king man.
The worlds near the center of humanity's sphere realized the situation
at once and quickly traded their independence for a Federal Union to
pool their strength against the threat that might come any day.

But as the Union Space Navy began to take shape on the dockyards of
Earth and a hundred other worlds, the independent worlds of the
periphery began to eye the Union with suspicion. They had never believed
the exploration report and didn't want to unite with the worlds of the
center. They thought that the Union was a trick to deprive them of their
fiercely cherished independence, and when the Union sent embassies to
invite them into the common effort, they rejected them. And when we
suggested that in the interests of racial safety they abandon their
haphazard colonization efforts that resulted in an uncontrolled series
of jumps into the dark, punctuated by minor wars and clashes when
colonists from separate origins landed, more or less simultaneously, on
a promising planet, they were certain we were up to no good.

Although we explained and showed them copies of the exploration ship's
report, they were not convinced. Demagogues among them screamed about
manifest destiny, independence, interference in internal affairs, and a
thousand other things that made the diplomatic climate between Center
and Periphery unbearably hot. And their colonists kept moving outward.

Of course the Union was not about to cooperate in this potential race
suicide. We simply couldn't allow them to give that other race knowledge
of our whereabouts until we were ready for them. So we informed each of
the outer worlds that we would consider any further efforts at
colonizing an unfriendly act, and would take steps to discourage it.

That did it.

* * * * *

We halted a few colonizing ships and sent them home under guard. We
uprooted a few advance groups and returned them to their homeworlds. We
established a series of observation posts to check further
expansion--and six months later we were at war.

The outer worlds formed what they called a defensive league and with
characteristic human rationality promptly attacked us. Naturally, they
didn't get far. We had a bigger and better fleet and we were organized
while they were not. And so they were utterly defeated at the Battle of
Ophiuchus.

It was then that we had two choices. We could either move in and take
over their defenseless worlds, or we coul