Getting a Technology System in Modern Day by Agent_047

Advantage
Felix was leaning back on the couch in his office, his feet crossed on the coffee table and hands clasped behind his head, obviously in deep thought.
{What's wrong, sir?} Raven, his personal AI assistant asked. {You seem to be zoning out a lot these days.} Felix had remained unmoving in his position for more than twenty minutes, the rise and fall of his chest and blinking eyelids his only movements.
"Nothing, I'm just trying to figure out where things are going to go from here. It's been a week since the countries signed their individual surrender accords, but no matter how I think about things, I can't see a peaceful resolution. There's guaranteed to be problems in the future, no matter what,” Felix sighed.
{What makes you say that?} she asked.
"History"
{Do you mean how those who fail to learn from history's lessons are doomed to repeat it?}
“Exactly. Every time one nation
overwhelmed another and received their surrender or succeeded in an annexation, an insurgency has arisen from within just as things seemed to calm down. Those insurgencies cause a lot of issues for the winners by targeting their weaknesses. Aron may be the strongest person alive and have the most overwhelmingly powerful military that's ever been seen, but he's still sure to have weaknesses. Nobody can be that powerful in every aspect,” Felix explained.
"Just take the Soviet incursion into Afghanistan, for instance. In 1979, they invaded Afghanistan to aid the communist forces in Kabul fight off various insurgent forces, including the Taliban and al-Qaeda, who was known as the ‘Afghan Arabs' back then.
"The Soviets had every advantage in that fight. They had a strong military, high morale, the more technologically advanced weapons, and the numbers on their side. By all rights, they should've had an easy time taking out some small, weak insurgent groups. But that wasn't the case! Their incursion in support of Kabul caused a decade-long conflict between the Soviets and Afghani insurgent groups that finally ended with a Soviet withdrawal in 1989, a full decade later.
“Then in 2001, al-Qaeda reared their head again and carried out a terror attack on the United States, leading to another conflict that lasted up until a week or so ago. The American War on Terror.
"We declared war on al-Qaeda and the Taliban in October of 2001, yet despite outnumbering and outgunning them in every aspect, they still managed to drag out the war for more than fifteen years. And it would've dragged on even longer if Aron hadn't come around and basically ended all wars. And those two are in living memory. If we go back even further, there are even
more examples.
"Like after World War I, when the Ottoman
Empire lost and the allied powers tried carving it up. The Turks rose up and fought back under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who started the Turkish War of Independence that resulted in the formation of modern-day Turkey. Going even further back, the Koreans fought back against Japanese invaders, and so did the Chinese. Or we can go forward to the French Resistance against the Third Reich after France surrendered to Germany.
"Basically, every time an overwhelming force comes up, a resistance group springs up like weeds to fight against it. But now it'll be even more severe. Instead of one nation stomping another nation into a mudhole, or alliance versus alliance, this time it was one nation against literally every other nation in existence," Felix explained.
"So now that Aron's military has displayed
its might, I'm worried that there'll be
of
hundreds, if not thousands of groups 'freedom fighters' cropping up everywhere
around the world. Hell, it wouldn't surprise
me at this point if the Atlanteans came back to the surface from some underwater city somewhere," he griped.
{Opposition will naturally always exist, but
that doesn't mean it'll be impossible to deal with,} Raven said. {I'm sure Sir Aron and mother are already aware of the issue and have made plenty of plans to deal with any situations that may arise.} She had full confidence in Aron and Nova to have
foreseen such an obvious issue. If even Felix, who she privately thought was perhaps a little on the slow side, could see
it, his boss most certainly could... right? "I know, I know. I was mostly thinking of how I would handle it if it were me in the hot seat. The only lesson history teaches is that nobody's ever learned a single thing
from history, and I'm sure I'm no exception to that. It's more morbid curiosity than anything else," Felix grumped.
{If you're putting yourself in the 'hot seat',
so to speak, then you also have to consider the technological advantage that Sir Aron and mother have over those historical
forces. Would the Turkish War for Independence have succeeded if King Constantine had the Panopticon? Or would
the Chinese Boxer Rebellion have lost to the Eight-Nation Alliance if they had SLEEK suits and pulse rifles? Would Osama
bin Laden have survived as long as he did if the Americans had Poseidon Navy's carrier fleet and Titan's Wrath cannons? Would the
Viet Cong have forced American forces to withdraw if they had the training our Reaper teams go through? Or would World
War I ever have started if Archbishop
Ferdinand had an ARES Aegis team guarding him?
{Even if you take ten thousand steps back,
what do you think would be the result of putting nyxians up against the FBI and KGB during the cold war?}
Raven had many more examples available,
but she figured those would be more than enough specific instances. {In every case where insurgency forces troubled the
winners of conflicts in the past, it's always been when the difference between the two wasn't that large. And that isn't the case
here. You can think of it like this: Sir Aron and ARES going up against modern forces is no different from the pre-9/11 American
military being put on a battlefield against a military from the Bronze Age. That's how
much of a lead Sir Aron currently has against the rest of the world, and that's
even when he wasn't really focusing on building forces to face terrestrial foes,} she explained.
