Ceramus

"The Collective states 'Well met'. Your tresspass is forgiven new comer, I shall order Civilis Protectione to stand down, be aware you are currently being governed by Collective Civil Law as a result of being in our holdings, however. Correcting new exogen contact: We are not one species. Proceedure: Standard first contact proceedure: Communication through electronical means. Request Video Link."

Collective
Personal contact is currently not available; your decision for electronical contact is recognized as the correct method. Video link will open in 3...2...1... go. High-definition audio links have activated. Discussion is now open. Our databases are being monitored: any unauthorized access to Ceramus files within our storage drives will result in immediate premature ending of the contact process and automatic hostility. Please ask for permission before doing such. Inquiry: Please state any nations you have known and recognized, technological strength, and affiliation with your Collective.

Kinetic Weapon Testing
Despite reluctancies due to fear of its ineffectiveness, a ship has been sent towards the star system of Nikolien, and dispatched the superhard 4ft-wide ball at 95% the speed of light towards a trajectory to the planet itself, from a far away distance. In order to avoid further luring, the same confusion tactic is employed: jump to an empty planet first before going back to the true destination.

Nikolien System
While the crews were still celebrating their victory, the tiny ball passed through the system, undetectable by their sensors. Then they were alerted to its presence all too late when it hit Lakfanikolien. The crews panicked and tried to get their captains to leave the system, but Lakfakalle sent orders: nothing gets past Nikolien. The ships were forces to stay in the system, protecting it from any further Ceramus attacks. However, seeing a planet destroyed hurt their moral. Only one person in the entire fleet knew what was going to happen when the nanobots found the enemy homeworld, the rest had not yet been informed. Knowing this, Kuuyi sent a message towards the origin point of the ball. If there was anybody still there, at the very least they would be intimidated. They would probably laugh though.

"You think destroying a planet is power? You have no idea what kind of power we have! People can survive the destruction of planet, but nobody could survive the destruction that we will bring!"

Nanobots
The nanobots have been dispatched! Being equipped with micro warp drives (Actually cheaper to build than the normal ones), they have been sent out in a circular pattern away from Lakfakalle. Already, new swarms have been produced from the remnants of Lakfanikolien and other such small bodies in systems all around the sector. With any luck, they will find the enemy worlds within a few weeks, at most months. Almost certainly not years. At the current rate, the war will be over before the end of the year!

Operation Free Market
After a while, the cadets decided to report in. The military personnel were taking their time with the cube, hoping to wait for the agents in case spies were hidden in the large cube that could be broken easily with a Triarian weapon.
"We've got a negative here, food court's reporting a negative as well. None of the civilians have reported anyone aside from someone who apparently didn't understand basic customs. Turned out to be a drunk guy. We're coming with you."

The titanium cube was put into a military truck, which gave off a terrible smell and had wheels. Apparently, the LCF had yet to invent antigravity technology. The truck was exactly what one would expect from a low-tech military, laughable green camo, gunpowder weaponry, the usual primitive attachments. Two other vehicles seemed to follow the truck through the city, a police vehicle and a much older car. Both looked as if they had been constructed purely to look good, the frames weren't even made of a light alloy. Had the Triarians remembered the humans in their 1950's, they would recognize the aesthetics. Kind of funny, fifty thousand years later and they end up with the same designs.

The truck stopped at a factory, smoke was billowing out of large towers on top of it, dating the civilization even better than their weapons. The cube was carried off the truck by four Abh using the well-tested "stick stuff under it and carry that stuff with sticks" method. A human certainly couldn't pull that off, though, and the Abh didn't even look that muscular. There was obviously more to them than met the eye.

The cube was carried into the factory, and towards what was almost certainly a metal reclamation facility. A vat of molten metal stood there, being piped into various curved molds. Other vats were there was well, being piped into the same molds. A fully completed construction was being lifted out of the center of the factory by multiple helicopters, flying though an opening in the roof of the building. It was a cylinder, painted white and marked with the words "Royal Space Force" in dark red. The Triarians probably wouldn't recognize what they were building, simply because the device was so ancient in their memory that it was completely alien to them. It was what the humans called a "Rocket".

