Now, the researchers on the Observation Terminal faced three choices. They promptly reported them to the Joint Scientific Expedition as their final and most important report. It was passed all the way up to the Empire's Academy of Sciences, then submitted to the emperor for a direct ruling.
First: leave everything as it was and allow the Edge-of-the-Galaxy Sentinel to continue operating, but extract its monitoring data on the Milky Way Galaxy, effectively gaining a brand-new Sentinel Array.
Second: upload artificial intelligence programs into all the autonomous drones on the Observation Terminal, then distribute this Machine World's eight billion machine intelligence inhabitants among the colonies of the Blorg Hegemony.
Third: likewise grant them synthetic personality matrices, but establish a vassal state under the Blorg Hegemony.
Xi Yan broke into a cold sweat the moment he received the report.
This was all too familiar!
Choosing anything other than the first option would very likely result in a transmission from outside the Milky Way Galaxy a month later, giving them a thorough dressing-down before triggering the Calamity invasion ahead of schedule.
No, not now!
Xi Yan made a long-distance interstellar call and delivered an almost commanding warning to the Blorg President: "Do not touch the Edge-of-the-Galaxy Sentinel! Do not interfere rashly! Do not tamper with anything!"
Fortunately, even if the Blorg had designs on the Edge-of-the-Galaxy Sentinel, there really was a vast Ancient Automated Cruiser Fleet inside that isolated system, and the Blorg were unwilling to send in troops.
After all, the Starfish Republic was far from peaceful at the moment.
They ordered their Science Ship to return for the time being, bringing their years of joint exploration with the Human Empire to an end.
Xi Yan pondered for a long time, considering whether to deliberately trigger the Calamity ahead of schedule