A month later, with a month to go before the presidential election, the candidates were campaigning with all their might. Their parties each had their own platforms and were trying to sway people to vote for them, and in their minds, things were going very well; nearly all of their rallies were filled with cheering citizens.But all of the momentum they thought they had managed to build was crushed by a single announcement from the presidential palace."We interrupt this regularly scheduled program for a breaking news report," an announcer said as the show on the television was interrupted by them to make an emergency announcement."A team of researchers dispatched to Esparia in search of natural resources and minerals has discovered a large oil deposit in the Exclusive Economic Zone of Esparia."The deposits are in different places, but based on preliminary results, it's suspected that the fields combined equal the one discovered earlier in Eden. More details are to come as the preli
A month later.89.97%....That was the percentage of people who voted for Alexander in the presidential election, which didn't come as a surprise to anyone who lived in Eden. The man was a living legend who won by that much without even actively campaigning, but rather by letting his work speak for itself.To celebrate his win, he announced a celebration rally to be held a week from the day the election result was announced....A massive crowd was gathered in one of the open fields in the city of Edenia and soldiers were everywhere, dressed in their finery with holstered pistols at their sides. They were the ones responsible for controlling the crowd of attendees at the celebration rally and ensuring the safety of the newly elected president. He would soon arrive, so they were doing their final checks, making sure that nothing dangerous was hidden in the crowd.Not too long after that, a convoy of black cars arrived with a certain level of fanfare.The security team came out of the l
The day after Alexander's speech and announcement, all parties that had been involved in the bidding went crazy. Including those spectating "experts", of course.Many of them complained about why the country had decided to trust an inexperienced company that had never been involved in the oil industry to drill the reserves.Others that had watched Alexander's speech understood that he wanted to develop a domestic industry and chose a local company, Connect, as a way to kickstart their domestic growth. Even though they weren't an oil company, at least they had some kind of "drilling" experience... for whatever it mattered. Drilling for oil had nothing in common with drilling tunnels, after all.The parties led by candidates that lost their presidential bid (the most popular of which having only received 2.45% of the votes) tried using that to sling mud at Alexander and paint him as corrupt and Connect as a company that bribed him. They insinuated that Connect wouldn't even be doing the
At the same time the press conference was taking place in the Connect headquarters, an Edenian Navy fleet was towing a massive ship that looked like a toothbrush. They were headed toward the new oil field to begin construction of an offshore drilling rig.When they neared the location, the fleet dispersed and started the process of patrolling and cleared out everything within twenty kilometers of the oddly shaped ship, which was released by its tug and dropped sea anchors to keep station where it was.With the large ship now at a full stop, people watching would see it begin tilting as the bow raised and the aft sank. But the people aboard the ship were oddly calm, as they were expecting the movement; it was merely the ballast tanks being filled to adjust the ship's orientation.Meter by meter, the rear continued dropping faster and faster, until the entire ship was completely vertical. Only about ten meters of the ship was left above the surface of the ocean while the rest had comple
New Year's Day, 2016While some were still celebrating the new year and making resolutions that were doomed to fail, others were still living with the horrors that had happened in November of last year. A few terrorist attacks had claimed the lives of more than a hundred people.With the release of Star Wars: the Force Awakens the month before, the entertainment section was also still quite riled up, as the movie had achieved a box office success within the month of release.With all of that happening in the last three months, changes had also occurred in Eden. The Eden of now was completely different from the Eden of the past.Aron was standing in front of a massive pit with a diameter measured in kilometers. As he gazed into it, the screaming of displaced air came from the distance as a maglev train neared the pit and soon entered a bridge that crossed it.The train slowed down a bit as it passed through the bridge, and the moment it neared the center of the pit, the containers it w
Aron and Rina's conversation continued as they toured the skies of Avalon Island before heading to Edenia."It's quite surprising how fast Eden started mixing with other countries. It even managed to join the UN, though that seemed to have been made easier with your discovery of oil," Rina said.The UN Security Council had acted with surprising speed when approving Eden's application, especially since Russia and China knew nobody else would be allowed to harvest the Edenian and Esparian oil fields."Well, there's a reason they call it black gold, after all. It's pure wealth and power, and it all boils down to how much we can produce. The more we can produce, the better we can stabilize the global market if a crisis arises in the OPEC nations," Aron responded as he expertly piloted the helicopter."Although I know how you're planning on pumping the oil, I wonder what the people who expect you to fail will think. They're all just waiting for you to fall on your face and go begging to th
With Aron's words, the meeting started and Nova immediately materialized in front of them. She sat in her chair as she took the position of secretary, but also the restructuring project manager.{Let's start by listing the companies and what they've been doing before I explain the reconstruction plan. That way it'll make sense.{First is GAIA Technologies, which introduced Gaia OS, Pangea, BugZapper, and a hit game to the world. It was also the first company Aron built and later incorporated a law firm, which still acts as the company's legal department.{Next is Connect, LLC, which has been providing internet, electricity, water, sewage services, and transportation throughout Eden.{Then there's Hephaestus Heavy Industries, which is responsible for the production of all physical products that all the companies need. {And last, but not least, is Helios Energy, which has been awarded the contract to extract and refine the crude oil deposits in Eden and Esparia.{In order to manage the
Silence was the only response Aron received from the other two people in the room as they contemplated his idea and attempted to come to terms with it.It was their first time facing such a morally gray decision. And although many people who'd reached the lofty heights of the three people in the meeting room had done so after many despicable deeds, neither Sarah nor Felix had ever had to make a choice like the one before them. They had been given their high and mighty positions simply because of their friendship with Aron and his trust in them; they were the only two that had stayed by his side besides his family when everyone else had abandoned him during the Rottem Morgan debacle, after all.Thus, they had never been faced with such difficult decisions before. They were completely unlike Aron, who'd had to deal with the death of all the people that had died in the Eden-Esparia war. That said, he had only managed to overcome that without any significant guilt thanks to the system doi