{Our side's only limitation is the number of
people under the ARES umbrella, but that isn't a limitation that'll last forever. And as fast as Sir Aron can build up his forces, I'm sure he'll be shoring up that weakness before the insurgencies can grasp it.}
"I suppose that's true. I'll go see what he's up to myself," Felix said. Raven had put his mind at ease, and once he put down the impossible task of trying to think like his supergenius best friend, he realized he
hadn't seen him in quite some time.

Avalon Island.
{Three... two... one... liftoff.}
A massive rocket took flight from the center of the island and rose through the clear sky. The cloud cover had finally dissipated and revealed the island in all its majesty to the few remaining eyes in the sky, as there was no longer any reason to continue maintaining the obscuration.
The rocket breached the atmosphere and entered orbit, where it was immediately met by the blanket of shrapnel covering the planet. The rocket's payload and the second stage maneuvering body had been plated in a thick layer of an alloy of hadfield steel and chromium, which was more than durable enough to shrug off the impact of the tiny pieces of shrapnel. Beneath that was a layer of shock absorbent 99% aerogel, and below that was a carbon nanotube shock mesh, ensuring that any force exerted on the rocket would cause no damage to the delicate machinery in the warhead and the rocket body's maneuvering jets.
(Ed note: Hadfield steel, also known as mangalloy, is an alloy of manganese steel and carbon. It's the most impact-resistant alloy to date, while chromium is the hardest metal discovered to date. Aerogel is an ultralight silica gel where the liquid component has been replaced by a gas while maintaining the gel structure. 99% aerogel means that 99% of it is empty space, which makes for an incredibly shock absorbent, yet solid and durable material. It's also incredibly resistant to temperature extremes and is often used as insulation.)
After passing through the debris field, the maneuvering jets on the rocket adjusted its course, then it entered a coast phase and would reignite its maneuvering jets once it neared its designated parking orbit.
Back on the launch pad, a second rocket was in the process of being printed. Once it was finished, it, too, would be headed into orbit. Then came another, and another, and another... finally, the process had repeated itself more than a hundred times over two short hours before the activity on the launch pad ceased, the tasks completed for the day.
Once all of the rockets reached their parking orbits, they initiated a long,
synchronized burn and headed toward the moon on a course that would have them
slingshot around it and the Earth in a figure eight, building up speed by repeating the maneuver until they were ejected from the planet's gravity well and shot toward the asteroid belt on the other side of Mars'
orbit.
Most, but not all of them would reach their
destination there. But fourteen of them were destined for much longer journeys, equipped as they were with fusion generators and ion drives. Two by two, they would use their initial velocities for a leg up as they accelerated toward their eventual destinations. Each pair of rockets would find their new homes on or around one of the other seven planets in the solar
system.
Those fourteen rockets were the precursors of Aron's upcoming expeditionary fleet and would prepare the
other planets in the solar system for the exploitation of their natural resources, thus preserving the environment of Earth for its inhabitants for centuries, if not millennia to
come.
Ten of the launched rockets contained payloads consisting of atomic printers and fusion generators to power them. Their job was to clear the debris from the orbits, both the shrapnel from the recent war and the outdated satellites and other space junk that would serve no purpose in the future once Aron put his
current-generation tech into use. And they would be accompanied by two tenders,
which were small craft capable of
collecting the output blocks of raw material
referred to as "printer cartridges" for
security's sake, then bring them to the L1
Lagrange Point for secure storage until
they were needed in the future. 5
At the moment, no one but Aron knew
what the rockets were for, and only those on Avalon Island itself even knew that they had been launched. The two hours the
operation had taken had been scheduled during a time when none of the surviving satellites had a viewing angle on the launch site, after all.
Aron was laying supine in the sky, thinking
back on the recent lecture his parents had given him. He really should have told them everything, he concluded; it truly was a dick move keeping them in the dark on such important things as the recently passed events. Floating in the sky and
gazing into the uncaring universe was his new "thinking spot", and had been ever since he'd grown so skilled with using the
flight rune that he no longer had to think about it and could use it at a subconscious level. 3
Nova appeared next to him in her
augmented reality form, also laying on her back and gazing into the sky. {What's on your mind, sir?} she asked.
Aron wasn't surprised by her sudden appearance at all; he had grown used to her
tendency of popping into his field of view
every now and then in the real world. As she continued building more and more quantum server superclusters, all of the Als had grown closer and closer to perfection in their emulation of human behaviors, and Nova was becoming more like a comfortable sister-cum-therapist for him of late. Especially after he had noticed that
his most recent system upgrade was aimed at removing what it considered to be useless emotions. His take on that issue was that it was exactly those “useless”
emotions that made humans, well, human. 1
“I'm thinking about what my mom and dad
told me just now, and letting my mind work on why the system was silent after accomplishing something so huge,” he
mused. “I mean, obviously my parents were right to lecture me. I didn't tell them anything, then let them be shocked by a
'sudden' war, and worry about my part in
it."
{They were right to lecture you,} Nova said.
{You should let them in to your life more. Don't treat them like they don't exist if you aren't looking at them, or think they're
weak because they don't have your advantages. They're stronger than you think, and I'm positive they can handle any news you tell them.}
She changed the subject and asked, {So
what's this about the system, then?} "If you think about it, the system is supposed to reward me whenever I use the knowledge I buy from it to benefit people.
We've already tried all the loopholes we can think of, like when we created random 'humans' in the simulation, then gave them all the tech built from the knowledge I
bought. But the system didn't reward me
with SP for any of the loopholes we tried exploiting, which means it'll only reward me if I share my technology with real, living humans," he explained.
