Zero Sum

Prestige

"Can't you see we are doing them a favor?"

"You have strange concept of favors."

"It's the truth, these people will never go along with the galactic cooperative. You have seen how defiant they are."

"That's only a natural response to take against a dictator."

"We are not dictators, we are saviors. You know what will happen if these people come under the notice of the Prime."

"You don't know that. This planet has a power enabled population that the cooperative is not aware of. They could help us..."

"To do what? There is no stand to take. There is not an evil empire to overthrow. These people need our help. It is only a matter of time before they destroy themselves at the rate they are going..."

"You don't know that."

"In either case the point is moot. What chance does one planet have against a cooperative that has existed for half of the galaxies history?"

"You talk about saving these people. But you know that means us wiping out the planet. Right now there are separate powerful factions fighting Prime control all over the planet. And if we were to bring them all together. Channel all that aggression and with all the attention from the outer worlds here right now. This is a one time opportunity to make the stand we need to..."

"This planet's people make that impossible! They fight even amongst their native population. They trust us even less. Bringing them together now. As if it were even possible. And the way the factions are growing is almost faster than we can keep up with. It will only bring the Cooperative here sooner than planned."

"You offer a valid argument. They do have reason to distrust us. We have been holding back the full details of our mission. Though they do look to you for guidance. And if you talk about being the planets protector. You aren't protecting them if you open the doors for invasion of their planet."

"I am protecting them! Right now we can expect a few hundred cycles of peace before the cooperative comes to take out the planet. If we rush things along they could become desperate and arrive within a dozen or less cycles. Don't these people deserve to enjoy the best we can offer them before..."

"The Cooperative made a mistake with this planet. They underestimated it. If my suspicions are correct, and they always are, this planet is the forgotten world."

"Spare me your superstitious reveries!"

"The forgotten world, I'll remind you, contained in its population extremely altered genetic enhancements. A power enabled breeding ground. Extreme deviations resulted. Unstable deviations."

"These are Outlander's fairy tales nothing more!"

"The early Cooperative used the forgotten world as a kind of laboratory. In those days their forces were still divided, with each of their empires acting on their own."

"Your overly optimistic suspicions are born out of desperation my friend."

"Because of the forgotten planets' exceptional location, the various empires each conducted experiments. Since it was in neutral territory, it had the unique opportunity of housing various results from each of the empire's scientists."

"No records exist from the time before the great purging. There is no reason to believe those stories are anything other than myths and legends."

"Still, you have seen how the population of this planet produce power enabled individuals, endowed with gifts exclusive to the various factions of the empire. This would be radically unlikely to occur on its own, unless the planet had had guidance from a technologically advanced culture..."