-------

"Well, I suppose that could've gone worse," Xiaoli commented as they finished watching the recording of the meeting between Selendil and the Shaer.

"This does raise a question though." Nochehuatl mused. "Is The Speaker right in saying that you approve of the way they do things? To me, it does sound plausible considering what you've told everyone about the Dhar. Are we the only reason you don't want them to take over this part of the galaxy?"

Selendil made a sound that was close to a snort of laughter. “You speak as if there’s some grand principle shared by all the Dhar that controls all my actions. Yes, the Dhar took over galaxies, usually with violence. Yes, they subjugated the races already present. Yes, most of those races eventually benefitted from our rule, and yes, part of that benefit was the fact that we enforced a modicum of peace. That really is somewhat similar to what the Shaer claim to be doing, though I would argue there are differences. That’s not the important point though. I would’ve thought you had all figured this out by now. I have some principles that I will hold on to, but most of the time I act the way I want to in the moment.”

She continued. “Lilly actually asked me about this after the meeting. Why did I take such a hostile stance with the Dawn Collective or with the Cortoids, and why am I not taking a similar stance here? Simple. Because back then I felt like acting as I did, and now I feel differently. The ones we met before angered me, while the Shaer have not done so. Not yet anyway. That’s not to say they can’t anger me later on. Or if they cross some of the principles I actually do hold important.”

“The answer to your question about Selendil being swayed mostly by our presence on the ship is actually rather obvious if you think about it for a minute, and we're not acting much different," Amaterasu interjected and looked at Nochehuatl. "It's simple really. We are worried about the Shaer because they are threatening our homes. However, I've heard no worry over the fact that they have more than likely already taken over the other parts of our galaxy. I don't see you suggesting that we should go liberate those areas on principle."

Nochehuatl returned Amaterasu’s gaze and a small smile graced his serpentine face. “I wasn’t questioning Selendil’s decision. I’m simply curious about her motives from an academic perspective. I’d like to know more about the mind of a being that carries the strength to single-handedly push these invaders back. For myself, I’m not actually so convinced we should even resist them if Selendil doesn’t act. My people are not warriors. We like and are good at science, culture, art, beauty, entertainment, and many other peaceful endeavors. We generally dislike fighting. If we have to give up a little bit of freedom to peacefully pursue those other endeavors and forever be spared the threat of the more aggressive races taking us over, we should at least consider it. Would it be a good trade? I don’t know. It’s not my place to judge.”

“Would their rule really come with a guarantee of peace though? Because to me, that isn't so obvious." Xiaoli pointed out suddenly. “According to what Selendil had told us, the Dhar at least believed that struggle drives development. Considering the Shaer seem to be modeling their own way on how the Dhar handled things, would they really stop the races under their rule from taking part in that struggle?”

“To be exact, we didn’t stop fights entirely; we simply made sure they didn’t get out of hand and mostly the races had their own territories to rule over. You have to remember though, during our reign there were much fewer intelligent races around. Much of the territory was also directly controlled by us as we built our own bases and terraformed many of the worlds to suit our needs.” Selendil added. “The conditions now are very different, so it might not be a good idea to rely too much on our way of doing things.”

“The one we met on the station before seemed to imply that they would not stop wars. What was it that it said…’You take what doesn’t belong to you. If you have the power to do so, then you have the right. Except when it comes to the things left behind by the Creators. For that you are unworthy.’ Something like that. Doesn’t sound all that peaceful.” Yrala reminisced.

“Yeah. It also mentioned that they would punish those that break the rules once those rules are known. We don’t know what the rules are though. Anyway, I wouldn’t really trust them to enforce peace, at least for now.” Xiaoli added as well.

Nochehuatl shook his head. “I didn’t say I was. I simply said that if that was what they were offering, then my people should at least consider it. We are straying away from the point though.”

