The arguments had become heated, even before the Trantor spoke. Lady Drake and her cadre listened and digested the words that tumbled forth, the tone and finality of what was said. Such confidence, such profound arrogance about the life of the citizens of the Trantor Empire, even as the words fell from his lips, it sounded as nothing more than braggadocio.


Their standards of life the highest in the galaxy? Lady Drake isolated the words and focused on their meaning. Slowly as the man continued to drone on, the phrase continued to chew away at her, turning slightly to General Dalran she whispered, “Their standards do not apply to us. Does this man deem to impose his style of existence upon all who they encounter?”

General Dalran merely glanced at the esteemed lady and said nothing, the amber energies drifted from his eye sockets and floated along the air currents, finally dissipating a few inches above his head, “Lady I would point out that the man who spoke earlier is correct. We, as a people, have been unaffected by the acts of war. We have only recently become aware again, at the behest of the grand sleeping queen. Perhaps we should examine our position for seeking peace. Access the holon and you shall see what I have, war is unavoidable.” Lowering his head so that his amber filled sockets were hidden from view he whispered, “If war should visit us, we shall fight Lady but for which side?”

Lady Drake paused a moment, one gauntleted hand tapped the ornate handle of her sword, the other one out gripping the cloak’s edge as it was folded over that arm. It was obvious she was debating something, something that could sway the great dreamer one way or another.

As the Trantor spokesman finished another spoke, it was the representative of the Ardren who spoke, and the tone was once again accusatory about the insidious nature of the Trantor people, as she turned to face the speaker she was startled to see him looking at her, and even more startled to hear his voice in her energies. Quickly regaining her composure at the sudden intrusion she accessed the darshan and extracted what she sought, these people had the ability to speak thusly, as was recorded by the Aeryn Jessi only recently.

Straightening as the man approached her, the crimson energies dulled and receded slightly, allowing the skeletal visage to become more pronounced as she listened to him. When the knight finished and before he could turn away, she responded in kind so only he would hear, “Mediator we have come to hold some measure of respect for your people. Our Aeryn has granted us insights to the behaviors of your knights and we have found it to be one we find acceptable in a race.” Lady Drake raised her hand away from her sword and bowed slightly, as she did so the energies flared again, “War shall be waged, let those who carry arms be the brunt of your force. We shall hold your people to that promise to limit the deaths of innocents.”

With that she listened to the declaration of war on Trantor, the die had been cast. War was now inevitable. Violence was to beget violence and life would claim life. Yet even as the battle lines were drawn, and the dogs of war gathered to lead their masters to the carnage, the Xindhi remained neutral. And they would remain so until the queen was swayed one way or the other. But had not the queen already cast the lot of the Xindhi with these people, these Ardren? Lady Drake pondered this a moment, the actions of the Aeryn held greater ramifications than previously believed.

The ambassador listened to the Trantorian ambassador. It was words. Perhaps more bragging about innate moral superiority than reassurances that Trantor was what they said they were.

"You speak much of old Earth history. You remember the man who promised 'peace in our time' and birthed the sequel to the 'War to End All Wars', do you not? History is replete with people who thought peace could preclude war, and stoppered the inevitable until it simply grew in malignancy. Ardren is correct in that a disarmament of a proportion of your vast warfleets is the primary assurance of the safety of the nations. Selekus is satisfied with it's corner of the galaxy, and we can expand the frontiers of human space, certainly easier than cannibalize the nations of the inner worlds, and fighting fellow humans and scorching the worlds we kept safe all these years.

You sell the attributes of your nation so well, but I wonder what happened to all your previous trading partners? Your nation grows rich and powerful, but these customers of yours, where are they? I see no equals to your might, and it seems that you grew by combining what they had to offer and keeping it to yourselves. I suppose commensalism is the best any of your partners have to hope for?

And who is to say your nation is the best out of all others? Your peoples wants are sated but are they truly happy, if happiness is the true objective? In contrast to your quest for bread and circuses, our peoples have bled through the ages keeping the inner worlds free from violence-by necessity we are not strangers to what it means to declare war, though you imply a black-hearted wanton-ness to the mobilization of our force of arms. Nor are we genocidal, as the Eudemonian alliance with the Space Nomads demonstrates.

