Turn done.
It is saddening when a house claims a world placed right in the way of other houses' expansion.
You are the only one laying claims.
Planet Aylon is rightfully ours by the virtue of proximity to our homeworld, if nothing else.
None of the houses have the right to a planed they do not occupy. No laws give us that right. We do have the right to free them from the rebels and establis our government, thus making them ours. The diplomatic tradition considers it an act of aggression to settle a planet adjacent to another houses world without their consent, but that is it. You could present a claim in a diplomatic fashion and Aylon would be accepted as your interest. At that point we could discuss the issue of our city on it.
Are we laying claims to exempli gratia Nowhere, or Vera Cruz? Wouldn't such claims seem laughable? And yet House Hazat feels justified in condemnig our Noble Family for taking planets closest to us as our rightful due.
Pyre an Rampart are rightfully yours? The planets that are same distance from Severus, as they are from Istakhr. So tell us, what gives you superiority over us? There was no diplomacy in that, it was not laying a claim but taking those worlds, those three worlds for granted. Not Aylon alone, but all three worlds.
Likewise, Saladin of al-Malik screams of insults and treachery, even though we respected every rule of diplomacy and decency in drawing our sphere of influence. How does Saladin's actions look to the Imperial citizens?
All you did was threaten with war and eradication while taking distant worlds as yours. There was no diplomacy in your words. Do I need to repeat them for clarity? it was a threat of war and eradication and nothing else. You are just trying to bully your views of the universe uppon us. We, will not bend to you.
Drawing spheres of influence? But you, you have no influence over those worlds. There is no imperial charter dividing the universe and there is no imperial charter giving houses influence over the worlds they do not occupy. We can do it through diplomacy, but that would require two way communication and not one way statements.
Is this not a covert invasion of a planet right on our doorstep, without as much as a word of notification? How far would the al-Malik take this if we hadn't discovered their troopships over the planet in question?
On doorsteps of Byzantium. Only the emperor can call Byzantium his doorstep. Are you claiming to be the emperor?
We invaded it to fight the rebels and build the farming city for our people on Byzantium. The planet was not populated by you and was not adjacent to any of your worlds. You haven't even made a claim to it, at the time we took a farming city from the rebels. Your words did force us to consider expansion on Aylon, as you seem bend on destroying our posessions there.
Now that we have ansvered to your slander. We do wish to talk diplomacy. Do you?
We have never said we would deny Decados the planet Aylon. All we were denying, was for Decados to kill our people and to treat our posessions on Aylon as belonging to Decados. We did take possession of the second farm, we do not deny it and never tried to. Do you blame us, with the threats you made? Hopefuly in the future, you will be more reasonable and we might even come to an agreement of transfering the possesion of the said farms over to the Decados. We would be still willing to do it, as we find another way to feed our people on Byzantium.
We will not expand any further uppon Aylon.
Our issues were with how the so called claims were made and the claims over Pyre and Rampart. As mentioned before, these two planets are same travel distance from Severus and Istakhr. They are also the same travel distance as Artemis is from Kish and Istakhr. A lot of universe can be claimed by any of the houses, if we follow the same rules of claim you made up for Pyre and Rampart.
Saladin, looking after his people.