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Chain 191: Endless Space

Location: Orbit
Identity: Drop-In
Drawbacks: [+400] Cravers Consumed My Comrades!

[50/1400]   Xenobotany
[150/1400]  Hull Architect
[350/1400]  Thinking With Portals
[500/1400]  N-Ways Fusion Plant
[900/1400]  Deuyivan Construction
[1300/1400] "Pocket" Portals
[1400/1400] Pan-Galactic Translator

The United Empire is an interesting race of humans, but an utterly, utterly corrupt one. I was lucky enough to run into them very early in my stay here, and... well, let's just say that their Emperor was overthrown by a Conspiracy and has been replaced by a proper Sovereign. The Conspiracy purged a great deal of deadwood from the former Empire, and it quickly was set on the rails to becoming a better place; the former Emperor Zelevas, who had himself been infused with Dust, fled into the endless void.

(I'm not sorry. They had it coming, pun and all.)

Regardless of how I came to hold the reigns of what was now the United Commonwealth, I pushed it to expand at a breakneck pace. Every world I could find would be settled, and with the knowledge I had, their ship construction capabilities were expanded vastly. Everything I had from my time managing other stellar empires was brought to their benefit - a Sentry Array flash-fabbed above the throneworld of Raia by Hyperion, while a Science Station was placed in orbit of the nearby world of Mazen. The ship designs were... interesting... but in the end I chose to alter them heavily, drawing inspiration from the Hiigaran ships that I was already familiar with. Perhaps a bit less intimidating, but certainly far more flexible now.

And from there the Commonwealth expanded rapidly. Research was rapidly developed, and an entire Explorer Corps was established to probe the sites and anomalies left behind by the old Endless factions where they could. Other human nations were... subsumed... while alien nations were kept at a polite arm's distance while the Commonwealth expanded around them far more rapidly than it had any right to. Even the Vaulters were brought into our fold, and their portals saw travel between every system become practically instantaneous.

Of course, even we would run into problems. Early on, it was a matter of piracy, though that was solved via gunboat diplomacy - that is, using our guns on their boats. Our expansion hit a halt as we ran into the Cravers - it seemed as though there were several separate civilizations of them that banded together as one and were slowly expanding, and any time they ran into another civilization, they sent quite literally everything they had at them. The Commonwealth was pushed back before our latest designs were pushed into service, exploiting the Cravers' technological deficits, but... they kept constantly reappearing outside our borders.

This proved a boon to us, though, as it meant we could use this diplomatically; allies against a common threat proved more able to deal with them than any single stellar nation. And once that was dealt with, peace reigned throughout the cosmos.

Anyone who said otherwise found their governments under new management. And all that just in the first twenty years. The remaining eighty... that was all a matter of expanding, 

Now, an empire that spans half the galaxy can produce an immense amount of material. Sure, most of it went into warships and terraforming, improving planets and effectively multiplying the output of every planet, but not all of it. The fleet would have been larger, terraforming a measure faster, but twenty percent of the output of exotic materials were set aside. The king's fifth, as it were, went to something entirely different.

It went to Hyperion.

A warworld the size of a modest gas giant, Hyperion has been a part of my travels for tens of thousands of years by now. Nearly from the beginning. Oh, it's gotten its fair share of upgrades over time, but by and large it's been pretty static. While it's formidible, it's hardly insurmountable. Fold drives ensure it can get anywhere instantaneously, and with a neutron star at its core and dark star reactors throughout, it had functionally unlimited energy even before now. But against stronger weapons it would take notable damage. Shields only last so long, no matter how much power you push into them. And until now, I didn't have the sufficient materials in sufficient quantity to actually roll out upgrades to a degree that made a sufficient difference.

Now, however, I've not only got the experience with reworking Hyperion's systems to get every erg of power effective, but I know how ship systems and designs function in this universe. I can rework everything with exotic matter, substances like orichalcix, quadrinix, and hyperium. I have systems that can use Dust as a processing substrate. With the number of drones I built that are running around on Hyperion working to upgrade it and maintain its systems, taking fifty years to upgrade it wasn't a problem at all.

Hyperion isn't a mere warworld any more. I suppose there's not really a proper name for what it is; it simply is what it is.

And even in my absence, the Commonwealth will prosper.