If Only We Had Known | HFY | A Short SciFi Story

If only we had known. Humans are a relatively new species on  the galactic stage. A young species, but friendly and inquisitive. When first  contact had been established with the species, they fell under the traditional pact of  protection. For the first two hundred years of their time with the UGF, they were not required  to defend themselves. None of the member states of the United Galactic Front were permitted to  initiate hostilities with a fledgling member, and no pirate would dare to incur

the wrath  of the UGF's fleet for breaking this oldest of princeps. Each sentient race acknowledged  that making the transition from planet bound to space faring. To help with this transition,  whenever a species settles its first colony beyond the bounds of their genesis planet,  they are visited by a coalition representing the Primarchs of those that stand at  the top of the galactic food chains. Emissaries from the Ky'Thari were traditionally  those who initiated contact. They were the first

race in the galaxy to ascend to the stars,  and the noblest of us all. It is their wisdom that guides the noblest of our galactic  laws, and their kindness that has helped to elevate hundreds of fledgling races. They  shared with Humanity the gift of knowledge, and directed them towards many planets in their  galactic neighborhood that were similar to their own. It was a relatively easy task to do, as  many of the species of the galaxy could not live on a world like the one which the Humans  ar

e from. Not too many can survive comfortably in the extreme range of temperatures and gravity  that Humans can survive in. Sure, the Fr'xians might be able to survive in temperatures  as low as fifteen of their Earth Kelvins, but anything above thirty and their internal  organs would start to boil over. And yes, the Phrexalians can survive in the intense heat  of a star's core, but if those beings of energy are cooled, or exposed to a lower level  of pressure than they are accustomed to, their d

eath is a matter of when, not if. To have  a survivable range of over one-hundred degrees is almost unthinkable, and being able to survive  on a planet with an even greater range than that without substantial developments in their  species' habitation technologies was unheard of. It was easy to find planets where this species  would thrive, and that should have been our first clue to the level of endurance possessed  by these newest members to our galactic stage. The Ky'Thari also shared with th

em knowledge of  galactic territories, sharing with them data on the worlds available to those races who bore  none of the responsibility of protection that the Primarch races had shouldered, so that they  might go out and meet their galactic neighbors. The next to share with the Humans were the  Ts'qlk'ul. They were the most warlike of the Primarch races, and were eager to meet the species  who had some one-hundred years ago shot down one of the Tissian research drones keeping tabs on the  plan

et of fledgling sentients. It had been there, monitoring strange radiation signatures  coming from the planet, and the delegate of the Ts'qlk'ul was said to have spoken in private  with the Human military representatives for hours to figure out all of the finer details of how  they'd achieved the feat. When he emerged from the delegation chamber, he seemed pleased  with the results of their conversation, and was quick to speak of the promise they had as  a species. He was not quick to speak on w

hat they had discussed, but made it clear all the  same that even though their technologies were still fairly basic, their mind for war  and instinct for it were quite formidable. Then came the Tissan, who were equally impressed  at Humanity's ability to take down their drone. They found themselves drawn in by the curiosity  of the Humans, and their ingenuity. They talked long about power sources the Humans  employed, technologies in their settlement, and many other feats the Humans had achieved

.  They exchanged information on xenobiology, and made many impressive, even outlandish claims  about the things their species were capable in terms of basic biologic processes.  They spoke too of their home planet, and the other life to be found there.  Many of the warbeasts manufactured in the Tissian Geneboxes even today are sampled from  creatures the Tissan learned of in this initial meeting. When they concluded their talks with the  Humans after no fewer than two full Earth weeks, the rest

of us were starting to grow suspicious  that this might be no ordinary race of creatures. If only we had known. It was the Humans that ultimately suggested  that we hurry the proceedings along. Some of us thought it hubris, others impudence, but  I recognize it now as a very prudent decision on their part. Humanity is contradictory in  many ways. They are capable of great patience and impatience alike. They are able to  experience the full range of emotion, from deepest loathing to purest love.

