In a galaxy brimming with strife and rage, borders marked out across the stars as bubbles of civilization forming and popping without cause, one bubble seemed to consume its neighbors with no sign of stopping.

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The admiral of the Kazark fleet waited at the border of their territory between the Orion Spur and the Perseus Transit. They didn’t call them this of course, to them it was simply ‘katakuanak’. They had waited here, for what felt to them as a full galactic rotation. Years of perfect silence with only reports of the home-worlds and the other boarders to entertain themselves. The Kazark were not the social type in this galaxy, it seemed nobody really was, at the end of the rotation you were either too insignificant for another race to care, or equally matched on all fronts. Technology had stagnated across the galaxy as every last element was perfectly understood and its limits pushed to the maximum potential.However, something was off, the Gῦlon hadn’t made any significant effort to enforce their boarders with the Kazark in a significant fraction of a rotation. Radio signals from deep within their territory seemed to be more alive than ever, though they were a whole fraction old as it was nearly a thousand light years to their core worlds.“Report” an ensign on the bridge shouted breaking the stale air. “Laser impulse from the high royal command!”

“Relay” The 1st Admiral announced, triggering a network wide communique to all vessel in this region of the boarder net.

“The royal collective has reason to believe the Gῦloncivilization has collapsed from the inside. Decrypting the signals caught leaving their core region has revealed a major internal threat to their civil structure resulting in total governmental collapse, cultural stratification, and new unrecognized data that we believe to have come from the overtaking powers. We will use this opportunity to push our boarders into their former territory. Send the reserve armada ahead to capitalize on their weakness and snuff them out before the new leadership can get things back in order. End of transmission”

The 16 admirals of the fleet were already stirring to heated discussion of the matter as the casual channels of the net sprang to life with rampant xenophobia, spur-of-the-moment propaganda, and patriotism for the core worlds no member of the Net had ever even visited.

The fleet set out with remote operated sensors scouting ahead. As they passed the first several solar systems of the Gῦlon owned space they were surprised to find little activity, as if everyone had packed up and left.

As the Net reached roughly 30% of the way into Gῦlon space, the reserve armada finally raised their speed. Blasting through the compressed wave of spacetime ahead of the Net at nearly a light year per minute. It wasn’t long before they reached the core worlds of the Gῦlon. The planets were enveloped in dense layers of ships, civilian, alien, and military alike, as if every single Gῦlon had been brought home for some major event. Then, the Kazark fleet was horrified to see their systems blare to life with unexplainable alien graffiti. Whats more, it wasn’t of the Gῦlon species, sure they were present in some parts of it, their unmistakable visage covered in some unknown flair similar to that of this new, bipedal alien menace. For all they had said against their solar rivals this fate that has befallen them seemed worse than anything the Kazark could have imagined nor wished on their enemies, subservience to some adornment addled species and forced to wear their trinkets like pets.

“Sir” the communications officer bridging on the head of the fleet ‘Klarnbor’ spoke up over the noise

“It appears to be basic radiowaves, the frequency happens to be resonant with our communications array”

“Just make it stop!” the commander screamed through the torturous noise.

Seconds later the prattle finally subsided, followed by an unknown vessel instantaneously landing itself in space dead center of the reserve fleet, facing the command vessel. A massive panel of basic electromagnetic lights jumbled around to show a stereotypical Kazark holding a foam glove over its appendages and poorly translated script next to it referring to ‘spaceship warranties’.

“Whatever that thing is Sir it must learn quickly…” a tactical officer blurted out dumbfounded

“This must be a trap…surely they expected us to make such a rash attempt on our enemies…” the captain trailed out with a lack of confidence in his theory. “Send an urgent pulse transmission to the Net, advise halting the advance until further information becomes available-”

“Report!” the ensign shouted, cutting off the captain “We just received a pulse from the Net stating that the Royal Collective has made contact with this new race called ‘hoonyams’, all weapons are to be powered down until further notice. They have also requested that we ‘dispense with pleasantries’ and convene all of our peoples with theirs and their ‘friends’.”

Every member aboard the bridge was now in utter confusion.“That’s impossible, how could they have made it within our territory, the net should have caught them?” the tactical officer demanded.

“Since when do we converse with xenos?” another asked.

Suddenly a new voice arose over the debate in the minds of every Kazark in the reserve fleet. “Greetings new friends! We are glad to see you’ve decided to join us here, come partake in the party and bury the hatchet with our mutual friends the Gῦlon!” The Commander doubled over on himself, severe pain tearing away his willpower. The voice, in its excited and joyous tone continued “OOH don’t look now but weve found another friend to add to the collection! You remember the Itzxatl right? The buggos to your galactic north? Their hivemind is joining the party too!”

“Impossible…they aren’t even capable of communicating with another species…how?” The communications officer said through pained breaths.

The voice responded “Oh that’s simple, we just sent them our‘good vibes’, like we are doing for you right now! Come to think of it, I don’t think Ive met a species yet that has refused to be our friends!”

“Look, if you stop your ‘vibes’ we will surrender to your demands” the captain spat with the voice of one pleading for their lives.

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I wanted to go hard-syfy here but the execution fell apart. So instead the humans are winning via telepathy that causes their 'friends' to submit, leaning more into the 40k orcs with their ideas manifesting in ways that allow them to ignore the limits of science or friend-making.

Also reddit botched the formatting, sorry about that...