It is a Tripolitanian feeling that our generations of hardship on the frontier produces austere and practical men, capable of rapid innovation to new problems, initiative by virtue of distance from command nodes and military might to protect our homelands. Do we proclamate our virtues and what we perceive as *our* moral superiority to all corners of the world? No. We do not brag, we do not belittle, and we do not tell others that our way is better in an attempt to win them over in moral arguments.

I suppose you may say your empire is the best, but Trantorans have not set foot in the Commonwealth. But perhaps your hubris empowers you to assume the best of yourselves. Those who think they are the best, often set to 'showing others the light', and if necessary those who don't know what's best for them can be led to it by force."

Then he turned to the Caldari ambassador.

"Has Trantor offered to sell you weapons yet? Swords before plowshares usually, for the merchants of death."

Zheng listened to the Trantorian diplomat, and when he was finished, he began to tap his fingers on his sword, and continued to sit. As the Arden Mediator began to speak, it carried words of wisdom and justice to the hearing, Zheng began to nod.

"We from the Caliphate, agree wholeheartedly with your suggestion, the Trantorians must be realigned. But our Jihad has been called, and we must take at least one of both the Trantorians Worlds, and New Jita, back from those who conquered her. We will be happy to relocate the Caldarians to a new system."

He then turned to the Xindhi, and then the Trantorians, and continued,

"Long have we seen the treachery of the Trantorians. When one speaks of peace, and trade, he prepares for war. And the Xindhi have yet to feel their blades. After the war, after they've assisted the Trantorian scourge in their un-holy endevours will they feel their two-faced treachery. So, what may seem right and wrong for you now, Xindhi, may come back, as the humans of old Terra said, to nip you in the ass, nay, bite it off completely. If I recall correctly, in old terra's time, of the new world, the Spaniard, Hernan Cortes, gained the assistance of the Native Tlaxcala against the mighty Aztec Imperium, and after the war ended in favor of the Spaniards, they gained numbers tenfold that of which they had arrived with, and turned on their former allies and subjected them to the same opression as the Aztecs."

The Eudemonian diplomat listened in disbelief as not only did the Trantorian diplomat speak of tall tales and bold-faced lies regarding his nation, but denigrated many of the nations taking audience to the Trantorian propaganda machine at work. The diplomat held his tongue as the venom flew from the Trantorians mouth and filled the room with more poisonous fog, no doubt a shallow ploy on the Trantorians part to cloud proper judgment so they could operate in the realm of lies they are so accustomed to.

Still, the Eudemonian remained still as everyone had their say, only speaking when it was his turn to share his impressions of the speech with those present

And here we have more lies from the Trantorians. A miracle society free from all human ambition while entertaining the most decadent of their people’s desires, on the backs of those conquered, to be sure. Even the staunchest supports of the Eudemonian system would admit that we have not purged our citizens of passion and those darker parts of our human psyche. We have not eliminated all murder, that is a fact. Even the best systems cannot soothe the qualms of jealous lovers, for instance, and nudge aside the scorned lovers weapon as they lash out against those that hurt them. It is our place to temper human nature, not eliminate it… which leads me to believe you are either a liar or are pursuing less than humane means for keeping your citizenry in check. Shall we add civilian mind control to the growing list of Trantorian atrocities?

Furthermore, all those present here on this day should balk at such sweeping, grandiose statements from the Ardren. “Best government in the galaxy”, what absurdity! Surely they cannot place such value judgments on all of us here today, and most certainly not about those currently beyond human knowledge. Such intellectual imperialism should be scorned in all fair areas of diplomatic discourse.