In  fact, it's a known fact that the term 'love' is too broad a term to describe the loves  that Humanity can feel. They have created several different terms for differentiating  between different types of love. The same could be said for each of the basic emotions  on the emotional spectrum, as they possess a certain fondness for categorizing things  that most wouldn't bother to categorize. A trait that endeared them to the Lopul, the  primary beurocratic power behind the UGF. The Humans put f

orth the suggestion that they  meet with each of the remaining processions in various antechambers located within  the building chosen by the Humans to be the meeting place for the Primarchs to welcome  them. Considering the Tissan's two week exchange, the other races present had begun to think  perhaps it might not be an unwise decision, if unconventional. Even then hints of the Human's  pragmatic approach to things were present, strange that none of us could see it then. Perhaps  we chose to i

gnore the marvel of a species before us because we were all so sure of our specialized  superiority. Perhaps we just didn't look as closely as we should have at them. By that  point, for many of us, we were accustomed to a certain status quo in the galaxy. We'd inducted  hundreds of species into the UGF, but only seven had ever attained the status of Primarch. Those  that never did were far too common, and there was nothing especially distinctive about their  species. They were, like my own race

the Sirlian, suitably skilled in a variety of different  disciplines. However, unlike we Sirlians, the Human lifespan was pitifully short. A shame,  because they showed promise as a potential jack of all trades race, just like ourselves. In the  end, we were the only race to admit doubts about the human's capacity to thrive in a galaxy like  ours. Each of the other races saw their potential, saw their room for growth, but we remained  stubborn. It would later turn out that once their race reach

ed certain thresholds of  scientific knowledge, they would be able to augment themselves to be some of the longest  lived organisms in the universe. They even joined the Kr'xin as the second race to successfully  deposit their brains into a post-mortem super computer. However, instead of the great cemetery  computers of the Kr'xin, the humans would simply upload their consciousness into robotic bodies  each powered by miniature human super computers. If only we had known. We each met with a cont

ingent of humans, having given them information on which  specializations each of our races possessed, and each of our delegations was met  with humans specialized in that field. The Lopul met with the human businessmen, and  explained galactic commerce to the humans, helping prepare their economy for the shift  to the galactic standard. The Finora met with human artists and musicians, and have spoken  well of the Human capacity for creativity. The Klo'qik spoke with them about infrastructure, 

architecture, and agriculture, finding that the Humans already possessed most of the base  technology for creating and maintaining livable environments on other worlds, not that such  endeavors were especially useful for humans to pursue considering their already insane range of  temporal tolerance. Or so we thought at the time. Our own delegation was perhaps at a disadvantage  in this regard. We were the universes' best generalists, or so we believed. The panel  of people we were sent to meet w

ith were supposedly the same. They spoke to us about  a wide variety of human skills. Largely, they were tailored towards survival on the humans  home planet. We did not understand at the time that each of these people were in fact specialists  themselves, and the wide range of knowledge they were willing to share about survival, combat,  science and technology, and many other topics the Humans considered noteworthy were as translatable  to the greater galaxy as they would prove to be. We had as

sumed many of the skills the spoke of  were simply required by all the inhabitants of the planet in order to survive living on a  deathworld as dangerous as theirs appeared to be if their fantastical stories were indeed  true. Whether or not the tales this species had to tell of its own exploits, and those that could  be found when the Tissans helped the planet link itself into the quantum network of information  sharing that was one of the greatest marvels of the Tissian engineers, none could s

ay. Still,  they liked to argue about the possibilities. Surprisingly, the humans had technology compatible  with the network already, and within the year the Q-Net was flooded with stories from the humans.  It was one of the fastest integrations in history, but if nothing else can be said of the  Humans, which, obviously much could be, it was that they loved their computers. Having  access to the human information network proved to be less informative for many trying to  understand the history

and culture of humans. The networks the humans had established on their  'internet' were not intuitive for most species, and it was almost impossible for an outside  observer to discern the facts from their fictions. Their stories and artworks were great  and many, and it was clear why the Finora had taken a liking to them. However, humans also had  their fair share of poor examples to choose from. This was another of the reasons my people  dismissed them initially, thinking that the sheer volum

e mistakes they proudly displayed  was indicative of a flawed and imperfect race. If only we had known. Humans were a race that thrived on imperfection.  Throughout their history they had thrown everything against the wall just to see what  stuck, to borrow an idiom from the species in question. With each mistake they grew, with  each flaw they learned. They were built to adapt, and adapt they did. If one were to look at  a Finoran painter's works two years apart, one might detect very little di

fference. At an  early age those of the Finora species choose an artistic specialization based on their own innate  talents, and master it fairly quickly. However, a human artist does not develop in the same way.  In fact, human 'progression timelines' as they call them, were at the time a wildly contended  idea. It would be easy to take art from multiple sources and attribute them to the same author  with timestamps indicating how much time had passed between drawings, anyone could have done so

