St Kitt's Plaza Hotel
Planet Curacao, Cortez system
This was it. This was going to be the day where Humans and the Citadel began their first steps together toward what Benezia hoped would be a brighter future. She would be the last to enter with her entourage and Dr. D'Avo into the meeting room where the discussions would start.
"Any final comments before we go in, Dr. D'Avo?" Benezia asked as they stood outside the door to the meeting room.
Dr.D'Avo furrowed her eyes in thought. "Keep an eye out on how the House representatives react to each other. I think that will give us a better understanding of the relationships between the Houses."
"An excellent suggestion." Benezia replied. D'Avo had more talent for this than she gave herself credit for. Shame she was more interested in Xenoarchaeology, but that had its own advantages.
She'd make a good mentor for her Little Wing, Liara.
"I think it's time we made history, Dr. D'Avo," Benezia said with a smile as she opened the door and stepped into the room.
Well, it was clear that whoever built the hotel had a lot of Bretonnian influence. Plenty of paneling made from dark, almost cherry coloured wood, and scarlet chairs. Yet there was also enough hints of modernity in the projector and lighting to know that this wasn't some ancient pre-spaceflight civilization room.
She also got a good look at the representatives of each of the Houses, each in their own respective corners. King Alexander himself was here, representing Bretonnia along with his cousin Lord Barstow. They were sitting in one corner of the table, sipping some tea in some delicate looking porcelain cups, looking like there wasn't anything to worry about.
Then there were the Libertonians. President Wallace was sitting down on his corner, dressed sharply in a finely tailored suit. He was looking particularly intense, as he continually reviewed what Benezia suspected were his notes in his own console. She honestly couldn't blame him. the future of his nation was on the line, and it was best that he prepare as much as possible.
The Rhinelanders, meanwhile, were represented by the Chancellor, Erik Reinhardt. Dressed in brilliant greens and golds that only seemed to accentuate his hawkish features, the man was basically glaring at the Kusari delegation, as if they were the source of all their problems. It was one that reminded Benezia a lot of what happens when you put a Krogan with a Salarian in the same room, and the Krogan managed to restrain himself enough to not kill the Salarian. Which to be fair to both, was… relatively true, at least based on what she managed to learn about the 80 Years war.
Which wasn't to say that the Kusari themselves weren't giving the Rhinelanders a hostile look either. The fact that these people, who prized their emotional control were giving openly hostile looks onto the Rhinelanders told Benezia quite a bit. Unlike the other Houses, the head of state wasn't here to represent Kusari; rather it was one of his most senior lords and advisors, one Lord Oda. Dressed in elaborate looking crimson and orange robes, the man was a mystery to Benezia and Dr. D'Avo. Dr. D'Avo had never met the man before, and was unlikely to be of much help. All Benezia had on him was a general framework on how the older Kusari thought.
She frowned internally, careful to keep her face as friendly and open as possible. This was the kind of problem that took years of hard work and effort on both sides to achieve anything close to an understanding. Even today, the Krogan held a deep seated grudge against many Salarians and Turians.
This… would take time. Best get started then.
"Gentlemen," Benezia started. "I am glad to see that you have all arrived to talk about our futures together."
"As civilized peoples, talking should always be our preferred solution, no?" Lord Oda started. "Let us begin. I Lord Oda Shinji, represent the Kusari Empire, and his eminence, the honourable Shogun Matsumoto."
"I Chancellor Erik Reinhardt represent the Federal Republic of Rhineland, and all its citizens."
"I King Alexander The First of the House of Windsor am here to represent the Kingdom of Bretonnia."
"And I am President Richard Wallace, representing the Republic of Liberty. And I for one, am very happy that we are all here and peaceably talking about this like properly civilized people," Wallace replied. "But I think the most important and glaring issue, for all of us, is how do we get to your end of space? I mean, the Tau 30 system's a dead end, and our more… conventional FTL takes forever to get anywhere beyond a system. I think this is something we all need to discuss immediately."
"We have developed our own faster form of FTL, with which I'm sure we can arrange a suitable trade for. This will in turn, allow us to… lead you to our own Jump Gate equivalents. The Mass Relays."
"Hold on. Jump Gate equivalents?" Wallace said, clearly trying to mask his worry, as the other delegates turned their full attention onto Benezia. "Just how far can one of these take you?"
"Mass Relays can vary in the distances travelled. Some can take you from one point of the galaxy to the next. Others though can only take you from one system to another nearby system." Benezia replied. "The nearest Mass Relay is a few systems away from your Tau 30 system."
