Wearing Power Armor to a Magic School (65/?) (Patreon)

“Emma.” Thalmin uttered out with an uneasy and darkened timbre. “What is happening?” He pointed, expectedly, at the rapidly developing enclosure dam. As activity doubled, tripled, then quadrupled in a matter of seconds on the timelapse. With ships and aircraft buzzing around monolithic and motionless beams lying flat on their sides on either side of the harbor; and land vehicles scurrying back and forth with trailers full of eclectic and niche machinery.

“It is a dam.” Thacea finally managed out after all this time, her words spoken through a face seamlessly hiding the turmoil deep within. “They are constructing a dam.”

“A dam?” Thalmin parroted back. “For what purpose?” He then gestured at the two rivers further up the bay. “That is the wrong place to build a dam. For the only thing that would be controlling would be the flow of water either out from the rivers and into the ocean, or-”

It was at that point that Thalmin stopped in his tracks. His eyes suddenly grew wide with a look of utter shock as he turned towards me with an expectant, awestruck gaze.

“-to prevent the flow of water from the oceans themselves, from overwhelming the city, yes.” I answered, completing the lupinor’s train of thoughts without a moment’s delay as I gestured towards the dam.

“I will not ask if it is even possible, nor will I ask why.” Thalmin responded shortly thereafter. “The answers to both questions are quite obvious to me. However, I will ask you this - are your people so stubborn, that they would actively resist the very forces of nature signaling a time for your departure from such a geographically vulnerable chokehold?”

“Yes.” I answered without even a hint of hesitation. “That’s exactly it. We’re stubborn, Thalmin. And when push comes to shove, we won’t allow even nature itself to upend our plans. When we humans want something, when we humans value something, be it a place, an object, a resource, or even an ideal, we will commit to securing and defending it… no matter the cost. The impossible becomes possible when humanity defines it as our goal. So no matter what nature decides to throw at us, be it wind, water, or even the quaking of the earth beneath our feet, we treat it like any other challenge - an obstacle to be overcome.”

“Hubris.” Ilunor spat back.

“Oh is it now?” Thalmin shot back.

“It-”

“So when an adjacent realm does it, it’s no longer The Triumph of Sapiency, but Hubris, now is it?” He continued, completely upending Ilunor’s rebuttal before he could even form it into words. “Is Emma not speaking eerily like an elf right now, Ilunor? Or more specifically, a member of the distinguished crownlands?” He continued even further, driving home his point as Ilunor continued to shrink despite not shifting in size whatsoever.

“Thalmin raises a fascinating point, Lord Rularia.” Thacea finally reentered the fray, if only to add a point that bordered on the mercenary prince’s passive aggressiveness, but was delivered in a way that was more matter-of-fact than anything. “Do her words not run parallel to the teachings of Alarcar the Enlightened, or Estronar the wise? Does she not speak of the same triumphs of sapiency over the unthinking, unfeeling, savage and primal forces of nature? Does she not speak of the Great Four fundamental truths?”

Ilunor grew increasingly quiet, as his breathing all but stopped at that point.

“Earthrealm seems to very much pass all the checks of a civilized realm, Ilunor, let alone the prerequisites for a basic newrealm. Everything, from their capabilities down to their very defiance of the natural order, seems to very much match even the hallmarks of the Crownlands, no?”

Thalmin was, in a sense, rubbing humanity’s achievements up in Ilunor’s face much better than I ever could have. Considering he had both the vitriol of a defiant adjacent realmer, and the cultural context by which to make it hurt even worse than I ever could’ve managed, it made sense to outsource that bit of flexing out to the lupinor.

Moreover, boasting for the sake of boastfulness wasn’t my goal. It was merely a satisfying byproduct.

This entire exercise was, after all, still aimed at pulling the Vunerian in from the threshold of denial, back into a comfortable state where he was able to suspend his disbeliefs, to allow for everything to sink in at a steady, sustainable pace.

