Cleaning Up After The Ancients - Chapter 85

Chapter 85 - The Next Step

“The false identities and access to your world are non-negotiable.” Eventus said, feeling more than a little like he was repeating himself at this point given how many different ways he’d already tried to make that clear to them.

“You cannot actually believe we would just give you free reign like that?” Russel Chapman shot back, a number of the other members nodding in agreement with his words.

“Why not?” Eventus asked, more than a little confused at just what their objection with the whole thing was given he was offering to provide them with technologies thousands of years more advanced they could build without help. “Most of my people would probably be happy with a tropical spa resort on some mostly deserted island and tickets to whatever plays are currently popular.”

That wasn’t a joke either, because statistically speaking his people really tended to be just that boring when it came to their relaxation.

“And there have to be hundreds of safeguards you can put in place to make sure all I’m actually doing is throwing money at people to make stuff they would already be making if they had the money to do so in the first place.”

They had done it for Wormhole Extreme after all, and Eventus was pretty sure he was a lot less annoying than the Alien he vaguely remembered being behind that.

“You'll have to forgive my British friend.” Chekov put forward with a grin. “I suspect he's somewhat skeptical that is all you wish to do with the hundreds of billions you are asking for.”

Eventus threw up his hands in exasperation. “What else would I do with it? Buy a farm?”

“Or use it to bankroll a slow ideological takeover of our governments by groups more amenable to how your people want things done.” LaPierre theorized in an almost accusing tone.

While that was probably a fair worry given everything Eventus knew about their experiences so far, in the context of his own people it was so silly as to be absurd.

“The only governments on your planet that my people would have any sort of moral objection to are the handful of theocracies that exist in the area you call the middle east. And from what I can tell they are already well on their ways to either a slow reform or complete collapse.”

Not that any of Earth's current governments were likely to last more than a couple hundred years given everything that was heading their way culturally. But he doubted it would help his case to mention that.

“We are well aware of your people's dislike for that particular form of governance.” Woolsey put forward cautiously.

“It's not dislike.” Eventus snapped, and the fact that nobody seemed to understand that was more than a little annoying at this point given how clear he thought he'd been about the subject. “It's data. Tens of thousands of years, hundreds of thousands of cultures, and every single lasting theocracy that occured ended up varying degrees of horrible for nearly everyone involved with it.”

He had talked with Dea about the subject on a number of occasions, and the prevailing theory amongst those who specialized studying other cultures was that the specific way theocracies centralized power while offsetting the blame for the various actions those with power onto some nebulas higher power basically became the perfect pressure cooker for continually more extreme actions.

Shen pursed her lips for a moment before turning a smug smile to LaPierre. “If the French have no wish to take the High Councilor up on his offer, my government has authorized me to negotiate solo technological purchases up to two hundred billion American.”

It was such a blatant attempt at manipulation that Eventus doubted there was anyone in the room who didn't realize it. Nevertheless, Eventus couldn't see much choice for the French representative but to take the bait given his country couldn't realistically let China have that sort of head start outside of the normal technological sharing that had to be going on between their countries.

“Of course we want to take him up on the offer.” LaPierre bit back, glaring at the woman with thinly disguised disdain. “Unlike the Chinese however, we have concerns about what negative effects this deal might have on our people.”

“There aren’t really any.” Eventus piped in. “The only thing in France my people are likely to care about are your art gallery’s. And given everything I’ve read about your world, you already close those down on occasion for VIP visits. So all that would be different from how you do things now, would be the fact the people you’re doing it for aren’t from your planet.”

“Not to invalidate other’s concerns.”  Sadru Desai suddenly spoke up. “But how do we know the technology you’re offering is even functional?”

A fair question all things considered, but one Eventus had foreseen pretty easily and already had an answer too. “I assume third party confirmation by the Asgard will assuage any concerns your people might have about the technology being offered?”

“That would be acceptable to us.” Woolsy said, offering the others a half smile.

“And us.” Chekov agreed with a nod.

“It is unlikely my government will have any problem with it either.” Shen offered after a moment's consideration.

Which were realistically speaking the only three countries that really mattered in the IOA given Earth’s current geopolitical makeup.

“I assume you have a reliable way to get in contact with them?” Carl inquired, scratching his chin and frowning slightly.

Eventus nodded. “Hermiod gave me the coordinates of Orilla and the necessary priority codes to contact their High Council. So once I get the subspace communications array on the Atrokiri outpost at your south pole operational it should be relatively simple to contact them.”

Once upon a time it would have even been able to contact Atlantis, but the High Council had activated the self-destruct on the relay satellites early in the war to prevent the Wraith from backtracking the signals to other inhabited galaxy’s.

Carl nodded to himself before focusing on Eventus with an apologetic smile. “Then would you mind putting further negotiations on hold until that can be arranged?”

“Of course not.” Eventus returned, after all, he wouldn’t have suggested calling in an outside party if he wasn’t. 

“In which case.” He went on,looking over the group with a grin. “Does anyone want to join me for lunch? I hear the commissary is doing something called philly cheesesteaks today.”

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Author’s Notes: I didn’t originally plan to call in the Asgard for this, but halfway through writing it I realized I was trapped between a rock and hard place with Earth needing some way to check the stuff Eventus was offering actually did what he claimed. While Eventus himself couldn’t just give it to their scientists to check beforehand since that would more or less be giving away the horse for free. And really, who wants to give away horses for free.