(The Irken empire's is only mentioned. I better get chapter two up soon...)
Once upon a time, there was a proud race who called themselves an empire. This race only called themselves an empire because it was the cool thing to do at the time. Previously they were called The Kitduj stronghold, The Kitduj people and Those guys with the fur, The TGWTF for short. Anyway, they were merely an empire because it was cool. Being cool was one of the best things to be at the time, because being cool was one of the three ways of life a Kiip, a word for a young Kitduj, could follow. The three ways are as follows:
One, you may enroll in our growing military and aid our people.
Two, you may study the ways of science and help our people eat better and have more toys.
Three, you may just be cool. It makes our people look good.
I'll give you one guess to guess which most young Kiips choose.
The Kitduj leader, whose name is unimportant, was standing on the observation deck of the biggest ship the Kitduj could afford to make: The dreadnought.5. The dreadnought.5 was a large sphere with a large, spiky shield-like thing covering roughly half the sphere on each side. Small, see through, tunnels connected main part of the ship to several other sections, which all resembled the main part, but tinier. A couple of large weapons were poorly added to the ship, though none were operative. They were just there to look good. The ship was currently hovering above the Kitduj empires home- and only planet, Kitdueen. Anyways, back to the leader, who was watching with mild interest as The dreadnought.5 's fleet gathered. After making The dreadnought.5, the Kitduj's had barely enough money left to make a fleet of twenty ships, but the pilots were all well trained, so they had thought the negatives were cancelled out. The leader soon grew tired of watching the ships, and started looking at his claws. He was uninterested mainly because he never asked to be the leader. He just was. Ever since he was a young Kiip. without a worry in the world, he had wanted to be a pilot. When the day came when he could choose his path in life, he stood up proudly to the machine that was listening for one of three words, Military, science or cool; the future leader had proclaimed, "A cool pilot!"
The machine only heard the first part. It was the thing the leader always thought back on. If only he had thought, he might be outside, piloting a fighter, proud to be serving his leader. If only...
Still, he had other matters to attend to. Being leader, he was required in at least four places at once at all times of day, so he shouldn't be thinking so much. No, he should be giving people metals or checking in on that new long-ranged communicator they were installing. They had recently bought it from their ally for a large sum of money, so it aught to work. He could hear the installation right now, as it was going to be built into the observation deck.
whiirr.... clink, click CLONK! Hey! Watch it won't ya! clink, clink, clink...
"Sir! We're done! Finally!"
The voice of the engineer made the leader snap back to reality, "Good. Does it work?" He watched as they demonstrated it by calling a scout they had sent far out into space just for testing the communicator, "Awesome then. Really. Let's test it differently. In fact, I have an idea."
"An idea sir? What is it?"
"I think we aught to search for the strongest signal, not by location, but by how many units are giving out the signal. The more units, the stronger the force we're dealing with. Think, they might be able to teach us new things! Things we never imagined because we are less powerful then them! I say we try."
"...sir, don't you think they might be a waring empire if they have many units? We certainly can't have a war."
"You have a point, but that is why we be careful. We should stress that we're an empire too, maybe say we have many, many planets. We should complement them too. Or maybe they'll be a nice race who'll help us out. Anyway, I'm going to do a quick search."
The leader accessed the remote console which ran the long-range communicator. After pressing a few buttons, a screen projected on the window of the observation deck. The black screen displayed the Kitduj empire's symbol, a Kitduj wrapped around a planet, holding it like a earth kitten holds yarn. A slight smile was on the leader's face when he accessed the search. One signal was strongest by far. It was also far away. It was perfect. The leader quickly fixed his golden fur before hailing this race, so he might look presentable.
Once he pressed the butten to contact them, the Kitduj symbol disappeared. It was replaced by a new, red symbol. The bottom downwards triangle with a rounding top. Above it was a circle, unconnected. A sort on curved cap was above the circle. Two things that the leader knew must represent antennae were on the top, one on each side. Before turning the screen on to view the race he was contacting, the leader faced the nearby engineers.
"I wonder if they'll be our friends?" He asked.