The Martial Unity

“If you do do this…” Rui continued with a serious tone of voice. “Then you must ensure that it’s done with the Gaian Alliance, and not through the Panamic Alliance. The more Panama outstrips the rest of the forces in the world and monopolizes more territory and star systems, the more difficult it is for me to lead the negotiations for the Gaian Alliance.”

Those words were important for him to put aside his work and pay his little sister more attention. “The Gaian Alliance is an absolute necessity to occur. They’ve already signed the charter, and the organization exists on paper.”

“On paper, yes,” she emphasized with a pointed tone. “On paper is not enough. It needs to be truly an alliance. And that means that you will have to bite some bitter pills.”

Rui raised an eyebrow. “Such as?”

“Such as the spoils for the gargantian capture operation,” she told him. “You must be willing to make a show of good faith; our allies will think that this alliance simply serves to consolidate Panamic control over Gaian Civilization.”

Over the past six years, the Panama Continent had grown extremely powerful. The number of Martial Sages had exploded, and their net military power was eclipsing the world.

While the net potential of the Evolutionary Army was thought to be higher, the generation of miracles was still only six years old, nowhere near old enough to translate to any meaningful boost in their net power.

While Rui had operated in good faith with his negatron matter policy and his willingness to trade with it, it still made a lot of other nations wary. Rui knew that a lot of the elves, for example, weren’t happy that Panama had made them accept war as a reality when they were, by nature, very peaceful.

Even though his relationship with Mother Maeria was extremely good, it was more interpersonal and about shared concerns about the alien virus that made it good.

He heaved a deep breath. “…If they contribute to the gargantian capture, then we can discuss spoils of war proportional to the contribution. But I’m not giving anything for free. I don’t want to cultivate expectations for free stuff in this environment.”

She nodded. “Expecting contributions is fine. In fact, it will be good for smoothing out the practical implementation of the Gaian Alliance. As long as we can iron out this organization before we begin expanding to even more star systems, then I believe that we will be able to remain united as a civilization. One way to make the Gaian Alliance more important than it currently is to make the Gaian Reproduction Plan something that the entire alliance can get along with. After all…”

She directed a pointed gaze at him. “The seven species of Gaia live in seven different environments altogether.”

Rui pondered those words, realizing their truth. Indeed, the elves needed an environment conducive to nature all year. The dwarves were more comfortable in organically barren lands that were rich with rare earths and critical minerals that were needed for technology; the same was true for the tekvores. The giants needed organically rich and bountiful lands, while the evolutionaries were adaptable. The Panamans were more accustomed to esoteric and exotic continents.”

In order to create worlds that were comfortable for everybody, it was best to get everybody on board with the Gaia Reproduction Plan through the Gaian Alliance and make it a joint collaborative project. “It is also better for the sake of unity that all major races get a share of the territory of all planets,” she advised. “In the past, the race to the stars was framed as competitive because we didn’t have external pressures that forced us to collaborate. But now that there are very extreme threats out there in the universe, we must get along with each other. And the best way to do that is to ensure that there are shares of races on each world.”

Rui found himself agreeing with that, actually. He could easily foresee that if different races occupied different planets and different star systems, then it would automatically become much more likely to lead to civil wars within the Gaian Alliance.

That was a deeply undesirable result, and it was best to avoid creating the structural divides that would lead to civil war. “Good idea, ensure it is implemented,” he told her casually. “I want to capture the gargantian specimen as soon as possible and have the Divine Doctor analyze how this species reproduces. All so that we can recreate its reproductive methodology with Gaia and create mini-little Gaias across the out interstellar neighborhood before the threats of the comos reach us, whenever they do. When they come…”

His eyes sharpened. “I want them to run into such a tremendously powerful army that not even they will be able to break our civilization. For that, we need more territory, more power, more assets, more pathwalkers, and more everything. We are deeply insufficient as we are right now.”

She nodded. “I’ll be sure to ensure that that happens.”

And she did, from that day forth, the vision that Rui espoused rapidly became the vision of the Gaian Alliance. A vision of expansion for the sake of strength, for the sake of survival. The Gaian Reproduction Plan was unanimously approved by the member states of the Gaian Alliance and quickly put into action. The Divine Doctor, the highest authority on life itself, was put in charge of the plan. No other expert in the world had studied the life of Gaia as much as he, who had known centuries ago that Gaia was a living being. No one was more qualified to give her the power to reproduce than any species that possessed the ability to.

The space programs of all races were rapidly consolidated into a single Gaian Space Organization and Gaian Space Force that answered to the authority of the elected Chancellor of Gaia. Allowing Rui to deploy the full power of his civilization in the capture of the gargantian specimen.