A few more seconds passed as time was slowed to allow for the major milestones of the project to be seen in excruciating detail. From the erection of temporary storm barriers, to the placement of cofferdams, to the draining of said cofferdams leaving massive empty chasms by which thousand foot-pylons were then thrust deep beneath the soggy bottom of the bay itself; the sheer scale of the project was unlike anything else seen before.

Yet it certainly wasn’t going to be the last.

As lessons from this project would be put to use in the following decades and centuries, leading to the foundational treatise by which further megaprojects would quite literally be built upon.

“A Nexian planar mage could have simply erected a dam of similar size and scale in a fraction of the time with a fraction of the effort.” Ilunor mumbled out under his breath.

“And yet we managed to do so without the aid of any mana in sight, let alone a planar mage.” I responded tit for tat, before turning towards Thalmin to begin addressing one of my prior points.

“Reaching a comparable level of greatness by means of mana-less labor and excruciating toil.” He rebutted.

“Excruciating toil which lessens and lessens with each passing year.” I shot back just as snappily, highlighting all of the manned and unmanned machines working away at the erection of the walls of the dam. “As we push forward for a future not dictated by the labor of men, but accelerated instead by the rhythm of machines. A future where the forge of civilization lies not with the whims of any one mage or group of mages, but by the voluntary participation of the entire citizenry; sharing in expertise, experience, and perspectives. For there isn’t one man who has the capacity to design every last component of this dam. Nor is there one man who can magically give rise to it with the flick of a magical wrist. Instead, there’s a team, a veritable army of experts required for the job.”

“And with more of these experts and participants in the process, comes more administration, and with more administration comes an increasing need for a stronger leader.” Thalmin shot back, suddenly butting into the exchange with a renewed desire to prod at the flow of my narrative.

“In our case, the increased burden of administration leads to an increasing demand for representation, Thalmin. Representation of those with the skill sets required to build, design, and operate the dam. Administrators administrate, because that’s where their expertise lies. But they’re ultimately beholden to the taxpayers footing the bill for the project, and the experts and builders actually building it.”

“And does this… tradition of representative participation end at singular projects? Or does it bleed into the very nature of your statecraft, Emma?” Thalmin continued, his interests now diverging heavily from the holographic projection, and towards the topic I alluded to earlier.

“It very much does not end at singular projects, Thalmin.” I responded with a polite smile. “I did mention earlier how I’d find a way to show you how commoner is a term that simply doesn’t apply to how our system operates, correct?”

“That you did.” Thalmin nodded. “And I am starting to see just why you chose to build your way towards that point, rather than stating it outright.” The lupinor expressed with a half-sigh, and a cock of his head. “But whilst I understand the value of having an unfiltered perspective of those in the thick of things, considering such insights are necessary for a ruler to rule effectively, I still find it… difficult to see how such a representative system would in any way work. I find it hard to imagine how a ruler could effectively do anything whilst being beholden to the cacophony of the masses.”

“It took a lot of time before we actually reached the point where we were able to find a comfortable point where we managed to make it work, Thalmin. I will admit, there were… a lot of trials and tribulations in the thousand or so years it took us to get it just right; and even then we all agree there’s always still room for improvement. The form my government takes today, and the institutions that comprise its corporeal form, have all adapted to address the unique and eclectic collection of issues that faces modern society; making it unrecognizable from the earliest iteration of the organization that once bore its name and title.” I took a moment to pause, to actually think about how best to frame the road it took to get to this point. Whether or not it was worth diving or even touching upon the five major wars it took to get to what was in effect the most stable iteration of the UN to date.

“It wasn’t a smooth road, nor was it a simple straightforward path by any stretch of the imagination.” I continued with a somber confidence. “But each tragedy which befell us was a tragedy we vowed to, and actively did, learn from. Each mistake we made was not just acknowledged, but set in stone in legislation and policy, treated as stepping stones towards a brighter tomorrow. For each and every setback came with the gift of hindsight, and the knowledge of exactly what led us to that point. Allowing us to critically study, analyze, and thus adapt through legislation and policy the framework by which to prevent the same mistakes from ever occurring. But these supposed gifts did not come without its price, which further incentivizes those in their wake to ensure the sacrifices of the past were not given in vain. In effect, forming the current status quo, setting a universal precedent for a cautious evidence-based approach to statecraft across all levels of government.”

