[ WP ] A peaceful alien race is besieged by another race in the same galaxy . As their last planets fall and their home-world comes under threat they do the unthinkable . They ask for aid from the only known creatures more brutal than their foes in exchange for FTL technology . Humans accept the deal .

The examination confirmed it, and took away the last vestige of doubt. 
 
 We had assumed after the first few encounters that it was some property of their outer shell that made them immune to our weaponry, but no this was not the case. The outer shell is not part of the creature, it is not some extruded exoskeleton or dermal filter, it is a manufactured object. The reason that weapons do n't work against them is that they ca n't, their biology is wrong. 
 
 It should have been obvious, it should have jumped out to those first pioneers that this was something different, this was something sprouted from a different root, cut to a different pattern. But they looked so much like the Anskarii it was just assumed they were a degenerate offshoot. Those eyes, the thick limbs, and hairless faces, the tiny feet. The way they hunted us with their sonic weapons every time we landed. 
 
 Of course we just threw a cordon around the place, a warning to others and never went back. 
 
 If we had, maybe things could have been different, maybe if we could have found a way to communicate we would have discovered... but no, perhaps this was the best way, as a creature so toxic, so alien, must be a thing of last choice. 
 It is said by the church that the records found in the Anskarii ship are a miracle, so an intervention by the god's to stop us learning more about them is not too far fetched. Perhaps the miracle is that we did not understand them until we needed to understand them. 
 
 You have all seen the Pioneer footage, the one called The Scream? 
 This is where the first mistakes were made. It was Pioneer Versal that was the issue not the orange chested predators, because the long bio-filaments hanging from him filtering the toxins... well, when you are preserving your own life in an extremely toxic environment, it is not a good idea if your bio-filaments make you look like a local prey animal. 
 
 But it was the data found on the Anskarii cruiser that finally sealed it. They had been visiting the planet for usual pre-invasion surveys, following the pattern that has seen them march across this arm of the galaxy in a grey-faced shiny-eyed wave, destroying all in their path. Those little grey bastards had been collecting these creatures using their usual fly-past method, you know, shoot down and scoop one up in some lonely out of the way area. Hit them with a biothermic beam and analyse the ashes. 
 
 But the thing is, the biothermics were n't killing them, just... just making them docile, confused. The data indicates that it was n't even a matter of frequency, or the amplitude, it just did n't kill them. They are chemically, physiologically... fundamentally different. There is other data, footage, stuff that would blow your mind, the things they can do. 
 When the Anskarii figured out that the Biothermics did n't work, they turned to sonics. There is this footage I have seen, rows of them sitting around the central rotunda of a C class research ship, the light glinting off those big weird eyes, and they have one of the creatures strapped to a table. Anyway, they wheel in a sonic cannon and hit it point-blank, not a pistol... a cannon. 
 
 The thing, it just... it just goes crazy, rips through the strappings, jumps up and tears the head clean off the gunner. It is hard to see what happens after that, there are fluids on the lens of the recorder, but it cleared the entire ship in about an hour, just using it's own limbs, just those tiny looking hands and feet, and we believe this was an immature female. 
 
 Look... this is the choice. Below us is a planet full of monsters, carbon based things that are so alien they can survive in an oxygen rich environment. Our technology has no effect on them, the most powerful weapons of our enemy send them into such an insane rage that they literally rip anyone in their path to pieces. Do we ignore them, do we try and hold back the Anskarii on our own, or do we contact them in their cities, in their nests and try to make a deal? 
 
 The thing is, I have no doubt that with their help we can defeat the old enemy, but what then, once these monsters, these humans are loose among the civilized peoples of the Galaxy, what then?
