Davis gave the Prince's words a thoughtful pause.
"I cannot begin to understand the pain of losing one's home," Davis replied. "...but I am extremely pleased to be in a position to return it to you."
"Mind you, however, that the word is 'position.' I cannot override the majority of the senate I preside over, but I can, with your help, give a scenario which would make the Nepleslian senate happy to acquiesce to your request."
He took a stylus out of his datapad and deftly circled areas on the starmap before projecting it out for the Prince to see.
Under Nepleslia's flag would be Ushobrakflug, Xyainbor and Sbuhfaba, circled in green. The Bard Cluster and Valaad were circled in blue, indicating Yamatai's gains.
However, circled in yellow were a group of 7 systems to the galactic Northwest of Higaflan, within the 60 lightyear sphere on the starmap.
"As you can see here, I am making efforts to fortify our position to accommodate the new rules of expansion. We will have a secure position around a designated sector of the galactic Southwest while Yamatai will be secure to the galactic Southeast. This avoids situations where territorial expansion would put neighbors in a pincering position to our recently captured SMX territory.
By the same measure, we avoid the obvious enclosure due to your galactic expansion to the Southeast if we were to keep the bard cluster.
Although I am privy to a exact divide down the galactic meridian to the North and South to cement this separation, I understand that it would be impossible to have Yamatai surrender Fujiko or any territories in the Virgo defense network. Therefore, the line of minefields and FTL deadzones will serve as the border between our two areas.
Beyond these modifications, Nepleslia will have no other expansion to the galactic south, as per our arrangement."