Meeting the Locals

Daniel, Emily, Alexander, and a few other people of importance for the City of Connaissance including the former City Lord and someone who was introduced as a community leader walked down the main street. From time to time the former City Lord would offer a story about a business district or residential block introducing important businessmen. Emily smiled and nodded most of the time, rarely asking any questions. Finally, she asked, "Excuse me, Mr. Berry? Why did you allow just a few men to buy up almost the entire city, write their own laws and regulations that effectively made it extremely easy for them to crush any competition while turning the majority of the population into an underpaid servant class?"

He laughed loudly, "You see, they paid me very well!"

"Why is the city guard unarmed?" She asked.

"Well, you see, we determined the general public would feel intimidated by the city guard if they carried weapons after we forbade the general population from having them." He rubbed his chin, "Also, we felt that the city needed to be a place of peace and armed men walking around would feet counter to that idea."

Emily nodded and then asked, "I had heard that the city of Connaissance was the most advanced city on Hanston, from what we have seen so far there are a few steam machines in these factories, but where is the college? Where are the researchers?"

"Ah, you see... A few years ago, one of the businessmen proposed that we close the college because it was a waste of money. The young people needed to work and it wasn't worth the money to educate them, as a less-educated workforce could work for less money." He smiled and puffed up his chest, "Oh, and as for the researchers, we discredited them as frauds and convinced the citizens that all the things wrong in the city were the side effects of the science they were teaching. It was quite brilliant, these men would show us the answers to the problems we were facing, so we could quietly fix the worst of the inexpensive problems while at the same time, use their own words out of context to convince the masses to ignore the problems that were too expensive to fix."

Emily nodded and then asked the community leader, "And you, Mr. Wilson, what was your suggestion on how to fix the issues with the city?"

"I'm glad you asked that! My constituents here in the community need food, rent, and debt relief. For too long, we have been underpaid and overworked." Mr. Wilson raised his finger in the air.

Emily nodded and then said, "Thank you, both, for explaining so much of the situation here to me." They continued walking down the street she pointed to a large area just past the city itself with a large patch of green grass and trees, "Mr. Berry, what is this area? I was told that there was just paved ground around the entire city?"

"Oh! You see, this is the residential area for the business owners, civic leaders, and the captain of the city guard." He beamed, "We had to make sure that every one of the most important members of the city had an estate of at least one hundred acres. You wouldn't expect that we would live in the slums." He laughed loudly.

"Mr. Wilson, do you also live out here?" She asked while looking at him curiously.

"Why, of course, I do. You see, my poor brothers and sisters living in the tenement buildings need to see someone who made it, someone to look up to!" He pointed his finger up into the air once again.

She nodded again and then asked, "Exactly how many acres is this area and how many estates are there here?"

The former City Lord spoke up, "Just over three thousand acres of land and twenty-four residences."

"So you used three thousand acres of the land to create homes for what, one hundred people in total?"

Daniel cleared his throat and said softly, "Emmy, it's more like seventy people at most. Most of them are elderly."

" I see. Great, well, I'd like to have a city planning meeting four days from now. We're going to look at the future of Connaissance and allow those who are not interested in being part of that future the opportunity to find a new residence in a different city." Emily smiled.

*****

Four days later in the great chamber of city hall, the members of the power elite for the City of Connaissance were all seated around a richly decorated conference table. The Center of the table had a sand table miniature of the current City of Connaissance. Most of the men were older with a couple of middle-aged men standing behind these older men. They laughed and joked with each other when finally the man seated at the head of the table lit a cigar and tapped on the side of his glass, "Gentlemen, it seems the young lady who has been appointed as our new City Lord is late. Before she arrives, we need to discuss business. The idiots from the Windsor Kingdom will be leaving soon, of course, that means it will be time for us to get back to work. We sent half the workforce down the mountain with our wealth so those idiots wouldn't clean us out, I have already sent word to them to return next week."

"Mr. Duke, I wonder, with this new girl appointed by the Windsor Kingdom, will we find ourselves having to guard against the backward way business is handled in that awful kingdom? The last thing any of us want to see is a monarchy implemented here. We all left the Kingdom in the first place because we were tired of having of our business confiscated any time the Royalty noticed we were taking too much profit." A portly balding man at the other end of the table spoke up.

Mr. Duke chuckled, "Mr. Hammer, I think we can handle a little girl, we'll just allow her to play Princess and run things the way we always have. We'll need to clear out the last City Lord from his estate so she can have an estate to play on, Mr. Burns why don't you contact that fellow you know back at the Windsor capital, lets order her a few show ponies. Girls love ponies."

Suddenly the doors opened and in marched Captain Alexander along with ten of his men in full dress armor with blades at their sides. The men said nothing and took up station along the walls evenly spaced out. A moment later Emily walked into the room. She looked at the men seated around the table and raised an eyebrow. Captain Alexander stepped forward and said loudly, "All rise for her Ladyship, Emily Connaissance."

