Heart of the Empire

26/12/4838 IC

05/05/2035 AD

Fortified meeting room, somewhere in the summer palace.

Within the brightly lit room, the highest authority of the empire meets in relative secrecy. A variety of high ranking personnel can be seen here. Some of them are more well known, like the old-but-not-yet-senile general from the last generation, who regularly makes speeches during the Founding Day of the last 5 years. Some are not even known to exist, like the department of [sound of hot tea being spilled on skin, followed by Vareshin the 130th's cursing].

Nearby, a different table is seated by aides and historians. Each of these meetings change the course of the empire, thus, each and every one of them must be recorded carefully so that future generations may learn the mistakes and examples of the past. As for the public, most of the information is released after a year or post war.

The AC and ventilator are pushed to the limit to deal with all the smoke from the very expensive cigars. The talk is calm, everyone taking and waiting for their turn. Information is delivered precisely and to the point, with all the nuances of the common speech being ignored. As for how accurate and fully the information is, well, the empire has lasted for several millennia, so it is good enough.

The Emperor, after sipping his soft-drink-filled teacup, asks: "How is the preparation?"

The Prime Minister, reading everyone's summary, replies: "Completed as intended, your Imperial Majesty. 20 million men stand guarding the heartland, 10 million men ready to advance into the enemy's land. Within their own territory, we have successfully moved hundreds of thousand officers, who are already starting to gather and train loyalists, though they won't hold long without high command or a proper supply line."

The Emperor nods, knowing that his ministers' plans have prepared for this eventuality. The Prime Minister continues: "Most of the Grand Fleet has been moved to the right locations, the few that haven't are the submarines recording enemy's positions. The air wings have moved to the assigned airbases.The factories have partially switched to manufacturing equipment parts. The military factories are in full operation, mass producing equipment for war."

The Prime Minister takes a breath, "The reserves have been notified and the list of conscripts has been made. The special forces are ready to airdrop into their capitals at a moment's notice. To sum up, the military is ready."

The Prime Minister switches to the next paper, "As for Internal Affairs, the expected Imperial Kings and some others have surrendered without a fight, in exchange for money, shares in several major corporations, some loans without interest and multiple important positions in the new regional governments. This requires your approval."

The Emperor, with a clear voice, replies, "That is acceptable. They are more used to the land than any officials from the heartland. In fact, let them make up the initial list of officials that they need, then Internal Affairs will screen that list. What about the others?"

The Prime Minister reports: "There are only 3 Imperial Kings left that still believe they have a chance of victory, defined here as achieving independence from the Imperial Authority. Naturally, some of the nearby Imperial Kings have surrendered to them, which gives them the strength to be confident about their chances."

The director of [sound of hot tea being spilled on skin, followed by Vareshin the 130th's cursing] raises his hand. The Prime Minister stops and looks over to the emperor, who nods, allowing the director to speak.

He begins: "I want to add something. The collaboration of these kings, whose land was intentionally split to prevent too much power in too few hands, has been found since your father's reign. However, he has allowed it to grow because taking advantage of, what it is currently known as, the Second Industrial Revolution was deemed more valuable than suppressing them. Although they have been very careful, enough to prevent any of our agents getting into important positions, they can't prevent us from creating such an intel network that can guarantee near full confidence of all information from there. That is all."

The Emperor nods, "Prime Minister, continue please."

The Prime Minister clears his throat, "Yes, your Imperial Majesty. The first one and most powerful is King Dazhen Korvek of the self-proclaimed Korven Kingdom. His land is entirely jungle, the largest in the world in fact. In order to prevent this, his land was originally split into 3 different territories and each also consists of extra coastal and mountain areas, which almost managed to result in disunity and discrimination among his populace. Unfortunately, their cooperation ran far back."

He turns the paper around, "Through a long lasting propaganda campaign, they have managed to move most of the population to the jungle. The mountains, bordering us, have been fortified to an incredible level, with a large number of hidden strongpoints. Even with, uhh, his" 

The Prime Minister gestures vaguely at the director of [sound of hot tea being spilled on skin, followed by Vareshin the 130th's cursing], " and the IIA's intel, it will be extraordinarily difficult for our men to spot, especially during combat. The coast has been industrialized greatly, though it is mostly civilian factories. The military factories are hidden in the jungle, dispersed to the point that burning down the jungle is the only option to fully take them out."