“Well, to return to your very first question, your presence is not the only reason I would frown upon them conquering this part of the galaxy. Haven is here. And as much as it seems they’ve decided to ignore the station for now, it seems that will not last forever. Do keep in mind though, that I said from the very beginning that this was your war to fight. I still think that remains true to an extent. I’ve simply drawn a line in the sand now. If they cross that line, I will have to interfere.” Selendil explained. In the end, much of what would happen would be up to the Shaer.

---------

Selendil was lending her own powers to assist the ship’s nano-fabricators in repairing the damage done to the auxiliary arms. Matter editing was something that required precisions and it wasn’t the easiest of powers to use at the best of times. Which is why she wasn’t exactly thrilled when the tiny canine Shinzen Queen teleported right next to her and sent a deluge of mental messages her way. She almost fumbled the job due to the overflow of information disrupting her concentration.

The tiny Queen that looked like a dog made of grass and twigs was actually wagging the thin branch that took the place of its tail, looking like it was extremely pleased and waiting for praise. The gist of the messages was not exactly the easiest to figure out either as it had been dumped on Selendil all at once, but fortunately, Selendil was experienced in dealing with such large and dense parcels of information, even if the need for that skill had not been necessary lately.

It seemed like the Shinzen on the ship had been exchanging information with the Shinzen that had been left behind in this galaxy from the moment they had returned. The sum of all lessons both sides had learned during the time they had been separated had been shared and quickly put into practice. Of special note were the developments the Shinzen had learned from their fight against the Cortoids. Those lessons had allowed the Shinzen to score a rather important victory against the Shaer.

The Shaer had attacked the Shinzen as a part of the wave of attacks against races that were unpopular among other races, and at first they had scored several large victories against their new opponents. Many of the technologies and tactics used by the Shaer were entirely new to the Shinzen, and the technological disparity had also been a large hurdle to overcome. The Shaer had been emboldened by those victories and gotten cocky with their tactics, not understanding that for Shinzen, early defeats were not something to avoid. They were an opportunity to learn.

This had also been the time when the Shinzen that had experienced the war with the Cortoids had returned. Several new tactics and technologies had been relayed, along with what little they had managed to learn during their time on Selendil’s ship. The new technologies would take a bit of time to be truly instituted by the Shinzen of this galaxy, but they did provide their ships with additional bite. Most importantly however, it had provided the Shinzen with new tactics and perspective.

For a while now, the Shinzen had been giving way in front of the Shaer attacks, allowing the Shaer to push deeper into the Shinzen territory with seeming ease. The Shaer had heard about the Shinzen from other races and had even captured a Shinzen life-form to study, but they didn’t really understand their enemy, and that showed. The Shaer apparently thought that the danger of the Shinzen had been overstated, and that they were now running away in front of the might of the Shaer ships. As they should. That assumption would’ve been fair against other races, as that had happened several times already. It just held no water with the Shinzen.

What they didn’t understand was that the Shinzen truly didn’t care about the loss of ships or even worlds at all. That was one of the unique factors about the Shinzen. Why would they care? They could always create more warriors and ships and retake the lost worlds. And defeats only allowed them to learn more and improve. The only reason the Shinzen even took over worlds was to gain resources, bio-diversity, and to find opponents that could teach them more things. And because there was no reason not to take more worlds. The Shinzen had gobbled up large swathes of territory in their wars before facing the Mrrroww and could afford to lose several against the Shaer.

So the Shaer pushed deeper and were stretched out. The Shinzen fled and caused the Shaer to over-extend and thin out their fleets, as of course they had to leave some ships behind to watch over the newly conquered worlds and cleanse them of any Shinzen on the surface. Something even the Shaer had trouble with. As a result, fewer and fewer Shaer ships took part in the attack the further they pushed. They did not worry too much as the Shinzen were on the run. The problem with running enemies though is that they can suddenly turn around when presented with an opportunity.

