The way he said it, Alicia was sure Alex was going for dramatic effect

"What is the Lycan war?" Paul asked for him to explain further

"Well, after we got to the new world, things didn't exactly become paradise, the people were distrustful of the government and demanding reforms. On top of that we had to deal with the Lycans"

"What do you mean by deal with them?" Angela asked, clearly not liking what the term meant

"Mostly, my ancestor didn't know what to do with them. At first they simply gave them food and shelter, but it mostly only worked for the generation that came from earth, the next generations that were born among my people demanded more, we tried integrating them into our system but our system wasn't ready for Lycans"

"Why not?" Paul asked

"Well, two main things. Lycans are naturally more aggressive and impulsive than us. They are not mean, just aggressive in almost all they do and very impulsive. Another issue is that they are very strong, a normal adult Lycan can lift almost two thousand kilograms, a punch from one would be able to kill a normal person" That idea was scary, a society of people that strong is scary

"Lycans strength starts going up during puberty at the same time that they are the most aggressive, it caused a lot of problems with integration. How do you put a Lycan child and a normal child in the same class during the time when there is more likely to be problems between them just because they are teenagers?"

"How did you people handle it?"

"Really bad. For instance, a Lycan would be punished more severely even if he was only retaliating to a provocation, which in turn makes them resent us more." he answered, then continued

"Another issue was that because of their nature they have a harder time paying attention in class and were slower developing in school, so most could only get menial jobs, it created a lot of resentment, we started a program to make food, healthcare and basic housing free for all, but it didn't work well. Lycans are extremely proud, my people liked it more than them, those programs are still implemented even now. And lastly they didn't have any representation in the council"

"Why not? Didn't they have rights?"

"During all this time we were tried to reform the government many times and people probably didn't want the idea of impulsive Lycans in there, and when we actually came up with a final system we were happy with, it had a really bad side effect"

"What was the system?"

"We developed the first version of the neural readers and used it to create a test for people who ran for office, it tested their characters and personalities, since the general populace wanted it, they couldn't say no." he said "The problem is that the initial requirements were so restrictive that it almost ensured that Lycans couldn't get to council, because of their natural behaviour. A little while after that they rebelled, it was four hundred years after leaving earth"

"How did they do it?" Paul asked

"Well, they created their own weapons and started a coordinated attack. Their plan was to take a lot of hostages and force us to change our policies to allow them to have a seat in the council and other demands"

"I don't agree on how they did it" Paul said after considering what Alex said "But with everything you said, they thought it was their only way, if your people acquiesced it could be worked out"

"Well, that was their idea, but their execution was bad. There was an accident on their first attempt to take hostage and over ten thousand people died. After that things just went from bad to worse"

"You sound like an historian" Alicia said

"Well, Its common knowledge, and classes dedicated to instill values and promote tolerance or social interaction were mandatory for everyone to attend in school" Alex answered. It looks like his people made sure their kids learned from their mistakes.

"Ok, then what happened" Angela asked

"Well, my people had never been in a war, and the most our security forces were used to deal with were domestic disturbances, drunken people or petty criminals. They could suppress groups of people without lethal harm, not fight a war against a few coordinated thousands of armed Lycans, not when there was no line, the Lycans lived among us, and not all of them had joined the rebellion."

"There were Lycans who didn't join?" Angela asked

"Yes, most didn't know, but after everything started some joined them, and some joined us"

"What happened?" Paul asked

"Well the war took over three years, and in the end we were victorious, but we decided that the Lycans had to go, so we put them all in one of the new planets we terraformed"

"All of them? Even the ones who didn't participate?" Angela asked

"No, the ones who helped us or didn't participate we tried to keep with us, but it was strained, later they decided that even though they didn't agree with their brethren on how they went about things they still agreed with them on everything else, they decided to go to the other world we terraformed and create their own society. Which is why we now have two Lycan worlds"

