The Martial Unity

Time passed even as the entire world rushed to race to the stars as soon as they possibly could. The reality was that even if the world wanted to get space that very day, they couldn’t. There was too much of a gap between the infrastructure and resources they needed and the immediate availability.

The space shipyards that nominally constructed spaceships for state actors that made commissions of them were now freed to construct ships for whoever they wanted. They were immediately swamped with orders from countless entities in the world, both state and private. The laissez-faire legislation passed by the General Assembly of the Gaian Alliance gave them the freedom to sell to whoever they wanted at their own discretion. They immediately began expanding their own production capacity, because the rapacious appetite of human civilization was simply far too great for them to remain at the size that they were. Not to mention, under normal circumstances, constructing even a single space shipyard was extremely tolling both financially and in terms of resources.

However, with the spike in demand from the private sector for ships, it immediately became extremely profitable to expand their production capacity by an order of magnitude, if not even more.

It wasn’t just ship-production companies, however, that began expanding production to accommodate spiking demand; it was also every other even tangentially related sector and industry. If they had anything to do with space, they were immediately swamped with countless orders and were flooded with capital as their stock price shot to unprecedented highs. They were both required to expand their capacities and given the means to do so. Raw materials suppliers also tangentially received a massive boost in capital investment, allowing them to extract more resources not just from Gaia but also from outer space. Even though recent battles in outer space in the past four months had caused damage, most of the solar system was still largely intact when it came to the mineral resources in outer space. In fact, thanks to the Tendril of Light reducing half the solar system to dust, they could collect minerals much more effortlessly.

The few planets that were intact with a powerful mining presence in them began being scraped for resources extremely aggressively. It didn’t even matter if they were made-up compounds and materials that were entirely junk; demand was so astronomically high that even nuclear transmutation was profitable. Just as had been planned, humanity went out of its way to pour all the resources and capital into space expansion, causing an acceleration that simply would have been impossible otherwise.

Conversely, industries that had nothing to do with space actually suffered a dry spell when it came to capital, the most notable example being the deep-sea submarine industry. This industry had been the target of a tremendous amount of funding due to the presence of negatron matter in the Great Void Ocean. However, now, it had been completely drained of capital. The industry didn’t recover from the stock market crash caused by the space race.

“Dammit.” Minister Ranea gritted her teeth as she skimmed through several reports from marine and naval shipyards about the acute deprivation of capital to expand maritime affairs. Her hair was messy and frizzy, while dark bags hung underneath her eyes as she pored over all the information available at her disposal, trying to find a way to prevent the maritime industry from suffering greatly.

“Everybody is off rushing to space,” she muttered under her breath. “What’s so cool about space? It’s just empty space and endless darkness. Isn’t the ocean so much cooler?”

She knew she was being childish, of course. She also knew that this was a long time coming and had done her best to prepare for this moment. However, what she hadn’t expected was that her brother would whip humanity into an all-out frenzy that would negatively affect their domestic maritime and naval affairs, something he seemed unbothered by. His vision saw far more than smaller and limited matters, for he was constantly focusing on the ultimate destiny of human civilization. Ever since he broke through to Transcendence, Ranea found him to be absolutely inscrutable. Even when he looked at her or anybody for that matter, she got the eerie feeling that he wasn’t looking at them, but rather something more fundamental to their existence. As if they weren’t even people, but rather something far more banal and transparent to him.

While others were awed by his godly presence and the very fabric of reality bowing to his presence, she found his newfound power and his newfound self to be disturbing, even though she didn’t say that out loud.

“Busy?” The voice of her younger sister, Ru, drew her attention as she turned to find the young woman standing at her doorstep. Ranea took a moment to appreciate how much the woman resembled their father. Her golden eyes, her golden hair, and even their faces and heads were extremely similar to each other. Out of all the children that their father had had, she had inherited the most from him.

“You’re not going to find a way to make the local maritime industry able to compete with the space industry able to compete with space, you know?” Ru remarked with a pointed tone. “It’s not a battle you can win.”

“I know, but I’m not just going to abandon a sector that I have dedicated my entire life to,” Ranea huffed.

“I’m not asking you to abandon it, I’m just saying that you should focus on solutions that will actually work,” Ru replied calmly. “Maritime industries in Gaia alone cannot compete against the space industry, but…”

Her golden eyes lit up. “The maritime industry on alien worlds with its own ocean… that’s another matter altogether.”

Ranea’s eyes widened with shock. “There are oceans on exoplanets?”

“Not all, and in most cases, they’re frozen, but yes,” her sister replied with a disapproving tone. “It would behoove you to spend some time learning about astronomy now that the cosmos is within our reach, dear sister.”

“Hah, I’ve never cared to do that, but perhaps you’re right,” Ranea’s eyes lit up with intrigue at the possibility. “Maybe the solution to keeping maritime affairs alive is to take everything to space!”