The delegation peace talks were set to take place on a neutral planet not owned or controlled by any governmental body alien or otherwise GA, UNSC or ASF (Arcadian space force). This was easier said than done of course, since the Tesraki had a habit of claiming unused planets for industrial purposes, like mineral mining, and natural resource collection.

It was actually the Arcadia Deep Space Exploration Array (ADESA) that had discovered this planet. Yes, it was a surprise to literally no one that Adam had allocated a couple million dollars of Arcadia funds to build a big ass telescope. No one had argued with him on that front, but if they had, he wasn't sure what he would have done. The use of telescopes in this day and age were arguably pretty minimal. IN fact, they could travel faster than the time it took light to make it from one system to another, so it was easier, more efficient and more possible to just pop over to another system take a quick look around and then pop back.

However, it was easier to discover new habitable planets this way. Sure, they could have gone trolling the universe in the Empyrean, using the ships own built in systems to find other habitable worlds, but the Empyrean was not a science vessel, not like the Harbinger had been. Over the years Adam's ships had seen an increase in military upgrades.

The Enterprise, the first interstellar ship, had been equipped with no weapons whatsoever, for obvious reasons. Humanity hadn't exactly planned to run into any hostile alien life on their first mission interstellar. When The Harbinger was built, it did have a standard array of railguns, but it was understood that their primary purpose was to destroy any potential space debris that might interfere with the ship. Of course, if someone were to attack them they could certainly be used, but that wasn't the original idea. The harbinger had been equipped with more science equipment than it had weapons.

Their job was basically to travel the galaxy, look at cool space rocks, and do some diplomacy if they had extra time.

Those were the days.

Simple.

Safe.

Then conflict had arisen, they had issue with the burg and the Kree, and the Harbinger had been destroyed. Afterwards the Omen had been rebuilt from her ashes, rising like a metal phoenix, and the harbinger had been a science vessel sure, but she had been equipped for war. She had vrul shields, and celex weapons, which were in no way designed for anything but destruction and mayhem. There had also been a substantial increase in military operations aboard the ship.

And then he got ahold of the Empyrean.

Adam considered the Empyrean his ship, though In the long term it was more like borrowing. Honestly he was surprised the architect hadn't show up to take his ship back so he could use it in the war against light and dark. The Empyrean had no limit to the kind of power output she could handle. She was only as strong or as weak as the anima of her pilot, so Adam could only imagine what would happen if the architect took the helm.

And since the ship was designed to fight in the war of light and dark,, it wasn't much for science. \

It was ADSEA that found the planet, and then it was Simon, Piloting the Omen, who had gone to check it out. Adam had been a bit miffed that he wasn't the first person to step on a new alien planet, but he urged himself to calm down.

It didn't matter who was first, only that he got to go down to a cool new planet.

This was, of course, a primarily diplomatic meeting , but he certainly wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to look at cool space stuff.

Eris had accompanied him for this mission, while King James stayed behind to head the triumvirate in their absence. It wouldn't do to put all three leaders simultaneously in a dangerous position off world. One of them had to stay behind in case soemthing went catastrophically wrong.

They came with a relatively large honor guard. There were three shuttles all together, Adam, Eris and Sunny on a ship with Maverick and Ramirez. Maverick served as their token SE bodyguard, and in her armor she was about as tall as Adam was, and scary as hell. Her armor was painted in shades of smokey grey and blue, but with read streaks like warpaint across the chest, upper arms and helmet.

There were ten other soldiers all together, and equal mix of marines, neospartans and Drev.

When they touched down, the mediation delegation was already present.

A mike ship, and a Lumin ship.

The two only non Anima constructs. The only non-Maker created sentient species.

To say they didn't have anima was.... Untrue, if you put a lumin or a mike inside an anima power converter, it would still run, but it ran..... weird. It was as if the anima had naturally occurred along with their progression into sentience, but it was vastly different than maker created Anima.

It was hard to explain and Adam didn't know the details.

Through all of what had happened both Mikes and Lumin had announced themselves to be neutral parties. Less neutral now that the void was trying to destroy everyone Maker anima or not, but when it came to the warring factions of Maker children, they stayed mostly neutral.

Adam stepped off the ship and into the open air of planet.... What was it called again? The student who found it had been allowed to name it. he looked down at his holo-implant.

Bob.

Planet Bob.

He approved. Either the student was lazy, or their knew their Sci-fi references. He hoped it was the latter.

Planet bob was a small planet well within its habitable zone, it was a little smaller in mass than earth was, and so the gravity was noticeably less taxing. The science Geeks aboard the ship told him that the oxygen concentration was at about 22% which was at the high end of acceptable. The rest of the atmosphere was composed of almost equal amounts of Argon and Nitrogen with trace elements blended in.

When Adam asked about the safety of the atmosphere, the scientists informed him that both nitrogen and Argon are basically inert, in fact nitrogen makes up a whopping 80% of earth atmosphere if you do some generous rounding up. Humans breathe lungfuls of the stuff and basically ignore it. The same goes for Argon in this case.

