The other nation Rejects our Research Proposal

The response from the other nation was not what we had hoped for. They seem unwilling to share their findings in naval engineering, even as we offer a most beneficial deal to them, offering them to share our own findings with them. Along with the rejection comes the statement that their Navy is far superior to our own and that until we have made significant advancements in naval tech, any sort of deal like this is off the table.