The milky way and war!

While Adam and the aliens surrounding him had their relatively minor conflict, life in the rest of the milky way moved on without blinking an eyelid, with billions of such minor civilizations in the large galaxy, why should they care about some minor struggle between two newly emerging powers?

Each arm of the milky way was separated from the others since distance made it essentially impossible for any kind of galactic community to form, instead, each arm of the milky way had its own community, which would vote on resolutions and laws for everyone to follow.

Every community had a different system in place, sometimes the strong ruled, while at other times the weak united and formed coalitions against the strong, making a democratic community in the process.

The way the community worked could be interpreted as a mirror of the civilizations inside it, iff they were mostly democratic, the community would be mostly democratic and cater to their wishes, if monarchist, it would change accordingly.

This made the diplomatic stage a strategic game for gaining power in the community, since the more power they held, the more likely their laws would get passed.

The milky way being around two hundred billion stars, and it stretching across one hundred thousand light years, made it a common occurrence that a civilization on one half had no clue what was happening on the other since the distance was just too much for them to bother investigating.

The surroundings of the Orion Galaxy arm were known among the surrounding powers to be a desolate farm for a local Hive, but since it didn't bother them, they never bothered it, instead focusing their resources on fighting their rivals.

They were beyond surprised when a new and comparatively primitive civilization somehow managed to hold back the Hive for a while, and then even push it back! Thanks to that, more and more civilizations in the Hive which were also fighting in that time managed to get the upper hand, freeing the arm from the Hive's clutches.

Now those civilizations are beginning to spread through the arm, but it would still be decades if not longer for them to fully occupy the galactic arm, meaning they were nothing to be concerned about for now.

There was a power metric that most of the galaxy followed for determining a civilization's strength.

If civilization wasn't strong enough to project power on a million systems at once, it was a minor power if it could project power on a million systems at once, it was a regional power if it could project power on a billion systems at once, it was an outer galactic power, and if it could dominate one or more galactic arms at once, it was a galactic power.

The power ranking doesn't even consider someone dominating the entire galaxy, since that was seen as impossible by all the more experienced and older civilizations, which understood the monumental skill and luck one species would need to win such an uphill battle.

Of course, the young and ambitious still tried and kept trying to grow in power, but any who were deemed a threat to their neighbors got ganged up on and were either subjugated, purged, or enslaved.

A sad fate for a once proud species, and a fate many suffered in the cruel competition for more power which fueled all life.

Either way, Adam and his Empire were lucky, since they were too small and distant for anyone to bother with them, giving the Empire time to grow and become strong enough to discourage any invasion.

Time flowed, and the uncountable number of galaxies in the universe turned and shifted, flowing with their own grace.

Months passed, years flowed, and Life in the Empire grew and expanded, turning from a grain of sand on the milky way to an ant stumbling its way on its surface, their goal of galactic domination still distant and foggy, hidden behind other, much older civilizations which would bitterly resist them should they actually try.

Serena became pregnant, and Adam's son, whose eyes gleamed with curiosity and intelligence, was his pride and joy.

The boy was very strong too, with black eyes and golden hair just like his father, he seemingly inherited most of Adam's genes, which explained his great strength and intelligence.

None of the hostile powers showed any happiness though, with only the Principality of Yutra and the Traders giving Adam a congratulatory gift, which he accepted with grace.

After three years of peace and happiness, with the colonies developing smoothly and no new crosses popping up, the Empire flourished in a golden age, which would be unfortunately short-lived.

"Your majesty!" A message appeared in his emergency communicator while he was outside with Serena and his son, whom he named Alexander after the great general of old.

"The Imperium and the minor powers alliance are making moves, it would be best if you came back and discussed things with your generals immediately."

Serena sighed but she knew her husband had to go, even if he didn't want to.

After giving Serena a kiss on the lips, he responded to the call and made his way to the meeting room, where the generals patiently waited for his majesty.

"What's the situation?" Adam asked, ignoring their salutes, clearly not in the mood to deal with manners and other tedious things.

The generals gave him a quick summary, which looked grim like most did.

The Alliance has seemingly made a deal with the Imperium, and they are currently preparing for a joint offensive on the Empire, which was grim news, but some good news also appeared to balance things out.

Their fleets should be more than capable of holding on, even if just barely, and if they made their enemies bleed enough, the Alliance would be likely to switch sides, since they know that the Imperium would just subjugate them with no regard for their own wishes.

With the Empire, they could at least negotiate more equally.

So that was the new game plan, make them bleed while slowly retreating, make them regret stepping their filthy appendages on Azburgian soil.

During the next few months, the Azburgian fleets just so happened to have a lot of exercises at the borders between the Imperium and the Alliance, and their weapons were upgraded to counter them both, which they weren't aware of.

Finally, after sitting around for months, a surprise attack happened, which was a complete and utter disaster for the invaders, as they met the full fleet of the Empire, which was specifically built to crush them.

After that, the Imperium seemingly hesitated to continue the conflict, so since they didn't want to do it themselves, the Empire declared war on the Imperium, which the Alliance didn't join, making the Imperium lose their only chance.

The war was still far from over, the Imperium was just as large as the Empire, with its fleets now changing again to reduce the advantage the Empire had, the war began with a big bang.