"I'm honestly a little surprised that they've got the resources for something like that."
Clarissi Vril Dox the Second twitches in a way which suggests that he'd quite like to grit his teeth.
Heh. Never underestimate the violent impulses of a species that were the local weapons dealers.
"I have provided you with intelligence updates on all of the worlds of the Vega Systems, including an analysis of the likely results of your isolation edict."
Ah… I…
Been getting a bit behind in your reading, Lord Grayven? Too busy canoodling with your equestrian lady?
Dox has been responsible for overseeing… Everything, really, during my prolonged absences from Vega. The rebuilding project, actually running the Tamaran half of the Orange Lantern Corps, training the fleet… Except when I swing by and drop something new on his lap. I… Sort of assumed that he was enjoying the challenge, but I… Think that I've been being a bit… Neglectful.
It's not as if I didn't read any of them, but there are only so many hours in the day.
I'm guessing this Dox is heading right down his canon trajectory of 'micromanaging asshole'. But really, you couldn't have the rings
summarize for you?
"Yes, and I read those relating to Tamaran, Euphorix, Karna and Rashashoon. I just didn't regard Emana as being my problem."
"It-."
It's kind of your fault that they're
in this mess, what with the whole 'confined to their homeworld' thing...
Dox is biting something down. I don't.. really know if addressing it directly will actually help at this point, but… I've heard of this 'subtlety' thing, but I've never actually seen it.
...
I... <Bites tongue> So
many things I could say...
"Did you..? Want it to be my problem?"
"If you had read the reports, you would know the answer to that."
"The answer, if you
must know, is obviously '
Yes'." Boy, I kind of
feel for this Dox... Amazed he hasn't snapped and beaten someone to death with his bare hands
yet...
"Dox, if I were a detail guy I wouldn't have broken you out of prison. Just give me the summary."
"Emana is a society controlled by networks of corporations. When you stripped the assets of some and not others, that created massive instability in their civilisation. The result of that massive shift in internal power is the war we're seeing."
Lesser corps taking shots of opportunity at once-stronger foes, eh? I can just imagine the mayhem breaking out. Like a world-wide game of
Syndicate or
Cyberpunk... But with no real win condition besides 'survive!'
I frown. "What about their government?"
"They didn't have one."
What part of 'controlled by networks of corporations' did you not comprehend?
My frowns deepens. "Sounds like they were asking for trouble, then. Who ran their courts?"
"Whoever the local landowner was. The planet's supervisory council was permitted to exercise some power in adjudicating disputes between the various consortia, but they had very little power."
I suppose they needed
some manner of interceding organisation. If only to prevent the kind of corporate warfare currently going on.
"'Had'?"
"They were targeted in the second round of fighting and no longer exist."
Guess someone got sick of them trying to calm things down?
…
"Huh."
I don't really feel bad about that. They sided with the Citadel, and no one made them have a world war. Still, it is pretty wasteful. Plenty of advanced civilisations manage perfectly well with a single planet.
To be fair, aren't you basing that on
Earth? Remember, the Branx were
interstellar before your little beatdown.
I look a little closer. "Some of those blasts look pretty big."
"They build weapons for the Citadel. With no market and no ships to mount them on, they turned them on one another."
Since they had plenty of backstock just waiting to be used, and all...
"So long as they haven't launched unrestricted fusion bombardments-."
A rather large explosions appears on the southern continent.
And people knock
me for taunting Murphy? I'm an
amateur compared to the Renegade.
Dox notices it as well. "A little ahead of the most probable timeline, but perfectly expected."
"What on-? They're-." Drat. "More of them are going to do that, aren't they?"
Only drawback of them bombing themselves back into the stone age... He won't be able to make use of them in the coming fighting...
"Yes, but not immediately. That's an escalation, and the various groups have to decide whether to group together against the aggressor or follow suit and retaliate in kind."
"Why did it take this long?"
Presumably they had to wait until they had the comparative high ground of being the aggrieved party? Tossing nukes around tanks your international reputation, after all. Or they were led by the Branx equivalent of
Civilisation Gandhi.