The diplomat stopped to let the statements sink in before continuing on, kneeling forward into his seat as best he could in order to drive the point further

And what is this? The diplomat added in a puzzled tone, attempting to wrap his head around the Trantorian’s accusation of all present being non-governmental organizations NGO’s? Hold your tongue, sir. Not to speak for all those present, but I am an officially recognized representative of the People and Council of Eudemonia, serving the People Democratic Technocracy of Eudemonia, a member of the Selekusion Commonwealth. Your state is as nonsensical as it is offensive, as there is no official function within our lands that is separate from the government. Additionally, we are a democracy in the truest sense, and driven by virtue as opposed to trade, a force that has, historically, stifled or otherwise nullified the virtue of democratic government. And just as I am official dignitary of my nation, I am sure the representative of this… “Xindhi” functions in a similarly official manner.

He continued without a pause for breath, slamming the table before him in a dramatic, but calculated, display of anger towards such arrogance

And your threats regarding this war, billions dead? Removal of life from this galaxy? Are you being dramatic or threatening us all with extermination? Yes, the Trantorians are mad, but are they genocidal too? One must only listen carefully to your speech for that answer.

Anton, notinga small lapse of conversation after the speech of the Eudemonian diplomat, found this the perfect time to speak, and added his small diatribe to the conversation.

Trantor has committed acts of war against our nation! And here they claim to be a peaceful society , free of all the things that make civilization vibrant and alive! We have managed to eliminate the root causes for most of our crime, not just satisfy the citizens in a blissful state, nothing more than sheep who listen to the "Trade Gods", and their President for life, Ryand-Smith!

They claim to be something even the early propaganda of the Technocracy did not, a place free from crime and greed and all the things that make us! We admitted and came to terms with our flaws, while

Oh Great... The Premier is at it again... The Marines moved in closer around the Premier, making a bulwark of human infantry around him, just in case anything were to happen... If you had watched very closely, you would have seen them move their hands to a position that made it much easier to draw their rifles into a firing position.

Anton continued his diatribe, seemingly oblivious to the precautions that his marines were now taking. He was too caught up in the emotion and the moment, rare things for the normally stoic and boring Premier.

And they claim to be peaceful, but their actions show otherwise! Even their mentions of peace hint of their powers of waging war!

The Premier stood quietly after this, pleased with his work.

"Ryand is not President. Ryand is not in the goverment structure at all." Yuuno stifled a laugh."Ryand Smith is a One Star Admiral. in charge of the Terran Sector. A note. We have 4 stars in our cosmic system, due to the size of our fleets. However, our last president is due to leave now. We just had an election cycle weeks ago. Why would you say such an odd thing? Due to Ryand's position as a Dark Trader, he cannot run as government, due to his conflicts of interest." Yuuno turned to the Eudioman government rep, and said, "Well, the probems of life still exist, jealously, anger, and disagrements, but we have managed to keep them in check without mind control, or any such nonsense. We have conquered no person, and in fact, want to avoid conquest. We are traders, and forcing trade upon another is a mistake the old Earth "British", did long ago. In this sector, when we arrived, there were only the Dragoons, who nearly had an atomic war. We prevented their missiles from impacting their lands, and over the course of one hundred years, we united, our peoples becoming as one. Our expansion was into lands that were empty, gas Giants, and terraforming worlds, without native life. The only powers we encountered were all mysterious forces, which chose to leave us alone.

Yuuno took a rest, before starting again." and in the cases that we have, we investigate the causes. Mind Control without consent is banned in our Union, as a Trader who controls the minds of others to sell them goods could never make the deal with an unknown. The NGO comment, was referring to Leonce. He is part of an NGO. You must have misread what I say, and for that, I apologies, I should have been clearer."

It was Chrono's turn to start with his tale, the blue haired commander begining his story simply.

"The last war we saw, was the war of our origin. Bugs, from beyond our galaxy, we now believe from one of our parallel galaxies, the Small Magnetic Cloud, came, and destroyed our homeworld. Billions died, and forced us to leave our first homeworld, a colony, near old Earth. We wandered through space, fighting them off, until we defeated their invasion forces. It was a horrible battle, and of our 1.9 quadrillion people, only ten million were left. War is a thing that is hard for Trantor. We started out nearly extinct due to war, and we would not wish it on the galaxy. We will, however defend ourselves. Oddly enough, terrorism has risen across some parts of the galaxy, and one proposal we came here to suggest, was a universal condemnation of terror, in all of its forms.