“Through trial and tribulation, nurtured in adversity, births a lineage of wisdom and strength.” Thalmin acknowledged with a gruff, tempered, and respectful tone of voice. “And you wish to claim that this legacy enshrined in wisdom is not one maintained by a lineage, family, nor clan?” The lupinor just as quickly shot back with a look of questioning disbelief, bordering on incredulity.

“No.” I announced firmly, and with as resolute of a voice as I could muster. “It’s a legacy that is shared by the institutions that comprise the state, and the offices within that are blind to such concepts; seeing only technical merit, relevant experience, and the voice of the people as the only criterion by which leaders ascend to their positions of power. But I do have to make something clear so that we’re on the same page, nobility and royalty still technically do exist on Earth. It’s just that they are but localized distinctions relevant only to a handful of constituent states. The Greater United Nations, the political entity that governs all of humanity save for Switzerland, holds no such distinction between its citizens. All are born equal under the eyes of our country, and all are held equally accountable for their actions. Everyone is given equal opportunity across the board, and no single individual is held above or below their peers by their bloodline or heritage. This is how my state and my country views its citizens, Thalmin.” I managed out with a resolute, and confident tone of voice. “For all humans are born equal, and birthright holds no weight on the ascension to positions of power within the state.”

“I…” Thalmin began, turning towards both Thacea and Ilunor in rapid succession. The former’s visage remained, as it always was - stoic and unmoving. The latter, surprisingly, was similarly unmoving; yet remained paradoxically trapped in what could only be described as an expression of tentative understanding with a thickly veiled attempt at hiding an underlying discontent with this newfound knowledge.

“I do not think that makes sense.” Ilunor finally chimed in with a smoke-ridden breath. “You say that your country governs all, and yet… you say that there still exists entire constituent states with nobility and royalty. How can nobility bend the knee to heads of state chosen by the common people, pulled from the ranks of the common people?”

“I’m more than happy to explain, Ilunor.” I replied first with a polite, diplomatic smile. “They were already rendered all but functionally irrelevant prior to the Greater United Nations’ federalization. The UN wasn’t the one to force them to bend the knee, it was just a combination of a multitude of factors. From hamstrung internal politics, to economics, to the will of the people themselves enacting change; ultimately it was time itself that brought on the redundancy of the nobility and royalty. They were rendered defunct simply because they no longer served a purpose, and simply because all others had adopted democracy as the de facto political system. It was a gradual process, I admit, with some nations accelerating the process in their own way.” I deftly dodged the matter of revolutions… the topic of which could potentially upset the friendships I’ve forged thus far. “But at the end of the day, most of the constituent monarchies of my greater nation exist now only as a legal and cultural connection to the state in question’s past, but only in ceremony, without any power in practice.”

I allowed that explanation to hang in the air for a while, as Thalmin processed it intently, his eyes occasionally darting from my lenses to the city we now hung above. The EVI having elected to play a jazzy rendition of the United Nations’ March to the Stars throughout my speech.

Ilunor’s reactions were… decidedly, the same as a majority of his reactions to my explanations thus far - his signature hundred yard stare. Though considering his active participation in the conversation, it was safe to say that he was still a reasonable ways away from the IDOV threshold. Which was all that mattered at this point.

“So who’s actually in charge of your country, Emma?” Thalmin finally responded, his impatience for this particular subject matter clear just from the look in his eyes alone.

It was at that point that I could’ve simply prattled on with an entire overview of the UN, but that would be getting ahead of myself. Whilst the gang had presented the general vibe of an absolutist system, I had no idea how far or to what extent those human-based assumptions could really go. As a result, starting up without a baseline could lead to even more misunderstandings.

So, taking a page out of SIOP, it was time to ping pong back and forth with Thalmin and whoever else wanted to pick and prod at me.

It was better to understand their frame of reference first, before deconstructing my own, tailoring it to better disseminate to their worldview.

“Who’s in charge of things in your realm, Thalmin?”

