Ah, what a relief to be back in our own research facility with its cheery probes, lights and restraining devices! How hideous the trip to Earth had been. All that unpleasantness and still Schoenberg remains out of reach. Well, we shall not give up, but for the moment let us see what has been happening in our absence; are we any nearer to attaining our ambition of having 5 Replicators in the top 10 of the Alliance?

Great news! Young Replicator Vulcan has moved into the top place! That will teach those self-deluded glowing-eyed worms to be more humble; a Replicator in his proper position, ahead of the inferior races. Perhaps Vulcan’s nanites do not need adjusting after all, though we retain a sneaking suspicion that he might have attacked fellow Replicators on the way up. What we do not know won’t hurt us however.

More good news! Replicator Memtok has not only moved into the top 1,000 but has taken eighth place in the Alliance, ahead of the highest ranking Tauri. Already three Replicators in the top 10. Excellent. We study his statistics with pleasure, noting the strength of…just a minute, what is this? “Lord” Memtok? Is he then emulating the vainglorious Goa’uld who see themselves as akin to Gods? Why should a coldly logical Replicator need titles? It is true that we are sometimes addressed as “Great Replicator”, but that is merely out of respect for being the first Replicator in the Alliance – we do not add the words to our name. Hmm, most disturbing. And what is this? Advertising in the media for new members of the Alliance? A positively Tauri habit! And the wording is even more puzzling: “The Olympians is an Alliance where race doesn’t really matter”? Not matter? This throws into doubt young Replicator Memtok’s pride in being a Replicator at all, the only race that truly “matters”. “All the people are chill”? What does this mean? Our nanites are always maintained at just above room temperature, they are never chilled. Most mysterious. However in the light of his attainments we shall forgive Lord Memtok his eccentricities.

We are happy to see that there are now seven Replicators in the Alliance; Vulcan, Lord Memtok, Arminius, Fro Ingwe, Mithra, Delsana and ourselves. They must all be assisted to rise into the top 1,000, especially those weaker members. We shall see what can be done to help Delsana, even though his Commander is one of those small grey monsters.

Anything else of note? Some strange reports of an advanced Asgard vessel hovering over our main planet. We investigate; how dare these creatures come so close to our realm! They must be punished; we prepare our special spider attack forces and position them for a killing thrust. Hah! A message from the grey monsters! They claim they are Allies whose vessel has been inadvertently directed off-course by a surge of extra power. We check their manifest; what they say seems to be true. Curses, we cannot attack them if they are Allies but we intend to watch them closely until they leave our system.

Tic tic tic tic tic!