The S.A. Kulxrix arrived in the Sol System in all its glory.

A dedicated diplomatic vessel approximately 800 meters long with four elegant, sweeping nacelles sporting an aerospike-like design outstretched on long pylons, and a multideck fuselage in a wide arrow shape. Sleek looking and radiating extravagance as the light from the yellow-white star glinted off it in a golden color, it was made to impress. It bore no weapons of its own, but the escort of six Krulitz-class escort fighters made up for it. Each of them was 140 meters long with a bulky, almost warthog look to them. They had a dagger-like fuselage and two large, outer-mounted engine nacelles fitted to their frames. Each had at least six plasma accelerators and twelve laser turrets spread out both above and below the ship for optimal firing arcs. Not built for beauty, but for combat, it was evident the S.A. wasn't taking any chances this time as they opened communication with the Terrans/humans.

"Terran command, this is the S.A. Kulxrix ambassadorial ship with an escort of six requesting permission to enter orbit and rendezvous for diplomatic negotiations."

"Roger S.A. Kulxrix. I.D is confirmed, free to enter Earth space with priority. Make way to the NISS at the following coordinates at your pace."

"Many thanks, Terran Command."

As the convoy made their way to the coordinates, a station, albeit a crude one by galactic standards, could be seen. Roughly 350 meters in length, three times larger than its predecessor with a large number of solar panels could be seen. Kixixlix could hardly fathom how such primitive people managed to produce an FTL engine, even if it was flawed and terribly inefficient, it just didn't seem to make sense to him. This station would have to be centuries old to fit the proper timescale of advancement but judging by its current construction efforts on one side to expand it, it had to be at least new enough for the worth of upgrading. At least he wouldn't be having to set foot on it since the meetings would be held on the Kulxrix, his people's prize ambassadorial ship.

'Now, let's just hope the deathworld predators know how to play nice. At the very least they hadn't eaten the refugees so they were better than the Foritans.' The ambassador thought.

Making sure he was presentable and waiting at the dock entrance to receive their delegation, the bipedal mouseman could feel his anxiety starting to well up. His race evolved from prey rodents after all and are small even by galactic standards, they had no real fight reflex just a "boast or freeze" reflex. boast your way out of a confrontation or freeze and hope whatever predator was looking at you didn't want a dead meal. And now he was about to meet sentient, omnivorous predators...as he thought of the irony of the situation he couldn't help but let out a nervous laugh as a female Hexat beside him tilted her head at him, her whiskers twitching a bit.

"Is something the matter Ambassador?" She asked him curiously.

"No, it's nothing, I am just thinking of an amusing moment is all Ksixix." He said in response.

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Jacobs watched the ship as it moved in to dock with the New International Space Station in all its glory. It was truly a magnificent ship, nothing like what humanity had fielded yet, obviously made more for elegance than functionality. The aging politician would like to brag and say he just had an eye for details like that but honestly anyone could see this ship was as much a status symbol as anything. It seemed their neighbors wanted to impress upon them their difference in situation.

He wondered what the Hexat would look like. The S.A. had sent over a multitude of information on the community as a whole, but had been rather secretive about the individual races and relevant information, which made his job even harder. On one hand he could understand their hesitation, the U.S.U.N had been much the same way in case things broke down into hostility, but it did make his job so much harder than it needed to be when he didn't even know what the aliens he was to meet looked like much less their general psychology. He didn't even know if they would think in a way humans could remotely interpret.

Taking a look around he sighed. The special package hadn't arrived yet and it seemed it would be a bit tardy due to weather, he'll have to delay the delegation as much as possible until it gets here. In the meantime he had found and scouted three individuals as asked though they would be staying on the NISS until needed, if needed. Instead he was surrounded by two aides, one a caucasian man in his 30's who looked like he spent too long cooking in prep school with his bookish look of brown hair, blue eyes, glasses, and a suit that simply screamed of spending to long in libraries, named Dereck Schrader; The other was a middle eastern woman who appeared in her 30's in a sharp formal dress, hair pulled in a bun and a pad in hand going over possible bulletin points it seems, named Janan Abadi. Both were rather dependable in different ways but today he had a feeling he would be counting more on Janan than on Dereck.