The Shinzen had learned a lot from the Cortoids. The Cortoids were not quite as advanced as the Shaer, but the difference was not unsurmountable. The Shinzen had learned to fight against such technologically and psionically superior opponents and they had also stolen many of those technologies. Even if it was impossible for the Shinzen of this galaxy to suddenly take all those technologies and re-fit all their fleets accordingly, they could make some changes. Such as focusing on just the weapons.

When the Shinzen finally did turn around, the Shaer found the deck stacked entirely against them. The battlefield had been prepared in advance and the Shaer suddenly discovered that the shields and powerful armor on the hulls of their ships were suddenly a lot less useful than before. It also turned out that the Shaer vessels weren’t much better at withstanding invisible meteors than Mrrroww ships had been. The resulting battle had been a crushing victory for the Shinzen.

Despite losing 100 ships to every Shaer ship, the Shinzen were more than pleased about the results. Importantly, not a single Shaer ship had been allowed to escape. The Shinzen had not wanted a simple victory or just to give the Shaer a costly fight. If that had been their goal, the Shinzen could’ve fought back much earlier. No, what they needed was a crushing victory. They needed the kind of victory that allowed them to capture some of the Shaer ships in relatively good condition. That was also why the Shinzen had lost so many of their own ships.

The Shaer had powerful psions that could absolutely trounce the combat Queens of the Shinzen. But the Shinzen already knew to not give the enemy psions easy targets to focus all their power against. That forced those psions to waste their power on a small number of ships, as well as defending their own vessels from the Shinzen Queens that clearly outnumbered the Shaer psions. That changed the moment the Shinzen started capturing the Shaer ships in one piece. Those ships were surrounded by masses of Shinzen and made for good targets, and the majority of the losses had been incurred at that phase of the battle. Yet the Shinzen had been successful. They had captured several Shaer vessels and even a handful of their most powerful psions.

The whole plan of the Shinzen had been focused on that single goal. The Shaer built semi-organic vessels to a technology level that was much higher than the Shinzen. That was exactly the type of technology that the Shinzen could exploit to the largest degree. It was also the type that was easiest for them to copy once they got their hands on some samples. It was like the Shaer vessels were the idealized version of what the Shinzen wanted to create. And they had been successful. They had managed to capture the Shaer vessels, and those vessels had been taken apart atom by atom to learn all the secrets behind them.

That’s partly why the Shinzen didn’t care in the slightest even if they had lost countless ships just to capture a single Shaer ship. Why care about old ships and creatures that would soon become obsolete as the new generation of ships would carry the lessons they had learned from both the Shaer ships as well as the Cortoids? That was the Shinzen way. Theirs was not the path of individual growth and development. The old generations only served to learn new things so that the generations that came after would be stronger and could institute those lessons.

This was the point at which the canine Queen came to Selendil. They had won a victory and learned what they could from taking apart the Shaer ships. The Queen could sense that Selendil was not pleased with these dark beings. The reason didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was that she didn’t like them, and now the Queen and the rest of the Shinzen had done a good thing. Right? The tail/branch of the Queen wagged in a “Praise me!” gesture so obvious that Selendil couldn’t hide her amusement.

She was suddenly reminded of her idle thought about helping the Shinzen develop into something like a protector race for the universe. She still didn’t know if that was a plan she should even seriously consider, but the thought didn’t entirely go away either. Her mind wandered further down that path. Sooner or later she would no longer be around personally. She had pretty much abandoned any ideas of reviving the Dhar as a race as well. So what would happen if someone opened the door to the Void once again?

Even if she dealt with all the void beings remaining in the universe, someone would sooner or later open that door again, and the problem would return. And this time there would be no Dhar to fight them. So wouldn’t it be rather handy if there was a race ready and prepared to fight the Void when that happened? Could the Shinzen be that race? The Shinzen had many qualities that made them very well suited for that role, yet they also lacked in other areas. The inability to truly innovate was just the most obvious problem, along with their communicational hiccups. Anyone Selendil empowered for that job would need a certain level of benevolence as well or they would turn into tyrants. And if there was something the Shinzen definitely lacked, that was benevolence.