  and claimed it to be true, but common sense would tell you that simply makes no sense. And yet,  for the humans, it did. That isn't to say that the idea of someone who is naturally gifted in  a certain area was foreign to them. Though their appearance in human society was much less common  than elsewhere in the galaxy. They simply chose a field they liked and continued to adapt in it  until they had the skill they needed to excel. We members of the Primarch races, specifically  those of us fro

m the first delegations to visit them and judge their worthiness to join the  UGF were unanimous in our decision to include them in our collective. While my race had  their doubts about their ultimate viability, there had been many races accepted into our  number that were less viable, and we had made it possible for them to live happy and productive  lives safe in the core systems of the galaxy where UGF control is strongest. Often times this would  tragically mean that they'd have to abandon t

heir genesis world. The Humans homeworld was located  in what was considered difficult space. Hailing from the Orion-spur, roughly halfway between the  center of the galaxy and the galactic horizon, they were insulated from the greatest threats  beyond the bounds of the UGF. However that did mean they were living in the middle of an  arm known to be home to many pirate worlds, which was a rather uncharitable name for the  species who'd refused assistance and affiliation with the UGF. Though, to

be fair, most of them  did wind up acting as pirates in some capacity or another. In addition to that, there were many  worlds which bore dangerous flora and fauna, but had no trace of sentience located on their arm. We  expected these hurdles to be too great for them, and expected they'd be requiring assistance  regularly until their technology level could catch up to the galactic mean. It was also  expected that the humans would be required to leave their genesis world sooner rather than  late

r in order to make new lives on a safer world in a safer corner of the galaxy. When it  came out that many of these worlds, both pirate and wild planets alike, had been on the list of  planetary coordinates provided to the humans by the representative of the Ky'Thari half of us let  out a wail of despair for the grievous oversight. But the Ky'Thari are wise. We should have known at that point  that this was no ordinary race. The calls for help never came. As human ships  began to spread out into

their local galaxy, it was not a transition done without blood.  It never is. New species will branch out and find themselves too curious and too ill  prepared to brave the hellish maelstrom that is interplanetary travel and exploration.  Usually, when a species moves off of their home world it is for one of two reasons. Firstly, they  could be establishing drone mining operations on other planets within their own system. These  types of species tend to be more industrial, more suited to travel

ing the stars, as they  tend to design systems that allow for them to set measured goals and reach a measured level of  success equivalent to their level of technology. The second reason a species tends to have to  branch out is overpopulation. The point in time when a genesis world becomes to cramped for the  species to comfortably live there is one of the many filters that can prevent a species from  surviving. These species are usually unruly, difficult to maintain, and prone to a certain  la

ck of foresight that makes it difficult for them to handle the rigors of space travel.  There is simply so much that must be planned for in order for a species to find success,  and without that level of cognizant thought, they are doomed to fail again and again until  the flame of exploration dies out and they deem the effort simply too dangerous. This was  the type of reasoning the humans had for colonizing planet Sol-4 in their system,  and so our expectations were low. I say our here to indi

cate my species, as I've  stated before, the other Primarch races were all filled with high expectations of  the Humans. Only we were blind back then. You see, we didn't understand human thinking. We  didn't understand the way their technology had come about, nor did we understand the lengths they  had always been willing to go through in order to test their new technologies. To be suddenly  gifted dozens of technologies beyond thier previous level was akin to sitting a Lioniali  craft down on a

n asteroid made entirely of gypsum. Sure, they would know it would be foolish to  leave the airlock and get a quick taste of the addictive mineral, but what Lioniali could  resist that temptation? Human scientists were much the same way. Within one decade they'd  slapped together rudimentary cruisers and frigates and had them out exploring their local  galactic neighborhood. Within twenty years a human embassy was established on every UGF planet  within one-hundred and fifty lightyears of their

genesis world. Within fifty, humanity  had built massive colony ships set to begin spreading the seeds of humanity to  even the furthest reaches of our galaxy. Now, perhaps I am skipping ahead a bit. The  two decades before that milestone, which is still being felt today, were two of the bloodiest  decades humans have seen since entering the UGF. It is difficult when talking about humans  not to skip around a bit. Especially when one is recollecting their history and impact  on the galactic stag

