Sector 2317The prospect of building a starbase - a structure several magnitudes simpler in overall complexity than a Vacuum Maintenance Icosahedron - was made more daunting by the fact that even the smallest EOA Starbase was more than five times larger, with a geometrically greater investiture of resources in each construction. When one further considered that each EOA Starbase had no interior passageways or chambers in the same manner a humanoid starbase, the cost went even higher. Each Starbase, in addition to being a manufactory, also had impressive weapons systems and sensor arrays - all of which had extensive energy requirements necessitating a particularly large series of redundant capacitors and power rings.
Tallying up the costs of immediately moving to produce an independent military fleet, additional constructor fleets, and more led to the conclusion that the Leim Accord State was in something of a crunch.
~Resource acquisition through expenditure of Accord State 11 will remain independent of the Prime Accord Body.~ Ivlbto indicated. ~Severance with the Prime Accord Body will cause bleeder and hisser friend or foe identification dissonance. The Prime Accord Body will not be accountable for actions with Accord State 11.~
~All bleeders and hissers will muster upon Accord State 11.~ Cabernac pointed out. ~Current and prolinear resources are limited. Current and prolinear operating expenditure is high. Accord State 11 lacks resource acquisition capability of the Prime Accord Body.~
Leim silently sent two simple signals to Shotzo, relaying through two simple affirmation signals a suggested directive.
~Illegal acquisition of resources necessary. Ivlbto and Shotzo will transit to neutral area 2 and acquire necessary resources without forwarding acquisition slash transfer policies up to the Prime Accord Body.~
~Leim's itinerary is remarkable.~ Cabernac relayed the message through its comm. laser with a particularly high degree of intensity, almost singing the frailer Skud's casing. ~The Prime Accord Body will neutralize Accord State 11.~
Leim sent a single affirmation to Cabernac, more or less noting that it was aware of such and had planned accordingly - leaving Cabernac to work out what that was and to relay it to the other in the strange group of platonic shapes.
~Revision of itinerary analysis.~ Cabernac immediately corrected. ~Ivlbto will forward illegal dissonant Accord State operations up to the Prime Accord Body. Limited prolinear illegal resource acquisition slash transfer with the Prime Accord Body likely.~
~Skud reaffirms necessity of resource acquisition internal to Accord State 11.~ The (relatively) diminutive Tetrahedron pulsed through its incessant Dodecahedra comms signal, overlaying the message itself with several critical importance identifies and priority signs, as though attempting to assert a massive point of the agenda none of the other entities had expected or recognized.
Ivlbto had one of its many Swarm Icosahedra flit over to the Tetrahedra and pointedly dissect one of its own in a soundless flash of white light.
Leim preemptively killed any kind of retort or protest with a signal to kill all communications as it began projecting a series of data overlays to each of the assembled entities.
After an immeasurably brief pause, communications resumed.
~Ivlbto will pursue Leim's itinerary as outlined in sector 2023. Forwarding requisition policy for bleeder mitigation.~ Sector 2023 was an area of space confirmed by EOA scouts to contain sapient lifeforms with an advanced interstellar society, with an EOA starbase only three sectors away. In addition to having a complete lexicon on the native bleeders' most common communication languages, the bleeders were also likely aware that the EOA existed - and so they would only become strongly suspicious and paranoid instead of immensely when Ivlbto arrived at their doorstep with one or two military vessels and infantry escorts in tow.
Leim affirmed this, and Ivlbto immediately floated away, heading for the nearest wormcore equipped vessel while shooting off a series of comm lasers to the nearest logistics vessel, which began sending out corresponding comm signals to rally up the needed entities for the trip.
~Shotzo will pursue Leim's itinerary as outlined in sector 2917. Forwarding requisition policy for harvester Icosahedra.~ Sector 2917 was the nearest EOA-controlled planetary system, where the 'EOA Prime Accord Body' was busily strip mining a planet's surface while the original native sapient lifeforms were still on it. Such systems were where the greatest amount of raw resources were harvested and shuffled around, where even a determined investigator would have been lost trying to identify any 'illegal' logistics transactions. Not that anybody, least of all the EOA, were likely to be looking for now.
Leim affirmed, and the Dodecahedron shot a comm laser to the nearest Maintenance Icosahedron while laying in an intercept trajectory to board it.
~Cabernac will pursue Leim's itinerary as outlined in sector 1917. Forwarding requisition policy for any type 5 entity.~ Sector 1917 was a small, not particularly important region of space directly adjacent to two dark nebulas. The EOA had scouted neither, though there had been at least two minor priority policies regarding faint, anomalous signals detected from within the larger of the two.
Leim affirmed, and Cabernac fired a comms laser at the same logistics vessel as Shotzo had, requesting identification of the nearest type 5 vessel.
Skud did nothing for several moments, until Leim sent several hundred affirmation signals through to it simultaneously, receiving a low-intensity laser response.
~Skud will pursue Leim's itinerary as outlined in sector 2317.~ It confirmed. Leim courteously affirmed, permitting the Tetrahedra to remain precisely where it was currently and await requests for support from any of the others. Taking inspiration from Ivlbto, Skud had one of its harvester Icosahedra float over to one of Leim's to disassemble it.
Leim responded by firing a low-power antineutron bolt across the pole of Skud's magnetoshield, completely destroying the aggressing Icosahedron and its siblings, inadvisable lingering outside the boundaries of their parent's magnetoshield. Still painted by Leim's targetting maser, Skud took a moment to reaffirm its priority parameters before slowly flying away to the nearest Maintenance Icosahedra to requisition the needed material to make replacements.
Leim depowered the targeting maser moments later, and began forwarding new policies down the chain from the Leim Accord State to the rest of the constructor fleet.
888888888888Elsewhere in space, several constructor fleets were on the move. The current layer of the constantly expanding matrix of Vacuum Maintenance Icosahedra had been completed on schedule, and all of the fleets - save for one, which had erroneously transited away from their last known position to an unknown sector - advanced to the next corresponding sector of space to begin work on the next layer of Icosahedra.
Hollow outlines indicate structures nearing completion. Grey-blue colored sectors indicate the movement/presence of an EOA Prime Accord Body constructor fleet. Although not indicated on the map, there is an EOA constructor fleet not affiliated with the Prime Accord Body located in hex 2317.
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