Cruel to be Kind (SI Multicross) Thread III

tkioz · Apr 20, 2014

tkioz · Apr 20, 2014

Chapter One Hundred and Fifty Two
Year 7, Day 1, Endeavour, Terra Prime

The sun was high in the sky, beating down on Endeavour harshly the morning after the annual New Years Eve revelry as Alexander walked through the main park of Endeavour side by side with Urial and his Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the first Knight to be inducted into the Distinguished Service Order of Endeavour, Sir Arkady Dyatlov.

The trio were each wearing dark sunglasses, Alexander out of habit, his eyes no longer bothered by the bright light, Urial out of practicality, not wanting to be blinded while protecting his friend, but Arkady was wearing them out of necessity.

Alexander quirked a grin as he noted Arkady wince when one of the workers cleaning up the park swung a bag of empty bottles onto one of the trailers that were being used to haul away the remnants of the night before, the glass crashing together and making a loud racket.

“It’s not fair, you drank far more than me!” Arkady accused when he spotted the smile.

Alexander shrugged, “I guess I’m just awesome like that.” In truth the changes to his biology made it harder for him to get drunk, not impossible, but a few tweaks to his kidneys and liver made them much more efficient when it came to filtering out toxins, which when you got down to it was all alcohol was, a toxin. “Painkiller hasn’t kicked in?” He asked after a moment.

Arkady shook his head then winced at the sudden movement, “No, I ran out, and I gave my staff the day off” He was about to say more when Urial tapped him on the shoulder. The bodyguard held out a small white tube, before popping the lid on it with his thumb.

Arkady egerally held out his hand as a tablet roughly the size of a thumb nail dropped out. Arkady wasted no time in swallowing the pill dry. “Many thanks Colonel” He said with a grateful smile.

Urial just nodded in return, the white tube disappearing back into his uniform. Alexander laughed at the antics, before shooting Urial a glance. “Since when you do carry painkillers around?”

“For sometime now,” Urial replied with a small shrugged, “I seem to get this odd pain in the neck every now and then”

Alexander mock scowled as his friend, “Very droll, keep it up and you’ll have a sudden pain in your backside”

“My lord” Urial said with wide eyes, clutching his chest, “What would Miss Stern say if she knew you were talking to me in such a way?”

Alexander flushed brightly, “That’s not what I meant, and you know it!” He protested as Urial and Arkady both laughed, the latter much softer, at him. Alexander ruefully shook his head after a moment and joined in with their laughter. He actually liked that Urial would talk back to him now, the younger man had a dry, witty sense of humour. He ignored that insinuation about Eris, he’d been getting it a lot lately from his friends, and no matter how much he protested that they were just friends they refused to listen, so he’d stopped bothering and just went with it.

The trio continued in silence for a while, Alexander and Urial enjoying the sun as they waited for Arkady’s headache to subside. The painkillers that Urial had given him were marvelous things, like many of the medicines they had it was sourced from the Star Trek universe. It had a multi-syllable name that almost everyone forgot as soon as they heard it, but once Doctor Das had described it as a sort of “Super Aspirin” so that name had stuck, and people either called it that or simply painkillers. The moniker was apt, it worked much like the aspirin most contemporary humans were use to, but more efficiently and without many of the side effects. Of course they had access to much more powerful drugs for pain management, but while Alexander had few issues with recreational drug use, he didn’t want to allow people to buy the equivalent of future-morphine over the counter.

“Have you given any thought to a governor for Earth-72?” Arkady asked after a few minutes.

Alexander grimaced, “Some, but honestly, I need everyone qualified where they are at the moment.”

“I thought as much” Arkady said, nodding slightly, “We simply don’t have the depth for this rate of expansion, not in our civil service, or our military.”

“There isn’t much we can do about it,” Alexander noted, his face still set in a grimace, “To mangle a metaphor, we’ve already bitten off this chunk, so it’s chew or choke.”

“True, but I do hope you keep that in consideration when planning future adventures” Arkady remarked cocking one of his eyebrows.

“I don’t think I could forget it, even if I tried.” Alexander said somewhat sourly, “I get all my own reports now, and the sheer amount of requests for more staff is mind boggling. Even with the training we’re doing, both in the military and our new civil service, it’s going to be a long while before we’re ready to add anymore planets to the Commonwealth.” He paused, taking a deep breath, before changing the subject back, “Who do you suggest for Governor for E-72? I’ve thought about just giving it to you, but it would deprive me of my best minister, and I doubt you’d thank me for it.”

Arkady shoot Alexander an alarmed look, “And you’d be right, I don’t want to run a planet, I’m happy where I am now”

“I wouldn’t sell yourself short Arkady, you’ve been acting as Governor now for a good while, and doing a fine job of it.” Alexander observed, “But you didn’t answer my question.”