e. They have simply done so much that is worth telling about. Having  mentioned their bloody decades that truly catapulted them to their status as a household  name in the galactic community, I believe it's important to describe the circumstances that  led up to those times. I find myself uniquely qualified to talk about this period of history,  having been one of the those who lived it. Still, discerning between that history as I understand  it now, and the idea I had of what was going on at th

e time is not a simple thing to do.  I have studied the histories of this time, extensively though, and feel more prepared  than most to give an accurate portrayal of not just the events that unfolded,  but the factors at work in the human's collective consciousness at the time that  allowed the events to unfold as they did. Of the events, and the many factors at play,  human psychology is perhaps one of the most difficult concepts to grasp, so I might as well  start there so we can get it out o

f the way. It's long been agreed upon that sentience comes to us  in many forms. The pilkmi for instance, hail from a garden world and are themselves plant hominids.  They do not live the same kind of lives as we do, nor can they communicate as we can. They speak  by creasing their fronds in specific patterns as they follow a local star's path across the  sky. When creasing their fronds in this fashion, they release very specific patterns of  pollen, which can be received and then deciphered int

o an actually quite sophisticated  and expressive language. It might take them a week to have a conversation that would take  an average sentient species mere minutes, but their intelligence is undeniable. When  it was discovered that most of the species of 'tree' on planet Sol-3 were also sentient,  the revelation was a matter which horrified the Humans, even if they had by and large  stopped the majority of their lumbering in favor of using materials compatible with their  rapidly advancing ma

tter printing technology. Perhaps you think I am rambling on about these  seemingly unrelated matters because I'm dreading delving into the mess that is the field of human  psychology, and you'd be half right. The truth of it though, is even things like that, things like  the humans reaction of horror to learning what they had done, and the lengths they went through  after the fact to make reparations, a word which is another concept that was foreign to much of  the galaxy prior to the introduct

ion of Humanity, and a reminder of their own internal history  of blood and constant competition. This is a species drawn to violence, made for it, who  will do anything to win in a conflict. None could blame them for it, not for the trees,  nor for their own internal violence. Life on a deathworld is not easy, 'dog eat dog'  I believe is the human expression for the mindset one must have to thrive under those  sorts of conditions. And thrive they did, at the expense of their fellow man, they  w

ould raise themselves through horrid means. Reparations are offerings given to those  who were wronged in wars. If a human does something so vile to achieve victory, or to  flourish personally, they would sometimes go to great lengths to make amends for it. There  are even instances of humans displaying this behavior generations after the transgressions  took place. To most this would sound naïve, but when one understands the ways in which Humanity  has developed better, it makes perfect sense.

Humanity has perhaps the most 'malleable'  brain in the known galaxy. It is how they adapt. At first they used this to  survive their death world. Then, when they had conquered the planet they  used this to tackle arts, science, language, and even athletics. No matter what a human decides  to do, they do so thinking constantly of ways to improve their performance in that field. Their  bodies experience a phenomenon known as 'muscle memory' allowing them to instinctively respond to  stimuli they

are not themselves consciously aware of. The existence of the human 'subconscious',  which differs from the common autonomous task brain structures found in most sentient  brains. There are so many ways in which humans are capable of changing themselves on  an individual level, it only makes sense that they also possess mechanisms for growing  their collective consciousness as well. That is the true driving force of Humanity's  explosion onto the galactic scene. Their obsessive need to understan

d the new realities they were  being faced with, their primal urge to conquer, their desire to exist in a way that they can be  proud of, and their willingness to make amends for their mistakes. These traits and so many more  would prove essential to their unlikely success, and subsequent rise to prominence. Speaking  personally, their transition from a world fragmented and divided into over a hundred  countries and thousands of political parties, into a unified galactic conglomerate  containing

dozens of sentients was something nobody could have predicted, not even  the humans themselves. It makes sense though, when you stop to think about it. What else would  happen when you take a predator give it empathy, intelligence, and ideas of morality?  Where else but a death world like theirs would predators ever have  the need to develop a social drive? So what do you think happens when you take  a species who had been advancing their own technologies at a nearly exponential rate for the  l

ast few hundred years of their history prior to their first contact, who had managed to shoot  down a highly advanced alien research drone, and who had been studying it to reverse  engineer its individual components, and you give them a gift of technological  know-how? To say that the humans were obsessive in their attempts to fully understand  the knowledge we had shared is to understate it, and that's not even taking note of the  human phenomenon of 'hackers' and their unbelievable ability to