That question definitely caught the mercenary prince off guard, as he turned to both Thacea, and even Ilunor, before turning back to me with a cock of his head.

“My father, the King.” He replied bluntly.

“So does anyone else share power with him? Or does he have the final say in everything that happens in your realm?”

Thalmin seemed, for the first time, to take one of my questions rather uneasily. That line of questioning practically elicited something close to a look of indignant confusion, before settling on plain old perplexity.

“He holds absolute power, Emma. He may appoint ministers to act on his behalf, or generals to fight on his orders, but at the end of the day all powers of the state are vested in him and him alone. Long may he reign, taset virsa.” Thalmin spoke with a resounding resoluteness, capping off that statement in what seemed to be a mantra that I assumed to be a trained reflexive tradition.

“And judging by what you spoke of him and his use of advisors, his reign seems assuredly to be a wise and enlightened one, Thalmin.” I acknowledged flatteringly, highlighting Thalmin’s earlier mentions of the man’s use of boots-on-the-ground advisors, as I attempted to dip my toes into the realm of diplomatic flattery if only to make up for the suddenness of my questions and the stark revelation of humanity’s lack of nobility or monarchy. Diplomatic ties with the Nexus might be off the table, but the adjacent realms? That’s another matter altogether.

“I appreciate the kind acknowledgement, Emma. And I am certain that your realm, whilst… fundamentally different, will at least be able to match this spirit of enlightened rule.” Thalmin nodded respectfully, before continuing on into a question that fell neatly into SIOP’s lap. “With all that being said, I am assuming these abrupt questions as to the structure of power of my realm, is pertinent to the answer you have for your own?”

“Yes, because the answer to your question isn’t as straightforward. As instead of an absolute seat of vested authority, our government is instead divided into three distinct branches.”

“For what purpose?” Thalmin immediately shot back.

“To prevent the concentration of power by providing for checks and balances, and the separation of power such that no sole individual or group can hold a monopoly on said power.” I explained succinctly.

“Which would be the logical goal of a realm whose political power is derived from appointment by the masses.” Thacea acknowledged suddenly, and with a look of piercing curiosity.

“That’s always been the goal for our governments, Thacea.” I nodded in acknowledgement.

“Go on then.” Ilunor urged with an impatient huff. “Let’s hear of this… debauchery of enlightened perfection. For at this point, even a realm with a mercenary sitting atop of a stolen throne holds more integrity than whatever mess your kind has concocted, newrealmer.”

“Just between you and me, Thalmin, your ancestors earned that throne.” I shot back with an unseen wink to the lupinor prince, right in front of the Vunerian, before sliding back into the thick of things. “And speaking of integrity, the division of our government was designed to have that in spades. As we divided our government up so as to limit their powers by making it known their distinct responsibilities in the administration of a state. In no particular order, there’s the legislature, responsible for the drafting and passing of laws, the judiciary, which is responsible for interpretation and application of the law, and the executive, which is responsible for the execution of the law.”

“A mire of madness.” Ilunor muttered out.

“It does get confusing, somewhat arbitrary, and downright chaotic at times, I admit. But the way things came about was once again, lessons learned through hardship. For example, our legislative branch went through massive reformations after the first… major war.” I intentionally left the word intrasolar out for the sake of this demonstration, space would just be too much for them to handle right now.

“So instead of maintaining integrity and refusing to change, you instead bend to the whims and the winds of whichever way the tides flow, hmm?” Ilunor interjected.

“There’s a fine line between integrity and outright stagnation, Ilunor. And like I said before, there’s always room for improvement. Our systems of governance adapt to meet the challenges of each era, and in the case of our legislature, it took a war to finally kick us in the butt to push us into our second iteration. As at the start of our great global federal democratic experiment, the supranational federal entity that was the United Nations still carried with it vestiges of its past as an advisory body with limited power, which proved to be limiting and incongruent with what it was trying to become. As a body that aimed to represent not just its constituent states, but its citizens, the model of representation via delegates appointed to its sole legislative body by the local leaders of its member states - the General Assembly, proved to be insufficient. As such, following the conclusion of the first major war, sweeping reforms added a second, lower house to the legislature - the People’s Assembly. Creating what is in affect our modern bicameral parliamentary system. A system wherein citizens were able to directly vote for the representatives of the lower house, and individual member states retained their ability to appoint representatives to the upper house.”

