Meanwhile in the distant colonies of the Clockwork Empire....
These carved rocks are by no means suspicious. Subjects loyal to the Queen should not attempt to spread rumours that these are animated obeliskian horrors waiting to murder you for some dark ancient god.
There is no such things as fishpeople. Stop spreading your silly rumors. There is no such thing, we certainly do not have a policy of denying their existince contrary to the fact they walk around the colony at night. And they most certainly they do not send us envoys with gifts such cubes of raw flesh, sand and beetle steak because we ignore them and not shoot them on sight.
(You can set policy against cults, bandits and fishpeople through events now. I chose to deny their existence and only harass them if they cause trouble, that will make soldiers just shoo them away rather than shoot. This has caused one of my NCOs to demand I shoot the filthy creatures, which I refuse and he gets butthurt. The fishpeople in return do not attack me, sometimes kill some crops, although I had my colonists try to reason with them using fishperson diplomacy. The result is I get minor gifts. Not sure what the cube of flesh is good for.)
Huzzah! The Capital recognizes our colony and its successes. With this landmine we shall maim the hostile nations seeking to conquer us, such as those dreaded Stahlmarkians.
Fishperson diplomacy at work.
Our loyal Republique Mechanique allies march near our colony. So what that their ruler is a thinking machine made dictator instead of a proper monarch, they hate the Stahlmarkians as much as we do!
(At the moment allied/neutral/hostile status of the three other powers, those being the Republique, Stahlmark and Novyrus, is random. Although presumably as events for them get added, just like there are for factions such as fishpeople, bandits and cults, you will be able to engage in diplomacy. Allies scout for you and aid you in combat killing bandists along the way, neutrals don't seem to do anything, hostiles launch raids obviously.)
Now if only they would fix the bug in the experimental build where at around day 20 there are so many characters (colonists, bandits etc.) on the map that one of simulation or pathfinding loops crashes freezing all characters in place making them unable to move after which the game crashes.