At the Ronghui Restaurant in the Green Harbor District of Sea City, Nefi, capital of the Free Stellar River Alliance, a major news report from the Nefi Star Network was playing on the enormous television screen mounted on one wall of the ground-floor dining hall.
On ordinary days, the news was little more than background noise for people eating and drinking together.
But now, more than a hundred diners in the hall were quietly watching the man on television speak.
He was the Empire's prime minister and a Privy Councilor, Count Valpolis. At that moment, he was in the Proclamation Hall of the Prime Minister's Office in the Heavenly Domain, delivering a statement on behalf of the entire Empire to the whole galaxy.
"Therefore, despite our differences in international relations, ever since the Galactic Civilization Council was established, the Holy Galactic Empire has consistently advocated creating an equal and indivisible security system throughout the known universe of civilized society. This is a system the entire international community urgently needs, and the only one that can allow the whole universe to prosper, develop, and advance.
We once believed all of this could be achieved.
In May of this year, in sacred Huaxu, we signed the security guarantee agreement. We signed the Mugu Bai Agreement with all the civilizations, peoples, and nations of the galaxy to jointly develop the Dawn Starfield. We approved the Commonwealth's Fragrant Route Plan and committed a great deal of manpower and resources to carrying it out in a steady manner. The Galactic Empire calls on all nations to engage in sincere dialogue and cooperation, while taking one another's interests and customs into account and respecting them, and to resolve all differences through genuine progress and development.
However, our sincerity has been betrayed. You have already seen that