{True.} She nodded, then remained silent
and waited for Aron to continue his train of
thought.
"So how come it's silent now, even though I used my tech to bring them under my leadership? Shouldn't that count as using it for humanity? I really wish there was some kind of instruction manual, or a system assistant or something," he sighed. “But there isn't. And everything I know about how it works tells me that I should've been
rewarded for achieving such a monumental
task using the tech given to me by the system."
Nova took an entire two seconds to think of a reply, then said, {Now that you mention it, that does seem rather odd. The system definitely should've given you SP for the war.... But since it's remaining silent, even after you got all of the surrender accords signed, I can think of three reasons it hasn't done so.
{The first possibility is that what you consider a 'monumental achievement' is insignificant in the eyes of the system. But
even when we consider the scale of the universe and the number of possible civilizations, that's the least likely option, as taking control of an entire civilization by
oneself is always a seriously difficult task, no matter the civilization.
{The second possibility is that it doesn't consider the takeover complete, as you have yet to pacify the population and get
them to accept your leadership. So only
once you accomplish that will the system reward for your actions.
you
{As for the third, and final, possibility, I
reward
believe the system might not be able to you with SP for taking over humanity and becoming its sole leader until you've completely awakened it. So your reward will be given then.} 1
Aron took a moment to think through those three options and agreed they were the most likely explanations for the system's unexpected silence. "So let's start eliminating them one by one. Since the easiest one to eliminate is your first possibility, we'll work on completing the
unification as fast as possible. How are our preparations for that coming?” he asked.
the
{The prep work should be finished within year, then we'll soon have an answer if our assumption is true or not,} she
answered.

Their Mother's Wrath
{So, have you changed your minds?} Nyx asked, sending shivers down the politicians' spines as they recalled their last month in the white room.
Only silence answered her, so she continued, {Maybe you'll be able to answer after another trip.}
She slowly raised her hand as if she was about to snap her fingers when everyone in the amphitheater stands suddenly groveled before her and shouted, “Please don't send us back there!"
up
and go
{Then wake do what you've been ordered to do,} Nyx said, then snapped her fingers and logged the politicians out of VR. In the situation room bunker, Trump opened his eyes, finding himself laid out on the conference table. He raised his hand to his face and felt an unfamiliar object that was kind of like a pair of glasses. 'I don't think I wear glasses?' he thought as he opened his eyes and sat up. He pulled the object off of his face and it was indeed a pair of unfamiliar glasses.
A sharp pain shot through his head as he recalled what had taken place right before he fell unconscious.
......
TICK
"I can't let you do that," the Acting Secretary of Defense, Patrick Shanahan, said. He reached into his coat and drew a pistol, then pointed it at President Trump.
TOCK
BANG!
A sonic wave burst in the room, powerful enough to cause a visible distortion in the air but gentle enough to not break bones or send people flying. It was, however, enough to knock everyone in the room
unconscious.
As he was beginning to fall, he noticed a soldier taking off his... her? hat and shaking her head as her face changed from masculine to feminine and long blonde hair fell like a rippling wave to her waist.
He found her extremely memorable, too, as she was the only one in the room that was still capable of standing.
He lowered his hand from his face and put his feet on the ground. "Time to get to work," he said, looking around the room and realizing he was talking mostly to himself, as the others weren't quite all awake yet.
But it didn't take long before they, too,
finished the logout procedure and removed
their glasses with shaking hands.
"Yes, sir," they chorused, then began working on carrying out the orders they
had received from Nyx. Aron's address was still continuing live on every screen in the bunker.
"All of the evidence I've provided here, together with even more evidence of gross
negligence and outright corruption have been posted on the Edenian Ministry of the Exterior website and has already been
made publicly available.
“Thank you all for your time," he bowed to
the camera, then stood ramrod-straight again and resumed staring at the camera, "and I hope our next meeting is under far more pleasant circumstances.”
Aron's address was complete; he had brought the rest of the world up to date on everything that had been happening.
He turned and left the area that had been synchronized with the flow of real time, as he had delivered his speech from the
relative safety and comfort of virtual
reality.
"What's the situation?” he asked as soon as
he appeared in a conference room just after leaving the time bubble he had been in for his speech.
{Nyx has released all of the high-level and
other important people needed for the unification to progress, and they've already
begun working to that end. Apparently they didn't like the white room.} She smirked.
Aron felt she was becoming more
humanlike as her processing power increased.
{Our carriers will continue their patrols,
ensuring a rapid response in case any
issues arise....} She continued her report, listing out all the points of interest Aron would need or want to know. "Good. Keep me up to date on things. Right now, I need to have a talk with mom and
dad."
{Yes, sir. Good luck,} she replied. Aron winced and muttered, "Thanks. I'm really gonna need it." He slowly trudged toward the door to log off. At the pace he
was moving, it was obvious he was more than a little concerned by his parents' potential reaction to recent world events.
No matter how big or how powerful a man grows, he will still never outgrow his parents' wrath.
The moment Aron's address had ended, each country's leader immediately followed up with addresses of their own. They all began the same way, with an apology to their people. After apologizing, they elaborated on their plans for the near
future and how the new world order was going to be, then blew happy little clouds of sunshine about how they would emerge from this trial even stronger, as one united species in the face of outside enemies. Still, the look of defeat and shame on the faces of the various leaders was something no one had ever wanted to see. Not only was it disappointing to their supporters, but even their detractors reacted poorly to the addresses. The former were depressed and ashamed, while the latter were enraged by the damage their “leaders” had caused their own countries.