There was also a bunch of stuff thrown in there about atmospheric pressure and what not, but he didn't really understand it. Adam had always loved science fiction, and science in general, but as it turned out, he didn't really have a head for the scientific discipline. He was no Ryland Grace, or Iron man, or any other fictional scientist you could think of. Unlike Mark Watney, he would have died on the surface of Mars within the first few hours or starved within the ensuing several months.

At the end of the day, he was a soldier, not a scientist, more along the lines of Captain Kirk, or Captain Malcolm Reynolds, or, and this was maybe a little bit of his vanity speaking here, John 117. Ok maybe not so much that last one, but Captain Reynolds or Kirk definitely.

Point is Adam wasn't science smart.

Didn't mean he didn't have the mind of a scientist.

Curiosity is what spurred those people on, and it did the same for him. As soon as he stepped out on the planet's surface, he was already crouched down examining the strange latus of planets that covered the rock at his feet. The rock was a strange mix of grey black and white, mottled like some marble kitchen countertops. The plant that grew atop it was bright red, and grew like veins stretching across the surface of the ground. The veiny protrusions spread out from a central.... Stock? Bulb? That rested in a flat dome on the ground about a foot in length and a few inches in height.

He reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a small silver rod, which he used to poke the planet. The scientists had given him the rod as consolation for their "no touching" rule. The rod was sterile metal, with a complicated set of sensors inside. The more things he poked at, the more science information the smart people got.

So basically he was a tool.

He didn't mind.

He looked at the screen reading which was projected to his mechanical eye.

It was organic, so definitely some kind of plant. Overhead the sky was blue, just like on earth. Blue seemed to be the predominant sky color in most planets where the atmosphere was comprised of mostly clear gasses.

Eris floated over to hover next to him.

She wasn't wearing her hoodie today, but a long black dress that undulated and waved with her body. Her hair was almost down to her knees, long black tendrils swirling about her like a slow moving vortex . She was like a beautiful goddess of destruction with her pure black eyes and milk white skin, looking at her, it was hard to see the Vir family in her at all. He supposed fi he squinted and turned his head he could almost imagine his sister Maya. His family tended to have strong features, but Eris didn't. Perhaps her jaw, maybe, and the shape of her eyes. When she pulled back her hair she definitely had Vir ears.

She shook her head at him as he poked the planet again, "When do you think you stopped growing up?"

Adam tilted his head, "At about six maybe...." He turned back to his plant, "Why would I want to grow up, being an adult is stupid."

She snorted and then tilted her head, "I think the Earth delegation is here.'

Adam frowned, "how do you know that?"

"The plants.... Can feel it?"

He blinked at her once and then shrugged. Eris's mind reading abilities was not just for humans. If it had the ability to think even on a rudimentary level, she would know. Weird to hear that the plants on this planet were in the habit of doing any sort of thinking, but that was pretty cool.

A small Lumin pavilion had been erected not a few hundred feet away, and a mike delegate floated over to greet them.

Overhead Adam thought he heard a distant roar.

"Welcome Presidents, we are pleased to see you arrived safely." Adam nodded to the lumin, the in built lights on his coat blinking as he stood. He dusted off his coat tails, and they followed the Mike delegate to take their seats under the pavilion.

The Hunt delegation arrived a few minutes later, and to Adam's annoyance, Hunt himself stepped from the pod followed by an entire goon squad of heavily armed SE soldiers. Apparently he wasn't the only one with access to that sort of technology, though Adam noted, rather gleefully, that Maverick suit of armor was superior. He was surprised Hunt had shown up at all, having fully expected to deal with some goon the president sent in his stead.

This was fine though, it was better,

Eris grimaced and put a hand to her head.

Adam turned to look at her and Eris scrunched up her face, "Ow."

"Eris!" Adam stood, placing a hand on her shoulder as she clutched at her skull, doubling over at the table.

All around him his guards bristled, and the Hunt party stopped raising their weapons in response.

The Lumin and the Mikes were already out of their depth.

Adam stood, "What did you do!" He snarled teeth gritted tight together.

Hunt sneered at him, "Do you like it, the patent team is calling it a delta jammer, is supposed to be able to suppress the exchange and radiation of brain waves, we will all probably come out with a mild headache, but it will keep your pet starborn from looking into my head."

Eris moaned.

Adam motioned his men forward, "Take her back to the ship" he ordered, and the two men reluctantly followed his orders. He turned to look back at hunt, "Call her my pet again, and this conversation is over. She's my daughter, and more human than you are."

Hunt sneered, "Your hybrids are an abomination, though I hear your fondness for bestiality has only grown these days. Can't get it up for human women so decided to pick aliens instead. What did you name the creature.... Kay was it?"

Adam gritted his teeth fingernails almost grinding into his palms, "Playground insults Is it? Not very diplomatic of you."

