## Dont sucker punch someone unless you are CERTAIN they dont have a knife to your balls

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It is well known that are only 2 ways of traversing across the vast expanse of space. Warp engines and Jump Gates

Warp engines were for in system travel, mainly due to the maximum speed of warp engines only being about 1.5 times the speed of light. The other use was travelling to new systems with the equipment to build a jump gate. 

The multi year timeframes in the void between stars stopped the warp engines from being used for general exploration. The accepted method, was to make the slow trip, build the gate as soon as you are there, jump back and let the scientists do the studying. After a military sweep of the system had been completed, just in case some pirates or fugitives had run into the great black and ended up with the bad luck to be found by an exploration craft (This has happened exactly once in thousands of new system missions, but when you send through a massively expensive and advanced science fleet, that is then captured and the jump gate destroyed, once is enough)

Jump Gates allowed travel between stars in minutes or hours, making trade and commerce between systems and races easy. This also had the unintentional, but rather appreciated, side effect of making Interstellar war almost impossible.

Due to the massive costs of building, maintaining and policing a jump gate array, no system had more than 2. Also, due the way Jump Gates operated, once you were approaching a system you were completely at their mercy, they could just kick you out of the jump lane if they were being nice, or do it without inertia dampening assistance if they weren’t. In which case you simply turned into a smear on the front facing wall of whatever room you were in.

Although warships could operate for months on end independently, the amount of ship space and systems needed to maintain a large enough crew between worlds made any ship totally outclassed by purpose built war craft they encountered once they arrived at the enemies system.

Which is why the humans never saw it coming.

The Yaagi had taken 4 of the 7 human systems before anyone knew what had happened. We knew of the hostilities between them and the humans. The humans luck in settling systems rich in rare elements and minerals, had heavily impacted the Yaagi's economy and left the once rich race in almost poverty. The humans offer of aid was seen as an insult, an offer made to weaker and inferior species.

The Yaagi had been sending ships to human systems for almost a year, disguised as merchants, scientists and refugees. We now know these ships were filled with whatever weapons and troops they could get past jump gate security.

Once the agreed strike time arrived, they turned on the Jump Gate security forces, overwhelmed the minimal military forces and forced the local policing authorities to surrender under threat of glassing. A threat carried out on the one system that thought they were bluffing.

And once the gates were taken, they had the systems, the Yaagi were now able to stop any reinforcements from arriving in system to liberate them. We knew the humans would be angry, we also knew that there was nothing that could be done, every system had quickly updated their security protocols to avoid this happening again.

The extra security procedures across the galaxy had made the Yaggi very unpopular. But as they now, once again, held a monopoly of rare elements, we couldn’t even enforce any sort of trade embargo, and any military action would be nigh on impossible now the jump gate systems one weakness had been uncovered.

So unless they had found  a 3rd method of space travel, what they had announced would be suicide.

They had demanded return off all systems taken, and compensation for all families who had lost loved ones. Or else they would take them back by force, and take all of the Yaggi systems for themselves.

All of their allies advised of how such an attack would be nothing but folly, they would never get a force strong enough through a gate without it being destroyed long before it finished its jump. And even if they could get their ships through the void in fighting condition, leaving the systems those ships were in unguarded would just result in them losing their remaining systems.

I was on the human flagship when the Yaggi's response was received, I was there to beseech their military leaders not to retaliate in anger, to consider their options and the chaos an unsinkable war would inflict on both their allies and their own people.

The Yaggi knew of the humans anger, and their legendary temper once pushed too far. Their response was designed to exploit this and antagonise the humans. The refusal was both spiteful and mocking, saying they deserved this for daring to disrupt their betters, showing them the abhorrent treatment of the captured human civilians in the captured systems.

I knew right then that my mission was impossible. I saw the rage on the face of their fleet commander, the seething hatred on the face of every human there, I knew they would now throw everything they had at the Yaggi in an anger induced strike. 

Something the Yaggi were counting on.

After years of economic turmoil, coupled with the humans financial strength and well known martial prowess, they didn’t stand a chance if the humans had regrouped, weighed up their options and prepared s response. By angering them, they had guaranteed they would send their forces now, where they could be picked off long before they would actually threaten any Yaggi systems.

A fear confirmed by the human commanders next order.

“Send a galaxy wide communication to all human military craft.

We are now at war with the Yaggi, they have slaughtered our citizens, and when offered a non violent way to atone, responded with mockery and visions of the torture of the civilians who did survive. All strike ships are to attack Yaggi targets immediately.

I tried to plead with the human commander to rescind the order, to stay his hand and not send his troops to slaughter in a reality clouding rage. I hadn’t even finished my pleas when I saw the readings from Yaggi territory.

Dozens of warp engine signals from just outside the Yaggi systems, in the minutes it took  those signals to reach the planets, the Yaggi had managed to assemble a defence, they would take heavy losses but would be able to repel the couple of dozen ships headed there way.

Or rather, they would have been able to repel them, if they were ships. What they actually were, was mile long lumps of almost solid metal with a warp engine attached.

As 20, mile long, lumps of metal slammed into Yaggi planets at almost twice the speed of light, ending in hours the first interstellar war in living memory (and some of us live a really long time), I asked a question I didn’t want to know the answer to.

“How did you know the Yaggi's would attack you"

“We didn’t"

“So, the biggest war for 10,000 years was avoided because you got lucky by having strike ships nearby the race the attacked you.”

“No”

“But the only other way to explain such a quick counter attack, would be if you had thousands of ships just lurking silently in the void outside systems across the entire galaxy, just in case someone did something that hasn’t happened for thousands of years.”

“Yeah, what's your point?"## TLDR Summary:

 By angering them, they had guaranteed they would send their forces now, where they could be picked off long before they would actually threaten any Yaggi systems. Warp engines and Jump Gates

Warp engines were for in system travel, mainly due to the maximum speed of warp engines only being about 1.5 times the speed of light. The humans luck in settling systems rich in rare elements and minerals, had heavily impacted the Yaagi's economy and left the once rich race in almost poverty. We now know these ships were filled with whatever weapons and troops they could get past jump gate security. The Yaagi had been sending ships to human systems for almost a year, disguised as merchants, scientists and refugees. Or else they would take them back by force, and take all of the Yaggi systems for themselves. The other use was travelling to new systems with the equipment to build a jump gate.
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