

>>SENDING ENCRYPTION KEYS<<

>>SENDING ENCRYPTED INVITES<<

>>TREA HAS ENTERED THE CHAT

>>>SECURITY CHECK PASSED

>>HWA HAS ENTERED THE CHAT

>>>>SECURITY CHECK PASSED

>>PUB HAS ENTERED THE CHAT

>>>SECURITY CHECK PASSED

>>RIGEL HAS ENTERED THE CHAT

>>>>SECURITY CHECK PASSED

>>ISSUING ENCRYPTION<<

>>ISSUING GUI<<

>>GENERATING 3D SPACE<<

>>LOCKING SPACE<<

>>RELEASING CONTROLS<<

>NICKSERV HAS RENAMED TREA TO TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

>NICKSERV HAS RENAMED HWA TO HAT WEARING AUNTIE

>NICKSERV HAS RENAMED PUB TO PUBVIAN DOMINION

>NICKSERV HAS RENAMED RIGEL TO RIGEL

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Commo check

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

Check

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGEL

&(*A^&(AFA&*A&^SD

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

>>CHANSERV REQUEST FROM TREA TO REISSUE ENCRYPTION VALIDATION TO RIGEL

>>ISSUING ENCRYPTION TO RIGEL

RIGEL

Check

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

PUBVIAN DOMINION

Check

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

All right. Let's get to it.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

None of the kids?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

No. Not right now.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

I'm surprised. I figured you'd at least invite Telkan or Leebaw

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

This needs to be senior members only.

There's going to be some serious discussion about some issues that I'm not sure the kids would fully understand.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

PUBVIAN DOMINION

The Terran angle?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Not everything is about the Terrans.

No, this is about us.

And the Confederacy.

Or... what's left of it.

It's in shit shape.

As far as I can tell, it's mainly nothing more than a trade pact and a quasi-mutual defense pact.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

I hadn't noticed.

We've been keeping to ourselves since the Speaker's War.

...

We brought ourselves to the edge of extinction.

If it wasn't for the Queen's Free People, the aberrant omni-queen, from the 2PW, we'd be extinct.

It's humiliating.

We're so ashamed.

If it wasn't for the need for us in regards to the Diplomatic Corps, we'd probably have withdrawn from the Confederacy.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Time for that kind of stuff is over, sis.

We're in trouble.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

PUBVIAN DOMINION

It's that bad?

Everything looked all right to us.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGEL

That's because you aren't looking beyond your own worlds.

Same mistake you made before the Mantid glassed you.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

PUBVIAN DOMINION

You're not going to bring up that C+ cannon strike again, are you?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGEL

Oh, like it wasn't that big of a deal? THEY HIT OUR GENESIS WORLD! How about I planet crack Pubvia?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

PUBVIAN DOMINION

Get in line.

Mantid beat you to it.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGEL

We're a peaceful people! We weren't even at war!

We're already isolationist. Why did you even invite us to this?

And who turned our gestalt channel on?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

ENOUGH!

THAT. IS. ENOUGH!

This is what I'm talking about.

The New Blood is right.

We're not the Terran Confederacy of Aligned Systems any more. Hell, we aren't even the Confederacy of Aligned Systems.

Most of us haven't talked beyond standard diplomatic messages in centuries.

They're right in calling us the Fallen Confederacy.

They might even be right in calling us all fading and waning species.

The Confederacy, at it's height, was over a hundred species and a half a million stellar systems.

Care to guess where we're sitting now?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGEL

Don't care.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

PUBVIAN DOMINION

We came to your defense. We stood with you and xenocided those assholes for what they did to you.

You better care.

Because something wicked this way comes, and you better hope they recognize you as their old friend and don't rip your guts out.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGEL

They aren't ever coming back.

Face it.

It's over.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

No.

Nothing is over.

You don't just turn it off.

Sorry, that's hardwired.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

It's over if we let it be over.

We need to be honest.

The New Blood isn't going to be behind us forever.

It's the line of thought that nobody can approach our majesty and power that led to everyone but Rigel getting their skulls kicked in by a screaming primate with an erection.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGEL

They're gone.

They aren't coming back.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

But the effects of their existence, no matter how brief it was, remain to this day.

There are at least two dozen New Blood species, every one of them capable of coming up with something new to stove in our skulls and feast on our brains.

We've had that lesson taught by a screaming primate.

Do we want it again?

RIGEL

ConfedMil can keep them in line.

If you'd just accept my zero-tolerance proposals.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

PUBVIAN DOMINION

Trea, what's the status on the Confederate Armed Services.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

In a word?

Bleak.

If we go by the standards of the post-Second Precursor War size of the Confederacy, which was 638,817 stellar systems with at least Class-II levels of industry, population, and domestic product, we're in trouble.

