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Suddenly, your ships intercept a new Esaal vessel. This one a communication ship, unarmed, entering Hegemony space. Unlike your species with its instant communication regardless of distance, the Esaal have to deal with a certain amount of light lag and inferior technology. You'd wonder why they wouldn't just get the worms to do it for them, but thinking again, you see why they'd need to it themselves.
<span class="mu-r">”Hello, Jaxtians. We represent a civilian installation and the overall economy in Esaal space. Can we speak to some womanfolk aboard your ship for a friendly discussion?”</span>
<span class="mu-g">”There are no womenfolk on that ship. You can deal with me directly.”</span>
<span class="mu-r">”Oh! It's the Supreme Ruler. We're terribly sorry, I forgot about your cultural differences. We didn't want to bring the menfolk Esaal along for this. They'd probably get bored and want to start a fight.”</span>
<span class="mu-g">”What is it?”</span>
<span class="mu-r">”We'd like to improve our trade relations between our cultures. Namely, trading physical goods...”</span>
You sometimes forget about the Esaal's other half. The Esaal, an extremely warlike species who you have had several violent spats with, but yet have also been friends with and seem to share a mutual respect; is male dominated. But this conversation has had more syllables in it then you think you've ever heard an Esaal say before they whip out a gun and start shooting. Female Esaal don't have any of the same violent, self-destructive drives that the males do, and are significantly more intelligent, capable of inventing new technology and establishing social order not based only on violence. If anything, the Esaal species entire society is truly created by the females, to direct the male energy towards their enemies. However, given this meeting, you think it may almost be like two distinct societies in one. How strange...
<span class="mu-r">”In short, the Esaal military is focusing its efforts in fighting the Aristocrat nobles just a few stars over, and despite the menfolks determination, the Aristocrats superior computers are making it difficult. We know you have very good computer technology, and the menfolk asked us to increase production of AI cores to help them out- the base unit of any AI network. But, we don't have the industrial capacity for that right now. Too many babies to take care of to replace their numbers, I'm sure your women can relate.”</span>
You bite your tongue. Unlike Esaal military doctine, which is basically a meatgrinder, your people actually try to minimize losses. Regardless, you listen to the rest of the message.
