@Aleksei
mcow, I might also assign a rather high probability to the Superhappies having just made everything up as a lie, were it not for their choice to blow up the Babyeaters while leaving the humans to return home.
For all we know, the Babyeaters don't exist. That entire scenario may have been invented by the Super Happies just to make the humans easier to manipulate. If so, it certainly worked pretty well, don't you think? Also, remember Akon's thoughts on seeing the BE solution to withstanding the radiation:
the mirror-shielding seemed a distinctly...
It seems far too possible that the Super Happies are not telling the whole story here. For all Akon and his crew know, virtually everything the SH have told them is a lie crafted to minimize their resistance so that the SH can either enslave them or destroy them and take over their starline network. Several of the SH's actions have been fairly suspicious - for example, they seemed awfully quick to give up on diplomacy with the Babyeaters. Also, "several weeks" seems like an implausibly short amount of time for even a highly advanced technological...
I didn't realize that the mention of Akon worrying about his lipstick was going to be so important. I really like how subtly the (at least partial) reversal of sexual roles is implied here.
Aleksei, what they'd gain from keeping up the illusion is the knowledge of where the rest of humanity is. They have to coordinate their attack so that the humans don't have a chance to cut off the rest of their starline network. If the humans figure out what's up, they can mess up the short-term plans of the SH, even if they can't win an all out war.