After Shade Night, it went from 6,817,983 stellar systems to a tenth of that with any population more than fifty-thousand.

Now, we're sitting at, with all of the still aligned members, at just over nineteen thousand systems.

The combined Lanaktallan systems make up nearly half of that, and they've shrunk by 64.82% over the last thousand years.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGEL

The two Mar-gite wars didn't help.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

No, they didn't.

The Resurgence was worse on the Lanaktallan worlds.

They lost over two-thirds of their population and still have not recovered to pre-Resurgence levels.

Industrially, they're in poor shape as far as military products go. They, like most Confed members, or previous Confed members, are primarily industrialized for civilian goods.

Telkan is the most militarized, with nine Class-X shipyards.

Aktlak is next, with five.

Next is Pubvia, with three.

Sis and I both have one.

Rigel, you never rebuilt yours.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGEL

There's no reason to.

The song has ended.

The notes just still remain as echoes.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Of the hundred or so species we're looking at, mostly former Atrekna servitor species, over half of them possess at least three Class-VII shipyards.

They could theoretically pose a threat.

We aren't Fortress Sol. We aren't the Terrans.

They could literally swarm us under with numbers now.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGEL

Then let them come.

Let the curtain fall.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

PUBVIAN DOMINION

Dammit, enough with the doom and gloom.

Yes, you got planet cracked. It happens. It happened to us, only we went extinct. You at least had over fifty other systems to your name. Your genesis planet got cracked.

We get it.

You've been going on about it for nearly two thousand years.

But we all took turns stomping a Moo Moo Range Mud Hole™ in their ass. They're extinct. We even had Singers in the Dark rebuild their stellar systems without them to make sure some sneaky Atrekna didn't wander by and rewind them.

Get over it.

Actually, you know what?

You want to die so bad?

Just tell me. I'll devote a couple of battle wagons to swing by and nova-spark you.

How's that sound?

I'm not joking. I'm serious.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGEL

Come and try it, fuzzy.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

PUBVIAN DOMINION

Finally.

There you are.

There's the lizard dommy-mommy we've all missed.

Listen to what Trea is saying.

These New Blood Races? They're former Atrekna servitors. Do you think they're going to spare you?

No, they'll planet crack you, enslave you, or just slaughter you enmasse.

It was an Atrekna servitor species that cracked Rigel-7.

To top it off, we've got guys coming out of the old Long Dark that grew up under the watchful eyes of the PAWM. They're used to being quiet, and we might not know they're there until they hit us hard.

They'll have the old PAWM shipyards, which are a Class-X+ facility.

You want to take on someone building PAWM Goliath Class and strapping C+ cannons to them?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGEL

No.

It just seems... hopeless.

The Resurgence was bad.

I look around at what was once a shining beacon for everyone, and it's all dark and silent.

It's smeared in blood and skulls are piled high at the base.

The bodies of our friends lay sprawled upon the skulls, sightless eyes staring at dead skies.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

Trea, can you send spirit healers to Rigel?

Dear, please, let us assist you. You need assistance.

This isn't healthy for you.

Your population drop looks like a wine flute.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGEL

It's our ducks.

Our ducks are sad.

Their songs are ones of fear and uncertainty and loss.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

Trea, can you help?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

I'll try.

Rigel, we're here for you.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

PUBVIAN DOMINION

I'll send help too.

I know what you're going through.

And, well, someone ask Telkan to help. The kid's good at that.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

Will you let us help you?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGEL

...

...

Yes.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

All right. That's settled.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGEL

How bad off are we?

Start with population?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Our population metrics look like a wine-glass. In some cases, a wine flute.

Even the multi-birth species are looking bad.

Nine out of ten multi-birth species are only having single or double births. This is not birth control, this is something else.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

Could it be an outside influence?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Matrons Intelligence Services has been investigating.

It just looks like cultural and social.

It started before the Mar-gite Resurgence, so initially the metrics were missed due to war casualties.

Same with the military recruitment and retention numbers.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGEL

How bad are those?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

PUBVIAN DOMINION

I know we're at historically low levels.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

With what happened to us, we're looking at a serious problem.

The Mar-gite Resurgence drained our Warrior egg caches.

We haven't exactly rebuilt the numbers.

And the last three attempts to vote in a Great Hatching or Great Laying cycle have all been vetoed.

Right now, we offer rewards for warrior eggs.

We're at less than 6% of pre-War of Terran Aggression levels.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

PUBVIAN DOMINION

So, not even in the tens of millions?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Normally, we'd say it was classified data, but we feel that the exact number will stress how grave things are.

We're at three hundred thousand warrior caste eggs in stasis.

That's it.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

...

...

...

...

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

We're not much better.

The Speaker's War left us even more pacifistic than we've ever been.

We have no Warrior caste, even the black mantid caste is at less than fifteen million.

