Chapter 480.2: The Inaugural Imperial Council Meeting (part 2)
[All of the agencies assumed normal operations almost a month ago, and as of today's recruiting drive, all agencies are now fully staffed. Mandatory overtime has been canceled and regular workdays of eight hours have been implemented. All government functions have been moved to the public simulation, unless their services are physically impossible to provide in the simulation, like hospitals, and proof of imperial citizenship is required to receive benefits from the empire.
[We've completed 71% of all initial health screenings and repairs, but the awakening has paused that operation. All of our pods are currently occupied with people undergoing their awakenings, so the Imperial Health administration is focusing on taking over existing structures in cities and towns across the globe and repurposing them to be used as clinics. Awakeners have all been transported to local cubes, and the Imperial Health Agency's clinic plan is 64% completed. Rural China and India are proving... problematic, as new structures need to be purpose-built in those locations before pods can be printed and shipped there,] Gaia reported.
"Printers?" Minister Al-Mutairi's brow furrowed. "What do you mean by 'printed'?"
[One of the empire's earliest advances was in 3d printing technology. His Majesty's breakthrough allowed for 3d printing at an atomic level, with atomic disassembly and reconfiguration. So, all imperial technology is printed by those atomic printers. It's the most deeply classified of all the imperial technological advances,] Nova said, then "threw" an info pack about imperial technological advances to both Youssef and Jeremy for them to read when they had the time. [Please hold your questions until the end of Gaia's status report, and look through those files I just threw to you when you have the time later.] She nodded to Gaia, indicating that she could continue.
[As for the terrorist attacks, we've continued eliminating cells and have so far neutralized 734 individual cells. We've even captured and downloaded the brain data of one of their recruiters, and while the cult's protocols killed the lead from there, it still gave us a view into their operations. They have been silent for some time, however, and Nyx has mentioned that something doesn't seem quite right about their current extended silence. They've gone into hiding and seem to have ceased all operations other than their emergency cutouts, and all of them seem to have buried themselves as deep as they can.] "Why do you think that is? Are they afraid, or are they planning another big attack?" Aron asked.
"Your Majesty, what if... what if they're awakening, too?" Jeremy added.
[That's indeed the likeliest scenario,] Nyx said. [3% of the population means 3% of the population, and the phenomenon won't be limited by citizenship or divided along ideological or political lines.]
"So they've got some number of awakeners among their ranks and are keeping their heads down while their evolutions are underway?" Aron rubbed his temples. "That's... less than spectacular news. We're already going to have to deal with noncitizen awakened who may or may not cause trouble," he said, thinking back on all the comic books, cartoons, and movies he had consumed while growing up that involved supervillain organizations. "But now we're going to have to deal with superpowered cultists that definitely WILL cause trouble?"
[That's likely, yes,] Nyx replied. [Once their newly awakened cultists finish their evolutions, their overall strength as an organization will increase. And that means aggressive action on their part.]
"What makes you say that?" John asked. "And how can we best counter it? I'm leery about the idea of recruiting kids, but I see no harm in plucking the cream of the eighteen to twenty-two year olds into ARES."
"Athena, get with Poseidon and Aeolus and implement focused recruiting among the awakeners," Aron ordered. He'd had the same idea, of course, but was originally planning on holding off on implementing it until the laws and regulations surrounding awakeners had been addressed. But with a second person agreeing unasked, he decided to move his plan up.
"Do we have an idea of what triggers awakening?" Youssef asked. "If we know that, we can start triggering our own awakenings among those willing to join the military, and even those that already enlisted but are still in the right age range."
"We know, but it's... impractical at best, and perhaps cataclysmic at worst. I believe the visitors discovered us because my early awakening and reckless mana use was like a blind man flashing morse code from a lighthouse out into the deep sea. And mana is what triggers awakenings, so by flooding that many people with mana, the signal we send out would be so blindingly intense that it would draw more attention to us from even further away. The awakening we're already undergoing is both a curse and a blessing, since," Aron nodded to Nova in appreciation, "I've been told that it shouldn't be distinguishable from the background noise of the shifting mana tides headed toward and swirling around Earth."
"I... I see," Youssef said. He wasn't quite sure what to make of Aron's admission just now. He definitely still respected the emperor, and knew that shit would always happen whenever dealing with the unknown, but the potential calamity of the visitors having been brought upon them by Aron's mistake was a difficult idea to contemplate.
"Besides, we're not sure yet which is better, natural or artificial awakening. I know of one person that awakened artificially, so we'll be comparing data sets based on her training versus the development of naturally awakened individuals," Aron continued.
[There may be more ways than just that for people to trigger artificial awakenings. The Gold Labs in Lab City are working on their theories by studying the outliers. We can reasonably infer that puberty's malleability and rapid growth is one of the factors in natural awakening, so by studying those who are post- and prepubescent should give us some insight into potential other methods of inducing awakening,] Nova said.
"But it'll take time.... How much time, exactly, do you think it'll take?" Jeremy asked, already running calculations in his mind.
[The researchers are unsure. Not a single outlier awakened has finished their evolution yet for us to compare. So the only thing we know right now is that we don't really know anything.]