Hunt snorted, "I didn't come here to be diplomatic. You are lucky I haven't declared war on Arcadia already after that stunt you pulled by breaking into Fort Harmony and attempting to assassinate me."

Adam barked a laugh of derision, "Assassinate you? Give me a break, if I wanted you dead, you WOULD be dead, but unlike you I am not an egomaniacal despot. Yeah I broke into fort harmony, but I did it to rescue the woman and child YOU were holding hostage on pain of death."

"Nonsense."

"Bullshit." Adam slapped his palm on the table, "I'm onto you hunt." He was so mad his hands were shaking, "I know Kazna put you up to all of this. I know you made a deal with her even though I can't prove it."

"So you admit your accusations are unfounded."

Adam laughed, "yeah, because I can admit when I'm wrong, and I can admit when I don't have all the answers. You can't, and I hear our popularity ratings are suffering for it. What? You're at less than ten percent approval rating. Even your own constituents think you're a psycho, and you likely won't be reelected next term. Which is why I haven't bothered to get rid of you since you have politely managed to get rid of yourself by being a gaping asshole."

Yeah the situation had definitely devolved.

Hunt's face was red.

They had come here on pretense of some sort of peace talk or treaty or arbitration. Adan had planned to give Global 1 back as a sign of cooperation if hunt could be civil, but that wasn't looking like it was going to happen. It had taken less than a few seconds for the talks to devolve. It might have worked out better if both of them had decided to send in their own representatives, but they had decided to come themselves.

It was a bad idea in hindsight.

"I would like my plane back."

Adam laughed, "No, you don't have anything I want, and you have proven you are incapable of speaking with me civilly. You called my daughter an animal, accused me of bestiality, insinuated my wife is no better than a dog, and called my son a thing. You aren't going to get jack shit out of me. In fact when I'm done here, I am going to go home and turn that stupid plane of yours into an LFIL themed night bar, and hope that plenty of alien couples meet and fall in love in the smoking remains of your presidential term, which is no better than a bad joke. He continued to laugh, you're not even a joke hunt, because jokes are supposed to be funny. You are just sad."

Hunt was fuming now. He had opened this up with playground insults and playground insults managed to bother him, to be fair Adam didn't take kindly to his family being called animals, so maybe he was no better than Hunt, but still it felt good to say it.

"The biggest mistake earth ever made was giving you that ship."

Adam took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down. He shouldn't rise to this man's insults. He had already made that mistake once, but he wasn't going to do it again. It was time to be a leader.

Better late than never.

He took a few seconds to inventory himself.

He straightened up, taking a slow seat at the table. He clasped his hands In front of him and closed his eyes for a long moment. When he finally looked up hunt was looming over him, but Adam did not move, "President hunt." He began, and when he spoke he saw the soldiers behind the other men exchange looks with each other.

Sunny said his voice changed sometimes. He didn't hear it, but she swore it was different.

"I have made the mistake of rising to your childish barbs, and for that I apologize. As president of arcadia it is my duty to represent my people in the most neutral way I know how despite old personal agendas" He folded his hands neatly together dark gloves shining in the diffused light off the tend walls, "Arcadia will not engage in diplomatic peace talks with you. Time and time again you have proven to be nothing but untrustworthy, cantankerous and hateful. Your Xenophobic behavior is quite frankly disgusting and your personal attacks on my family are reprehensible. Your conduct with your own civilians is heartbreaking, so I will not do business with you, but let it be known from this moment on that I, president Vir, will provide free transportation to any earth citizen who wishes to leave your planet."

Hunt's face was going red.

"They will be transported to one of six Arcadia cluster settlements on safe terraformed planets and moons where they will be provided with land, and pre-build housing. A trial period of one year will be instituted in which time they are expected to commence work from an already waiting catalogue of positions required to keep a terraformed planet running. I welcome all members of earth, of any class, any background if they are willing to provide for a better society. This invitation I open to everyone, except You Hunt. You are never to step foot on Arcadia owned territory as long as you live."

Hunts face twisted.

"And before you try and do the same to me, remember, that I was born and raised on earth. Also, as soon as you get kicked out of your position, I will be asking your next presidential candidate for a pardon, which they could well give me if they dislike you enough.'

Adam stood, 'This decree is already being broadcast to the people of earth. Don't try to stop it, its on a thousand websites, it has been posted on repeat since I stepped foot on this planet, and it will continue as long as possible. Even as we speak links are being shared all over Earth. Many of them won't accept as they wont leave behind beloved pets, or ancestral homes, but at least I have done my best."

He stood and turned towards his ship.

"Do not contact me again Mr. hunt" I have no desire to speak with you again.

In all honesty he had not expected that to go much better. Primarily he had agreed to the meeting only to distract Hunt for some time before he could order any sort of shutdown that would slow the spread of his message.

Arcadia was growing, and the people of earth were welcome.

Adam made a very big show of flying off in his shuttle only to wait and come back around to land when hunt had left.

Its not like he was going to pass up the opportunity to touch more alien plants.

He needed it after all that anyway.