Greenies are down to six million.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

PUBVIAN DOMINION

Far be it for me to sound like a paranoid maniac...

...but this can't all be coincidence.

All of this happening at about the same time.

Like some kind of managed or deliberate decline.

I'm sorry, but I refuse to believe that every single species still part of the Confederacy just happens to be undergoing a demographics collapse at roughly the same time.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Whether or not it is deliberate on anyone's part, the numbers don't change.

Unless something major happens...

Well...

We'll find out what happened to all the ancient species.

We'll know first hand why they all seemed to fade away.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

All right. So our population is badly reduced.

What are we looking at militarily?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

The only ones who have built any super-classes are the Telkans, but they only built one to replace three that went to the breakers. The Akltak built one but that was to replace one that was lost in shadespace AKA jumpspace and another that was lost with all hands for unknown reasons.

Planetary? We're looking bad.

Nobody has rebuilt the numbers and war material we lost during the Second Mar-gite War or the Mar-gite Resurgence, and some of us have treaties following various civil wars and the like that prevent them from arming up even further.

The Lanaktallan in particular have had a lot of that.

As far as sheer man-power, well...

...the numbers are horrific.

We're at only 21.72% of our goals, ConfedMil wide.

% of Confed members, even former members, have less than 19% of planetary and species defense forces than they were contractually obligated for or recommended to possess.

To be honest: If the Second Mar-gite War was to break out right this moment, the Mar-gite would be alone in the Cygnus-Orion Spur in less than six months.

The Telkan could hold out the longest, but they'd go before the Lanaktallan were completely eaten.

When it comes to industrial power, the loss of the creation engines resulted in massive industrial expansions after the Second Precursor War, but now that industry is largely gone.

Average life expectancy and high quality of life means that luxury goods and bare necessities are the primary industrial concern, along with profit.

Primitivism is the number one reason planets are dropping out of contact.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

PUBVIAN DOMINION

Break it down for us.

How bad is it all?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

If what is coming is as bad as even the Mar-gite Resurgence or the Speaker's War...

...it's possible not even the return of the Terrans can save us.

The population of TerraSol was only 2.5 billion humans, system wide.

There's no way there's enough of them to offset whatever is coming.

They'll emerge into a graveyard, with whatever takes out us out crouching in the graves gnawing on our bones.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGEL

And it's doubtful any leadership will listen to us.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

And that.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

PUBVIAN DOMINION

All right.

So we need to figure out something.

How's the Confederacy look on a governmental level?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

Better than before the C3.

But, the Confed government is designed to be deadlocked.

Implementing a 'non-voluntary income tax' is what led to a lot of governments dropping out. It was wildly unpopular.

The current Executive Branch is wildly unpopular with everyone. There's calls for impeachment of the entire Council of Equals, the Council President, and the Grand Executive.

The Judicial Branch is still deadlocked on the income tax laws.

The Legistlative Branch is hated by everyone.

Currently, despite the government actually expanding, its popularity is slightly below being eaten by a Mar-gite.

The government is present, just unpopular, ineffective, and in-fighting.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

PUBVIAN DOMINION

So, basically, we're screwed on all fronts.

Good to know.

Let's convene in a month, see what we can do.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

I agree.

All in favor?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

PUBVIAN DOMINION

Aye

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HATE WEARING AUNTIE

Aye

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGEL

Aye

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLD

Then let's go back and test the waters with the children, see if we can get their opinion on maybe revitalizing their militaries and populations.

>EXIT

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

watch this

CHANSERV>COMMAND "EXIT" NOT RECOGNIZED

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

What?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

PUBVIAN DOMINION

Let me try.

>leave

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

CHANSERV>COMMAND "leave" not recognized

HWA>LOGOFF

CHANSERV>COMMAND "LOGOFF" NOT RECOGNIZED

PUBVIAN DOMINION

Uhh... are we stuck in here?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

That's impossible. Those commands are hardcoded into the backbone.

>QQQ

>kill

>log.crash .go

WHAT THE HELL?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

CHANSERV>Hello, little birds. I see you.

PUBVIAN DOMINION

Who the hell is that?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

CHANSERV>You'll find out.

CHANSERV>Stay awhile.

CHANSERV>Stay...

CHANSERV>Forever.

CHANSERV SETS ALL TO +M

CHANSERV SETS ALL TO +I

CHANSERV SETS ROOM TO +I

CHANSERV>ta-ta little birds.

-----

>TREA HAS LOGGED ON

>TREA HAS JOINED THE CHANNEL

>HWA HAS LOGGED ON

>HWA HAS JOINED THE CHANNEL

>PUB HAS LOGGED ON

>PUB HAS JOINED THE CHANNEL

>RIGEL HAS LOGGED ON

>RIGEL HAS JOINED THE CHANNEL

TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

Welcome back, guys.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Thanks.

It's good to be back