"Our president is very interested in your advanced chip industry, and he said he'd like to initiate technological transfers to strengthen our ties, if possible," Minister Wang moved to the next topic. The oil negotiations were nothing more than an appetizer; the thing China was most looking forward to was breaking the technology blockade and entering the computer chip and semiconductor markets. And having come to a preliminary agreement on the oil trade gave him a lever to use to open the door for cooperation in chips and semiconductors."In what aspect, specifically, does he want to cooperate? To the best of my knowledge, our country's chip technology isn't that widely used." Gabriel was playing dumb using GAIA Technology not selling the chips to anyone as a shield. He knew that no matter what exorbitant prices buyers promised—and there were many buyers and truly exorbitant offers—the company absolutely would not sell under any circumstances. But he was curious as to what Minister Wa
Tim Cook's third idea elicited a wave of nods from the rest of the board. Cooperating with a competitor was never a good idea; it was just giving others a handle by which to exert control over them. And ruining their own hard work over the past decades of building up a specific brand identity for Apple was equally distasteful, if not more. So even if the anti-GAIA coalition was distasteful, and even if it wasn't effective, it was still the only viable option of the three they had been presented with.Besides, even if they did want to cooperate with GAIA, Sarah had been adamant about not selling the chips they would need, no matter how much they'd offered or how sincere their offers had been."We can also claim they're a tech monopoly. It's bullshit and would never stand up, but the more things we throw at them, the more flustered they'll be and the more likely they'll be to submit." That generated a bit of a buzz of chuckles in the meeting room."So which idea are we going forward wit
The Edenian-China oil transfer agreement was signed within a week, after all the kinks in the clauses had been ironed out. During that time, the Edenian Minister of the Exterior, Gabriel de los Estrada, had toured the country and presented his diplomatic credentials to Chinese President Zi Jinping, officially opening an Edenian embassy in Beijing. He had also opened new topics of discussion, setting a foundation for future cooperation between the two nations. The Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs, Wang Yi, had done the same, but his interests differed from Gabriel's. Where Gabriel was interested in raw materials, especially wanting to tap into China's extensive deposits of minerals that, to his knowledge, were lacking in Eden and Esparia, Wang Yi was more interested in buying a batch of weapons and technology transfers. But Gabriel countered that by using ARES and GAIA as shields; he couldn't make the call on behalf of the government, since the things China wanted were property, in
It didn't take long for the tech companies' secret coalition to be formed. They had already come to a surface-level agreement and had begun spending money for their plan, but on the outside it seemed like different companies just coincidentally had the same idea. They had all gone to different lobbying firms with different complaints, but the money they were spending was ten times the usual amount. And that was just the beginning. Tim Cook was feeling very satisfied and putting his wholehearted effort into lobbying. He was infuriated that GAIA had ignored his threatening email, leaving him with no other option than to go all out. For the sake of his career and his company, he had to ensure that GAIA was removed from competition and their tech in his hands. ... Just like that, three days passed and the tankers full of oil undocked and headed out toward China on the shortest route. Their escort ships, two destroyers and six frigates, remained for twelve hours, then followed them at a
Eden, Northwest airbase.An alarm started blaring, signaling a general scramble among the base personnel. They immediately dropped whatever they were doing and headed to their assigned locations like an anthill that had been kicked over.Pilots were urgently putting on their gear according to a strict checklist procedure. And within five minutes, they were headed to the duty hangar, where they would receive their mission briefing and launch. As they crossed the hangar on their way to the briefing room, they passed a virtual hive of technicians scrambling over the parked jets and giving them last-minute checks and fueling them.The pilots reached the briefing room and received their briefing, then boarded their jets and taxied out of the hangar.Soon, with the screaming sound of jet engines spinning up, four planes were lined up on the runway access lane, ready for takeoff as soon as they received final clearance from the tower."Tower, this is SU-3
A few seconds after the frigates and destroyers of the Poseidon Navy ceased fire, exactly one hundred waterspouts bloomed where speedboats had once existed. The boats had never even entered visual range of the oil convoy... but the waterspouts certainly did. The impact of thirty kilograms of depleted uranium wrapped in electrical steel traveling at ten times the speed of sound imparted over 166 million newtons of force, enough to evaporate thousands of cubic meters of seawater, along with any hapless object that happened to be within that area. The resulting waterspouts reached hundreds of meters into the air and were clearly visible over the horizon, where both the supertanker convoy and the "hidden" submarine could see them.The tripartite batteries of 18" guns on each vessel were capable of firing rounds massing up to, or in excess of, 300 kilograms, but 30 kilograms was the smallest round they could fire. Anything bigger than that and they would have to come to a full sto
Somewhere over the ocean on approach to a nameless island in the Indonesian archipelago.Four Edenian fighter jets were screaming through the air at supersonic speed, trailing flame from their engines. They had been flying with their afterburners on for over an hour and were about halfway to their destination, a pirate base on an unnamed island in the Indian Ocean near Indonesia.The pilots were relaxed, trading jokes back and forth and hyping each other up for their first combat mission. They had just graduated their training a few weeks before and, like many soldiers, sailors, and airmen, were feeling invincible after having been broken down and rebuilt into new versions of themselves through the tried and true method of basic training.The difference was, the members of ARES—whether they be in the Army, under the command of the AI, Mars; the Navy, under the command of the AI, Poseidon; or the Air Force, under the command of the AI, Aeolus—actually
Aron sat up in bed and stretched, then glanced at the sleeping beauty beside him. He decided to let her continue sleeping; their exercise had been particularly intense the night before. He slid out of bed and got dressed, then headed to his office for an update on the situation in the Indian Ocean."Looks like there's no need for our diplomats to do anything else," he said in response to the report. The escort was one frigate lighter and the interceptors had returned without making a mess, so everything had been handled satisfactorily. Though the airstrike had been aborted, it was fine; there was still a frigate on patrol to catch any returning pirates and a message had still been sent. As a bonus, the interceptors hadn't been picked up by any radar systems, so the long-distance strike capability of the Aeolus Air Force was still hidden from greedy eyes.."Has all of the collected evidence been compiled?" he asked Athena, the AI in overall charge of his private military fo