A few of the old men stood at once but a few of the men including Mr. Duke remained seated. Mr. Duke spoke out, "Lady Connaissance, I believe this meeting was scheduled for three, it would seem you are half an hour late." He pointed at an empty chair at one side of the long table, "You may sit there, we were just discussing some minor matters of business here in the city, you might find it boring but you are welcome to listen in for a while."

Emily looked at Captain Alexander and said nothing. A quick hand signal flashed from the Captain before two of the armed guards grabbed Mr. Duke and lifted him to his feet and frogmarched him over to the empty chair. Those who hadn't yet risen to their feet looked at each other and started to rise one after another. At this point, Emily calmly walked over to the chair at the head of the table and sat down. She smiled politely and softly stated, "You may be seated."

She reached her hand out and a subordinate walked in with a folder in his hand gently placing it in hers. She set the folder down on the table and opened it casually. "Gentlemen, I am the newly appointed City Lord for the City of Connaissance. I have spent the past four days touring the city both formally and informally. I have spoken with the residents and some of the past civilian leadership. I have also met with the city guard. Gentleman, you have a problem." She looked from face to face. "You'll note that I didn't just say, 'We have a problem.' What I said was, you have a problem." She pointed at each man.

"It seems that the men in this room, believe that they and not I run the city. The men in this room believe that they own this city because a previous City Lord allowed you to purchase its buildings and hire its citizens. I assume that you even now, believe that with a word, you can take your money out of the City of Connaissance and simply rebuild in another city that will offer better terms." She smiled and then closed the folder. "Unfortunately for every one of you sitting at this table, I have more wealth than all of you combined in this room. I can't be bought or placated with an estate and..." She looked at Mr. Duke, "Ponies."

Emily stood up and started to walk around the table, she pointed at the miniature of the current City of Connaissance, "This city is not built the way it needs to be built in order to expand for the future. You have implemented too many short-sighted half measures and put your individual profits ahead of long term planning. For me to use your existing city would be cost-prohibitive. For me to allow you... To simply go back to business, as usual, would be a failure on my part as City Lord."

"Captain, would you please?" She motioned to the miniature. Captain Alexander walked over ripped the model off the table as violently as he could. "Thank you." She gave him a bright smile before unrolling a long map of a redesigned city. She took out a long pointer stick and touched the first spot, "While we rebuild the city, we will have to keep the residential district intact. Due to the necessity of having to have a good safe place for our labor to sleep, we will first construct the new residential neighborhood in the adjacent quarter, currently home to your warehouses."

Mr. Duke shouted out, "Ridiculous if we don't have a product how will we trade for food and cloth!"

Emily wagged a finger at him, "Mr. Duke, as I mentioned, it is not I who have a problem, it's you." She pointed her stick at the map once again, "Phase two we will be constructing a Dirigible Airship port."

"Are you mad! Dirigible Airship? There is no such thing! Why would we waste valuable territory for something that is only a theory concocted by dreamers!" Mr. Duke howled.

Emily looked at him and shook her head, "Mr. Duke, the technology is no longer theoretical. It was proven and shown to work on small scale testing. We are prepared to go to full-scale testing once our Airship port is constructed. As for why this is essential, simply because it solves a major transportation problem the City of Connaissance has been burdened with. We are too far away from necessary trade partners for desperately needed goods."

She walked around the table once more and pointed at another quarter of the city, "Phase three, we clear away the old residential neighborhoods and rebuild the industrial plants. This way they are closer to the resources from the mines and our water source."

Mr. Hammer raised his hand and asked once Emily looked at him, "What are these tunnels you have on this drawing?"

"Very good question Mr. Hammer, what you see here are the steam tunnels that connect every building in the city. We are going to centrally locate a system of high-pressure boilers to deliver steam to each and every building in the city to power turbines that will give each building electrical power for lights and will also have the side effect of generating heat in each building." She smiled.

A few of the old men nodded and murmured to each other that this was a good idea. Mr. Duke spoke out again, "This is poppycock! How will you pay for all of this with no business being done! How will you gather the raw material! How can you possibly create all of this, fiction, this science fiction!"

Emily ignored his outburst and then tapped on the last quarter of the city, "Phase four, Connaissance College, and the new city center. We are going to build a multipurpose theater, a sporting arena, and leave room for parks, restaurants, art galleries, and museums."

Another of the old men raised a hand, "Where are the wealthy to live? I see no room here for a single estate."

Emily tapped her stick on the residential area, "We will be building up, Mr. Graves. These new residential buildings will all be an average of twenty stories tall. I suspect that you'll wish to have a residence on the top floors so you can also claim the roof as well. Or, for those of you who simply need a country estate, you can build any size estate you wish outside of the city proper."