On the other hand, this is what the official page says about the Vasari situation 15 YEARS AGO (before entrenchment).
When the Vasari arrived in Trader Space ten years ago, they were confident in their ability to quickly deal with the locals. Initially, the victories were painless – the scouts alone procured the initial settlements – but as time went on it became clear that the local space-faring species would not be so easy to eliminate.
Now, the Vasari are caught in a stalemate, and in some positions, on the verge of being pushed back. A state of panic ensues. Already too entrenched in this disastrous war, the Vasari are simply unable to withdraw without catastrophic losses. Even worse, the conflict is consuming resources faster than can be put into the reserve. They will not be able to fuel the next phase of their exodus and time is running out.
There's no panic in what the Vasari are right now, 15 years after they were so terribly horrified.
Forward thinking, man. Forward thinking. If you have 100 years to gather 100,000,000 strawberries, and you gather three in the first fifteen years, then you can panic slowly. In other words, panic |= run around screaming.
Acording to the lore I have read, 25-100 years in one place keeps the Vasari comfortably ahead of the Silence. Hwever, this assumes a reasonably painless occupation/resupply event. If the re-supply goes badly, then the vasari have two choices.
1) attack harder, crush the resistance, resupply faster than expected, and make a short jump to greener pastures. Hope that this can be accomplished before the silence catches up.
2) withdraw, and make a short jump to greener pastures, without resuppling. Hope that you can make it to the next location, and conquer it with the supplies remaining to you.
It seems clear to me that on finding the TEC the vasari went with option one. This has failed them, and they no longer have enough supplies to go for option two. Sometimes, once committed to an action, it must be followed through.
My own thoughts on the threat to the Vasari: Faulty Phase-jump Inhibitors.
Suppose at the transport lab, in an effort to overcome or improve PJI, some kind of energy wave were released, destroying phase-space within, say, twenty light years, and causing any PJI within that same area to consume itself, and emit that same kind of energy? Any ship in the area of the effect would loose all FTL capibility, both engines and communications. Any ship heading in to the area would be trapped forever, as the energy wave would likely propigate at lightspeed.
The one remaining ship might be a vessel that hit phase-space just as the energy reached it; traveling through phase space as it is being destroyed might cause serious damage to brain structures, as well as physical structures.
If it could be controlled and/or contained, this effect could be a powerfull weapon.