"So you're just going to go ahead and build one in the Tau 30 system to help facilitate trade, then?" Wallace replied, his voice now neutral.
Damn. Benezia hoped that wouldn't come up. "Unfortunately, we are unable to build any more Mass Relays. They were built long ago by an older race we call the Protheans. We have so far been unable to replicate their grasp of the technology to build a new functioning Mass Relay. We are essentially building along where their empire was." Benezia replied carefully.
"I see." Wallace replied, a smile forming on his lips. It was clear to him that once again, Liberty had something that everyone wants, and who could blame him? They had the means to make travel between systems last minutes instead of days. "How can Liberty be of service to the galaxy, ma'am?" He replied after a moment of silence, a wry smile on his face, like a shark smelling blood in the water.
"I believe it best that we talk about integration first," Benezia countered, deflecting the question. "It is clear to me that it would be to the benefit of all if you all joined the Citadel community. Joining it opens many avenues, including trade between our peoples." she replied, hoping to win them over with that bait.
"How are we to trade if we cannot get to your systems?" Reinhardt asked. "It would be unfair and one-sided to have you all come to us without our own businesses being able to send their wares to you via our own services. Our own freight system could be starved out."
"I'm sure that a suitable tariff system by your own people could help keep your own rates competitive while we try and perform some… integration of our technological bases." Benezia suggested. "Though I must say that the exchange of technology would have to be… equal, as I am sure you know. "
"While we would be delighted to trade our technology with you, I'm afraid that even as Head of State, there are simply some things we cannot quite simply share with you immediately." King Alexander replied apologetically. "Not only are we clearly operating on a different technological base from your own, we have our own classified items that we cannot simply share with anyone immediately, no matter how much we want to. These sort of things require some time before we can provide what you seek."
"I understand," Benezia replied. It was a little much to hope for that they would offer anything military or police grade that this soon in the relationship, and besides they had a point. They would be working from the ground up in regards to these weapons. There was no guaranteed way they would even be able to generate enough energy to make use of the weapons effectively. "I was talking more along the line of say... your material sciences, energy generation, and this SynthPaste I hear about."
"SynthPaste, like many Libertonian products are a patented product of one of our companies, in this case, SynthFoods Inc., and as such cannot be traded or manufactured without due licensing." Wallace replied. "If you are interested in producing said product, you will have to talk to their company reps."
"The material sciences and energy generation, on the other hand," Reinhardt replied, "Is something we Houses will have to discuss at a later date. Understand that while we are interested in joining the community, we feel it best if we… keep some things to ourselves first. We are… unsure as to what kind of community we are getting into and we are not quite yet prepared to trust our people's lives with you by giving all of our secrets. Although… I think we can all agree that giving our basics would be harmless enough. Making sure that we are all on the right path to understanding the world around us would be essential in making sure our joint efforts go smoothly. Though we are far more interested in hearing your end. What do you have to offer us in terms of technological trade?"
"Indeed I must ask this on behalf of my Shogun." Lord Oda inquired. " While my Rhinelander... counterpart and I may disagree on many things, we must know that the deal is not one sided. What can you provide that would in turn, help us mutually benefit from this… new relationship we are to enter?"
"Computers for one thing," Benezia started. "Based on what we have observed so far, while your computers are effective enough, we feel that in time we can certainly improve them to much better standards. You would be surprised at just how much our own computers are capable of. In fact, it is indeed quite possible, though very illegal, to create fully sapient AIs."
That elicited a stir among the House representatives, as they quietly began to converse amongst themselves and their entourages.
"That would indeed be a great deal of interest to us." Wallace responded. "While we do have our own robotic servants, they are not very… efficient, or at least on the level we desire. They are good enough for performing menial tasks and as automated help. Having them be a little more… flexible would be useful"
"Of course, there is one piece of technology that I would have to share with you to even begin real integration of our systems. And it is all centered on this element." Benezia replied as she put the image of element zero on the display.
"This is Element Zero." she started. "It has several unique properties, most notably its ability to affect mass when a current passes through it. It can make things either more or less massive, and as I am sure you can imagine, that opens up a world of possibilities."
One of Reinhardt's advisors was hurriedly whispering into his ear. Perhaps they had encountered it before?
"I am told by my advisors that we have encountered that element before, though we have never been able to appropriate enough to truly experiment with it. It has, so far, been found only in the Omega 11 system, and only in the deepest and most dangerous parts of the Van Rohe belt, and even then, only in miniscule amounts."