And while some leaders had it easie
others weren't so lucky. Thus, all those
unlucky leaders could do was extend the lockdown for another day to give their populations time to calm down, as well as for the various governments to assess the damages they had each suffered in the brief, but impactful war. However, the citizens didn't react as expected. Instead, the individual addresses had acted like water being thrown into
boiling oil as people grew more and more furious as they discussed the situation. Anger, worry, fear, and every other negative emotion that could be felt and
expressed were definitely being both felt and expressed. Especially those who discovered they had lost relatives or close friends and loved ones during the brief
fight.
But the true extent of the damage was yet
to be known to anyone, save perhaps those
who had inflicted it.

The Edenian Defense Minister announced a press conference scheduled for later that evening, at which they would reveal their response to the recent events. The announcement calmed the Edenian citizens, who were understandably worried about the entire world coming together to destroy their happiness. Thus comforted, they went back to their regular activities and would wait to see what their government had to say later.
The day passed in the blink of an eye, and it was soon time for the press conference. Every Edenian citizen was glued to their television screen, and even activity on the internet had practically come to a screeching halt. The streets were clear of traffic, and without the liveliness that people bring with them, looked rather desolate. Businesses were empty, offices that normally had scattered windows shining light into the night sky were dark, and doormen were clustered around televisions at the reception desks in their buildings instead of manning the doors. Even security guards and police officers had stopped patrolling their beats and emergency service workers in the fire departments and ambulance bays were in their dayrooms, unblinkingly staring at the still image of the press room podium centered in their television screens.
The only people who weren't sitting in front of televisions awaiting the beginning of the scheduled press briefing were those that were in the press room and green room, and the members of ARES.
Those involved in the press briefing were preparing for it, and ARES, well... ARES was preparing for war.
At one minute until the briefing was about to begin, the media in the press room stilled and their background chatter died out. They all turned their eyes to the podium, knowing that the Edenian government's reputation for timeliness and punctuality was well deserved. Behind the podium stood four flags, two on each side. The flags showed who would be speaking at any given presser, and three of them were well known.
To the far left of the audience, in the position of honor, was the Edenian flag. Immediately to the right of it was the presidential flag. To the right of the podium, from the perspective of those in the room, was the flag of the Edenian Defense Ministry. Those three were easily recognizable, but to the right of the ministry flag was one the reporters had never seen.
Since the room was indoors, there was no breeze causing the flags to flutter, so all they could see of it was a bold red color.
Soon, the hour ticked over and two people walked onto the stage. They were the men of the hour: President Alexander Romero, who was wearing a smart, charcoal gray bespoke suit that screamed professionalism, paired with a navy blue tie and pristine white shirt; and Aron Michael, who was dressed in his ARES finery, with five stars in the shape of a pentagon on each shoulder.
The two were striking together. Aron was tall, with a face that seemed chiseled from marble and neatly combed short black hair and glacial blue eyes, while Alexander was a few inches shorter and his still-handsome face showed wisdom and maturity. Both men seemed cast from similar molds, with broad shoulders that tapered down to narrow waists, and they walked with confident, precisely measured steps.
Alexander stepped up to the podium, while Aron stood a step behind him and to his left, and the press briefing officially began.
"Good evening, dear citizens. I know these past few days have been very nerve-wracking, so to ease your minds, I brought the head of our national defense contractor, General Aron Michael, to speak directly to you." Alexander gestured to Aron, then continued, "General Michael, the stage is yours. Please address the people." He stepped back and to his right, allowing Aron to take the podium and address the nation.
"Good evening. As you know, President Romero and I have just been declared terrorists and NATO and the UN are preparing an invasion force to bring us to their so-called `justice'." He paused for a moment, then continued, "However, the crimes they're trying to pin on us are things they have yet to prove are even related to us. But despite their lack of evidence and ridiculous claims, they've already moved into action.
"Although a united Earth is something I've always wanted to see, it would've been better had the unity been peacefully achieved during the UN meeting where we discussed the approaching extraterrestrials. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. Instead, the rest of the world united against us in the hopes of robbing us of our technology, our resources, and our very way of life. Greed and fear overtook their rationality and the ravenous maw of human nature is now bearing down on us with the weight of an entire world behind it." He took a deep breath and his penetrating gaze stared unblinking into the sole camera set up in front of the stage.
"I know the idea of fighting against the entire planet is intimidating. I know you're afraid. And I understand your fears. However, I promise you that none of them will ever set foot on Edenian or Esparian soil. I promise you that no harm will come to even a single blade of grass on our beautiful continent. I promise you that our way of life will not just survive, but thrive and continue to grow. I swear to you that I will come down on the invading force with all of the might of the fist of an angry god, and no perpetrator of the injustices we are now suffering will see the sun rise on one day more than it takes us to hunt them down and dig them out of whatever hole they hide in.
"Because, trust me—they will hide. They will suffer the consequences of their arrogance, their greed, and their unfounded confidence in their own pathetic capabilities. And when they see that, they will run like the rats they are and hide in the deepest, darkest holes they can find, praying to whomever they believe in that I will not find them, that I will let them go... that I will forgive them.
