“The galaxy is now part of the Catalum Empire and you will acknowledge our power,” was what the furry little creature had said at the galactic conference of the Milky Way at behest of his people.

“Sure, Buddy,” was the reply everyone there gave them back.

No matter what the creatures tried to say, every other civilization’s delegation smiled and chuckled and pat them on the heads.

It wasn’t hard to. The creatures that came to the delegation were of the utmost cuteness. They stood forty centimeters tall when they stood up, weighed five kilos at most, had squeaky little voices, and resembled a puppy dog from the Orion Arm, the region of space that contained the human home world. Curiously, though, all of them looked like a Dalmatian, as according to ancient texts from the human home world.

They were, of course, an actual alien. Those that subject themselves to examination by the conference’s medical staff gave the doctors there a raised eyebrow. They looked like a puppy dog. They were not puppy dogs.

This creature’s species respirated through their fur, had no obvious set of genitals or butt, had a dry leathery nose, and had these very dark and hard marbles for eyes. Their sensory input was over fifty percent sight-based, and the majority of the remaining inputs were touch and hearing. They entirely lacked a sense of smell and their sense of taste might as well not exist. According to one of them, these Catalums came from a planet that was constantly bathe in light which explained why the eyes were so dark.

The planet they described was not in the planetary database, which was marked as odd, but with ninety-nine point nine, nine, nine planets in it, maybe there was a chance that that planet slipped through the crack.

Regardless, they were cute and adorable so the idea that they were a galaxy conquering empire was hilarious. Furthermore, all outposts and colonies of every member civilization at the conference, which encompassed ninety-five percent of the galaxy, did not report any problems with their territories. In fact, everyone had visual confirmation that nothing was wrong.

If these Catalums were really galaxy conquerors, they were either using a different definition or had gone to the wrong galaxy, for the Milky Way was untouched by their presence. The idea that anyone could engineer whole planets or stars was a foreign concept to the conference and internally all of them laughed at the thought that these tiny creatures had that power.

Additionally, when the conference came back a head count of the official territory of said Catalums, the information they gave up willingly, it amounted to a few hundred worlds and space stations with urban centers that were estimated of a few billion individuals. Compare this to the smallest Milky Way empire, the Dherian Republic, a multi-species civilization of Orcs, Elves, and Catkin-Humans, they numbered seventy trillion individuals across twenty separate star systems.

Now, the distance between each individual colony suggested that the Catalums had very advanced Faster-Than-Light drives on their ships because civilizations that numbered their numbers were barely able to cross a few dozen systems, used low velocity ballistic weapons instead of railguns, plasma, or lasers, and didn’t even have energy shielding.

The ship the delegation came on was scanned and it was determined that while it was classified as a heavy twinkle ship by the Catalum delegation, which we interpreted as a warship type, since the Catalums insisted the ship was meant to fight. Their ship’s laser turrets could only dazzle unshielded eyes and disable low tech missile guidance sensors. It had energy shielding, yes, but it was also only fifty meters in length, and the equivalent heavy warships of other empires started at the one thousand, five-hundred-meter ranges. Further scans resulted in a multitude of low technology onboard, although the ships was made from exotic materials that could not be scanned. It was possible that it was a high-tech ship but the comparable tech was at a level so low that it shouldn’t be possible to be their military specifications.

But beyond that, nothing the Catalums said proved that they were a powerful civilization that deserved a right to sit at the conference, let alone push anyone here around, much less every civilization at the conference.

And being cute, adorable, and receptive to being touched, pet, and scritched, no one took the Catalums seriously. The spokesperson lead had to constantly instruct conference members to not pet the cute little dogs because of conqueror this, powerful that. The spokesperson lead constantly asserted that the entire galaxy was theirs.

The Catalum delegation asserted that the galaxy was theirs. They did not threaten anyone and all attempts at trying to get them to prove their position was met with a sneer against the superior galactic conference members.

An hour into all this, the conference security was summoned to escort the Catalums out because the seven-hundredth legal conference was going to start and they did not need a spectacle in the auditorium.

As they were being ushered out, one of their members exclaimed that the conference would feel their impact just like the Kharak Star would. To the majority of people there, this meant nothing. To a handful of scientists, their eyes went wide.

One of them tried to get the conference to listen.

“And I’m telling you, the Kharak star exploded under mysterious circumstances and was on the other side of the galaxy from their entire empire. How would they even know of its existence. Worse, why would they even mention it in perfect dialect of its old name, when the Kharak people first petitioned the conference to join the galactic civilization?

“If they were truly a civilization that no one had ever heard of until today, why would they insinuate that whatever happened there would be the fate of anyone else, and also, why would they use the original name for the star, something only a handful of people in the entire galaxy know?!”

“I’m sure it’s just a coincidence, scientist. Security, escort them back to their ship. When they’re able to prove their superiority, maybe then we’ll believe that they’re more than little fuzzballs.”

The delegation’s lead heard the conference senator’s words and in its defiance, piped up, “Your conference cannot push the galaxy’s rightful rulers away. You cannot challenge us at all!”

A senior member of the galactic conference retorted, “Oh, is that so, then the Galactic Conference, backed by the Conference Fleet, challenges your Catalums.”