extract information  from networks in unforeseeable ways. No, the human drive for knowledge, their  quantifiably suicidal curiosity, and the many technologies they were given reshaped their whole  society within the span of a decade. Every aspect of human life changed. From their production  methods, to their refinement techniques, to the things that they taught their children in  schools, all of it immediately and dramatically changed as humanity collectively absorbed  the information we had gi

ven them, as well as the information we had given them access to.  Still, it was an easy thing to underestimate them. Their first hundred ships fitted with  FTL drives exploded either upon activation, upon exit from FTL space, or in one very nearly  tragic instance, in the middle of FTL space. The resulting collateral damage from that fallout  included the entirety of the VSP-03 system, which was flagged for colonization by the Veliprotari.  Their colony ship was none too pleased when arriving a

t the edge of the system and finding a  black hole where their new colony was meant to be, and the Primarch races wound up absorbing  the financial hit in place of the Terrans, who were lucky enough to have caused the  incident while under the Pact of Protection, and who had not yet fully transitioned into using  the Galactic Standard, and so could not even pay the hefty fines if they'd wanted to. All of this  was more or less in line with what we Sirlians had expected of humanity. Like most spe

cies who begin  faring the dangers of space due to overpopulation, they lacked the planning and preparation  to undergo space flight. Until they didn't. Their access to our technology did a lot of things  for them. One of the first obvious changes was the introduction of the first space faring human AIs.  In the end, their solution to not having a brain compatible with FTL technology was to simply build  themselves a new one. These AIs were capable of making advanced computations and calculation

s in  impossible small amounts of time. Not only that, but they were each linked to a singular computer  back on Earth through quantum entanglement. The AI was capable of learning from its own mistakes, and  learned how to adapt to the rigors of space travel without needing a test run. In fact, the humans  had been feeding it data from the previous several dozen attempts allowing its maiden voyage  to be its, and humanity's first successful FTL navigation. Most of us thought that humanity  would

give up after their tenth ship met its doom, many more thought that by fifty they would  be locked in their home system forever, but none of us expected they would continue  trying for an additional fifty ships. Thousands of human lives were snuffed in their  attempts to stand with the rest of us as space faring races, but still they managed to  succeed in the end. It was fitting that their hundred-and-first ship, the first with  the AI on board was named the USS Memory, as it stood as a remind

er for those who had lost  their lives in their attempts to join those of us among the stars, as well as a slight nod  to the AI that would allow them to ultimately succeed. The fact that this AI never rose up  against the humans is also a fact worth noting. Few AIs have ever been developed that weren't  eventually hostile to their creators. In fact, the human AI Aubeona as they aptly called  it, was the first ever developed outside of those created by the Tissans. The Humans  have since created

many more useful AI, all of which reside on their home planet Earth  where they interact with each other as well as other humans. As it turns out, positive social  interaction is as much a need for AIs as it is for most other sentients in the galaxy, and was  instrumental in their upbringing. To this day, all human ships are linked directly to Aubeona. It  is a comfort for space faring humans to know that their ancient AI companion will remember them,  even if they die in solitude out among the

stars. The USS Memory was a scientific vessel, and  it had been en route to the TUF-2 system, known to the humans as Alpha Centauri.  It was the system nearest to their own, only a measly 1.34 parsecs from their  own home system. Barely a stone's throw for most FTL drives, but to them  it was a monumental achievement. Never, in all of their failures, did they  ever give up on the dream of standing among the stars. Their collective passion for  exploration was far too great to be dissuaded, no m

atter the cost to human  life their exploration required. If only we had known. Not all humans were scientists, but all  humans idealized science and its virtues to an insane degree. Those who made massive  leaps in scientific progress were revered among humans as great men. Even non human  scientists are well revered by humans, especially if they happened to be the first  to figure something out. That is why there are so many human names attached to universal  constants these days, as it is a h

uman custom to allow the first to discover something the  honor of naming it, or else to name it after them. That is a mechanism by which their earlier  predecessors managed to 'immortalize' themselves, well before humanity ever managed to eliminate  the threat of old age from their species. With the invention of their new quantum AI  companion, human ships began spreading to every system in their neighborhood. Even systems  in which there were no habitable planets soon found themselves dotted w

