Okay, the curveballs were unexpected, but they weren't anything I could adapt to. Honestly, they made my job easier, as it meant that I wouldn't have to help the Terran's unite everybody while dealing with the Dread Lords. Now, all I had to do was demolish the Dread Lords, make sure the Yor and Drengin weren't in a position to muck things up, prevent the Thalans from doing anything to screw over mankind (though I will admit their reasons for doing so were completely justified), and locate the last of the Arnor and the Mithralar. Oh, and stop the Snathi from beoming a major power - those rodents were servants of the Dread Lords, and I didn't want to have to deal with them mucking up my plans down the line. Given that they didn't become a major power until after the Dread Lords were beaten, though, I'd probably have to give the Dread Lords a good thrashing before the Snathi would even show up - there weren't any mentions of them in the in any of the 'Good' races' databases, so I assumed they were still in hiding.

Ok, time to start preparing!

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First thing's first - start settling more planets. Easy - just send some transports equipped with fabbers to a star system, give them some orders and a new colony goes up just like that. I made sure to add in some civilian buildings so that the planet's could still appear to be habited, even though I obviously didn't need civilians to make my army run well. Also, it appeared that, occasionally, colony ships got sucked into wormholes and spat out on the other side of the galaxy, and that this happened enough in the Terran Alliance's past that they were still encountering lost colonies, some of who had built their own mini-empires!

Well, that gave me an easy excuse to hide behind if they got curious.

While this was going on, I began searching the area around my new territories for any odd looking anomalies - they usually didn't amount to much, but hey, I'll take what I can get. Plus, any salvage I come across would be appreciated - new tech secrets were always a possible result from searching htose things, and if nothing else, I could sell the scrap back to the alliance for a quick buck.

To my surprise, I found plenty of wrecks and asteroids to examine while I waited for my initial bases to go up. Apparently this part of the galaxy lacked a lot of extant alike civilizations, so I was free to examine them without any claims of stealing. Hurray for me. Any advantage is one I could use, especially when I was just starting my journey on this universe. Even if I was leagues beyond everyone else, a hidden Ace was always appreciated.

Most of the wrecks I discovered, along with my finds in asteroid fields, awarded me minor stuff - better designs for research equipment, minor advances in manufacturing tools, that kinda stuff. A few rewarded intelligence on how to train and improve soldiers, which was sadly useless for me. Perhaps I could sell that off to the Terrans and their allies? Food for thought.

Back to setting up my bases m. When I'd hacked into the Colony Ship's databanks, I'd unlocked the schematics for all Terran units, along with the technology need to make more in my orbital factories. I'd already started designing some so that I could complement my existing fleet with several...versatile designs, as well as heavy hitters and specialized vessels. Bigger transports was high on that list. Additionally, I'd already created several constructor ships to build starbases - I'd found those resources you needed starbases to mine, and besides, starbases are awesome.

My examining of the ships did end up coming short in some cases, though - a few had nothing to offer me that I didn't already have.

Well, I guess I could just break it down for my own usage...

Or I could sell it to the 'good guys'.

I didn't really need the money, but it might make them friendlier to me. Since I was planning on giving the Dread Lords the boot in my first combat appearance, a friendly gesture before hand might keep them from doing something stupid. Though the Thalans might still find a way to muck things up.

Eh, be diplomatic now, deal with the problems later. I quickly drafted up a cargo hauler and some escorts, then set a path to he nearest inhabited planet that was aiding the Terrans. Time to mess around a little bit.

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AN: Read and Review! This is Flameal15k, signing off!