Everyone watched in silence as the strange ship destroyed one Minbari ship after another.

No one knew what race the ship belonged to but right now every remaining human was thankful for its arrival.

The Minbari ships fired at the unknown but their attacks did nothing as the unknown ship had some sort of forcefield that kept it safe from the Minbari's attack.

The ship fired a red beam that sliced through the Minbari fleet, but it didn't stop there as it immediately released some sort of blue energy that damaged the Minbari ships but did little to no harm to everything else.

Seeing their fleet being overwhelmed by one ship the Minbari were forced to retreat, but before they could the unknown ship sent out a single message.

"Minbari we have seen what you have done and so we demand that you surrender."

"This war ends now, if you want to continue then we will be your opponents."

For a long moment, no one said anything as everyone watched what was left of the Minbari fleet crawl back to their world.

The strange ship didn't do anything after that, it just floated in space, it didn't try to communicate with the Alliance, it just stood there it was as if it was waiting for the Minbari to return.

Not knowing what else to do, the president tried to communicate with the unknowns and invited them to earth with the hope of meeting and maybe trading with their saviors.

The strange ship slowly began to fly towards Earth and despite it being surrounded by what remained of Humanities fleet it looked like a giant when compared to all of the ships around it.

It wasn't that it was any larger than all of the ships that guarded earth and escorted it towards the planet, but its presence was overwhelming when compared to all of the ships around it.

Everyone watched as a group of what looked like Humans wearing medieval armor teleported in front of the president and smiled at her before lifting their hands and shaking hands with both the guards and the president.

That had been three months ago and while the Alliance was slowly repairing itself it would be years before the fleet could return to what it once was.

It was thanks to the president that the Players as they called themselves agreed to allow the refugees to live onboard their colony ship.

The players had said that the ship was named Aincrad and while it was a strange name the ship itself was even stranger.

From the outside, the ship was no larger than a standers Cruiser but it was when one stepped inside that things became interesting.

The inside of the ship had blue skies- green grass- wildlife as well as towns and what could only be called cities.

There were layers upon layers of stone-metal and some sort of unknown material that separated the inside of the ship from the emptiness of space, it would be here where the refuges would get their second chance at life.

Both the president and everyone else agreed that she was putting too much faith in the players, but in all honesty what else could they do?

Their colonies were gone, and neither earth nor mars had the resources needed to feed and house the survivors.

The players agreed to allow the Alliances soldiers to guard the refuges but in exchange, they wanted two of every ship that humanity had at the moment.

It was a deal that pleased no one except for the players, but she reluctantly agreed, after all this one ship was capable of destroying everything around it and not suffering any damage.

As the days turned into weeks and the weeks turned into months, it soon became clear that it didn't matter how many people entered the ship there was always more room.

As everyone began to settle into their new lives the people inside of Aincrad asked the Players if they could set up their own shops and trade with the worlds around them.

The players had no reason to deny their petition so they allowed the people of the alliance to do so, as long as they didn't send any living animals away.

Everything that they sent out of the ship needed to be inspected by a player to make sure that nothing dangerous was accidentally sent amongst the cargo.

And that if anyone brought an animal or person onboard that they needed to report it to the players before they could completely enter Aincrad.

On earth, the president entered her office as one of the generals waited for her arrival.

"So how did it go?" he asked her.

"Not good, they refuse to give us any technology saying that because they are already guarding us against the Minbari that if they gave us anything, then we would need to give them something in return." she answered the general who frowned at her words.

"The egg heads are still looking through the remnants of the Minbari ships, so we don't have anything to offer them." He said to the president as he had long since figured out how the players did things.

From the moment they arrived on Earth, it had always been an equal exchange of things.

All of their interactions with the players both on and off their ship had been looked at and dissected.

The players operated in a way that both parties exchanged something, of what was perceived as equal value.

In exchange for their help during the Minbari's invasion, they were allowed on earth, the every planet they had just saved.

And for allowing the refugees to live onboard their ship, they received two of every ship that the Earth Alliance had at the moment.

These were by no means equal exchanges, but the players felt as if they were worth more than what they were giving.

If he was a lesser man he would have said that the Players were taking advantage or trying to keep their superiority, but he needed to be smart about this so he looked at the situation in a different way.

Because the refugees were all on one ship, the Alliance knew where they were and because they were allowed to trade both on and off the ship the alliance now constantly had soldiers inside Aincrad.

Aincrads' presence in the system was keeping the Minbari away, because like it or not they knew where earth was and hadn't attacked or tried to contact anyone.

And it was thanks to the players that the egg heads now had more than enough samples of Minbari technology to work with that they were already coming up with new ships and weapon designs.

"We have to figure out a way of getting them to give us something without it costing us a lot." the general said to the president.

They both looked at each other as they understood that they couldn't afford to anger the only allies that could help them at the moment.

"Their shields alone would make our ship untouchable." the president said to herself as she walked towards her chair and sat down.

'I want to know how they're managing to keep the ecosystem inside that ship alive while still having a spaceship" the general said to himself.

To anyone else, his choice might have seemed odd, but he could see why the players had so many ecosystems inside their ship.

The ship was designed for a trip that would take years and so it was designed to feed and give the people inside it something to do besides constantly work.

Not to mention that the feeling of not being inside a spacecraft was something that everyone appreciated.