Lorenzo stopped with a sigh as Serah called out after him, having seemingly hoped that he could exit without having to entertain the ignorance of the pilots. However, he huffed, and turned back to the podium: the students sought knowledge on a topic he was particularly passionate about, and his pride as man of science prevented him from declining, especially when the initial question was quickly drowned out by the pilots throwing out differing opinions. It was time to educate, he decided after coughing into his fist.

"Yes, Gene...The Cruxi have tried to communicate with the Galactic Federation, on numerous occasions. Their language has been incredibly difficult, seemingly fragmented with only bits and pieces that could be deciphered. We first suspected pheromone communication, but no specimens have been documented as having the biological functions necessary." He brought out a remote from his coat pocket. 
"This is classified...But I'm going to share this with you, damn the consequences." 

Holding the remote with an arm that was slightly shaking, whether it was from a moment of geriatric fatigue or seething rage, he activated a projector, and played back a video: it was footage from under a car at the site of a Cruxi invasion as a civilian held their smartphone and was seemingly holding their breath in utter dread, faint panicky breaths nearly inaudible. They filmed as Cruxi troopers walked in formation across the street, and in the distance sounds of plasma being fired could be heard, alongside a few faint scrams. Throughout the entire video, a sound of an audio recording was repeated, as if blared through loudspeakers, from a nearby Cruxi warship that floated across the sky. The voice that came from it, surprisingly, spoke in Galactic Common, though its intonation was dull and stilted to a disturbing degree, as if the person speaking was talking in their sleep, or in some kind of daze.

However, what was most chilling was the content of the recording:

"Supplication immediate, configuration lifelessness. Resistance Ancients objectiveless. Supplication immediate, configuration lifelessness..." The message repeated a couple of times before the car was suddenly lifted up, and the video ended on the freeze frame of a Cruxi trooper discovering the civilian.

For a moment, Lorenzo was silent, letting the pilots fully absorb the contents of the video, before he finally turned back: his single eye was cast in shadow from his lowered head.

"Despite the admittedly strange delivery, likely because of a poor grasp on our language, the content of the message is clear: those damn devils want nothing less than the unconditional and total surrender of the Galactic Federation and it's member species: humans, tevranians...everyone. Any resistance, no matter how small...would be met with execution." He lifted his hand up, and gripped it in a tightly closed fist.

He then sighed. "It is entirely possible the servants and other aliens members of the Cruxi are but mere slaves to these supposed 'Ancients' of theirs, and one piece of evidence lends credence to this theory: based on findings about strange scribbles and comparisons to their official written language, it seems the Ancients are purposefully suppressing the native languages of these thrall aliens, and forcing their own unified language and culture on them. If humanity would fall, the same fate would most assuredly face us. Everything we would have accomplished, all of our history, art, and independent achievements in creativity and imagination..."
Lorenzo grit his teeth. "...Mercilessly processed or eliminated, until only blind loyalty remains to their eternal masters."

He then tapped his fingers on the desk. "What makes them so dangerous then? How have they come this far in their conquest of these aliens, and now after us? Well, that is an interesting question to pose. You saw the video, didn't you? Knowing what we know of the Cruxi, and the language barrier, how was it that they produced that recording of what sounded like a human speaking for them? The Galactic Federation's stance was that the recording happened to be mere gibberish that just happened to resemble words from our language. However, I do not believe in such a pointless answer. That recording was intentionally made to be understood...And the Cruxi have the means to make it possible. It is amusing you would mention mind-controlling, lassie, as that is one of my theories on how it was accomplished, but there is no conclusive evidence. Of course there wouldn't be, mind-control as a concept is ludicrous, and doesn't have scientific merit. But that doesn't matter!" He slammed his fist on the podium, as if he was reminded of something...Something that he regretted.
"The mere fact that this exists is more than enough proof of the threat the Cruxi present! Of the horrors they are capable of!"

As if on cue after his bout of ranting, his coughing fit once again acted up, and his assistant Lilim, who had since mentioned her name as L-11-SA, or Liisa, stepped into the classroom to offer medicine to him. Afterwards, she stood by his side, as expressionless as ever, but with a hint of sympathy in her eyes. After his sip, he nodded to her, and then continued.

"Now then, there were still questions. Regarding the hunter-assassin shapeshifters, various tells have been recorded: the earliest reports mention difficulties with communicating verbally, which makes sense, since they started deployment soon after the war began, and their grasp on our language was near non-existent. Since then, they have ironed out this flaw, but other times recognizing them have been documented: one time, their limbs or even eyes happened to move independently, something humans are incapable of. And lastly, they have been documented as preferring to target male victims with seduction tactics before killing them: one particular assassin successfully wiped out an entire squadron of men, all of them blaming each other as they fell. Since then, mixed gender units have become widespread, and casualty rates have fortunately decreased." He then sighed, his long bout of speaking done.

"Any more questions?" He asked, eyeing Arrish in particular with a single eye glaring.

[hr]
At an unknown point of time during the week, a new shuttle arrived at Solaire, and brought three new pilots: a strange prince, and a pair of even stranger twins. Lieutenant Ritsu was there, and gave them the same greeting and instructions as the first batch of pilots.
"You will be enlisted as part of the squad of Framewerk pilots of this project," she added. "You're a bit late on schedule in regards to training, but you will just have to compensate for it during free time. Any questions?" She asked them.