Bai Zhongqi asked, "This Teizene Empire, exactly what level is it? Their technology is inferior to ours, so what is their signature technology? How many Administrative Stars do they occupy, what is their population size, and how many standing fleets do they have?"
As Linyin flipped through the materials, she answered Bai Zhongqi, "The level of civilization development of Teizene is far behind ours. Civilian affairs aren't that critical to them, but Teizene has made certain achievements in military technology. Generally speaking, Teizene is comparable to the technological level of the Empire from 1000 to 500 years ago. Before Harass came to Earth, Teizene had a total of 69 Administrative Stars, with a population size of about 4.5 billion.
However, they also have about one hundred forty or so ranch planets and nearly 30 vassal interstellar civilizations. Although Teizene's population is smaller than Earth's, due to their system, most Teizene are capable of becoming warriors. In practice, the Teizene Empire drafts Teizene into the fleet on a temporary basis, so this is practically a nation of conscripts with considerable fighting power. According to data from 146 years ago, Teizene's standing fleet was at least ten thousand warships strong."
Bai Zhongqi took a sharp breath when he heard this. It seemed that in many respects, the Teizene were not as advanced as Iridium Star, but now the Iridium Star United Empire that Bai Zhongqi commanded, despite its advanced technology and civilization, was simply too small. To be fair, a civilization like Teizene would rank as second or third tier in the Galaxy, but they could still command over ten thousand starships.
The Teizene didn't have a large population but were a universally conscripted society, with a war potential that was perhaps even more fearsome than Earth's. Teizene's societal customs were different, and the competition for survival within their own kind was equally fierce, with Teizene regarded as lacking potential and courage not even living past ten years of age. Therefore, the mortality rate in this race was very high, and probably less than one-tenth of Teizene infants would live peacefully into old age.
Not to mention, the Teizene enslaved many other races, making them cannon fodder, and they were possibly as tough to deal with as the Teizene fleets and armies themselves.
Linyin then said, "We also found some valuable information about Second Universe Galaxy interstellar politics from Harass's documents this time. Clearly, there exists a superordinate union of various interstellar civilizations in the Galaxy, known as the Galactic High Council. Many interstellar civilizations have joined this organization, which claims to exist to promote rapid development and civilization-building among the various races in the Galaxy, and has established numerous rules, now broadly accepted by most Galactic civilizations."
Bai Zhongqi was quite interested in this and asked, "What rules, exactly?"
"This Galactic High Governance Council has created a model formula from potentially hundreds of thousands of variables, for the purpose of grading civilizations. This grading is solely for interstellar civilizations capable of interplanetary travel and utilizing the resources of planets, not including civilizations such as Earth before, or like Emerald Sea Star, which are pre-interstellar civilizations. Thus, a Level 1 civilization in this grading scheme is already above Earth's civilization. The High Governance Council also established rules, such as 'primitive civilizations' that are before interstellar civilizations should not be formally contacted or interacted with. Another important principle is that between two civilizations belonging to the Galactic High Governance Council, lower-level civilizations must bow before higher-level civilizations, and higher-level civilizations can place reasonable demands on lower-level civilizations, which are judged by the Galactic High Governance Council itself."
After contemplating for a moment, Bai Zhongqi said, "Even with hundreds of thousands of variables, with each civilization being so varied, can it really properly grade them?"
"That's something I don't know," Linyin said, "but I am indeed very interested in this Galactic High Council. Regardless of the business of the High Council, although it is not the absolute ruler of the Galaxy, the grading standard it has created seems to have been widely acknowledged, and even the Lizard People, who have not joined the High Council, are using this standard."
In Harass's files, there wasn't an extensive description of the Galactic High Governance Council, but clearly, Harass held it in utmost derision. He believed that the High Council was merely a group of civilizations with slightly superior strength but not as high as the Observer civilizations of the Galaxy, banding together and putting on a facade of glamour to attract weaker powers, and to exploit and use these second-tier civilizations, ultimately to keep strengthening the truly powerful civilizations within the Council.
Although the Teizene Empire also wouldn't dare to provoke the High Council, it didn't prevent them from looking down on the civilizations within the High Council.
It was clear that the Cannibalistic Civilization like Teizene was certainly not a good path; they even caused considerable destruction in their own Star Region, but the self-proclaimed just and fair High Council did not punish Teizene. This reluctance was partly due to Teizene's relatively strong power, and partly because such actions would not yield any tangible output, not aligning with the interests of those in power within the High Council.
According to the civilization grading standards of the High Council, Teizene civilization was a Level 17 civilization, while most of the real power within the Galactic High Governance Council were between Levels 20 to 30. Perhaps these civilizations ranked higher than Teizene, but because Teizene was so militarily capable, no one wanted to incur huge losses to eliminate a pest-like civilization.
At this point, Linyin showed a hint of a smile and said, "According to this standard, our Iridium Star could be ranked as a Level 24 civilization, although this grading doesn't have much practical use, and even the selection of these numbers and standards tend to cater to those founding member civilizations of the High Council."
Bai Zhongqi nodded, remarking, "At least it proves that the Galaxy in the Second Universe is much more interesting than that in the First Universe."
Linyin continued to present some key points from the intelligence to Bai Zhongqi, and just as the briefing was about to end, Zero sent Bai Zhongqi a communication.
"The message sent back to Harass has received a reply, and the Teizene Empire is very interested in Earth and its people. They haven't acquired any new ranch planets in ten years, and Earth, with its population of over seven billion, obviously can provide Teizene with a lot of 'food.' Teizene is initially planning to dispatch a formation of over a thousand starships to the Local Interstellar Cloud, with the objective of defeating us and occupying Iridium Star."
At this point, Linyin added with concern, "Your Majesty, our military power is stronger than Teizene's, but our fleet is too small. Compared to their thousand-plus ships, our few vessels might suffer losses in a short time."