The cube was put onto a conveyor belt heading towards the vat, to be melted down and then molded into part of a primitive yet beautiful device. If the Triarians didn't get out of it somehow, they too would become part of a primitive yet beautiful device.

Comms Tap
The Triarians have once again come across propaganda, apparently, this "Ceramus War" was somewhat important to the LCF. Mainly because they are enraged enough to put out these productions. Interestingly enough, this one seemed to be a news video as well. News combined with propaganda: The mark of a primitive society at war. The only thing that could have made it more stereotypical was if it was in black and white.

"Once again, the enemy attacks the Nikolien system!" Yelled the announcer, with actual, true anger in his voice. "Today, they destroyed the planet Nikolien with a kinetic bombardment device traveling at .95c!" The video was showing footage of the attack, it was a show of power that might even intimidate the Triarians.

The video then switched to a clip of an Abh in a white and gold Star Forces uniform, which contrasted with her blood red eyes. A caption informed the viewer that she was Admiral Spoor, of the Imperial Star Forces.

"They think they have power over us with their new weapon, but we still have the upper hand. As I speak, we are planning a counteroffensive against the alien menace. Their home system will be no more once we find it."

The music from the last propaganda video started, and once more a battle scene was shown. Except this time it was a mock battle between a planetary defense ship and a group of five small craft. The PDS, interestingly enough, had been jokingly painted with the words "Qourux Scum" and "Triarian Oppressors". The small craft flew in, leaving striking blue engine trails, and fired some sort of pulse weapon at the parts of the hull the words were painted on. When the pulses hit, the words and the hull behind them simply disappeared. A caption identified the footage as "Spaceborne Fighter Test A-2"

As the music continued, the video showed the launch of a Hyphelia 1B orbital shuttle, and a CGI rendition of some sort of giant space station (the CGI was actually incredibly good, considering their computing power). Another caption identified the station as the "Orbital Refining and Construction/Combat Complex (ORCCC)". And of course, it wouldn't be LCF propaganda without a shot of multiple ships flying horizontally while firing weapons. That seems to be a staple of LCF propaganda.

An image was display of the Imperial Star Forces flag once more, just like in the first propaganda video:

Then, the main announcer spoke again, the volume of his voice greatly amplified.

"Join the Imperial Star Forces NOW! Go to your local relations office or call 7785-21-ISF! End the alien scourge! Protect Lakfakalle!"

Comms Tap

The Officer chuckled, turning to the other "Apparently they don't think we have shielding technology, come here and take a look at this." The Other proceeded over, watching as the hulls disintegrated "What the universe are they using to build those space stations, mashed Julo?"
"The Ceramus bother to use Kinetic Bombardment? Intriguing. All these primitive creatures, so unsurgical" The other commented, folding his arms slowly "Archive it"
"Should I prepare an invasion force for the humans?"
"Not yet, The Overlord wishes them to be left alone for now, I doubt they could bruise us if they tried anyway, just keep a watch on them"
"Agreed, and the Equestrians?"
"Operation Knightfall is underway, we're dealing with them now."

Operation Free Market

The agents morphed slowly, their skin changing as they became invisible to the eye. They slipped off the cube and onto the floor, then moved slowly across the room, one of them glanced up to the primitive human design as it was air lifted out. Some form of payload delivery system, probably. He glanced around, then slipped away from his group and towards the molds to investigate. Meanwhile, the group tried to remain undetected as they slipped away, attempting to leave the military site

Watcher post 129

"Detecting nano bots on outwards trajectory from LCF Faux-Homeworld."
"Prepare EMP devices, amputate any which approach Collective space"
"I obey"

Ceramus

"Equestrian Empire, Relatively Primitive. Lakfakalle Cooperative Federation Primitive. Castullian, Relatively Primitive. Universal Supreme Collective, Advanced"

Kinetic Test
With just two words, the captain of the tester ship exclaimed:

Holy shit!

