Chapter 468: The Citizens Need Answers
468 The Citizens Need Answers
As people's attention was split between the media's reports on the growing economy and the progress of the Three Percenters receiving their blessings, a breaking news story intruded into the public consciousness via a link on everyone's devices and a special report on every television screen and radio station. Following the link took people to a report about a bright light discovered in space headed toward Earth at an almost unimaginable speed.
Located a few days before by a member of Australia's Anglo-Australian Observatory in New South Wales' Siding Spring Observatory, it had at first been dismissed as a scanning artifact caused by a glitch in their system, or perhaps even a smudge on the telescope's lenses. After taking the telescope offline and cleaning the lenses, they scanned again, only to make the alarming discovery that a meteor of unconscionable size was rapidly approaching Earth. But Australians being Australians, the discovery was met with a resounding "meh" and they simply sat down to identify the meteor before publishing what they claimed "will perhaps be the last scientific article ever published by a member of the human race".
And to their surprise, the meteor was identified within a matter of hours. The only confusing thing was why would 1 Ceres suddenly break its stable orbit and approach Earth with what appeared to be a stable acceleration?
The Anglo-Australian Observatory astronomer who wrote the report skyrocketed to immediate fame when the media company interns that had assigned their AI assistants to constantly scan new entries to the Akashic Record for newsworthy events frantically pushed the report up their chains of command, leading to the broadcast. But by that point, when the newsrooms' fact checkers verified the information on the Akashic Record, they saw that Ceres was decelerating and would reach Earth within a day.
Then, the old habit of "selling fear" raised its ugly head again and the news anchors broke in with a breaking story about how Earth was doomed to be destroyed when a rogue meteor impacted it.
The broadcast was noticed by Gaia, who issued takedown notices within seconds of the news anchors mentioning that the world was about to be destroyed, along with cutting the broadcast off the air and reporting the issue to Aron, who at that point was seriously regretting the laxity in his lese majeste laws.
He wasted no time and immediately logged back in to the simulation and took to the podium again to address the situation. He could only internally apologize to Henry and his family, sending them a note that they could go ahead and plan whatever trip they wanted to take and he would be there with them, but he couldn't be involved in the planning due to a situation that required his immediate attention.
As he was logging in and taking his place behind the podium, Nova issued an "invitation" to the media to attend the imperial briefing, where they would be allowed to ask questions after the emperor's prepared announcement. Naturally, the media all complied, rushing to log in to the simulation via the link provided in their invitations, which were actually just thinly veiled imperial commands. Having operated in politics for decades, the newly instated heads of the broadcasting companies—their predecessors having been shitcanned and blackballed for the previous snafu with their uncontrolled broadcasting of the cultist manifesto—knew what awaited them if they didn't send their representatives to the briefing in a timely fashion.
Aron panned his gaze across the sea of reporters, all of whom felt chills pass down their spine as they felt an emperor's displeasure for the first time. None of them had ever seen him in person before, as the cleansing carried out in the broadcast conglomerates after the cultist manifesto fiasco had been extremely thorough; many previously famous newsrooms had been left with only interns and experienced backstage crew.
"As you have discovered, there is an asteroid from the main asteroid belt approaching Earth at high speed and is expected to reach the planet within the day. But what you weren't aware of, due to slipshod fact checking and upper-level management still subscribing to the philosophy that 'fear sells', is that there is no danger to the planet from the dwarf planet Ceres' approach."
Aron gripped the sides of the podium, his entire bearing emanating righteous anger despite the lack of any expression on his face as he continued, "Had you, the media, actually done your jobs and investigated the phenomenon—something that Our policy of transparency in governance has made extremely simple—you would have discovered that.
"But you either failed to do the research and investigation, or you were ordered to jump the gun and spread fear and panic among the citizens of the empire, still intent on profiting from the resulting chaos and misery. Regardless, it makes no difference, the news is out and the citizens need answers. So, answers they shall have." The podium beneath his hands creaked and groaned as he gripped it with all the force he could muster, becoming more enraged with the media as the seconds ticked past.
"So allow Us to elaborate on the situation. Two weeks prior to the empire's formation, We sent ten unmanned vessels to the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter as part of an ongoing mission to survey and explore potential strongholds to use as a line of defense should the visitors prove to be headed our way with less-than-friendly intentions. The first ten vessels were to identify the ten largest asteroids in the belt and begin constructing nine sortie bases from which ARES can lead the defense of Earth."
He waved his hand and a map of the solar system as seen from above the elliptic appeared over his right shoulder, with markers and labels showing the position of the nine sortie bases currently under construction.
"Though they are currently the only line of defense We are building, as Our defense and fortification plan progresses, the main asteroid belt will become Our last line of defense. Thus, it needs to be the strongest shield and tallest wall that humanity can build, so it was started even before the formation of the Terran Empire, giving it the longest possible lead time for construction and reinforcement. We will not speak more on that, as the Akashic Record is available to any who wish to know more, saving only critical details that are still classified.
"But there was a different plan for the largest object in the main asteroid belt, 1 Ceres." The display over Aron's shoulder changed from a top-down view of the solar system to a close-up image of Ceres, with detailed information about it directly next to it.
(Ed note: If you've ever played Mass Effect 2, it looks like the planet information screen that shows up when you're scanning planets for resources.)
"Ceres is a dwarf planet and the first of them to have been visited by humankind. It has an average diameter of 590 miles and is made up primarily of water ice, rock, organic compounds, and various metal and other mineral resources. The size and makeup of it made it perfect, both as a resource gathering point and as the endpoint of the first space elevator built by humanity."
A timelapse video of the proposed construction replaced the Ceres fact sheet displayed over his shoulder. It showed the dwarf planet being moved into stable geosynchronous orbit, then a line of woven carbon nanotubes extending from it to a currently unnamed island in the Eden-Esparian Archipelago, where it would be anchored deep within the Earth's crust.
"This is one of the many plans that have been put into place in order to reach the target goal of fifty percent readiness within Our promised timeline. Assuming that everything goes to plan, humanity's defense should reach that readiness goal long before the five-year period that We promised approaches."
His gaze swept across the reporters in the audience again, much of his anger finally restrained. "Any questions?"