"Is it by any chance a system that has recently gone into supernova?" Benezia asked. That would be the most common location for eezo to be found.
"We suspect that it will go supernova within a few centuries." Reinhardt replied after a brief talk with his advisor.
That was another thing to add to the list of things to ask for. The opportunity to study what sounded like was the natural formation of eezo was something no scientist had encountered so far. However, it might be best to talk about it at a later date.
"That is quite fascinating. I am sure that many of our scientists would love to have access to the system to observe the phenomena occurring there," Benezia replied. "Which in turn brings me to the next point of discussion: accessing territory. Many of our companies would love to trade their goods and services to the Sirius sector, and many Citadel citizens would love to explore the Sirius systems."
"We have no problems with people visiting our systems," Reinhardt replied. "I'm sure all but Kusari would agree to that."
"I must ask that for the purposes of tourism, your citizens will have to ask for a visa at a… future Kusari embassy." Oda continued, scowling at Reinhardt while doing so. "The details we will, I am sure, discuss at a later point. For trade however… that is something I cannot discuss just yet. I will need to confer with my Shogun about this, for he gave me explicit instructions regarding this particular situation."
"Though, this leads to another sort of topic I am very sure all of my colleagues here are quite interested in." Oda continued. "That of, what I assume to be unexplored and unclaimed territory. " Nods of approval came from all the representatives, even a grudging one from Reinhardt.
This was a landmine that Benezia honestly wished to avoid. However, there was no way of avoiding it now that Oda had aired it. "Allow me to bring up a map, then."
Benezia quickly brought out a image of the galaxy, and put it up on display. "This here, as I am sure you are aware, is a map of the galaxy." She then highlighted a small dot on the map. "This highlighted area is the Sirius sector. You are currently located on the edge of an area of space we call the Attican Traverse," here Benezia highlighted a good portion of the galaxy, relatively close to the galactic center. "It is a mostly unclaimed sector of space, though it has been explored a bit, mostly by the Batarians. The reason why it is unclaimed is that as you will soon see, it is quite distant from most of the other claimed sectors of space," she said as she began highlighting Asari, Turian, Salarian and other Citadel species space.
"As you can also see, we have only explored at most, a mere 1% of the galaxy," she said as the scattered dots even smaller than the Sirius sector connected only by the tiniest trails, became more clear. "This is due to the limitations of our FTL drive. It has its own range issues, and one can only explore so far from a Mass Relay or established bases. The nearest relay to the Sirius Sector is in what I believe you call the Armstrong Nebula. From here, you should be able to launch your own expeditions throughout the Traverse and begin your own colonization programs. I'm sure your own people can… negotiate how to best distribute any claimed systems among yourselves."
"While we agree in principle, the reality is that we are going to have arguments over competing claims sooner or later." Wallace replied. "To squabble over new accessible systems can only lead to war. We require an… impartial third party to help listen to our cases for any future disputed claims that we Houses will have against each other. We were hoping that your Citadel council could act as a court of sorts, where they can justly distribute the system to whoever has the better claim, in case of dispute. Otherwise, we have agreed to a… buffer system similar to what we have established here in the Sirius Sector."
"A fair statement, and one that I think would be best for… the stability of all involved parties." Benezia replied. She was glad that despite their squabbling, they were still hesitant about going to open war among themselves, which was, she hoped, an excellent sign of maturity in this race. "I am sure that the Council will be able to provide a fair judgement on each of your future cases."
"It is all we ask for in regards to that," Wallace responded.
'Now on to the topic of embassies," Benezia started. "You Humans will be a unique addition to the Presidium on the Citadel. I have been authorized to grant you all an embassy for each of your Houses on board the station. Who you assign to represent your interests, of course, lies with you."
"Excellent," Wallace replied. "This sounds like as good a time as any to take a recess so that we can process all that we have talked about so far. We can go discuss… technicalities and details after the break."
"I second the motion." Lord Oda followed.
"Agreed." King Alexander responded.
"I concur." Reinhardt replied.
"Seeing as we are all in agreement then,' Benezia said as she stood up. "Let us adjourn this meeting and continue to talk about our futures together later."
She would definitely need some time to work out proper details. This would be a lot more difficult than she thought. While clear in their… disagreements, the fact that they agreed to certain policies made her think that maybe it wouldn't be as easy as she thought to use diplomacy as a wedge between them.
She was definitely going to go home with news that will rattle a few heads.