‘Perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself in any case. Though I could test the idea in a more limited sense?’ She thought to herself. ‘What would happen to the Shaer if they suddenly discovered that this supposedly backwater galaxy has a race that can resist them to a much larger extent than they expected?’

The test wouldn’t be just about fighting the Shaer either. The Shinzen had proven themselves on that front when facing the Cortoids after all. As much as she would enjoy annoying the Shaer, this would help both races in the long run. It would give the Shinzen the opportunity to learn many lessons, not the least of which would be to deal with a specific enemy in a complicated galaxy filled with multiple races, some of whom could be potential allies, and some of whom would be enemies. Would the Shinzen try to purge everyone? Or could they be guided to focus on the real enemy? And perhaps more importantly, what would happen once the war was over?

Selendil was intrigued about the idea at the very least. It was worth testing out. She could also still stop the Shinzen by herself if they did get out of hand. She gave the canine Queen the praise it was clearly seeking, and then requested to see the designs of the new ships. They had learned many lessons after all, so surely they had designs. Perhaps she would reward them for the job well done in the other galaxy by making small improvements to that design.

The canine Queen tilted her head in confusion. Surely the Great Teacher wouldn’t just hand out knowledge so easily? The Great Teacher was the type to teach them the hard way, to make sure they would truly learn the lessons. Or perhaps there was a greater lesson hidden in here? Like the one about ‘communication’ and the odd concept of ‘mercy’? Either way, if the Great Teacher wanted something, the Queen certainly wasn’t going to deny the request.

‘Interesting design.’ Selendil thought to herself, and then decided to send that thought to the Queen on a whim.

The Queen mentally explained that the design was something of a mix between the divergent choices made by the two branches of Shinzen in different galaxies. The Shinzen of this galaxy were not entirely convinced by the more plant-inspired design the Shinzen of the other galaxy had gone with, but they also recognized that there were certain benefits to the design. They also noted that the Great Teacher had petal-like extensions on her ship in the form of the now damaged auxiliary arms, so if the idea was good enough for her, then it was good enough for them. As it turned out, the spikes on the Shaer ships that looked a little like spider legs weren’t entirely superfluous either, although their number was exaggerated and partially the result of the ship being grown that way.

The resulting combination was an interesting mix of the plant-like design of the other galaxy’s Shinzen, the Shaer ships, Selendil’s ship, and the original design of the Shinzen of this galaxy. The designs looked a bit like a hybrid between a plant and some aquatic creature. It had a sturdy and highly practical middle and aft sections, although at the back the ships had petal-like extensions that looked a bit like solar sails. At the front, the vessels had extensions that could be confused with long tree roots. That or the tentacles of some aquatic cephalopod. Apparently those had been added both as a nod to the Shaer design and as something the Shinzen Queens had learned from Selendil’s gardeners, the Guardians. Selendil had no idea what purpose they served, but decided not to argue as she knew better than to get involved in anything that had to do with gardening.

The design was surprisingly elegant and beautiful which was what had caught Selendil’s attention. She had assumed the Shinzen would not value such things. Still, she ignored the appearance for now. Instead, she focused on the technical aspects. She made small improvements all over the design. A small nudge to the weapons here, a small tweak to the power distribution and generation there, and a tiny suggestion to improve the defenses everywhere. None of the changes were major by themselves, but combined together, they more than doubled the performance of the vessel. She decided against handing the Shinzen some major technological advantage, as that would go against the point of this test. The Shinzen would have to struggle to reach parity with the Shaer even with the improvements, but they could do it if they tried.

The board was starting to form and the game was beginning. Now she’d watch and see how the pieces performed. There were enough wild pieces on the board to make the game interesting, and she still had the luxury of keeping out of the way unless things got out of hand.