{With the changes being agreed upon, I hereby declare that the amendment has passed and will be ratified the moment it is signed by the emperor.} Gaia announced, as usual, acting as the chair of the imperial council. She then hit the gavel to conclude the session.Everyone in the room clapped for a moment, with many of the watchers unsure if the applause was out of obligation or genuine happiness. However, the smiles on their faces suggested it was the latter.Gaia then brought the meeting to a close, as this was the only agenda item for today's session and the attendees had other pressing matters to attend to.…….."Why didn’t you ratify the constitution if it had already passed the council in the first place?” Rina asked him the moment he left VR.“What is the urgency in it, darling? We teach our children (not his students at school) not to pay for anything or sign anything without seeing it first, and you want me to do the same for whole new races without seeing them?”His response
Proxima Centauri.It had been a year and three months since the messenger was sent, and everything continued as usual, following the meticulously prepared plan from the start.Proxima A was as busy as ever, perhaps even busier than before. If observed closely from space, one could see rudimentary cities nestled within the massive tree branches where the Proximians were born. These cities were built in a manner that integrated seamlessly with the trees rather than destroying them, creating a beautiful and harmonious ambiance.As per the universal bureaucracy rule, there always needs to be a meeting taking place. Currently, one such meeting was occurring between Ayaka, the official responsible for the planet, and admiral Bianchi, the leader of the entire exploration fleet."We are expected to complete the training within a month and should start extracting them from the VR pods with everything they need to live together with humans and by themselves already taught," Ayaka reported to Fl
Space between Solar and Proxima star system.{Permission granted to access the network} announced the AI controlling the ten spaceships that had halted a week away from the Proxima Centauri star system upon receiving access to the Proxima exploration fleet's network.The reason the ships had come to a stop at this specific distance, rather than proceeding further or turning back, was that it was the farthest point where they could still connect to the exploration fleet's quantum towers. Additionally, continuing to the Proxima star system would mean wasting another week, which was unnecessary since their mission was brief and purely functional, not for sentimental reasons.{Initiate communication anchoring.} The AI began by setting up the Proxima side of the communication network as the endpoint for the quantum communication link it was establishing.{Initiating network boot and docking.} As it issued this command, the AI sent a ping to the nearest installed quantum towers that the ten
Fifty-five minutes later.The entire Proxima Centauri star system returned to a semblance of its previous silence before humans arrived. The majority of the machines were put into automatic mode, while those requiring human control were switched to power-saving mode.Everyone who wasn’t engaged in an essential task had already donned their VR devices and logged into the local VR network. They clicked on the invitation link, which transported them to a massive meeting hall capable of accommodating all of them. The hall reminded them of their last gathering of such magnitude, right before they embarked on their exploration mission.“What do you think they gathered us for?” Yavuz, a mechanical engineer standing next to Lee, asked him, as Lee was currently one of the most well-known people in the exploration fleet.He was on the same level of being known as the fleet admiral, with everyone knowing and jokingly addressing him as the father of all the created Proximians since they were lite
Aron, having completed his lengthy discussion with the fleet's admiral and granted him leave, sat alone in his VR room, enveloped in silence.{What’s on your mind?} Nova inquired as she materialized beside him, breaking the stillness of the room.“I’m trying to imagine the range of emotions they’ll experience during their reunions,” Aron replied, accustomed to her probing questions.“The majority will feel happiness,” he said, “but there will be a few who experience profound distress. Some of the soldiers might face the harsh reality that their spouses, whom they left behind, were unfaithful—either having cheated out of remorse or used the mission as a chance to welcome others into their lives during their absence.”“The opposite is also true,” Aron continued. “Some members of the crew, while on the exploration mission, were unfaithful to their spouses. Additionally, some will receive the devastating news of the deaths of their loved ones during their absence.”He reflected on these s
Aron had been spending more and more time with his family since he had decided to go to Proxima Centauri at the Proximians tree folks' request, and that decision was further reinforced after the two-star systems were connected.An hour before, the Emperor addressed the Proxima Centauri exploration fleet.While the fleet admiral was sending out an emergency call order for the meeting Aron had requested and scheduled for an hour later, Ayaka was seen leaving the mothership and heading back to the planet, having been assigned another mission.Upon landing at the designated zone, Ayaka wasted no time. She stepped off the ship with a suitcase in hand and walked purposefully toward a lone tree.When she was about a hundred meters away, the lone tree began to shake and transform. Branches and leaves twisted and rearranged until a humanoid figure emerged, facing Ayaka with an uncanny valley smile."Welcome, Ayaka," the humanoid tree said. Her tone and manner of speaking seemed to have evolved
Ayaka wasted no time and immediately logged into the VR, reporting the results of her discussion with Birch to the emperor. After logging off, she opened the suitcase, which immediately materialized a physical copy of the emperor thanks to the nanomachines inside it.The physical copy's eyes had been closed since its creation, but they shortly opened, revealing golden irises as the body looked around, adjusting to its new environment.He extended his hand and closed it into a fist, testing the responsiveness and sensation through the nanomachine body. Feeling the smooth movement and the sensory feedback, he nodded with a satisfied expression.But that didn't last long. ‘I don’t like this stuffy feeling,’ he thought to himself. Currently, he could be considered to have his consciousness transferred into this body, and as a result, he could only sense what this body was sensing. With it being a purely technology-based nanomachine, he wasn’t sensing a single bit of mana or experiencing
Two weeks later.The fleet members had wrapped up their vacation and returned to their duties, brimming with excitement and enthusiasm—at least the majority of them. The fleet's exploratory mission was now in full swing once again.As usual, a meeting was taking place somewhere within the fleet, but this one was special because of one of its attendees – the emperor.Although the mission had shifted from a no-direct-contact protocol to an active-contact protocol, its core procedures remained unchanged. The only notable difference was that fleet members could now stay in touch with their families after their shifts.This meant the fleet continued to operate as a self-governing entity, with no interference from anyone other than the emperor. His oversight remained the only exception, and it would only extend beyond his usual limits if he explicitly stated otherwise.This rule, combined with the fleet's unique circumstances, led to the emperor's personal attendance at the meeting he had c