ith human stations and  mining operations. There was no such thing as a system too forlorn for humans to take an interest.  I once asked a human about this peculiar aspect of human space travel. I think specifically, I  asked why they bother to populate any system they come across first, and I received a shrug in  response. The human in question went on to tell me "You never know when it'll come in handy,"  as if I was the silly one for having asked. If I had known how the humans  would use thos

e systems, perhaps I would have had the good  graces to feel silly as well. But how could I have known? How could any of us? Once this work had all been completed, humans  began to expand out into the cosmos at an exponential rate. They would move into  habitable systems, construct habitable stations in inhospitable systems, and use all of  these operational bases to scout out other near systems. Even with their earliest FTL drives  which could only hop one or two systems away from wherever they

were, they still expanded. As  their technology levels improved, the efficiency with which they expanded also improved.  It did not take long for the technological advances to make their way towards the fringes  of human controlled space once they were tested and confirmed to be useful by their scientists  back on Earth, thanks in part to their quantum computers and their marvelous AI to deliver  pertinent information to those who could use it. Human entities known as 'corporations' were  given

freedom to establish their own colonies and operational bases. The humans operated under  a philosopher they called 'finder's keepers' in regards to settling the stars. So long as a  system wasn't already settled by sentient races, they were free to flag anything they came across  as their personal property, only requiring to pay the standard taxes to their government for any  profits turned by the industrious explorers. Again, their AI proved instrumental in handling  these interactions, as it

provided an immediate line of communication back to their homeworld,  and instantaneous flagging of marked resources and bodies. One caveat was that one had to  physically be there in order to make a claim, as the humans experienced a massive volume  of scientists with sufficiently advanced telescopes trying to make vast claims when  they'd discovered new systems or planets that might fit into their habitable zone, being  measured by the planet's distance from a star. Of course, this human expl

oration did not  go without conflict. They had conflicts both with each other, and with members of  the 'pirate' races in their local galactic neighborhood. If it wasn't the massive scale  battle with the Vzzstizzk a few decades later, these original conflicts were what made  people really start paying attention to the Humans progression. Or rather, the way in  which humans handled these pirate conflicts. As is customary, the different Primarch races,  the burden of monitoring new species of sen

tients is a toil shared between us all. Using Tissian  monitoring systems, we each take one rotation of the Ky'Thari homeworld around it's brown dwarf  star, the standard for the universal rotation metric. For any Humans reading this account, that  is roughly 1.45 of your earth years. As it so happened, we Sirlians were monitoring the Humans  when they had their first conflict with pirates from the planet in the TUF-54 system, back then  it was known as the UPS-382 system however. I'll continue

to call it the TUF-54 system though, as  no UPS systems remain on the galactic stage today. TUF-54 was a system controlled by the Korva.  They were a race of mammalian hominids, sharing similar characteristics with the  marsupials of Earth. Like the humans, their kind had evolved on a deathworld. Unlike  Humanity though, they had been too proud to accept the gifts of technology offered by the UGF,  preferring to make their own way into the stars. They had populated ever habitable planet in their

  home system thoroughly before their breakthrough discovery of a primitive FTL travel. They could  only maintain an FTL flight for a few seconds, but coupled with their admittedly impressive cryogenic  technology, and their species innate tolerance of the physically demanding price of cryogenic stasis  allowed them to spread to other systems gradually. They weren't the most powerful of the pirate  sentients known to the UGF, but they were much more advanced than the humans were in many  ways. H

ostilities were initiated after human traders began using the system as a through way  in between human systems located on either side of Korva system. It started small scale, a few  skirmishes with the human civilian ships that had been using the system as a convenient  trade lane. After their first few losses, humans began traveling with what we believed  at the time to be human military ships. This resulted in the Korvans responding in kind, with  reinforcements arriving in the system only ha

lf a cycle after hostilities began. My kind made  ready for the inevitable calls for assistance that the humans would put out. We were perhaps  more than a little bit eager to censure the humans for draining even more resources  from the Primarch races. It was afterall their own foolhardiness and greed that led them  to using the pirate system for convenience. We began to grow suspicious when the calls never  came, despite the fact that our monitoring equipment clearly showed that the humans  we

