The Martial Unity

Rui’s words stunned all of them squarely. Even Lord Narsimha, who was in favor of an aggressive expansion, turned towards him with a surprised expression.

“S-Sir, I don’t mean to be rude, but that is, frankly…” he hesitated. “‘Delusional,’” Rui read his mind.

“I didn’t say that, Your Majesty!”

“You were thinking it. Tell me why you think this is impossible?”

The man hesitated once more, unwilling to explain why the most powerful man was completely delusional. “Sir, there are ten thousand or so stars within a hundred light-years of Sol. Conquering or colonizing them would take far more resources than we produce, unless we severely downgrade the definition of ‘conquer.’”

“By conquer, I mean establish a colonial establishment, a resource extraction apparatus, and a military stronghold that can enforce our control over a star or solar system against military forces lower than a Type-Two Civilization,” Rui clarified.

“In that case, we barely have the resources to do that for the twenty star systems we have visited, Your Majesty,” the man heaved a sigh. “I do not mean to burst your bubble, but you are asking for the impossible. There are only so many warships and spaceships we can produce each year. We don’t have the production capacity to expand so aggressively over the next ten years. What you are asking for is only possible in a century. This is not even including the fact that our fertility rates cannot generate so many people in such a short period of time.”

Rui’s expression grew a little frustrated as the director of his space organization doused him with the cold water of reality. Rui knew he was being unreasonable, of course. But he couldn’t help but want Gaian Civilization to expand outwards and become stronger within a reasonable amount of time.

“There is one method, Your Majesty.”

A familiar voice behind him drew his attention.

He turned to the people behind him with a raised eyebrow as his gaze landed on her.

The Shepherd.

She was one of his advisors, and he had brought her to the meeting, even if she had made her presence extremely scarce. The woman had drowned herself in the data that Rui had provided her on ancestral humanity. He had even shared with her his memories of Earth, causing her to gush with enthusiasm and drown herself in them, reconstructing ancient Earth civilizations. She had fulfilled her responsibilities perfectly, of course. With her help, Rui had managed to turn the Kandrian Empire into something that could be called a utopia. He had brought unprecedented prosperity to Panama.

Martial violence had plummeted to historic lows, and civilians experienced a level of safety that was historically unprecedented, leading to an explosion of self-actualization among people in their lives.

All of it thanks to the policies and their implementation as devised by the Shepherd, all while completing a documented history of ancestral human civilization that had become regarded as the most impressive piece of historiography in the entire world.

She turned her attention to the stars depicted on the screen surrounding Sol with eyes that sparkled with interest, shifting her spectacles. “The director’s words are correct. It is not possible to expand this quickly under the current system of expansion that we have. Thus…”

A smile emerged on her face.

“We need to change our system of expansion.”

Everybody in the room frowned, unsure about what the eccentric woman had in mind. It didn’t help that she was clearly a little abnormal. Wearing oversized sweaters whose sleeves were much longer than her arms. When she pointed at the image on the screen, the end of the sleeves flapped, making it difficult to take her seriously.

But Rui knew better than to dismiss the woman. “What exactly do you have in mind?”

He already knew the answer, reading her soul on the spot, and yet he allowed her to explain for the sake of everybody else.

“Right now, we have a system of nationalized spacefare,” she explained patiently. “That is why it is impossible. As long as the state singlehandedly owns all of spacefare. Then it will be impossible for us to achieve the results you seek in the timespan that you seek. That is why this system needs to go.”

His ethereal eyes lit up. “You mean…”

She grinned at him. “You need to privatize interstellar expansion.”

Her words sent a shockwave across everybody in the room. Shifting from a nationalized spacefare system, where only governments did the job of building spaceships, warships, and other resources needed to expand, to a privatized system of spacefare, where private companies, individuals, and guilds could expand into outer space, was a drastic change.

It would be literally world-changing.

“Y-Your Majesty,” the director of the Panamic Space Organization stammered as he rushed to push back against a solution that would deprive him of a lot of control over space expansion. “I wouldn’t recommend such a solution. Privatizing spacefare would mean surrendering tremendous control and power. You would lose control over human civilization!”

Funnily enough, that didn’t sound that bad to Rui. He wasn’t a control freak. And until his father died, he had been fine with most of the world being beyond his direct control. “Privatizing it would also mean the rise of money-minded tycoons who don’t care for human civilization,” Mother Alicia pointed out with a warning tone of voice. “It could divide human civilization greatly.”

“It would also contradict some of the purpose of the Gaian Alliance, Your Majesty,” Director Selvin of the Panamic Space Force added. “The point being to expand in a united manner that will not cause future divisions between races and civilizations.”

Rui’s enthusiasm faltered a little. Indeed, those were valid counters.

However, the immortal sage was not so easily pushed back.

“The free market is a very powerful force when harnessed correctly,” she told Rui. “The problems they bring up only occur when one fails to harness the free market properly, making it go out of control. This is a very dangerous force to play around with if you don’t know what you are doing, but thankfully…”

She smiled at him confidently.

“You have me. I can create a system that harnesses free markets to accelerate our expansion speed one hundredfold.”

Her tone grew even more certain.

“With my help, you can conquer ten thousand stars in ten years.”