The images of Hope streaming into the command module where General Tyrak-pack floated were more numerous and more clear than ever. A couple members of the pack watched with intent, calculating expressions as glowing edges of many different colors slowly began to connect more and more nodes. One had taken note of the second-largest piece of land surrounded by water, stretching nearly from pole to pole, and had zoomed in on the northern half. “The interestingness of this region is significant,” he said.

  Another member nodded. “The topology in this subgraph of the city-graph resembles a lattice graph. It’s quite pretty,” she said, pointing to the middle of this region on a nighttime image. An algorithm had drawn edges between clusters of city lights, and written neat binary trees beside some of the larger ones, predicting their properties.

  A member of Tyrak-pack shifted towards her, laying a hand on her chest. “We don’t understand that planitia,” he said peering at the screen, “Few instances of arable land creation have been done by the city-states located there, as implied by the homogenous vegetation resembling a biome. Relatedly, this is not important because few large nodes are embedded in the lattice graph, implying that their influence on the city-graph is surely low.” She nuzzled his ear as he spoke, panting in the waste heat given off by the computers.

  “Then. Why is the lattice graph located there?” asked someone else, “Did high-centrality cities located somewhere else create it?”

  The first two members of Tyrak-pack’s eyes were drawn eastward for a long moment, studying the significantly denser yet less orderly subgraph there. “We should create a war there whose effects recursively propagate through the lattice subgraph!” exclaimed one of them.

  “No,” said the other one at last, “Hypothetically, rotating a subgraph of that region to be allied with Ikun is not equal to our optimal strategy. The topography implies that large cities located there are in the time of the second demographic stage, overpopulated and underdeveloped. Occupation will be difficult, yes, and the size is greater than the influence on the city-graph, similar to the Nyrutkot Riyentkin.” He reached out to an uninvolved member of Tyrak-pack, busy reading an analysis from the tactical engine, and licked the top of his head consolingly.

  “There?” a member of Tyrak-pack said. She pointed at the western side of the city-graph’s region, and someone scrolled to it with a swipe of a claw, zooming in and putting up an image of the day side of the same region next to it. She cocked her head and stared at it with a calculating expression.

  “Oh! I think that region’s climate is nice because it’s temperate, cool, and moderately dry. The creation of the first war should be done in that location!” exclaimed a member of Tyrak-pack, looking up from his computer, bolted to the ceiling of the command module.

  Another member trilled loudly. “Then! The only criterion for our optimal strategy equals the weather!” This elicited a few trills from the others, and someone squeezed his hand.

  A member of Tyrak-pack who had not spoken until this point held up his hand. “Enough. Our optimal strategy begins with complete focus on the current task,” he said. He did not raise his voice in the slightest, but everyone quieted down.

  “The western part of this land appears promising,” said another member, “The presence of fewer large cities embedded in a sparse subgraph implies that they are instances of high-centrality nodes, really geopolitically dominant over their regional subgraphs. The lattice graph structure transmutes into many irregularly-shaped path graphs between greatly influential nodes.”

  “Geography is the only cause of the path graphs’ irregularities. This region intersects with chaos terrain,” someone pointed out.

  A member of Tyrak-pack looked closely at the day-side version of the image. The colors were more muted and familiar here, quite reminiscent of empty land on their homeworld. Yet something caught his eye, not far inland from the western expanse of water. Nestled in between the dull green and brown chaos terrain flecked with the gray of cities was a vast swathe of much brighter and more vibrant green, but this green was arrayed into orderly geometric structures that could just be made out and those structures combined into larger structures that combined into even larger ones. It could not be empty land, he knew. “What do the gods say that equals?” he exclaimed, tapping on the structure.

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  That drew everyone’s attention, and they all pushed themselves off the sides of the command module, the lattices holding computers, and even each other to float into position, looking at it. “Is that an instance of–” breathed one.

  “Yes!” exclaimed a member of Tyrak-pack, “It resembles arable land eight hundred kilometers long and one hundred kilometers wide, twenty-four times larger than Ikun! Creation of so much was done without modern technology by which city? The time surely exceeds 1024 years! The cost surely equals immeasurable trillions of qiun! The system-beauty is immense!”

  “The only possible answer is a great and powerful city with extremely great centrality in the city-graph. Our changes to the structure of the plan are quickly converging on the optimal strategy.”

  Another member of Tyrak-pack tapped the screen on the night side, circling several large clusters of light on the edge of the immeasurably vast expanse of water. “Do we think these equal the greatest-centrality nodes?”

  “Why is their location not in the arable land? Creation of so much arable land connected with a city whose location is not equal to the city, is for what purpose?” protested a member of Tyrak-pack.

  “A reason might exist. The gods surely know. We don’t yet fully understand alien urban planning,” said someone calmly, squeezing the previous speaker’s hand.

  This provoked a few moments of unstructured speculation, until at last a member of the pack tapped loudly on the case of a computer affixed beside them. Everyone turned to look at him. “I think we understand this subgraph of the city-graph located on Hope,” he said, “The centrality and age of these nodes are extremely great. A path containing a millennia-long megaproject, vast arable land, and vast geopolitical influence was initialized by them and connected to all of them. It is possible but not certain that they create other path-graphs embedded in the city-graph such that poor, unstable cities located to the east do not directly influence them. This is similar to a great fence.”

  “The geopolitical ambitions of such cities are surely colossal,” mused a member of Tyrak-pack.

  The previous speaker turned to face him, his ears rising slightly. “The geopolitical ambitions of Ikun are equally colossal,” he said, “Anyway. Creation of the first war and connecting its location to the greatest-centrality cities does not equal our optimal strategy. No. The location of the first war must equal a small, weak city with a moderate degree of separation from those cities. Our army will cyclically cause changes by creating wars in the locations of cities, whose effects will recursively propagate through the city-graph, causing us to converge on knowing the true structure of the city-graph, causing the cycle to be closed. The rotation of the great-centrality cities to be allied with Ikun will occur after this and after governments allied with Ikun have been connected to other relevant cities.”

  “The sentence-trees created by you are so system-beautiful,” said one member of Tyrak-pack, laying her hand on the previous speaker’s chest.

  “Maybe we will create a path containing wars connected by location to the lattice graph, the fence’s density being reduced, and changes in location of many packs in the east. If their location equals the correct cities, this mass migration will rotate additional nodes to be allied with Ikun,” observed someone.

  The previous speaker gazed sternly into both their eyes, and they looked down at their feet. “Maybe this will concern us later. We don’t certainly know that this fence is embedded in reality because complex subgraphs are created organically by many animals in nature. Exchanging minimal resources for the creation of a subgraph of maximum geopolitical influence, that is allied with Ikun, is the beginning of our optimal strategy’s priority queue. We will now change the state of two tasks to complete in parallel.”

  He caressed three members of Tyrak-pack, touching his snout to the cheek of one who was within reach. “A change such that this region of the city-graph is fully modeled and we know its true structure will be done by you.” He then did the same for the two other members, also tapping his own chest. “Changes such that all the tactical engine analysis of all cities whose location could equal that of the first war will be known to us, will be done by us.”

  There was silence, as everyone twisted in zero-G to face him. “Begin,” he said softly.