[b]Meanwhile, in the Morris System (2 System jumps from Valia, ~ 2 LY away)[/b]

[i]On board the IES Delphia of the IEEESF - Exploration Division[/i]

The Delphia was a massive ship of an experimental design - A Discovery Class Frigate. There were only 5 in existence and they were all under the IEEESF's command. They were specially designed to scan entire systems several jumps away. Their main weakness was; however, that they were large, bulky, slow and badly defended. Compared to other ships of the Frigate type, they were massive yet they were extremely useful to the Empire and its goals. At its helm was Captain Louis Gallyron, a relatively new captain. He had served onboard a VIF Capital Ship for 6 months only recently and had been promoted for handling a sensitive situation quite well. He looked out at the blue planet before him, one of 3 possibly hospitable worlds of the massive Morris system. His holopad suddenly vibrated as its screen began to glow.

"Accept stream" He said as he brought the device to a receptacle nearby.

A garbled voice began to come out of the holopad but slowly began to unscramble itself.

"Hello, hello, is this working?" A low, troubled voice said. It was the IEEESF Head Commander.

"Yes, hearing you loud and clear commander" 

"Good, transfer the transmission to a monitor set." 

"On it" The captain responded as he pressed his finger onto one of the nearby unactive monitors. The screen lit up and the commander's face could be seen.

"Now, Captain Louis, news has come in that one of our divisions in the Olix System has apparently encountered an enemy force. They were able to soundly defeat them but with heavy losses."

"What attacked?"

"I'll be giving you a copy of the report, but listen. I'll be reassigning 50 Frigates under your command, thte rest will be sent with the Division Commander to Axior System two jumps from here to patrol."

"What will I be doing?"

"You captain will continue your exploration. We need as much info as we can get to prepare for this war."

"Understood, sir"

"Good, I'll be off then."

The screen went blank as Captain Louis sat down in his chair, thinking of their next course of action. He had the ship communications system brought up. It was normally a blue interface with tabs to the right for each division and inside those would be tabs for each ship and the logs for communications with each. He brought up communications with the newly assigned group of 50 frigates. He opened up a line between him and the group's utility ship.

"Special Task Group 1 - Utility Ship 1 this is your Group commander speaking."

"Reading you loud and clear" A voice from the other side said.

"Is your inter-system communications system up?"

"Inactive, sir"

"Activate it, I want a clear broadcast line to get communications to Valia"

He then closed the line and opened a new one with all ships in the group.

"All ships of STG-1, this is your temporary commander, Captain Louis of the Delphia. We will be continuing our system analysis while our other comrades are off at Olix. I want all our utilitiy ships other than 1 spreading out so we can bounce the scanning."

"Affirmative" They responded in unison. However, suddenly, the utility ship from earlier attempted to request a communications line. He opened it and suddenly, an anxious voice came from the other end.

"Commander, it seems an unknown ship with a strange communications system has appeared."

He nearly fell off his seat upon hearing that.

"Should we open communications?" The voice on the other end asked.

"Broadcast an inquiry of intent" He said.

"Sir, our version of international law may not apply to them. And besides, no IoIs have been broadcasted in years!" The man panicked.

"You have a broadcast protocols and etiquette handbook don't you? It's on Section 10 Subsection 5" He tried to sound as calm as possible but still had a hint of anxiety in his voice nevertheless.

"Ye-ye-yes sir, broadcasting inquiry of intent" There was silence on the line for a long while.

"Inquiry broadcasted, no response received. Unknown entity identified as being under something known as the JSBF"

[hr]

Because I got the idea from [@OfWindAndRain] (Nice concepts by the way, I like them)

[hider=IndoDump]

[u]Inquiry of intent[/u]
	A general broadcast used for all fresh encounters to identify whether the Unknown Entity has plans for malice or not. Under Victorian Law, lying or falsifying anything on the response is subject to intervention/trial for war crime.

[u]Inter-system Communications Systetm[/u] 
	Unlike the Juran, we have not developed Quantum Comms yet, we use less advanced communication means. Due to this, relays are needed for Long Range Communications. These are also useful for transmitting large amounts of data.

[u]Scan Bouncing[/u]
	Works like having relays for comms. Scanning ship uses equipment on utility ship to scan planets by bouncing signals around.

[u]Victorian International Relations[/u]
	The reason the Victorians are so awkward with diplomacy is because they'd rarely encountered other nations and when they did, they ended in conflict.

[u]Imperial Expansion Exploration and Exploitation Special Forces[/u]
	Branch of the military dedicated to colonization, resource collecting from colonies, exploration and others.

[/hider]