Those words had two meanings: at surprise and shock with such strength of such a simple weapon, and being baffled at the intense "joke" the LCF had brought in their message. Although it was clear that such technology has become of intense value, still the reverse-engineering process have to be continued. Production of more kinetic objects are accelerated: priority is now balanced between making the weapon and getting blueprints from the wreckage's technologies. In addition, a second invasion may be conducted as the starmap storage drive of the ship is being recovered, repaired and fixed, allowing to find more human territories. Because a hard-enough material is needed to produce a Kinetic Object, production might be slow.

Lakfakalle
As Retsukuu finally approached the doors of the capital building, her form walks right through it, acting as if it was nothing. There, she keeps searching for the high officials of the human civilization, still seeking to have a talk.

Lakfakalle
As Yomo walked into the building, guards pointed their pistols at her. They appeared to be a Delphan and a Loroi, the Delphan had much darker blue skin than the Loroi. The Delphan's eyes glowed purple, and the Loroi's glowed orange just like a Triarian's.

"Identify yourself!" The Loroi yelled, her voice was perfectly stern and unafraid despite the fact that the intruder just walked right through the closed door.

Operation Free Market
As the agents moved closes to the molds, they could hear a conversation going on.

"The ISF has ordered another batch of Hyphelia Vs! Cargo variant! You know the drill!"

"More Vs? What are they doing up there?"

"Something about a new station, orbital assembly and all that."

"Oh great! We're helping to build something that'll put us all out of work!"

"Come on, it's not like we've got some kind of crazy antigravity engine or anything! They'll always need rockets to get crew up there!"

"Shut up and keep welding the damn parts together!"

Someone stepped up to what appeared to be an intercom, which was uncomfortably close to the agents.

"Deliveries, we need another computer core! No, Hyphelia V! Yes, there is a difference! Yes, I will issue demerits if you don't shut up!"

The man stepped away from the intercom, heading back to the rest of his crew. Cranes lifted the finished plates into place in the center of the building, where construction crews welded and riveted them together. Other cranes lifted in parts from across the factory, which was apparently extremely large. So large, in fact, that one couldn't clearly see the sides from the center of the building. It was a primitive factory, but it still worked fast and good, something that primitive species usually found it impossible to accomplish.

Suddenly, some sort of ring flew over the heads of the agents at great speeds. It slowed abruptly once it reached one of the construction areas, and floated into place in the large stack of parts. Workers moved over to it on the scaffolding to weld it to the stack. One of them waved over in the direction the ring had come from, a single Delphan was standing there waving back, his eyes glowing purple. Apparently, he alone had moved the ring.

"Gee, that Delphan does good work!" Said one of the workers in the construction area that had recieved the ring.

"Yeah, pretty amazing to think the guy's disconnected from the Collective. Normally you'd need the hive mind to work with his precision." Said another one of the workers.

"He's a special one. He made a good choice, going into rocket manufacturing. The business is really taking off with the war and all."

Nanobots
Having encountered Triarian space, a message was sent to a single nanobots. It soon flashed through the entire swarm.

"Triarian not target, Ceramus target. Flow around Triarian space, find Ceramus space."

The swarm began to move around the Triarian border, continuing the search for the Ceramus.

Comms Tap
For once, the Triarians didn't pick up propaganda. Instead, they picked up a sitcom. A sci-fi sitcom. About aliens picking up a sitcom and then destroying Lakfakalle over how terrible it was.

It lived up to its predictions, it was definitely bad enough to destroy a planet over.

Operation free market

The agents froze up the second they were approached, halting their breathing and remaining still. Once the man moved away from the intercom, they continued to search for a way out and onto the planet.

Meanwhile, the other one examined the factories structure, molds and design, taking notes for use in the future

Comma relay

"Anything to report, Officer?"
"Affirmative: I am under compensated for the assault to my mind that is Lakfakalle entertainment" The officer groaned as he watched the poorly done sitcom unravel. Was it supposed to be accurately depicting his wishes at this moment? Where was the plot, where were the subplots, where were the accurate calculations... Oh fortune please bring back the propaganda, this was just... Horrible
Thankfully, it was shirt by Triarian standards, and he sighed with relief when it finally ended. Thank god. If it was any longer, it might have earned the "worst media ever" award...