“That’s because I don’t have a good answer” Arkady admitted, “There are some candidates from the local governments, but I simply don’t know them well enough to trust them with such a high office.” He sighed, “Perhaps it might be better to leave it for a little longer, we do not wish for another Soto after all.”

Alexander nodded firmly. He’d filled Arkady in on the problems with Soto during a previous visit, much to the Ukrainian’s shock, he’d apparently always liked the woman, and hadn’t thought her capable of such stupidity. They’d even known each other before the Zombie plague that had destroyed their world.

“Speaking of that, how is your search progressing for a new Prime Minister?” Arkady asked.

Alexander winced, “It’s not, it’s just like the governor problem, everyone who is a good candidate is needed where they are.” He shook his head, “Let’s drop the subject, I saw from your reports that you think you might be able to get Japan onboard?”

Arkady nodded, “Yes, they were hit pretty hard by the Kromaggs, they didn’t take to the occupation well, in fact I think the only countries that took it worse were in the middle east, and you know what happened there.”

Alexander closed his eyes and nodded. For all intents and purposes there wasn’t a middle east on Earth-72, most of the nations had been depopulated to such an extreme that it was unlikely any of the cultures that had existed there for thousands of years would survive. The Kromaggs hadn’t messed around when dealing with ‘obstinate’ populations, starting a cycle of death and destruction that had resulted in hundreds of millions of dead.

“Still,” Alexander said, opening his eyes and trying to find a bright side, “Japan would be the first heavily industrialised nation we’ve managed to bring onboard.”

“Indeed, and if things go as well as I hope we should sign the documents within the month” Arkady said.

“That’s good, though it does leave me with something of a problem” Alexander noted.

“Oh? What now?” Arkady asked, mystified.

“Yeah, now that you’re a knight, what do I promote you to next?” Alexander asked with a grin.

A/N: New thread, new year (in story), Happy Easter everyone, stay safe and have fun

Train · Apr 20, 2014

I don't know if this has been covered or not, but whats the level of mobility that is allowed from the new countries that joined the empire? Are they allowed to immigrate to Terra prime?

Faralis · Apr 20, 2014

Be careful with the Japanese. They will love the knowledge about genetic tampering you have. And while some of the things they will develop will be very useful, some others ... some others.

Let's say if you are not careful you will discover that a small, but significant part of your "new subjects" have grown an indeterminate number of new organs. Yes you will have some guys with tentacles in your empire.

And as much funny is to read this, I'm not joking, seeing that in person will not be as funny.

The Japanese have the small defect of being the most perfectionist people I've ever met. So if they join they will be quite loyal, and if they decide to build giant robots ( with your tech is almost trivial ) they will do it.

But if as I said they decide to "experiment with genetics" ... *shudders*
.
.
.

Be also careful if they decide to build a space colony and start calling it "Zeon" or "Zaft" or something along those lines.

ir_fane · Apr 20, 2014

New thread smell goes well with new chapters... tense typo near the end though:

“To mangled a metaphor, we’ve already bitten off this chunk, so it’s chew or choke.” mangled ->mangle

edit: Feralis has a point. I foresee a need for a bold print law: "Do not tempt Fate. She exists in many universes, and her sense of humor is sadistic." since Alexander's already running damage prevention on ship names.

Deviatesfish · Apr 20, 2014

Oh man, I hope you get Japan in. The food there is to kill for.

tkioz · Apr 20, 2014

Train said:
I don't know if this has been covered or not, but whats the level of mobility that is allowed from the new countries that joined the empire? Are they allowed to immigrate to Terra prime?

Moving between worlds is pretty tightly controlled, they can, but they need to have a job that will sponsor them before they move. Even then a pretty close eye is kept on new people.

Deviatesfish · Apr 20, 2014

tkioz said:
Moving between worlds is pretty tightly controlled, they can, but they need to have a job that will sponsor them before they move. Even then a pretty close eye is kept on new people.

That sounds awfully like some of my friends in Finance trying to get a work visa in Hong Kong. Ahaha... Nice.

tkioz · Apr 20, 2014

Deviatesfish said:
That sounds awfully like some of my friends in Finance trying to get a work visa in Hong Kong. Ahaha... Nice.

Yeah, very similar now that I think about it.

The standard of living on Terra Libertas (Roman World) and Earth-72 is improving rapidly, but things are still much, much better on Terra Prime and Redoubt. If they opened the doors to everyone they'd be flooded and their infrastructure, both physical and services, would be overloaded.

Eventually they want somewhat open travel between the worlds, simply show your ID at customs kind of thing, no visas, no passports, at least for citizens, and people can live and work anywhere, but that's in the future.