Besides that was a contingent of four guards assigned to his protection for "ceremonial" purposes. He knew them well. Jack, the lead, was an American, or at least what used to be American, with brown hair and blue eyes in his 40's and had seen multiple skirmish conflicts in both South America and in the middle east. Rosalie was his second in command, a russian woman with blonde hair and green eyes in her 30s who had served in the South African inter-conflict wars, gaining a large scar over the right half of her face for it. If not for that she would actually be quite pretty. Bartholomew was from the european sector of the U.S.U.N. and had a face that was, ironically enough, so common Jacobs had a hard time picking out a specific feature, he had served with Jack. Kalashnev was another from the U.S.U.N. european sector, from what used to be Ukraine. He was a big, burly man with black hair and brown eyes, with a fondness for large weaponry and explosives. He had worked with Jack as well.

Once the Ship was docked and everything was cleared for entry Jacobs opened the airlock, managing to somehow gracefully execute the change from zero g to what felt like about half grav, or maybe less. Janan had a bit of an awkward time but managed to recover easily enough, while poor accident prone Dereck barely manage to keep himself steady after almost having an up close view of the deck plating. The guards took their measured time, but all seem fine so after giving a look around, the entourage made their way through the umbilical between the ship and station to meet the foreign delegation, the airlock on the other side opening as they got close to it as if on cue, letting everyone see each other for the first time.

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They were all the same Race,

'That much made things simple at least', thought Jacobs as he stared at what was essentially and anthropomorphized mouse standing just shy of one and a quarter meters.

The only obvious differences were that they retained their eyes being one the side, and their legs weren't plantigrade like humans, nor digitigrade, seeming more like a cross between the two, their knees forward facing but still standing on their toes rather than heels, and at an awkward angle as well, with a slightly bowed out appearance. a thin covering of fur all over, seemingly usually uniform but not always, and a long, hairless tail behind them. Honestly it was like some furry scientist's secret experiment got out rather than an alien lifeform. Jacobs was going to speak but, seeing the slight discomfort on the Hexat's faces he paused for a moment.

'What do you say to make a bunch of mouse people relax?' he thought to himself.

His aides had a look as if they were wondering if everything was already too far gone to salvage anything. The little furballs seemed very angry and upset, yet they hadn't done anything, they had even wore light reflecting glasses so their eyes didn't trigger a flight response, a recommendation given to them by the information sent to them in data packets via the ftl buoy Amelia had made and they had improved.

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Kixixlix looked at the humans that walked inside and had to almost bite his tongue to keep from laughing uncontrollably, looking around so did most of his staff. It was like someone took their pet Bixil and tried to uplift it, with it somehow losing most of its fur in the process and put aluminum over where their eyes were. If he didn't know any better he would swear this was some deranged furless'es secret science experiment that got out. Fighting back the laughter he cleared his throat loudly so the others would as well before speaking.

"AHEM...Welcome, Terran Ambassador, to the S.A. Kulxrix. It is our hope that the talks held here over the next few cycles will lead to a fruitful future for both your people and the S.A." He said, or more accurately, the translator said.

"If you'll follow me, I will show you to our delegation room." He continued, turning sharply to try and suppress a snicker from escaping as he led them all to the prepared room. Once everyone was there and seated they would begin the "official" talks.

'By the Void, couldn't Command have given me a bit of a warning on their appearance?' He thought to himself as he had to silently and quietly shoo away several staff members from their presence to hopefully avoid them causing an incident.