re losing the majority of their skirmishes. They failed to ever hail of for assistance  however, and continued skirmishing there for many of their months. Each time the Korvans  would increase security in the system, the humans would turn up their level of  aggression. When the Korvans fielded frigates, the humans fielded destroyers. When the Korvans  responded with high powered lasers to bore holes through the Human vessels, the humans responded  by developing energy shielding technology. They

fought in the system for over a year before the  humans finally fielded their first Dreadnaught class cruiser. A massive ship, outfitted with  carbon steel hulls no thinner than three-hundred feet at on any given surface. It's not as if it  was a solid carbonsteel wall however, as every few feet there were empty spaces accessible to  their engineers filled to the brim with energy shielding generators. While most ships would be  content with five, or perhaps ten generators if they were concerned

about having backups, this  human Dreadnaught had hundreds. There were redundancies built in for when the redundancies  for their redundancies failed. Apparently this technology was one they had devised for the  purposes of driving directly through stars if the need ever arose, which was their insane response  to learning of the existence of the Phrexalians. The vessel was named the USS Diplomacy, and was  deployed in orbit next to the primary satellite of their colony world. It sat there in hig

h  orbit, sending out communication requests to those hostile Korvans below. For days the  Korvans threw everything they had at the impressive monstrosity of military machinery. They  exhausted themselves trying to crack it's hull, all the while the Humans broadcast a  simple message to them on every channel. "This has gone on long enough. Let's talk." Eventually, the Korvans realized they would not  destroy the behemoth in orbit above their planet, and they agreed to speak. The humans  had mana

ged to gather enough data from intercepted Korvan communications that  the UGF standard universal translators were able to decode their language.  Delegates from the Human ship and the Korvan colony planet met on  a Korvan station in low orbit. A few things became clear after this incident.  Firstly, the human powers of diplomacy were something to marvel at. It is not well known  exactly what was discussed by the humans and the Korvans during the course of these events.  What is known, is that t

he humans and the Korvans spoke to each other for months. At one  point during our monitoring of the situation, dozens of Korvan fleets warped into the system  over the course of a few days. Each Flagship of each fleet bore the markings of one of their  High Kings, and it was later confirmed that this was the first meeting of each of  the High Kings in generations. In fact, it hadn't been done since the UGF first  approached the species after discovering they'd already colonized multiple systems

  without our awareness. Though they chose not to join the UGF in those days, apparently  the Terrans made a much more appealing offer. Getting a Korvan High King to leave the  planet they rule is no simple feat. Korvans are mistrustful of each other as a rule, and even  less trustful of outsiders. Couple that with the fact that Humans look eerily similar to abominable  figures in the Korvan mythos, and that makes what took place there all the more impressive. After  their months of discussion,

Humanity announced to the galaxy that they were now operating under  the name of the Terran United Federation. Not only that, but the Korvans were joining their  federation, and by extension the UGF. Trade lanes were established, divergent technologic paths  converged, and both species found numerous ways to benefit from each other. Humans and Korvans  alike began settling on each other's planets. The Korvans provided the Humans with knowledge  of other pirate races in their arm of the galaxy, a

s well as access to their engineering bays. It  was true that the human ship proved too much for their weapons to penetrate, but the Korvan weapons  were still superior to the humans weaponry. Not only that, but their engines, FTL drives, and, in  my personal opinion, aesthetics were all superior to the humans ships, which were essentially  repurposed hunks of steel that somehow managed to be sturdy enough to survive FTL jumps. With  the exception of the massive hunk of metal that was the USS Di

plomacy, nothing the humans had in  their arsenal was even considered average by the galactic standard. That went for the Korvans as  well, who while one of the more expansive of the pirate races, had never been one of the more  feared races of pirates like the Klarg or the Bantara. They were classified as territorial,  but mostly harmless as far as pirate races go. It turns out that the Humans and Korvans  had pretty different ideas about what was important when designing a starship. While  the

humans were far more advanced than the Korvans in terms of material science  and energy sources for their ships, Korvans had been making passable ships without  the more advanced materials by being that much better at mechanics than humans were. Their ships  were more efficient by almost every metric. The engines had better fuel consumption rates,  and generated less waste heat than the human vessels did. They helped the humans optimize  their ships in ways they never would have even thought of

without a few more decades of space  faring experience under their belts. Likewise, the humans provided the Korvans with human made  materials and taught them of their known uses, as well as showed them the many promising  studies involving the materials and other possible uses for them. It was immediately obvious  that the two races were each mutually benefitting from their relationship, and after roughly a  year or integration, each of the human world leaders released this statement, or somet