"I will not. I will not forgive, I will not forget, and I will not let this injustice perpetrated against us go unanswered. I will, however, ensure that their prayers do.
"I stand here tonight and issue you this solemn vow: they will be judged. You, the innocent citizens of Eden and Esparia will not. I will not allow you to suffer, but I will rain hell upon those that attempt to force you to capitulate, to surrender, to give up everything you now enjoy. I will bring damnation to those that want to take what you have and force you back into the misery you recently lifted yourselves out of.
"I will judge the guilty and defend the innocent."
Aron took a deep breath, collecting himself, then continued, "And to those who want to take, those who want to spread misery, those who want to drag others down instead of lift themselves up. To those who want to enrich themselves even in this most dire of times, I tell you this: I am coming for you, and hell shall follow close behind me. You want to intimidate us, coerce us, rob us, kill us, and declare war on us?
"Fine. Bring it on." .

"Will the falling satellites hit anything on their way down?" President Zi asked once he had calmed down after his outburst.
"Based on their trajectory," the man opened his laptop and typed furiously, bringing up an orbital model of the satellites in orbit from the confidential servers at the ITU, "they're headed directly for some American and Russian satellites." He turned the laptop around and showed the labeled orbital map to the president. "That assumes that the Americans and Russians don't adjust their satellites to avoid the collision.
"How long until the earliest collision?" the president followed up.
"An hour or so, sir. Are you going to inform them so they can avoid it?"
"Why would I do that?" Zi Jinping chuckled. "We can use it to our benefit," he finished with a sinister smile on his face. All of his anger had dissipated when he realized that he didn't have to do anything and the Edenians would walk into a trap on their own.
"What benefit, sir?" asked the minister.
"How many of them are going to crash?"
"Due to the distances and the mechanics involved, the chances of a collision are normally really low. But the way ours are deorbiting seems like the paths have almost been calculated to purposefully cause collisions. If that's true, and it isn't just an accident, they'll take out ten satellites from Russia and another ten from America."
"Good, good, good!" Zi nodded. He was thrilled by the news.
"Contact the American and Russian embassies. Let them know I need an emergency conference call with Presidents Trump and Putin. We need to organize a joint response that's powerful enough to negate Eden's stealth missile bombardments. If we can't detect their missiles, let's give them so many things to shoot them at that they run out of missiles before we run out of targets to give them."
In a war of attrition, China would never fear anyone. There was a popular apocryphal anecdote about the interaction between Russia and China at the end of WWII. It was said that Joseph Stalin, at the end of the war, contacted the Chinese government and threatened to invade them with 250,000 Russian tanks.
The Chinese leader laughed and said, "Go ahead. Send your tanks, your infantry, and your planes. Send them all! I'll meet you at the border with peasants armed with sticks and rocks. You'll run out of bullets and bombs before China runs out of peasants!"
Stalin decided against the invasion and backed down after hearing that.
The same still held true to this day, but China now had allies, both of convenience and by treaties. So why would Zi Jinping suffer all of the losses when he could share that suffering with Eden's other enemies?
"There's a perfect opportunity for us, father. One that even removes the need for us to personally step in and make a move," George Morgan reported to his father.
"True." Aubrey Morgan turned to his secretary and ordered, "Get the president on the line."
Aubrey's secretary took out the burner phone they used when they needed to directly contact President Trump and dialed a number from memory. No numbers would ever be saved in the contacts of their stock of confidential burner phones.
Aron was in VR, floating in space with the Earth and its satellites below him. All of them were labeled, and he was watching the events unfold.
"The ball's in your court now, so what will you do?" he mused as he watched China's satellites fall. Some of them were doomed to collide with others, while some would "coincidentally" make landfall on a few particularly nasty politicians' properties. And one very special one was aimed directly at the Morgan family compound.
Nova appeared near him and asked, {Do you think they'll dodge them?}
"It depends. If the Morgans make a move, at least three American satellites will be taken down, assuming the Rothschilds do nothing. As for Russia, they're focused on their own thing. They've marched on Kyiv and will be there in a week or so, if nothing drastic happens. Ukraine can't support itself, and with just the limited support we're providing them, a week is the longest they can delay their impending downfall."
Aron really was planning on facing the entire world all at once.
A tall, scrawny old man with a hunched back, dressed in tattered sackcloth and wearing rags wrapped around his feet appeared. Silent tears were flowing down his face and he carried an empty clay bowl with chips on the rim and cracks throughout. He was none other than Coeus, the AI responsible for the Coeus Foundation. {Many people will die if they respond,} he said, grieving the upcoming loss of life.
He was the kindest of the Ala and would always mourn for any lives lost. But though he was kind and thoughtful, he wasn't an idiot; he understood that Aron's plan of becoming the whole world's enemy would end things with the least possible loss of life. But while Aron may think of it in colder terms, and considered the loss acceptable in terms of human resources, Coeus would always think of things from the point of view of the families left behind by the people who were about to die.
"It'll be a war to end all wars on Earth," Aron responded. He wouldn't belittle the AI or his beliefs at all, as he understood that Coeus' personality wasn't as cold as the rest of his siblings, who had been made for conflict, both military and business.