"Ok, but that doesn't explain why you became superhuman"

"Well, the problem with that war was that we weren't ready. And worse, Lycans were stronger than and faster than us. Some people thought the war would last for generations, so they decided to improve the chances of their descendants to survive the war, and of all of the options the one which looked like it would help more was the superhuman one"

"Initially the reason it was the last option we were going to choose was because it was such a big departure from base human that we were not comfortable. But those same characteristics was the reason decided to take it. After enough people took it, when the war ended we decided that it would simply be better if all took the same path instead of creating yet another separation"

"So, all of your people simply chose this option without tests? How could they be sure it would work?" Alicia asked

"My people developed something that we call the stability equation, even though it's not exactly an equation. It's an algorithm that you can use to determine if a genetic sequence is stable, either individually or if its species is going to be stable, without life threatening mutations and survive in the environment for a long time"

"Ok," Alicia said so that he could go on

"It can also analyze any the genes and tell you the characteristics of the individual, animal or plant, it belongs to. it can tell you the type of animal, its physical characteristics, its dietary and environmental requirements, its reproductive cycle, it can render what the animal would look like from its genes" He said then continued after a short pause

"It requires extremely powerful processing, not even my shuttle's main processor is powerful enough to do that for human genes, but it allows you to simulate the result of a gene sequence and it will tell you anything about the animal, you can basically do genetic engineering in a computer without touching an animal, then you can design the process on how to modify an existing life form to give birth to what you want"

"So, people were sure because the algorithm told them it would be ok?"

"Basically, yes" he said It was weird to be so sure of the result of an equation to bet your future children on it. Because that's basically what they did "It has never failed, it is still the most reliable method for genetic research ever created"

"So, what enhancements did your people choose?" Angela asked "If it was supposed to be able to fight the Lycans what did they choose for their kids?"

"Enhanced strength speed, reaction time, improved eyesight, multi-spectrum sight, faster healing, longer lifespan and increased stamina"

"Why would your people be against getting these improvements? They sound very good" Alicia asked

"Because to do that we had to almost go to the limit of what it meant to be human genetically, so much so that people were afraid that we would technically not be classified as humans anymore, and we had other alternatives which gave us the longer lifespan and better healing without being so much different from base humans"

Suddenly Angela crossed one of her hands in front of her breasts and another covered he front and went behind a seat before asking "What do you mean with multispectral sight?" It took Alicia a few seconds to understand her question then she hid herself behind Paul

Alex looked amused while answering the question "My sight covers a wide range of the EM spectrum, from infrared to ultraviolet. It doesn't go to x-rays, if that's what you are worried about. So, I can't see through clothes"

"Infrared can pass through objects" Angela countered, but Alicia could see that she relaxed a little after he gave his answer

"Not with the intensity I can see, I can see a hot object on a colder background but that's it" he said while raising both hands on the air like someone asking for surrender.

"What are the chances of us finding Lycans in this planet?" Alicia asked

"I have no idea, if they are somehow wanderers then we will at least find hybrids. Most wanderers are hybrids, descendants from both humans and Lycans."

"Didn't you say that your last girlfriend was a wanderer?" Angela asked, clearly trying to mettle where she shouldn't

"Yes" he answered simply

"Was she a hybrid?" She continued her enquiry

"Yes, she was, there is nothing wrong with it" he justified himself quickly

"We are not saying is wrong" Alicia said glaring at Angela hoping she gets the message "it's actually good that you don't have animosities with them"

"The war was over two thousand years ago, the people of both nations have moved on a long time ago" he said

It really was good because she didn't want to find out that they had to be wary of some superhuman race with such fear inducing name.

"Full disclosure" Alex said "My second girlfriend, the one I told you about with the unfortunate bath incident, she was a Lycan" Ok, this means that things were really ok between them and Lycan, if it was normal for humans and Lycans to date.

"Ok, we better mount an expedition to the city" Paul said bringing the discussion to a close