If you know there are aliens and that there are ways to collapse starlines… you move all colonies such that the node length between them is two. And on the odd-numbered nodes you leave a drone which watches for aliens, is sufficiently powerful to detonate the star before any ship could cross the space to the next starline, and pops the star at first contact. No matter what any invasion fleet of any size attempts, you only ever lose one world, and you only lose that one if aliens happen upon it, or can tell which way you came from when you happen upon them. And you may broadcast this fact as leverage when negotiating with the super-happy people. You will not attempt to forcibly change us, or our star will pop and cut off from you any possibility of interfering or rescuing anybody on our side. And so if you do not desire our eternal suffering as you view it, you must let us be while you attempt a diplomatic approach where we actually convince and understand and come to terms with each other. And if our values are entirely and intractably incompatible, then we just have to accept that as an unfortunate fact about the universe.
If you know there are aliens and that there are ways to collapse starlines… you move all colonies such that the node length between them is two. And on the odd-numbered nodes you leave a drone which watches for aliens, is sufficiently powerful to detonate the star before any ship could cross the space to the next starline, and pops the star at first contact. No matter what any invasion fleet of any size attempts, you only ever lose one world, and you only lose that one if aliens happen upon it, or can tell which way you came from when you happen upon them. And you may broadcast this fact as leverage when negotiating with the super-happy people. You will not attempt to forcibly change us, or our star will pop and cut off from you any possibility of interfering or rescuing anybody on our side. And so if you do not desire our eternal suffering as you view it, you must let us be while you attempt a diplomatic approach where we actually convince and understand and come to terms with each other. And if our values are entirely and intractably incompatible, then we just have to accept that as an unfortunate fact about the universe.