"And this is how it begins," he continued as he watched a Chinese satellite impact an American GPS satellite. The collision sent millions of fragments flying in all directions, destined to either burn up in the atmosphere or litter the orbital range with more dangerous space junk until it either escaped Earth's gravity or settled into a regular orbit, like the rest of the junk surrounding the planet.

Later that evening, Trump addressed the nation from the Oval Office. It was a rather late address, due to needing to delay it in order for the initial airstrikes to proceed uncontested. He could have held the address earlier, but General Mattis had convinced him that giving a nuclear power advance warning would be a terrible idea.
After the traditional opening statement, Trump said, "Due to the unprovoked and cowardly terrorist attack on our allies in South Korea perpetrated by the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-Un, I approved an immediate armed retaliation consisting of a huge bombing mission to remove their nuclear capability. As of thirty minutes ago, North Korea is no longer a nuclear power." He gave the camera in front of him a smug smile, thinking it would reassure the citizens that there would be no chance of a nuclear war.
After that, he continued his address, vilifying North Korea and branding them terrorists. He swore that he would chase the perpetrators responsible for the attack that caused hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties to the ends of the earth and that he would uphold America's responsibility to police the world and support and defend their allies in South Korea.
"And in order to accomplish this mission, I have ordered our forces in South Korea and Japan to cross the Korean Demilitarized Zone jointly with the South Korean forces to take out the rogue government of the North Korean terrorists."
After mentioning that, he paused, then continued, "During our investigation of the initial assault, we discovered a disturbing truth. North Korea didn't act alone. They were aided by the government of Eden...." As he continued his address, people were surprised. With just a few words, he had tarred Eden and North Korea with the same brush and included them in the upcoming American counteroffensive, thus removing the need for him to declare war on them individually.
Early the next morning, the news broke in America that China had also been carrying out an investigation of their own regarding four of their jets being shot down while they were on "routine patrols over the Chinese mainland". Their investigation had revealed that the ones who had shot them down were from Eden as well.
Given that the Edenian jets had been granted permission to operate by Taiwan, China issued an ultimatum to both countries: either they surrender and pay reparations within twelve hours, or China would respond with what they described as "overwhelming force", as they considered that a state of war existed between China and the two belligerents.
While all of that was going on, Russia had silently begun their "special military exercises" in Ukraine. It was an invasion in all but name, backed by the might of the Russian nation in full. That it happened at the same time as the American invasion of North Korea and the ultimatum being issued by China was only a coincidence.
The chaos had finally broken out, and Eden, who was dragged in by treaties—at least on the surface—had been painted as the villain and everyone just knew that the fledgling country would soon be wiped off the map by the much more superior militaries of two world superpowers. Behind the scenes, it was all about the greed and lust for power of people who had more money and power than they could ever use in three lifetimes. But they were practiced enough at just this kind of political theater that nobody other than the people involved would ever know of their involvement.
Or so they thought, anyway.
Despite giving Taiwan and Eden twelve hours to surrender or suffer, China only waited three hours before attacking. A swarm of cruise missiles flew across the Taiwan Strait, targeting radar stations, air defense installations, and military bases. China unleashed everything they had in an attempt to degrade the defenses in Taiwan as much as possible before they sent in their ground troops.
However, just as the first round of incoming fire was detected making its way toward Taiwan, a stream of tracer rounds came from every direction, taking down missile after missile. It didn't stop everything, of course, but thanks to a solid priority intercept system, the damage was extremely limited and spread out, so as to maintain as much of Taiwan's defensive strength as possible.
Even so, Taiwan knew the situation couldn't be maintained for long. Everyone knew that getting involved in a shooting war with a behemoth like China was a bad idea; after all, anyone would run out of bullets long before China ran out of bodies. And Taiwan knew that Chinese airstrikes were inevitable. Their anti-air installations would eventually be taken out, either by stealthed jets, bombing runs, or even good old fashioned collaborators taking them down from the inside. Once that happened, the small island nation of Taiwan would be all but helpless.
China, far from being discouraged by their initial attack's failure, sent a second wave of cruise missiles. They had plenty of them stockpiled and wouldn't feel the pinch even if they had to fire them for the entire duration of the twelve-hour ultimatum.
Soon, the second wave was followed by a third, then a fourth. Each round of fire came after an interval of about fifteen minutes, which gave Taiwan ten minutes of preparation time between them... in theory, at least. In practice, the Taiwanese military was running around like a headless chicken, frantically reloading their guns, changing out warped gun barrels, restocking countermissile batteries, and so on.
Plus, the damage inflicted by each wave might be minor, but it would only continue to grow over time.
"Our friends in Taiwan are requesting immediate support. Should we send it, or argue that we're fully occupied by dealing with America?" Alexander asked Aron. He had reported the request the moment he received it, also noting that they had signed a mutual defense treaty during the diplomatic visit a week prior.
"Naturally, we'll assist them. Let them know that we'll uphold our obligations under the treaty, but that we need all of our forces to deal with America, so our aid will be of the long-ranged variety."
Aron turned to the empty seat next to Alexander and said, "Aeolus."
Alexander felt a breeze and heard the ringing of wind chimes from the seat next to him. For some reason, it reminded him of a child's giggle. He had met Aeolus before, and nodded a greeting to the nearly invisible shimmer that hovered over the seat of the chair next to him.
{You need something, grampa?} Aeolus said. His voice sounded like wind chimes and was somewhat garbled, but still somehow recognizable.