"Consortia aren't arranged geographically by alliance blocks. For the most part they were clustered by function, meaning that each one had its most bitter rivals as neighbours. They had to seize control of geographic locations before area bombardment made sense."
Makes sense, I suppose. If they're arranged by business rather than nation state…
The map must have been quite the patchwork of overlapping spheres of interest. In the
past tense, at least.....
"So… What are our chances of getting anything useful out of that mess?"
"Minimal."
Assuming you
can get anything out of the radioactive cinder it's shaping up to become. But unlike, say, the Krogans, they're not going to recover so well...
I sigh softly as a series of smaller explosions pockmark the western continent.
"Could we actually use t-?"
If you'd deigned to intercede before war broke out,
maybe?
"Yes. Most of our orbital infrastructure is theirs. Most of the people who worked it were still alive."
"I thought that letting the Tamaraneans have their independence and revenge was… Would be more useful in the medium term."
Well, at least you can see how that bit you in the arse
now. Typical short-term thinking of a Renegade...
"Possibly."
I glance at him as he doesn't look at me.
Yes, you can feel his
desire to give you the old 'are you stupid' glare, can't you?...
"No, come on. You can be honest with me."
"It was a moronic waste of resources. This was a productive world. It would have been easier and more efficient to extort them than to seize infrastructure and ships as you did."
You might have had to make a few examples of less cooperative groups, but that wouldn't have taken long...
"There's more to life than efficiency. Though I'll admit, in our current situation, that would probably have been a better decision." I turn my attention back to the planet. "Can't help but notice that you didn't do anything about it either."
"You didn't order me to."
Oh, going for the malicious compliance angle, Dox? Boy, he must really be fuming inside, under that iron self-control...
"If I'd wanted a Clarissi who did nothing beyond my orders, I would have hired a pocket calculator. You are allowed to exercise your own initiative where it doesn't directly contradict my orders. And if you think I'm doing something 'ill-advised', then you're free to tell me that." I frown curiously at him. "Honestly, a man of your intelligence, I'm a little surprised you can't model my behaviour well enough to predict that."
"I don't have enough data on magic or 'New Gods'. My models for you were always off."
Probably didn't help that some of your decisions were made on a whim. That'd be hard to code the random factor for.
"Okay, well, let's just chalk this one up to experience and…" I nod at the planet below us. "Work out what we're going to do about that."
Dox appears to consider for a moment.
...Say a prayer for the dead and let it burn?
"It's too late."
"That's a little ominous."
Then maybe you should have paid attention to Vega more?
"Social order has broken down too much for standard contractual arrangements to be possible. There's no government, and the heads of the consortia won't negotiate in good faith. The more idealistic ones would sabotage us in revenge rather than try and network with us."
"Individual recruitment?"
So, short of a total conquest that shatters all existing power bases, there's no options. And that option would basically cripple the systems you want to make use of...
"Not worth the time it would take to locate useful individuals."
That makes a depressing amount of sense.
It's your own damn fault, Renegade. You made this bed, now you're having to lie in it.
"Okay. Anything else you've wanted to do but haven't because I haven't specifically authorised it?"
"Yes."
"Tell me the top three, and we'll go from there."
Yeah, giving him carte blanche might be going too far the
other way, after all. I'm sure the Renegade still has
some memories how badly Dox can fuck up when left to his own devices...
"I want to try and recreate the circumstances that led to the creation of X'Hal."
"Get volunteers and I'll approve it, though unless you've already made progress I'm going to say leave it until after we deal with my alter-ego."
You'd definitely want someone whose loyalty is unquestionable. No point making a Tamaranean god of war that'll decide you aren't worthy of their fealty.
"I want to study Qwardian technology."
"The Qwardians aren't alien-friendly. If you can talk a Weaponer into sharing, sure, otherwise it's not worth the aggravation.
Of course, Lysis is available,
probably. But we haven't seen how amenable she is to sharing her own tech yet, really...
"And I want to study New Gods."
I hesitate.
"That… Could be tricky."
Given that it'll likely demand
invasive analyses, and all the New Gods you have available are friends? Just a
bit.