The Minister of War and the Quartermaster begin to calculate how much fuel it would take to burn the whole jungle down as he continues: "A coastal assault will be costly as they have given up the entire Ulthir Ocean front and focus their resources on multiple anti-air and anti-ship weapons. Also for that reason, there is no dock large enough for most of our transport ships. In terms of starving them out, we may be able to cause mass extinction of local fishes with nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, through many generations of selective breeding, they have created sufficient quantities and varieties of plants, capable of growing in the jungle, to survive and develop enough to wage war in the jungle."

The Emperor raises his hand, the Prime Minister quiets down, letting him speak: "Ignore them. With only just above a hundred million people and a land of jungle, they present little threat and too little benefit to gain to make it worthwhile."

The Prime Minister nods and moves on to the next paper, "As for this Imperial King, or rather Queen, Queen Virelya Thronien to be exact, she throws in her lot with the Serene Alliance. Aside from that, among all of them, she is the one that we have no casus belli for. Her dynasty has been paying taxes diligently for the last several centuries, her ancestors conditionally surrendered to us and the contract is still valid."

The Emperor sighs and somewhat thankful that her land lacks much value for her resistance to be a problem.

The Prime Minister continues: "As for the last one, Queen Aertha Valmir. Our border with her is mostly mountains with a few, well-fortified, passes. The rest of her land is plains with high fertility and little raw resources. The only notable thing about her land is the large quantity of uranium being predicted to be there."

The Emperor immediately raises his hand, "We wage war. Take them out as soon as possible."

The Prime Minister pulls out a few papers, "Are you sure about the decision, your Imperial Majesty? You still haven't heard about what they are capable of."

"We are the first to achieve the power of the atomic bomb. We know best about how destructive it can be. The uranium there can be sent to our enemies to create their own nuclear weapons. Plus, there's a new technology that can change nuclear power from a purely destructive one to a constructive one."

The Emperor calmly turns to look at the Minister of Science and Technology, who has guessed what is going to happen and pulls out a stack of papers. He takes out a few from the top and passes it to his right, who, in turn, passes it along until everyone at the table, and some historians nearby, have a copy of the document.

The Minister of Science and Technology begins: "As you can see here ladies and gentlemen. A brand new way of electricity creation, a nuclear reactor. Using far less fuel than fossil fuel powerplants, this is the solution for our energy problems. Not only that, the waste from it can be recycled and separated into isotopes for all kinds of purposes, even as new fuel since only 1 percent of a fuel rod's energy can be extracted before it is no longer fissile."

He turns to the Minister of Health, "Particularly useful for those new tests and treatments that require radioisotopes."

Then he continues, "And there is a variant, breeder reactor, which can convert other fissile from fertile material and can even convert as much fissile as it consumes, allowing for much lower fuel usage. Of course, there are also designs for breeder reactors that convert more than they consume, producing fissile for…other uses."

The Minister of Science and Technology places his paper down. The Minister of Health asks first: "How dangerous are these reactors?"

"Although my scientists have done their best, the current design still relies on high pressure heavy and normal water as coolant, moderator and control. As a result, most of the accidents will occur from leaks, which cause very high temperature steam to shoot out, potentially damaging important parts. To mitigate this threat, the design incorporated control rods that must require electricity to stay up and will fall down when the electricity is cut off. The control rods will absorb the neutrons and cause the chain reaction to end."

The Minister of Economics inquires next: "And what potential economic impacts will there be?"

"Well, electricity prices will certainly decrease, causing prices of electricity dependent products, or rather just about everything, to decrease as well. Even though construction price and time is extremely large and usually beyond the original plans, improvements and miniaturization can reduce the cost of building reactors to the point that some larger corporations and companies can build their own reactors."

The Minister of Public Security points out a certain problem: "What about the threat of terrorism? How easily can the fuel be turned into nuclear warheads?"

"Very hard actually. The current generation of reactors is still under threat of significant damage by bombing, which can be mitigated with sufficient protection. As for nuclear weapons, the current enrichment of fuel is only 5 percent, far below the weapon grade of 20 to 90 percent. As for the potential to breed fissile using breeder reactors, we don't really have a solution other than careful monitoring and oversight as a breeder reactor is significantly different from a conventional reactor, especially ones that convert more than it consumes."