“And these are your leaders?” Thalmin asked with a cock of his head.

“Yes and no, they are our legislators, representatives meant to speak on our behalf for the drafting and deliberation of laws. Our ‘leaders’ in the traditional sense are in the executive. Of which we have our head of state, and our head of government. The former is referred to as the First Secretary, a role appointed by two bodies: the first being a rotating committee of leading academics known as The Collegiate, the second being the incumbents of each and every one of the UN’s executive departments known as The Secretariat. The latter however is referred to as the First Speaker, elected into office by the people via votes casted in an election, and thus the more ‘traditional’ leader of our whole federation.”

“So you even went so far as to divvy up the responsibilities of the primary head of this hydra.” Ilunor replied with a fervent sigh. “Cut one head, and two more appear.” He muttered under his breath. “You really do seem to have an ample amount of free time on your hands, Earthrealmer.” Ilunor shot back with a side eye. “If your people go through the effort of overcomplicating something that should be as straightforward as the rule of a single rightful ruler, then I can now see exactly where the time earned from those labor-saving artifices has gone to.”

I blinked rapidly at the off-ramp Ilunor had just given me. “That’s… exactly it, Ilunor.” I acknowledged. “As I demonstrated earlier, our system thrives on such representation, seeing as the modern world emerged from mutual cooperation through the complexity born of those artifices, rather than an increasing consolidation of power by a group of mana users or mages.”

“More than that…” Thacea finally reentered the fray, her eyes trained not on me, but the projection that at this point had stopped at the completion of the dam a good decade after it was started. “That is simply the only possible means by which a mana-less realm could develop, Lord Rularia.”

“I beg your pardon-?”

“In a sea of voices wherein every citizen holds no traditional advantage over the other, there exists no room for stability through the consolidation of power, as there is no true practical means of consolidating that power in perpetuity. Thus, the more one tries to consolidate, the more unstable such a system becomes. As the keys to practical power, owing to a lack of mana, simply do not exist as we see it. Instead, everyone holds the keys to power through their unique insights and expertise necessary to keep civilization functioning. That’s the entire point of this tangent. The entire point of Emma highlighting the sheer effort that went into the construction of this megastructure. It’s the most visible means of demonstrating this divergence in our two systems.”

“So Emma’s earlier comments of every commoner being more akin to a noble makes sense in this new context.” Thalmin pondered. “Seeing as this is an electorate that comprises all, with all being responsible for the appointments of power.”

The pair’s parallel revelations sent a wave of relief through me, as the heavy lifting for this aspect of my presentation was carried now by an impromptu tag-teaming of minds.

Ilunor seemed to stew on this for a little while, his eyes darting back and forth before finally landing on the dam once more. Which, now at its height, stood impressively above the rising ocean.

“Just… just get on with it, Earthrealmer.” He managed out, prompting me to respond with a single nod of acknowledgement, pushing the projection further into the future.

A future that was just about saved in the nick of time by the completed dam too, as water levels continued to rise further, but was constantly outpaced at every opportunity by increasingly complex additions to the dam and its surrounding flood barriers that spanned a good length of the North Eastern seaboard.

Construction within the areas protected by the dam accelerated as well, and with this newfound immunity against the forces of nature, development all but exploded.

Megatalls began their rise throughout the boroughs. Yet vertical development continued happening alongside more horizontal development as well, as off in the distance, both Newark and Long Island began all but matching the pace of NYC’s unrelenting urban development.

And despite another major pause in construction occurring sometime in the mid to late 22nd century courtesy of the First Intrasolar War, its conclusion brought about yet another veritable explosion of progress, culminating in the land extension and reclamation projects that extended both Manhattan and Brooklyn southwards, and the immediate development of that land into a region hosting almost exclusively megatall skyscrapers.