(Ed note: Look up "speaking piano" on YouTube. It's a really interesting phenomenon, kind of like a version of pareidolia. Here's an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6e2c Ov4sBM )
"Work time, Aeolus," Aron sighed and massaged his brows.
Aeolus stopped chiming and a transparent, light blue humanoid figure appeared where he was sitting, a small nicety the AI implemented when it was time to focus on work instead of play. {Yes, sir. I'm up to date on the situation—what do you want done?}
"Take out all of the Chinese missile silos in Fujian Province," Aron ordered, then turned to Athena. "Athena, issue a warning to America that if they truly move on Eden, we'll respond in kind and they won't like the result." He wanted to end things as soon as possible, so he had to provoke the biggest possible attack from America. An alpha strike with overwhelming force wouldn't work nearly as well as a cocky threat; overwhelming force would make them cautious, but a threat like that would make them mad, and mad is exactly what he needed them to be.
After all, a sound beating would save more lives in the long run, and human resources were still resources.
{Yes, sir,} Aeolus replied, then his figure flickered in the equivalent of a blink. {The birds are in the air.}
{Message delivered, sir,} Athena said, then the meeting room changed. Alexander, Aron, and the AIs in the meeting now appeared to be floating in the air above the Edenian task group, which had been pulled from its presidential escort duty and diverted to the beleaguered Taiwan.
"You notified Taiwan, right?" Aron asked Alexander.
"Yes, my assistant sent the notification the moment you made the decision." "Good." Aron turned to Poseidon and asked, "Are we in range?" {Yes.} Poseidon nodded.
"Fire a saturation attack all along the coast of Fujian province. China wants an answer to their ultimatum? Fine. Let's give them one."
Editor notes: I'm afraid I've only got one chapter in me today, folks. I had a pretty significant surgery last Friday and thought that because it was a laparoscopic procedure I'd recover fast and wouldn't be too hindered. But the recovery's not going as I expected, so I may need to severely limit my time spent upright for a few more days. (Last Friday as in a week and a half or so ago, not just two days ago)

Thanks to the early interception of the Chinese J-20s, the presidential jet's trip was smooth. They hadn't faced any further interference during the last 45 minutes or so of their approach and landing. Once Eden One had landed, the fighter escort refueled and, with the permission of the host country, took up patrol duties for the duration of the diplomatic visit in order to prevent any incursions that could possibly threaten Alexander or Sarah.
As the Edenian visit was beginning, complete with all the pomp and circumstance surrounding high-level diplomatic missions, an entirely different atmosphere prevailed in the offices of the military leadership of China. They had received the debriefing notes on the short, but significant, encounter with the Edenian fighters near Taiwan and were scrambling to figure out exactly what had happened, and how. Their brand-new stealth interceptors had been... intercepted. And not only that, they were locked on by a targeting system from enemies that they couldn't even detect! It was a great loss of face for a country that placed great value on their national prestige.
"So you're telling me they discovered us, but we failed to discover them?" Zi Jinping asked as he slapped a folder onto his desk and massaged his temples with his other hand.
"Yes, leader. That seems to be the case," the Minister of National Defense answered.
"Do you believe it?" Zi asked.
"Based on the pilots' expressions during their debriefing, and the flight recordings, that seems to be what happened. But it's still difficult to believe that we couldn't discover their planes when they're flying the same Russian Su-35s that we're already intimately familiar with. After all, we have some of those, too, so we know for a fact that we can see them on our radars," the minister replied. In order to escape the blame, he would just give the president all the information he had at hand and allow him to come to his own conclusion. That way, if that conclusion were to later be found incorrect, it wouldn't be the minister's fault.
He was definitely a seasoned politician and had vast experience with buck-passing.
"Apparently, they've modified their jets to make them invisible to radar. That isn't a good thing at all—they're currently patrolling Chinese Taipei, so if we continue our air incursion plan..." the head of the MSS began, then paused to take a deep breath.
"They'd be well within their rights to shoot our jets down with the justification that they pose an imminent threat to their president. They're only required to give a single warning before firing, since they've been granted permission by the government to be there," he finished.
Zi Jinping's face darkened. "So we can't continue our incursions for now?" he asked.
"Unfortunately, no," the minister of defense answered.
"I'll add that to the list," Zi Jinping said with a frown. "Right now, we still have a use for the Edenians. Taipei gave them permission to patrol their airspace, right?"
"Yes."
Zi Jinping turned to the minister of national defense and said, "Find some martyrs among our pilots. They have a final job to do. It's time to bring Chinese Taipei back to the fold."
The minister of national defense thought for a moment, then saluted and left the room. He had been given his orders, and didn't need to know about anything else that would be said in the briefing room.
Three days later, somewhere over Taiwan.
Archangel 02 had discovered a Chinese J-20 over Taiwan. The previous two days had been peaceful, with no Chinese incursions, so the Edenian pilot had been caught slightly off guard when his AI assistant, who had been monitoring his long-range sensor array, notified him that a J-20 had been picked up on his LIDAR.
He immediately locked his targeting reticle on the J-20 through his HUD AR display and broadcast a warning on all frequencies. "Unidentified aircraft, you have entered a restricted airspace. I repeat, you have entered a restricted airspace. You have thirty seconds to reverse course and return. This is your only warning, if you do not comply you will be fired upon. I repeat, you will be fired upon."