hing  very similar to it in their native tongues. Last official speech of President Daniel Saxton My fellow Americans, this is the last time  I'll be able to address you as such. I know we've all been busy working like hell to go out  and explore the stars and make our claims out there among the stars. The industrial boom  we've been experiencing ever since first contact has been the most prolific boom in our  collective history. If there's one thing that our little altercation with our new Korv

an  allies has taught us, it's that out among the stars things are different than we're  used to. To put it lightly, we got lucky. That whole incident was caused by a single  smuggler trying to avoid proper trade lanes, and the backlash could have potentially made  its way to Earth if things had gone on much longer. We got lucky. We need to understand that  most races out there in the galaxy are unified, and it's high time we were too. Any one of us  can start an incident out there, and if we ca

nnot respond to potential threats together then we  aren't going to make it as far as we would want. We'll be entering into a transitional  government with the other nations of the Earth. This might not be an easy  transition, but the leaders of our world have been discussing possibilities for how it  would work quietly ever since first contact. As a species we've begun operating under  the flag of the Terran United Federation, along with our new Korvan friends. It's time  for us all to come tog

ether and make that name mean something. Our council will include  current leaders of the nations of Earth as well as each of the Korvan High Kings. For now  it's just going to be a provisional council, until the lot of us can come together and agree  on something that works for all of us. We're still not quite sure what that'll look like,  but until then we'll be able to address issues that we as a species will face going forward.  Not too much is going to change immediately. We still have to g

et together and ratify a  new system of law that we can all agree on. That will take some time, but until then we'll  be sticking with the current regional rule of law. Once we've finished working out the kinks  I hope to address you again as a member of the TUF council. Until then, keep doing what we've  been doing. We've still got a lot of work to get done if we're going to catch up to the rest  of the Galaxy. We all hope that our new unity will make that a bit more doable. Our best  scientist

s are already sharing notes with their former competition overseas, as well  as our new friends beyond the stars. Things are going to be changing for all of us pretty  soon. Well, more than they already have that is. He left his speech there, fleeing the stage to  allow his subordinates to field an onslaught of questions from the demanding public, but it  worked. Within a few years the Terrans had a system in place that helped them more effectively  address the issues that had arisen from their

rapid expansion. Eventually the system they  settled on allowed one representative from each planet in TUF space to have a chair.  This system was difficult in its own ways, but it proved remarkably useful when the Terrans  began taking other races into their federation. Which they did. Humans, as it turns out, always experience their  greatest technological innovations during times of conflict, and there was much conflict in  their future. One by one, the Terran's newfound federation began abso

rbing pirate races. At first  we assumed they were illegally vassalizing races that weren't strictly under protection of the UGF.  It was not uncommon for some of the less savory members of our galactic convention to acquire  slave labor in secret from the various pirate races, but it was pretty immediately clear that  each new species the TUF consumed were granted equal standing with the others. Some of us on  the Primarch council looked on with concern, but the Ky'Thari suggested we observe a

while  longer with that knowing tone they like to employ. Only a fool argues with the Ky'Thari. I should have known. I regret to say that I didn't agree with  the council's decision to simply sit and observe. The humans weren't even an eigth  of the way through their pact of protection, and already they were conquering pirates  and putting together fleets that could rival those of any lesser race in the UGF. They  weren't quite to the level of us Primarchs, but we had been growing our power  for

millennia, and they for decades. I was growing concerned, and I shared my  concerns with the people I represented. This would inadvertently lead to my people's  shameful involvement in the TUF AIC conflict. If only we had known. This story focuses on humanity's journey  to the galactic arena. In other words, it starts with a deep dive into human psychology.  You can see how humans are attracted to violence, but they also have a strong sense  of empathy and adaptability. We then move on to techn

ological advances like  AI companions and faster-than-light travel. What's really cool is that it connects their  psychology with advances in technology and shows how their curiosity and thirst for  knowledge keep them moving forward despite obstacles. It's as if their thinking  shapes their performance and vice versa. All things considered, this is a truly  fascinating story that provides a deep insight into humanity's role in the universe. What about your opinion . let us know your thoughts do

wn in the comments  below and just a huge thank you for getting involved in today's stories and  hopefully, i'll see you in the next one .