Yet all of this progress finally came to a sudden and abrupt end in the mid 23rd century.

But not by the hands of any great economic collapse, or a stunning military defeat, or even the wrath of nature itself.

But by the very hands of those who called the city home.

For as the mid 23rd century rolled around, so too did a fundamental shift begin within the city’s organizational structure. As the incorporation of modern Acela was ratified, ushering in a new age of unified regional development, and by extension, the crystallization of NYC as it currently stood; for the sake of historical preservation.

Developers were given new areas to develop, with guidelines on their height, design, and aesthetic becoming stricter the closer one reached the historic districts.

And it showed.

A revivalist movement in modernized art deco emerged, culminating in the border districts that marked the boundary where historic NYC ended and where Acela proper began.

But just as with the two pauses in development that came before it, so too did development pause in the mid to late 23rd century, and once again 24th century owing to the final two conflicts that would rage within the solar system, before a half millennium of peace finally came to the solar system.

From there, development finally hit a fever pitch. As far off in the distance, monolithic towers of immense proportions painted the horizon in a dizzying display of unprecedented progress. As each new ultratall and hypertall starscraper, accompanied by megatall skyscrapers, popped up, creating what appeared to be, at this vantage point, something more akin to blades of grass set against a finite horizon.

Yet throughout this unprecedented development, with starscraper districts popping up every which way, Thacea seemed to be more focused on the developments in the clear blue skies. And it was clear she wasn’t fixated on the shifting trends of subsonic jets transitioning over to their supersonic successors, followed closely by the SSTOs that barely changed in their aesthetics following the 25th century, but a barely visible, pale gray line that hung ominously overhead.

I should’ve known that with the words exchanged in the library, and with the avinor’s gift of above-par vision, that she would’ve noticed one of the markers that gave away our development to realms beyond the confines of the planet.

A marker difficult to spot in the perpetual daytime of the projection, but clear to those who knew what to look for, or those with vision beyond what was typical of a human.

Earthring 2.

So whilst Thalmin and Ilunor continued gazing upon the developments in the distant horizon, even noting the lowering water levels at one point, courtesy of the global weather control initiatives, Thacea’s eyes were fixed on the hidden prize of the presentation.

But as we slowly rounded back to the present, things finally came to a head at the construction of a building immediately beneath our feet, as construction cranes, drones, and on-site print-fabs filled in the empty space beneath us in a fraction of the time it took for the first megatalls to be constructed in Jersey City.

“And here we are.” I announced gleefully. “Back to the present.” I gestured at what looked to be a small park that sat high above the city below. The city we’d just seen built from the ground up. It looked… so small from up here, from so high above. Yet in spite of the height, in spite of the grandeur of what was below, a sense of serenity could be felt. A calmness that resonated through the chiming of the windchimes, the chirping of the birds, and the skittering of more than a small handful of animals that existed within this carefully regulated ecosystem perched firmly atop one of the few ultratall skyscrapers at the mouth of the lower bay area.

Thalmin didn’t speak, his eyes did all the work for him as he stood there ruminating over the cityscape that sprawled below, and towered above.

“And I imagine we have only seen but a fraction of all there is to see.” Thacea followed up just as quickly, her eyes subtly darting between my own, and the skies above.

“Yeah. There’s certainly a lot more to see, that’s for sure.” I acknowledged, my words ringing different to the avinor who had already so clearly been given hints from our time in the library as to humanity’s presence in the sea of stars.

With all that being said, it’s time to assess just how effective this exercise has been in addressing its major goals. Goals which hung ominously on the top right hand corner of my HUD.

The dissemination of humanity’s objective capabilities, and the invalidation of the false presumptions of humanity’s perceived inferiority.

And…

The clarification of false assumptions and pretenses on humanity’s current sociopolitical structure.

“So, how are you taking things, Ilunor?” I finally turned towards the Vunerian who’d instigated this whole trip through memory lane, now left standing with that signature hundred yard stare, and a jaw that hung slightly ajar.

A few seconds passed, before the Vunerian gave his final answer.

“I hate Earthrealm.”