Then he switched to the secure intrasquadron q-com channel and reported, "Contact, contact, contact. Chinese J-20 stealth fighter on course for Taipei. I issued the warning—what are your orders, commander?"
"Close range and fire a warning shot with your guns," Archangel 01, the leader of the Archangel squadron ordered.
"Roger, closing."
Archangel 02 adjusted his course to intercept the J-20 and pushed the throttle of his jet to the stops and soon reached Mach 2.8, where he backed it off and entered supercruising mode. The current "fastest" jet on the planet was the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor, which could supercruise at Mach 1.8 or fly at Mach 1.2 with afterburners, so the pilot judged that Mach 2.8 would suffice. It would allow him to intercept the Chinese interceptor over an uninhabited area while keeping at least some of his jet's capabilities hidden.
He soon got a visual on the J-20, which had made no effort to adjust its heading or speed. Aiming his targeting reticle ahead of the intruding Chinese, he fired a burst of tracers from his guns that passed ten meters in front of the target.
The Chinese jet turned to engage him as the other three pilots on patrol for the day also reported contacts of their own.
"Incoming intruders are hostile, engage at will," came the order from Archangel 01.
"Roger, engaging," chorused the other three pilots in the squadron.
Archangel 02 went vertical and gained 1000 feet of altitude, bleeding speed as he did so, then executed a hammerhead turn and came around behind the target. He reacquired lock on his target and released a missile as he reported, "Archangel 02, fox one."
Then... there was no then. What had once been a J-20 briefly became a firework, then a rain of small pieces of metal that, perhaps years later, old men and women with metal detectors would dig up on the shore of Taiwan outside of Taipei and wonder what they once were.
Other than that brief interlude, where the Edenian patrol shot down four Chinese intruders, Alexander's Taiwan visit was peacefully brought to a conclusion. He had signed a mutual defense treaty with Taiwan in addition to the standard trade agreements he'd been offering to all of the nations on his whirlwind world tour. In addition to that, he had set up an embassy and issued a public declaration recognizing the Republic of China as an independent country that was in no way beholden to the People's Republic of China.
The journey to North Korea was relatively peaceful. The escort pilots had handed off patrol duties back to Taiwan and the flight was smooth. The interdiction fleet made no attempt to stop the Edenian delegation as it passed over them, the escorts sarcastically wagging their wings in salute to the American and Japanese fleets as they went. They had all received the same notification from their assistant AIs that all observation instruments on the ships had been focused on them, but the pilots only snorted and wished them luck.
The naval escort, on the other hand, couldn't say the same. After Eden One and its escorts had passed the interdiction fleet, the naval escort joined the other task group that had been sent ahead of Alexander's visit. That fleet had been in a standoff with the American fleet outside Namp'o, the nearest port city to Pyongyang, for a few days before their "reinforcements" had arrived.
Heedless of the tension on the sea, Alexander's delegation smoothly landed at the Korean People's Army Air Force Headquarters in Pyongyang, where they were met by the Aegis team that had been sent ahead prior to the Taiwan visit. The Aegis team leader that had been in country longer pulled the presidential Aegis team leader aside for a briefing on the situation as Alexander stepped into his car in the Edenian motorcade and, with his extra security team, headed toward the Mansudae Assembly Hall.
Unlike the relatively peaceful and enthusiastic reception Alexander had received in Taiwan, an almost palpable sense of tension hung in the air here.
Even the weather seemed to agree, as it was unseasonably cold, overcast, and windy. He left his car, dressed in a midnight blue suit and a black greatcoat that hung from his shoulders to his knees and topped everything off with a striped wool scarf in the colors of the Edenian flag. He put on his best professional smile and waved for the flashing cameras of the state media, who were there to document Kim Jong-Un's first visit from a foreign dignitary.
"Welcome to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, President Alexander," Kim Jong-Un's sister greeted in passable English.
"Thank you, Miss Kim." Alexander shook her hand, then gestured for her to join him as they entered the assembly hall.
A few hours later in an underground bunker, somewhere near the DMZ.
A North Korean General answered a red phone on the first ring. His sole job for the past three years had been to sit in that office and stare at the red phone on the desk in front of him. There was nothing else in the room; no computer, no cellphone, nothing. Only a desk, a chair, and a hanging light fixture marred the dreary gray reinforced concrete of the windowless underground room. An ashtray that was overflowing with cigarette butts was on the opposite side of the desk, accompanied by an opened pack of counterfeit Huanghelou Xianliang Ban cigarettes.
"Yes.... I understand.... Yes, sir. Right away, sir. For the unification!" He stood and saluted, then disconnected the call and dialed a new number, one that he had memorized years before but had never needed to dial... until today.
When the voice on the other end of the phone answered, he said one word: "Fire." Then he lit a cigarette and sat back in his chair; they may be counterfeit, but they still reminded him of home.
Within minutes, almost ten thousand guns and MLRSs of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea Army simultaneously pulled their triggers. Other than the four thousand pieces of self-propelled artillery that had been moved to the coast to fend off the trade interdiction fleets of the United States and Japan, the rest of the over fourteen thousand guns were still trained on South Korea.
The guns spoke, shaking the very ground they were braced upon. It was the first round of shots in nearly a century of cease-fire between North and South Korea, but it would not be the last.