To Dr Gilmore

I have been told by Prime that your current invasion of my people's homes was caused by a misinterpretation of my words. Now I disbelieve this statement but he told me to ask you about it so I shall. When I told you that I was fine with you growing your fungus and you could grow it to your hearts content I meant where it was. I meant that you could claim that entire island for your own and make it your own garden for your plants.
Did you not notice that my people intensily dislike your fungus? In fact a large group of them tried to kill the fungus and got themselves killed as a result. Did that not show you that we didn't want to be near it? The entire idea behind giving you that island was for you to grow your plants there and not where we lived!

So in the future grow your fungus AWAY from my people, feel free to grow it as long as it doesn't affect my people in any way. None of it on the ground where we walk, no spores in the air that we breathe etc. Grow your fungus toward Garmen Fe, he is your friend and ally perhaps he would like your fungus.

I am trying very very hard to be civil here as I dislike you and your plants very very very much. However if me being civil to you will make you listen then so be it.

This message was sent out after combat operations on Kyrpos had begun, but long enough after that Michael had a few moments to get a grip on the situation. The image was of Michael, clearly in a cold fury, his gaze dead-set on the 'recording' device before him. His image would seem... strangely distorted, though how was hard to say. Almost... plastic-y.

"Ar'yay. You Lied To Me. I Have Looked Over The Whole Of Our Communications, And There Is No Contradiction To This Fact. I Told You I Would Fuck You If You Attacked Me. I Did Not Want To Do This, But I Said I Would. And I DON'T LIE."

The message ends after. His second message out, the response to Ar'yay's transmission, would be much more composed, and would have no visual artifacts.

"It was not a misinterpretation. You said I could have it, and I took it. Indeed, I have a transmission from you that uses the plural of 'island,' which is 'islands.' If you did not want me to cover 'islands,' you should have said 'island.' If you had difficulties with what I was doing, a time-period of several weeks had elapsed before the supposed transgression of your imaginary rules, and you could have easily brought this up with me at the time.

Indeed, you even said how much you liked my fungus. If you don't remember, I will refresh your memory.

He then replays the transmission Ar'yay sent him several weeks earlier.

New update, I have changed my mind, we need more fungus. In this light it is rather nice, so feel free to spread it to your hearts content. Ta Ta

It was assumed that you wanted a buffer between you and the other quall hives, and I was providing this buffer. In order to reach your territories, they had to go through me. As such, you wanted me to block off any route they could use to advance on your holdings.

This is the only possible interpretation of that sentence given the context of the discussion in which it was said.

And then, in a stunning turnaround, you attacked me. After giving me the island. After telling me to spread it. After saying you wanted it as a buffer against assault once you were declared 'rogue.'

And you did not just attack me, either. You called in REINFORCEMENTS. You PLANNED and ORCHESTRATED an AMBUSH on MY HOLDINGS! MY HOLDINGS!!!" As his temper starts to flare, a similar distortion in the image begins to take effect. The bolded words are punctuated by his fist slamming on a table in front of him, one that didn't seem to be there before he started hitting it. And in a flicker, all sign of anger was gone.

"Do I look like a member of the Temporal Empire? Do I look like the Da'uhnb? How exactly is sending this message NOW useful? Do you want me to go back in time? Did you think I would see this in the past, and act on it before it was an issue with you? ARE YOU INSANE?"

He seemed to be having more of a difficulty controlling his temper, though in another flicker he was back to normal. He decided to cut the message short.

"I made due on my promise, so you do not gain any sympathy from me. And because of what you did, I somehow have to find a goddamn cure for it, because fuck if the rest of the hives didn't come to your defense. How dumb could you possibly be? It should burn out quickly, because the spores shouldn't be able to survive in atmosphere for very long. I really, really don't want to see what happens if it hits a population center. Make sure your soldiers don't go back to your hive, or all hell is going to break loose."

And with that, the transmission ends.

I never said to spread a fungus specificly designed to kill my own people to MY territories. You did, you could have stayed on as many islands as you wanted as long as you didn't come in my MY islands. You still came to MY islands with a fungus that was designed to kill Quall, that is a violation of any and all agreements. Thus hitting you back was perfectly allowed because you broke the agreement. You may hide behind ignorance but the very fact that you knew that Quall N'Drone were vulnerable to this fungus and knowingly had it follow my people after we left the original infection site was an act of aggression. By putting it on my new islands where my people were living in peace and not bothering your science experiment you endangered billions of lives. Now a billion lay dead because you knowingly spread a bio weapon to my door.

If you wanted to spread a bio weapon around me to "protect" me from other Hives it was your responsibility to TELL me about this. By spreading a bio weapon to my shores without telling me why you violated the freedom I gave you and thus caused that attack.

You are not in the right here, don't try to pretend that you are. You knowingly put a fungus onto this dimension that you knew would be poison to the Quall, this open broadcast to everyone proves that you knew that it was poison. Now you make up a story that it was for my own protection which you never said before.

So i ask you the same question you asked me. Do I look like a Da'uhnb? How would I know that you are spreading a poison bio weapon to my populations centers to protect them? You are just like the other members of the Trilat, you feel you can do whatever you want and endanger whomever you want and never have to give warning nor do you think about how others will react to them. You cannot understand any view point other then your own and thus cannot understand the evil you commit.

In the next message, Michael simply looks tired.

"Ar'yay, I don't know who you're posturing for- I think I'm the only other person getting your messages, and you're certainly the only one getting mine.

You told me specifically to spread on your islands. When Le'a complained, you said what you did on your islands was your business. If I had spread elsewhere, at the very least an assault on my positions would have been reasonable.

And you and I both know that the fungus on the ground was non-toxic and non-infectious. Please don't pretend otherwise, it's unbecoming. I told you explicitly that I was going to design something to stop you from suckerpunching my holdings, and I did. I sent that transmission out when it was released- if it had been released earlier, you and I both know someone would have gotten sick beforehand.

Finally, you were the one who said it was for your protection, not me. That's what I quoted above. Again, don't pin this on me; I told you that this would happen if you attacked me, and it did. I can't do much more than that. The fact that you spread it back to your hive is your own damn fault, not mine. You knew exactly what was coming, and I have a suspicion you did this in order to invoke sympathy. You will find none here."