"I am Ambassador Zuki Kixixlix of the Hexat Republic, a member of the Sapient Alliance. Let it be known that these deliberations will be recorded for posterity while dealing with the Terran...Empire? Republic? Coalition? Im sorry, i'm afraid we weren't given a clear indication as to your planet's form of government." He started once they reached the deliberation room and turned on the holorecorder, a small round device sat on a table in the room. The room itself was fairly nice, with a large window pointed to Earth, a wall lined with flags from the S.A. members, and a multitude of stange chairs, not exactly comfortable but not uncomfortable either.

Jacobs was quick to respond to his fellow diplomat.

"Well, while the Uniform Senate of United Nations are trying to form a single world government, officially, there is still at least 70+ sovereign states with their own form of government. As such, officially, there is no planet-wide governance. We govern by region divided into what we call Countries, most of which are their own independent government."

Kixixlix could hardly believe what he had heard. "I..um, apologies, but did you just say over 70 sovereign independent governments in your system?!" Kixixlix could hardly repress his shock at such a number. Never before had the S.A. met such a divided species.

"Actually no, thats only on our planet. Earth, or as some call it, Terra." Jacobs responded nonchalantly. "Currently the Mars settlement is the closest one could get to an offworld nation though they are still largely dependant on Earth so it's unlikely they would become so for quite a while."Mars had officially begun settlement in the 2070's but right now had a population of about twenty thousand. Even Armstrong, their Lunar colony, only had a population of fifteen thousand. Eventually Mars would have its own self sufficiency and there had been talks of what to do when that happened but no one had a conclusion yet on when that would be nor if the martian colony would become its own state or not.

"This is...startling." Kixixlix said before grabbing his head, seemingly trying to comprehend what was said.

"Almost every world in the S.A has a unified government. Im afraid its a prerequisite for full membership. That being said, a grace period of 150 of your terran years can be provided to unify your governments. My apologies, you have your work cut out for you it seems. Now, onto-"

"Wait." Jacobs started."You are saying its required for us to have a single government in order do join the galactic community?"

"Not the community as a whole, but to be considered a full member of the Sapient Alliance a maximum of three globally recognized authorities or less is required." Kixixlix explained.

"Now, as I was saying, onto the next matter. Due to her actions preventing the harm of non-military personnel during first contact by taking on a rogue general at risk of self without any reason beyond empathy to do so, the Sapient Alliance wishes to have Ms. Amelia Ryder prepared for departure to the Council homeworld of Eldoras, returning with the Kulxrix. I understand last we spoke you said this would be an issue?"

Jacobs nodded. "Unfortunately despite our best medical efforts she has not awakened from her coma. To be honest, they dont think its anything medically wrong with her, but rather her cybernetic implants.They are very, very advanced for us, and we don't entirely know why they are preventing her waking. Im sorry, but currently we have no method of waking her assuming she would even agree."

Kixixlix nodded in response, seemingly thinking a moment before saying,

"Very well, I'll have one of ours take a look at her then if you don't mind. If you need assistance with transportation we can rig one of the shuttles as a drone. We may not be able to land on your cradle, but our equipment will have no issue. Needless to say, our medical and cybernetic technology is highly advanced. In return for helping you impress the Council, however, I have a favor." He spoke with a diplomatic smile.

Jacobs knew the sight well, the mouseman may seem nonchalant, but he was an able politician from that little maneuver.

"Very well, what is it you want?"

"Nothing much, just for Amelia Ryder to join the EXOB humanity is sending."

"Hmm. throw in opening talks between our people for a trade or technology agreement, and I'll have her here within thirty minutes." Jacobs said with his own diplomatic smile. The package was already on her way here but there was no way he would give up that edge in the first political bargaining with an alien race.

"Best I can do is suggest it to my people, no guarantees." Kixix replied.

"Deal" Jacobs responded with.

"So, how are you going to get her up here so fast?" Kixixlix said, smirking, he knew humans couldn't quite make that time with their current technology. It was essentially a free deal for him.

"Oh, thats simple, She's already on her way up here." Jacobs said, letting a wicked smile, carefully hiding teeth as the data drop from the S.A. recommended, show.