Ceramus

"We are at war with both the Equestrian Empire and the Lakfakalle Cooperative Federation. Pacification or destruction of Equestrians desired, pacification, Collectivisation or peace with LCF desired." The Officer reported "Willingness for Suppression assistance: Absolute. Request: State weapon of significance?"

Nanobots
A nanobots swarm has found the system where the Ceramus is reverse-engineering the antiproton streamer, the Freidsmekalre's wreckage is being held in the system. Preliminary scans indicate that the system in protected by at least sixty vessels, and that the Ceramus have cracked the protective shell of the antiproton streamers. Unfortunately, this activity was not performed in-atmosphere, as such an event would have destroyed an entire continent. The location was sent back to Lakfakalle when the entire swarm jumped back, having been ordered not to alert the Ceramus.

Message to the Equestrian Empire
"We have discovered the facility where the Ceramus are reverse-engineering the antiproton streamer device. We are planning an attack once we expand our fleet sufficiently, we request assistance in this attack. Any vessels you commit should report to Lakfakalle and land in the ocean or hover in the sky, the enemy now has near-lightspeed bombardment devices. The shields of Lakfakalle should protect landed or hovering ships from any kinetic bombardment."

Military Expansion
The ten new warships have been completed! They are being kept in orbit of Lakfakalle, waiting for the order to attack the Ceramus. With the fighters having been proven in battle, fifteen more have been produced, bringing the total to 20.

Weapons Development
Research has begun on a new weapon designed for taking out shields, based off of the shield breaker used by rockets to pass through the Lakfakalle planetary shield. Of course, any other species would know it as a laser.

New Ship Designs
To complement the fighters, the LCF has designed a carrier vessel of sorts. It is quite a large ship, capable of carrying ninety fighters. The vessel will also be armed with one spinal antiproton lance running the length of the ship, multiple electromagnetically-propelled flak cannons, 10 antiproton streamers (5 on each side), and 10 projectile weapons capable of switching between kinetic and explosive ammunition (5 on each side). To be honest, it's a fusion of carrier and warship. Probably why the new class is being called the Freidsmekalre War Carrier, the first part being in honor of the crew of the warship Freidsmekalre. A prototype is now under construction, until completion, fighters will simply dock with the standard warships.

Message to the AIF
"Of course, we will deploy our newly finished fleet to assist. It's already ready to go."

Operation: Knightfall
"Report, several Collective bio-signals found near civilian gate"
"Get two two man Pegasi Stealth teams, keep them armed with silenced rifles. Deploy raptors and have them scout the general area."
The two teams watched over the Umbrae Populus, making sure they didn't try anything. Raptor-Class Cloudships, meant as gunships, began patrolling the area of canterlot, 5 in total.

Chaos
"We have one other, making two, but as far as we are aware that is it."

Operation Free Market

The Agents were able to slip out of the military facility and make their way back to the cities, where they have attempted to integrate themselves into LCF society. They are advised to set up deep cover identities and are allowed to breach set parameters to do so. Agents 00129, 55291 and 11926 are ordered to sabotage Human military projects, and thus are attempting to get themselves integrated into military, military research or military construction area's, while the other agents mere attempt to inject themselves into the society

Operation Knightfall

The first five men Umbrae Populus have entered the city as a result of not being taken out. The second group is watching the area, including the sudden arrival of Raptor class
"Overwatch."
"Apply."
"88103. Equestrian cloud ships at reference Sector Purple two and Purple three. Request Indespectus remain ready."
"Affirmed"
The other five Umbrae Populus moved around the perimeter, scouting the area's. Team one is prepared aboard the first Indespectus and awaiting reports from the Umbrae Populus, as well as preparing the CETH.

Collective
Weapon of significance: antiproton weaponry.

A document will be sent to your ship's holopad immediately, authorized signature from authorized personnel will be required to effectively allow national recognition and cooperated attacks against the previously-mentioned third parties. Provide starmap of current hostile parties Equestrian Empire and Lakfakalle Cooperative Federation. In return, a very simple, but highly destructive weapon of secrecy shall be given, potentially equal or greater than the weapon of significance stated. Then again, previously-stated weapon may have some flaws that antiproton weaponry doesn't have, so we might still need to continue working on it.