Ryune · Apr 20, 2014

I like that. None of them know the candidates well enough to put them into position... Alex needs to set up a dating service. There is a reason that it is called "courting" when a possible employer is "getting to know" you.

david151 · Apr 20, 2014

To mangle a metaphor, we’ve already bitten off this chunk, so it’s chew or choke.”

Love this metaphor also new thread nice.

Blackmane · Apr 20, 2014

O_O

Japan...

Oh fuck, here comes the bio-engineering and Mecha's.

Better watch them in ESRO. Hire a few, next thing you know Alex is sitting in his office signing off on Spaceships that transform into Mecha's for ground warefare :eek:

Uxion · Apr 20, 2014

Ryune said:
I like that. None of them know the candidates well enough to put them into position... Alex needs to set up a dating service. There is a reason that it is called "courting" when a possible employer is "getting to know" you.

Uh, what? Explain please.

Gear · Apr 20, 2014

ir_fane said:
New thread smell goes well with new chapters... tense typo near the end though:

“To mangled a metaphor, we’ve already bitten off this chunk, so it’s chew or choke.” mangled ->mangle

edit: Feralis has a point. I foresee a need for a bold print law: "Do not tempt Fate. She exists in many universes, and her sense of humor is sadistic." since Alexander's already running damage prevention on ship names.

Fate? No, Fate doesn't exist.

Capt. Edward A. Murphy on the other hand, does. And he can be very patient.

confusopoly · Apr 20, 2014

So, another 50-100 million (assuming horrendous casualties) subjects added to your empire. I wonder if there was ever an empire where the civil service was that ridiculously outnumbered before.

Uxion · Apr 20, 2014

confusopoly said:
So, another 50-100 million (assuming horrendous casualties) subjects added to your empire. I wonder if there was ever an empire where the civil service was that ridiculously outnumbered before.

Dude, Civil services are always out numbered.

Aldrin · Apr 20, 2014

Aw man, thread 3!?

I have so much catching up to do.

Hiver · Apr 20, 2014

Uxion said:
Dude, Civil services are always out numbered.

Replicators and transporters help a ton i guess...

Ryune · Apr 20, 2014

Uxion said:
Uh, what? Explain please.

The Problem: While there are a few candidates to fill the open positions nobody knows them sufficiently.
The Solution: Spend time with candidates to get to know them.
The Joke: This looks suspiciously like dating.

ir_fane · Apr 20, 2014

Gear said:
Fate? No, Fate doesn't exist.

Capt. Edward A. Murphy on the other hand, does. And he can be very patient.

You're forgetting the universe hopping. Not only does Fate exist in some of them, she (and/or he) is often sentient.

Peter2005 · Apr 20, 2014

Japan signing on, accept that they will eventually have plenty of catgirl bio-mods and mecha.

I would be a little concerned about how far future otaku will go in their costumes especially with modifications available.

Or businesses that would cater to them.

Best case scenarios involve hair color changes to exotic colors. Worse cases could involve cat-girl and other modifications. All leading to possible situations similar to that 'Batman Beyond' episode involving genetic splicers.

tkioz · Apr 20, 2014

Here's the yearly census for the Commonwealth

Population by Planet:
Terra Prime - 56,208
Redoubt - 12,907
Terra Liberatas - 63,000,000 approximation
Earth 72 - 139,000,000 approximation
Miscellaneous (Starships, Space Stations, Offworld postings) - 6,023
Total Population: 202,075,138

Earth 72 Population Breakdown*:
Angola - 17,000,000
Kenya - 32,000,000
Haiti - 14,000,000
Zambia - 9,000,000
Vietnam - 67,000,000
*All populations are approximations.

Non Human Population:
Ebu - 7344
Miscellaneous - 102

As you can see from the populations of the different E-72 nations they got hammer pretty hard during the Kromagg occupation, Vietnam lost at least 22 million people.

In a year the Commonwealth's population has gone from under a hundred thousand people to over two hundred million, yeah they are stretched incredibly thin. Only their overwhelming military power and incredibly advanced tech is allowing them to hold it together.

SwiftRosenthal · Apr 20, 2014

Is the Terra Libertas number just for Rome and its territories?

tkioz · Apr 20, 2014

SwiftRosenthal said:
Is the Terra Libertas number just for Rome and its territories?

Yeah, they only control that at the moment. It would be pretty easy to take over the other empires (Iran, India, China, etc), but at the moment they are having enough trouble controlling Rome without adding more people to it.

The world population at the time is between 200 and 250 million people.

azoicennead · Apr 20, 2014

Blackmane said:
O_O

Japan...

Oh fuck, here comes the bio-engineering and Mecha's.

Better watch them in ESRO. Hire a few, next thing you know Alex is sitting in his office signing off on Spaceships that transform into Mecha's for ground warefare

Pft.
Americans can do it, too.

Cruel to be Kind (SI Multicross) Thread III

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