Well now I feel dumb.

The year is 2037, the alien nation has established itself in south east asia, south america and some of the african continent.

I'm playing as Protectorate. I have all the tech prerequisites for getting sentinel station tech and some more for fun and profit but for some reason I can't research it.

I defeated an alien fleet with my first and only fleet of 4 ships and invaded the alien nation with my souped up US armies squashing 4 assault carriers worth of alien armies in the process.

I checked my faction goals.

"Contact Hydra with council member".

Alien rage meter is at 4 of 5 because of my choices when all I had to do was say "hello!"

Worse still because I just completed a servants playthrough.

So very very dumb.