Starmap Restoration
Only about 20% of the data has been retrieved due to the degree of damage done to the computer systems. One planet has been identified, organizing of ships will proceed immediately.

Ceramus

The Officer floated across the station control room to the holoterminal as it flickered to life and Overwatch approved access to the holoterminal. The documents flicked out, appearing and floating in the air, while Overwatch constructed an estimate of the Anti-Proton weaponry. Sigh, natural human designs, just make something which kills stuff in a slightly more amusing to watch fashion.
Of course, he could talk, what were Dark Energy weapons after all? He tapped a few commands, sending off an electronic message to the Overlord. A second later it flashed again, and a message was transmitted back to the Ceramus. Just a single image, the Collective symbol. It faded out as a second file was transmitted. "Star map Space Equestrian Controlled MARKED" and "Star Map Space LCF controlled MARKED"

Collective
Document has been signed. Starmap of hostile parties has been recieved in databases, now spreading throughout the entire Ceramus communication network. Blueprint of weapon-in-secrecy has been sent.

The communicator spoke as he flickered the images of the blueprints in the holographic interface to a monotone design of the Collective's symbol, transferring them to the computers of the newfound allies. The weapon? Nothing more than a variable-radius ball labeled "adamantium", which was more of a general term for superhard materials rather than a single element, and a realspace FTL drive attached to where its back should be, with a setting of 95% the speed of light.. Also attached is the simulated image of the first few milliseconds of the impact of the device:

Ceramus

The Officer examined it for a moment. There were reasons near FTL based weaponry was generally considered ineffective, but it was certainly destructive upon impact, there was no denying that. It had originally been considered for rail gun use, but the plans for installing a miniature FTL drive to rail guns had proven to be non-cost effective. Eventually, aspects of this idea were reused in the design for hardlight weaponry, which the Collective generally considered to be vastly superior to the rail guns of other races and would use to rub in their faces. Making a ball and lobbing it at a planet on the other hand...
There were plenty of things which could go wrong, and it precluded the chance of capturing a planet. The weapon might be averted by enemy defences, such as tractor beams or gravity wells mounted on space stations or star ships, for instance. He transmitted a message again
"Do you plan to cause such mass biosphere destruction on through the usage of 284 802 835 meter per second bombardment on multiple human and Equestrian worlds?" He inquired before continuing "Additional note: Collective forces preparing for offensive."

Collective
Unless the planet contains a serious threat possible of wiping out our species, and certainly doubting Lakfakalle on that, it'll be rather to eliminate precisely a single target or a line formation of targets that would be considered pesky in combat. Our preferred method of biosphere annihilation would still be planetary irradiation for our inhabitation.

The communicator paused, moving on to the subject of preparation of forces.

Thirty has been allocated on the offensive. One kinetic bombardment projectile and three radiation bombs will be brought.

Ceramus

"Our energy projectors set to the lowest setting can serve for precision strikes on battle positions. Battle Groups are on standby for deployment. Confirm first target, Equestrian Empire of Lakfakalle Cooperative Federation? Advise: Though agents are active in the Lakfakalle Cooperative Fedaration world of Lakfakalle, and special surgical team is in position on Equestrian world of Equiis, their survival is not imperative. Additional: Collective ship count is currently 568 excluding special operations vessels and transport ships. Transmitting now"

Velites class Corvette: 86

Venator Class Frigate: 98

Hastati class Cruiser: 116

Princeps class Destroyer: 104

Evocatus class Battle Ship: 84

Aquilifer class Carrier: 33

Praetorian Class Ship of the Line: 42

Invictus Class Super Carrier: Four

Aethereus class Super ship: One

Total: 568

Ceramus

"Deploying forces, preparing for assault. Another ally shall be assualting the Equestrians soon as well. We shall after you." The Officer said, tapping a few commands on the terminal and pinging off information to Overwatch

Equestrian Space
"Excellent, have them sent to us immediately and you shall have your bargain. We will attack the Triarian Collective instead of the equestrian empire under the terms of our agreement in exchange for the gems." Finch said in a flat tone compared to his earlier charm.