"What about espionage from our enemies?"

The director of [sound of hot tea being spilled on skin, followed by Vareshin the 130th's cursing] interjects: "It is too late. Our latest intel suggests that Kovaskian, which is what the people of that large island refer to themselves as, spies had been aware of nuclear power for a long time. Considering what they are trying to steal now, they are already able to manufacture their own nukes. As for the other nations, we failed to prevent them from acquiring the concepts, but they will take a long time to research the details and develop their own nuclear technologies."

For a while, everyone keeps quiet, the only sounds are the historians typing and writing. After that while the Emperor speaks out: "Since there is no more question and everyone has seen my reasoning for this decision, will there be war with Queen Aertha Valmir?"

The Minister of War replies: "Hang on, I believe that it is best we hear the rest of the report before making such a major decision."

The Emperor turns to the Prime Minister and nods. The Prime Minister continues: "Her land consists mostly of newly conquered territories. Her supporters are only unified against us and consist of multiple organizations of varying sizes, influence and legitimacy. Considering the countless ships coming into their ports with full load and leaving entirely empty, it is very likely that the international community is supporting her."

The Emperor turns to the Minister of War, who carefully considers the capability of both nations and the current plans. Of course, with the consequences of leaving them unchecked, there's only one real answer: "I fully agree with the decision to wage war against the rebellious Queen Aertha Valmir."

As the other ministers declare their agreement for the war, the guards standing next to the door suddenly raise their guns toward the door. Had this been any other nation, there might be some confusion, but this is the Vareshi Empire, everyone is trained.

The historians, ministers and just about everyone who doesn't have to hide the important documents away raise their weapons. No, not sidearms, weapons as in battle rifles that were laying on their laps the entire meeting.

The lights are turned up as high as possible, the mirrors aligned to reflect as much light as possible toward the door.

Then there is knocking. The guards quickly open the door. The woman behind it, some poor messenger, flinches and covers her eyes as the light hits. A large area outside of the room is pitch black. That way, just the lights inside the room can act as a flash bang to even prepared people.

A guard asks authoritatively: "Your purpose here?"

Despite all the guns trained on her, she speaks with the calm of a professional who has done this before: "Urgent information from the Third Prince, potential impacts include the development and survival of our species."

A deafening silence fills the room as she speaks. The guard recovers first, being the one least important to any future decision here: "Give us the documents."

She quickly hands over the stack of papers and leaves.

As a guard closes the door and the lights are lowered down to a more comfortable level, another guard hands the documents over to the Prime Minister.

Quickly skimming through the documents, the Prime Minister speaks: "This is indeed the Third Prince's writing, I can barely read this mess, but it is, distinctively, the Third Prince's writing. It is focused around one main issue. The detection and communication with an alien civilization."

Almost in perfect synchronization, everyone takes a sip of whatever liquid their respective cups are filled with right now.

The Prime Minister continues: "The civilization is found on the dark side of Ivakur, though readings suggest that this is very likely to just be one of their bases."

The Second Prince asks: "Isn't that part of the IASC's job, how did they not notice that?"

"It is written here that they did notice multiple odd readings, but an alien civilization is not considered to be one of the more probable answers. At the present, through cross examination between the recorded readings of the brief context between the Serene Alliance and the aliens, the IASC has identified at least a dozen colonies scattered across the asteroid belt."

The Emperor inquires: "What have they said to each other so far?"

"Not much actually. It is written here that they have only managed to establish a binary encoding system with each other and confirm that the aliens also use the base ten numbers system and have similar mathematics to ours."

"What about the base, any specific details?"

"Well, so far they have identified a large communications array, far larger than necessary to just communicate with us, nuclear reactors and several solar panels arrays."

"Solar panels? The project that we refused an increase in funding last week?"

"Yes, these solar panels seem to be more efficient as the panels reflect and absorb much less light, based on the infrared and the reflected visible light that the probe detected. Though the total area of the panels seems insufficient for any operation of this scale, unless they can disregard the conservation of energy or use some kind of unknown power from the sun. The infrared camera also reveals that the ground around the base is significantly hotter than everywhere else, so it is likely that there is a nuclear reactor underground."

