Imperial Expansion and a Earth's mysterious past

With the Hive now falling on all fronts, its fleet has been scattered and it fell back further into the void of space, most likely building its strength to get revenge in the future.

The second the Hive disappeared, every civilization left the alliance except the Retorian Traders and the Principality of Yutra, since both of them enjoyed positive relations with the Empire and feared the Imperium, which now exploded in size.

Now that the threat which kept them all united was gone, their seemingly positive relations with each other shattered as one huge arms race began, with the Imperium and the Empire both dominating their respective spheres of influence.

The Empire under Adam's rule did not conquer any of their neighbors, but instead, vent with diplomacy instead, despite how frustrating it could be at times.

This was a strategic decision made by Adam after careful consideration, if the Empire conquered possibly multiple planets, which possibly had more population than their human counterparts, it would severely strain their network and cause a possible uprising, shattering the Empire into civil war which the Imperium would no doubt take advantage of.

The same reasoning for no vassals aside from the Traders, they wouldn't be very loyal if forced to obey, feeding other rival powers intel that they could easier get their hands on.

So, as long as there was empty space around them, why not expand that way instead? It would be cheaper, easier, more convenient, and the Imperium seemed to have the exact same reasoning as them.

So, a cold war developed between the Empire and Imperium, not too dissimilar to the cold war of old, with both frantically expanding around the other to gain a hold of strategic chokepoints and resources in those systems, all while making sure they never pressed the opposite side too much.

The other powers had their own smaller conflicts, with the more aggressive states such as the crusaders gearing up for what they believe to be an inevitable war.

With the Hive gone and the threat of the aggressive Imperium and Empire now looming on the horizon for these minor powers, an alliance formed between the Muk Star Collective, Holdorian Federation, and the Ragedon Crusaders, making them a force that was on its way to rivaling the Imperium soon enough.

Neither the Empire nor the Imperium liked this turn of events, both supporting rebellions in these nations in the hope of instilling a new, loyal, and friendly government in power.

The most unstable nation was clearly the Holdorian Federation, which was still divided by the three major powers which dominated its homeworld, but to everyone's surprise, they did not collapse and somehow held themselves together, most likely thanks to the looming shadow of the Empire and Imperium.

With the Empire now once again locked in conflict with normal civilizations that could have their signals decrypted, encryption and decryption technology became an important priority, with each civilization having a completely different style of encryption and programming important military secrets were difficult to find, but each civilization was making progress in their own way.

Additionally, during the next few months, the cold war between the Imperium began heating up, with proxy wars proving useless and The Empire proving more efficient in their expansion efforts, as a result, the Imperium saw no other choice than to disguise their ships and send them out under the disguise of being "bandits."

Border raids and violent clashes appeared all over the front, causing slight casualties to both sides, but not enough to discourage them.

The Empire still held the advantage in their fleet power, meaning the Imperium wouldn't dare do something too extreme yet, giving the Empire more than enough room to eventually block the Imperium from further expansion along their border.

Tired of the constant alien aggression, the opinion of all aliens within the Empire dropped even further, with some now advocating to conquer the Xeno and purge them instead, inhabiting their planets after eliminating them.

The few independent travelers that existed at this point in time had to go through extra checks, and the Empire's government recommended they don't stay for long, just to be on the safe side.

Reclamia, the only colony the Empire had, was no longer alone, as many new colonies sprouted their roots all across the Empire, as lush worlds filled with life were discovered, fueling the Imperium with envy.

However, a concerning thing was discovered on these worlds, ruins, incredibly ancient ruins, millions of years old.

The Empires best archeologists all worked on unearthing as many secrets as they could get their grubby little hands on, discovering other coordinates containing more habitable worlds in the process.

These people used the same coordination system as the Empire, which was either incredibly lucky, or there was something more going on here.

They haven't discovered what they looked like, how their bodies worked, nothing of that sort, just nine habitable planets, eight of which were in systems that circled around the solar system, forming a perfect 3D sphere around it.

It seems all other knowledge was destroyed, but most concerning of all, Earth was the ninth coordinate on the tablets.

When Adam heard of this, he couldn't help but remember how the Hive spoke about the Latin language.

"The tongue humanity KNOWS as Latin." That implied that the language was used by other beings, possibly aliens.

Could humanity have already made contact in the past when they were still primitives? But why would the aliens do that? Maybe humanity itself was a space-fearing civilization in the past. But how could that be? Such a conclusion made no sense to Adam.

Nonetheless, Adam's subordinates continued doing their work, expanding the Empire with greed even the fabled dwarfs couldn't hope to match.

Adam himself found motivation and happiness with his wife, whom he married not long ago, making her officially the Empress of the Azburgian Empire.

Her previous nosing around ceased after Adam and she had their first time, now she no longer cared for politics, which removed the headache such complicated things are prone to cause.

She did her duty and became a role model for all women in the Empire to aspire to, effectively becoming the face of the royal family, attending speeches with her husband, always by his side.

Adam built up plenty of new institutes and other important structures in the newly colonized worlds for the people on them, of which Reclaimia proudly held two billion now, including aliens.

As more months passed, with each day bringing in more territories, resources, and more military vessels for the Empire's now six fleets, three defensive three offensive, Adam soon found himself celebrating his fifth year in the new world, with Serena by his side.

"Happy Birthday!" Serena congratulated him and gave him a big hug, which Adam returned.

Of course, Adam's birthday was a pretty big deal, and since it happened a few days before Christmas, some memes were made about Adam being the Empires gift, which made him a bit embarrassed.

Not to mention the parades and huge gatherings the people would have on the streets, with stalls selling merch with the Emperor on them and other such attractions propped up across the city.

Still, Adam disliked how all the nobles sucked up to him this time, well they did all the time, but during this time especially.

He wanted to spend his birthday with the people he cared about, of which there were very few, but still! better than dealing with these parasites.

Although, admittedly, they were very useful in helping him govern the huge territory the Empire owned now.

Sighing to himself, he felt Serena hug him.

"I know you don't like this but we have to deal with it, just a little longer," Serena whispered.

"Yeah I know, thank you," Adam replied with genuine gratitude, at least he wasn't alone in this now.

The two dealt with all the nobles together, but Serena disappeared an hour before the party officially ended, saying she wasn't feeling well and would retire to her and Adam's room.

Adam was forced to stay behind despite his concern for his wife, and when the party finally ended, Adam rushed back to his room.

When he entered he saw a big gift on the ground in front of the bed, which fueled his confusion to levels he didn't know were possible, until his extensive... "Cultured knowledge" kicked in and he realized what his wife was planing.

He would have fun tonight.