"Starting tomorrow, we will begin providing the mana stones for the creation of the first semi-permanent wormholes and assembling the planning committee. We will spend a year in VR accelerated ti to finalize the plans based on the maps you must submit within the week," Masmibi said, addressing the Conclave representatives. With those words, the long-standing negotiations had finally concluded, leaving only the implentation ahead.
For the past three months, the Empire had been locked in tense negotiations with the Coalition, an alliance consisting of representatives who had finally agreed to accept the wormhole and VR technologies, deeming their benefits too significant to ignore despite the potential risks.
At the start, the Coalition's demands were aggressive. They pushed for control over VR sectors that mirrored their civilizations' territories, and for a larger share of the profits from both the VR system and the proposed wormhole highway network. However, the Empire stood firm, insisting on full control and sole authority over revenue distribution. This led to a stalemate, during which the Coalition representatives tried to pressure the Empire by hinting at a possible withdrawal from the agreent.
Their threats, however, were t with silence.
Realizing the Empire would not yield, they adjusted their approach. Instead, they requested a VR star system for each civilization, encrypted and isolated, under their full control, to serve as operational hubs for their respective governnts. The Empire agreed, under the condition that the civilizations would fund the creation and maintenance of those sectors themselves.
As a further compromise, the Empire permitted each civilization to appoint one representative to the VR Council. These representatives would serve as liaisons, offering suggestions and voicing requests from their people, though the final decision on all matters would still rest solely with the Empire.
Once both sides settled on these key terms, they finalized the agreent, including minor additions such as the scope of information governnts could request from the VR Council and the procedures for doing so, and more. With everything signed today, the next step was assembling the planning team. Their task: to map out the VR tower network and the wormhole routes, while the Empire prepared the materials needed for imdiate deploynt once planning was complete.
"Any questions?" Masmibi asked, scanning the representatives for any lingering concerns. Seeing none, he continued, "Then we'll end today's eting here and begin preparations to welco the representatives from the other civilizations starting tomorrow." With that, the eting was officially concluded.
Since the current group of representatives had already agreed to and signed the accord, it was now set to pass through the Conclave Council. This would expand the scope of cooperation beyond the current fifty civilizations, those who already possessed wormhole technology and had already been in contact with the Empire, to include all seventy-three remaining mbers. The result: full participation from all 123 civilizations in the Conclave.
To facilitate this, the planning team would be expanded to include representatives from each civilization. The transport of these new participants would be handled by the current wormhole-capable mbers, with the Empire covering the entire cost. This arrangent was both a gesture of goodwill and a strategic move to streamline the planning and speed up the eventual deploynt of the project.
"Once this is done, I'm going to need a very long vacation," Masmibi said while stretching, now that only he and his entourage remained in the room.
"That vacation's still a few years away," Lanesra said with a chuckle, well aware that the three months of negotiation had only been the beginning. The real work was just starting.
"Which is exactly why we need to start thinking about it now," he replied, grinning. "It's the only thing that'll keep us going through what's coming," as they walked to the exit of the room now that everyone else had already left a while ago, planning to go and report the conclusions to the governnt before having a long-needed rest.
……………………
"Finally, I can start earning SP again," Aron said with a smile as the confirmation about the negotiations' conclusions arrived, and the plan was officially moving forward. There was no turning back now, only the final steps before implentation.
{The SP we'll earn once the entire Conclave is connected should make things far easier than they are now,} Nova said. She understood the scale of what was coming. This was an untouched market, a fresh influx of users who had never interacted with any of their systems. Just like the first launch of BugZapper, each new user would generate significantly more SP, possibly enough to fast-track their developnt by centuries, if not millennia, depending on how wisely the points were spent.
"I can't wait," Aron said, his mind drifting to the absurd options buried within the system. Even if SP weren't part of the equation, access to the VR network alone was enough to give him a near-unparalleled understanding of the Conclave, far beyond anything their own analysts could hope to achieve. And while certain sectors would be encrypted for exclusive governnt use, that was a minor inconvenience.
{ too, sir,} Nova replied. She was just as eager. Having already sifted through everything the empire had to offer, she was hungry for the fresh flood of data this expansion would bring. But that excitent ca with its own logistical nightmare: storage. The empire was already nearing its limit.
"Should we get started, too?" Aron said, opening his eyes.
Currently, he was floating in the quiet of space, suspended in a void lit only by a distant sun. Ahead of him stretched a vast field of asteroids, millions of them, varying in size and shape. Together, their mass approached nearly two percent of Earth's, roughly equivalent to the moon. Yet they drifted in stable isolation, held in place by gravity plating and finely tuned tractor beams, never colliding or coalescing.
Aron focused on his task. He was creating a rune with intent, one that would form a massive circular-shaped shield around the entire asteroid field once deployed.
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