"We must restrict this information for now."

"Unfortunately, the visit of the Third Prince was designed to be as public as possible, so just about everyone who cares has been aware of the alien. That and the Serene Council also chooses to reveal it as publicly as possible."

"Well, that is very unfortunate. Where is the Third Prince currently?"

"He has already rushed back here and directed the IASC to launch our own satellite around Ivakur for more permanent contact with the alien."

"Alright, what will we do now?"

Silence. Still is silence. Slowly turning into awkward silence. The Minister of Science and Technology speaks: "Based on theorists, or rather science fiction authors, we shouldn't wage any war and pretend that our world has reached a state of relative peace and prosperity with great ambitions for the benefits of everyone."

The Minister of War looks down at all the plans General Staff has drawn up for war against…just about everyone and asks: "Is there no other course of actions?"

"Well, yes, there are a few, such as the Dark Forest hypothesis which proposes that due to the finite resources of the universe and the general untrustworthyness of other intelligent species, all surviving civilizations hide themselves and wipe out any detected civilizations. This is not applicable in this case because we haven't been wiped out yet and to traverse space like that, they must be more advanced than us."

"So what is the idea behind this course of actions?"

"The belief that to grow to this point, a species must have focused on cooperation and mutual benefit rather than any violent competition. Of course, peace can be very fragile like the proposed policy of MAD, Mutually Assured Destruction, which creates a balance where the usage of weapons of mass destruction would devastate every side."

The Emperor thinks for just a bit, just enough to look like he puts effort into thinking, and speaks: "Alright, make the public announcement and send a message to the Serene Alliance, their idea of an international forum may be very useful right now."

The First Prince suddenly says: "On a related issue, with the sudden increase in importance of the IASC, do we take back the director position from the Third Prince or do we call him in for these meetings?"

Slowly, everyone turns to look at the Emperor. Carefully, the Emperor thinks. Precisely, the time chosen by the Emperor to wait after he has finished thinking so it seems like he is considering more possibilities and not actually thinking about what to eat for lunch. Anyway, he begins:

"In consideration of the Third Prince's, Prince Seyth, skills, knowledge and experience gained so far, I believe that he can keep his current position as the director of the IASC."

A quick unanimous agreement later and the discussion on the public announcement begins. There is not much discussion to be made there. Just about everyone in that room knows that the Prince is there only to do the bare minimum of paperwork and much of the actual decision making is handled by the deputy director Elva.

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Somewhere in Vareshi

The plugged TV turns on, its on/off system overridden in accordance with the Public Awareness of Information Act of 4812. The Emperor begins to speak:

"Warmest greetings to you all. With that out of the way, I will go straight in. As you may have known, there's a rumor that the Serene Alliance has made contact with an alien civilization. I will set things straight.

To begin, yes, the Serene Alliance has made contact with an alien civilization located on the dark side of Ivakur. However, their contact lasted for only half an hour. Therefore, we have not known much or at all about the aliens. I assure you that the government is doing our utmost to achieve a proper understanding of the situation.

Even now, the conspiracy theories have already begun to spread. Actions taken with incomplete information will result in unnecessary, and even dangerous, delays. Henceforth, I, and the government as a whole, request that you be calm and wait for more information to be released."

A loud sound of boot impacting metal can be heard. Followed by a man's words:

"Come on, work! You brand new piece of s. Oh there we go."

A voice, barely understandable due to all the electrical noise, sounds out from the acceptably portable long range radio: 

"Alright, I can hear you cl..early now. What is it, Johnson?"

"What is your current plan? There must be something new after this, um, discovery."

"Oh, nothing much for now. Just moving house, that's all."

"I see. What's about my little boy? He is with his aunt right now isn't he?"

"Yes, but he will go back home soon. Don't worry, your transfer will be approved soon. Then you can go home back to him. Though, you may have to transfer to a different department."

"I understand, thank you."

3 days later

A certain man ends his contract with the landlord early. He was known for being generally nice, the kind that gives you a decent impression without being remembered much by anyone. In fact, his neighbors are all surprised when they heard that he, in fact, has only been here for a few months. Unfortunately, no one knows his contact as everyone assumes that everyone else has gotten it and they just need to ask. In the end, he is remembered as a model citizen…until something more memorable happens and everyone forgets about him.