Dome of Souls (Book 2 of 2, after Story Less Told)

Ch11: The Rebellion

"Hey kids, what's happening?" Greg said with a smile and an old thymey outfit more fitting a Jules Verne character who sided as a college professor of time travel. He stepped back from the webcam and displayed his holographic chalkboard, twirling his chalk pointer and hidden white laser pointer/controller. "How you doing internet...good? Fantastic" he added.

"Today we're gonna be spilling the beans on some things you may not know. Now I know beans will be hard to swallow since you are likely used to the sweetness of Osirian sugar-coated bullshit. So just bear with me. Let's talk about fairness. Now humans have done experiments on monkeys to show that even the simplest sentient life can understand how fucking infuriating it is to receive a cracker while your friend in the next cage get a nice juicy slab of ripe fruit for doing the same nothing. And obviously the cracker-monkey had a bit of a fit consistently. So put down your crackers, you silly primates and let's talk about what kind of unevenness the Empire you all love has been handing out. You remember when the aliens showed up and basically told you to shut your monkey-holes and be docile, while they essentially just claimed the planet? I don't, because I was on ice the whole time. Most of you are too young to remember that story, but they have surely explained in fine detail how pacifistically they took over your world and with the utmost respect and happy smiles. It's not stealing if you smile and act nice about it, right? Well here's a fun little map I've made for your consideration. You recognize the Sol system and your formerly owned planet of Earth, but most of you are currently enjoying the freedom of slavery in one of the other system habitats. We're all familiar with the Osirians, the Fae, and even the big-ass bugs that they never told you were building hives under your feet the whole time, the wonderful Vaath. Now you may be wondering to yourself, self...there seem to be a number of star systems on this map that I'm not familiar with. That's because you're human and humans don't need to know shit. Isn't that fun?" he said, double checking the internet connection.

You'll notice here these little circles around 3 other star systems in the Osirian claimed territories. Notice how the Sol system and the Apollo system don't have that? That's because your weak, mortal asses got conquered and don't own shit anymore. Your rebellion sucked and your weapons were a joke, so now you're all pets. However, the Fae have their own system and a nice 1 lightyear radius around Bel'Eridan where the Osirian Empire doesn't go. Why are they so special, and last time I checked that wasn't even their home system. Let us now observe the star system known as Silken Rose. A cozy 1.5 lightyear territory where by legal decree, the Osirians can't even enter without permission. Seems odd that you have never even heard of the Silken, yet they have their own territory well within the Osirian-claimed 35 lightyear bubble. Then let us look to the real kicker. A full 3 lightyear zone that Osirian ships won't even attempt to approach surrounding the trinary star system known as Morrigan. You definitely don't know about that because even I didn't know about that until recently and I had to do some very illegal shit to get that. You're welcome. I just added a 5 year sentence to my already eternal exile for your clarity and entertainment. Now... why, you surely ask, did humans not get any claimed territory, nor did the Vaath, nor did the Aquatic Nogreans you rarely hear about? The answer is aggression.

The Most aggressive get the most space. The highly technological and aggressive Osirian Empire drew a line and said "we own everything in this", and those who opposed were handled. Since humanity just bent over after the nukes didn't work, they lost everything. Since the Nogreans were convinced we were their gods, they didn't even try and defend, and they now have nothing of their own. The Vaath had no homeworld, and those creepy bugs seem fine just burrowing and running power lines, so the docile slaves without a home world were given...no star system or territory claim. Notice the pattern? Then we discovered the Silken system and we did what we do best...claim shit and inform them we own it now and they did what humanity did and resisted. EXCEPT...they did it better. They took down a few ships and didn't negotiate. They informed us boldly, that this is their system and if we step foot in it, they fuck our shit up. And they did. They showed no mercy and no weakness and after a few years of trying to buy them, apparently we decided they can keep their little pink star and its planets and we backed away until they stopped shooting.