The Arabian Peninsula and Mesopotamia would become home to numerous Arab kingdoms after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Bordering Iran and Egypt, Britain helped maintain their security. Each ruler jealously guarded his territory from the others, and they began to squabble over land. Britain had been able to complete their promise to individual rulers, but the united Arab state died a stillbirth in the fires of the desert.
Despite the many mysteries inherent in the Voice of Altair, terraforming was expensive and we colonized the heck out of the planet. Turns out some of the more interesting stellar and planetary bits of the system make for some really good cropland. And vineyards. Altairian Champaign is something else. And I usually stay away from foo foo drinks like that. They’ve got good food there. Healthy farm girls too. It’s a fun place to visit.
The Irish mob were not amused that Elizabeth so easily hacked their best security systems, but then reports started coming in of Islamic Brotherhood strikes on the colleges. The Irish may not have had any love lost for the Bloody English, and in particular the student that unleashed Elizabeth on them, but they saw the positive aspects of working with her. So they declined to give the student the customary penalty for cheating, and Elizabeth joined the Irish mob.
Hello, my name is Charles. British diplomacy had been instrumental in starting the Arab Revolt that helped destroy the Ottomans, so they were given most of the Middle East to do with as they pleased after The War ended. But they had made three conflicting promises. First, they promised individual families lordship over many lands. Second, they promised to support a united Arab state. And finally, they promised a return of the Jews to their homeland. And so began over a century of warfare.
The Voice of Altair was a surprise of course. Talking plants are not the norm. Whoever built it obviously considered our ability and willingness to terraform Altair a strong qualification for making Contact with though. The message included directions to a star system, but when we arrived we found only rubble. Whatever planets were there are long gone. The Peloran will say little except that many systems died in the last Great War.
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