DOWNTOWN
President Raiko had never been particularly fond of the Republic City Council Chamber. Sixty-odd years of history aside, the airy, cathedral-like meeting hall had always been… far too large, even for massive state-level meetings, packed as they were with legions of staffers, attaches, and self-proclaimed experts.
For the tiny Committee on the Present Danger, consisting of himself, Fire Lord Izumi, and Representative Tenzin, it was positively gargantuan.
"…at present, the only forces we can commit to your defense are the First Fleet of the Fire Navy, and one regiment of Marines. My military advisors want to hold most of our Marines back to threaten the Earth Empire on the flanks."
Raiko sighed. One puny regiment of Marines was hardly going to shift the balance of power. Kuvira had one hundred and fifty divisions locked, loaded, and ready to go. Once the Earth Empire finished digesting Zao Fu, those divisions would give Kuvira an overwhelming preponderance of power on the Continent.
"Can't you give us a few divisions of ground troops?" Raiko pleaded. "Our force ratios are…"
"No. The Fire Nation Army stays at home. Whole divisions of Fire Nation troops in the United Republic will only rile up the Earth Empire. Too many bad memories." Tenzin shook his head.
"Our Marine regiment is a tripwire force. If the Earth Empire attacks, my men will die, and Kuvira will find herself fighting the Fire Nation. This, together with our treaty obligations, should be more than sufficient to deter any Earth Empire adventurism."
Raiko kicked himself for backing Kuvira to stabilize the Earth Empire. A more pliable patsy would have kept the Earth Empire weak and divided, keeping the United Republic safe. King Wu, now that idiot would have been perfect. The King was all talk, and had no administrative skill whatsoever, but, with him (and his United Republic-appointed advisors) ruling the Earth Kingdom, the Republic might have kept its highly lucrative terms of trade with the Earth Kingdom, and its corporations might even have kept their sweet, tax-free factory towns in Full Moon Bay.
Well, an Earth Kingdom patriot was in charge, the gunboats had been kicked from the Serpent's Pass, and the United Republic's corporations were paying their dues to Bah Sing Se, with the specter of nationalization hovering over their assets and share prices.
"We need concrete military assistance. We cannot hold against…"
The door flung open, and Raiko's eyes widened as the Avatar, Varrick, and their companions burst through the door, and began telling tales of loss of prestige, demoralization, and impossible, world-changing superweapons.
Raiko stopped Varrick in his tracks. "Can the weapon be stopped?"
"Stopped? You don't just stop a blast equivalent to a thousand tonnes of blasting gel! It's like trying to stop a volcano, or a river!"
Korra shrugged. "Avatar Aang stopped a volcano once."
Varrick waved her away. "And I see no reason why the weapon couldn't be scaled up! Heck, with a little time to upgrade my rig, I bet I could get up to ten kilotons out of that spirit vine!"
A young lady in an airbender suit – Suyin's girl, Raiko noted, raised her hand. "What's a kiloton?"
"A unit of kaboom, of coruse! A kiloton is as much kaboom as a thousand tonnes of blasting gel gives you." Varrick explained.
Raiko gulped. Back in the insurrection, the Equalists had destroyed a skyscraper with nothing more than five tonnes of blasting gel. Ten thousand tonnes would…
"You know, that kind of firepower could come in really handy for mining operations! Zhu Li! My notepad! Oh." Varrick searched the room briefly, and sighed.
"Are you telling me you could build a weapon that could level a district?"
Varrick rubbed his chin. "Well, with a little elbow grease and sufficient resources, I could level a third of Republic City and blow out every window from the suburbs to Air Temple Island. And if I could do that, so could Bataar Junior."
Raiko turned to the Committee. "I'm afraid I need to contact my military advisors. Fire Lord Izumi, I suggest you do the same. Everyone else up to my office."
=O=
"So this weapon… how heavy would it be?" General Iroh of the United Forces stared at a diagram of a typical mecha tank formation, trying in vain to understand how a weapon with the power of ten thousand tonnes of blasting gel would actually work on the battlefield.
"Well, we're talking about maybe ten kilograms of spirit vines, plus a few hundred kilograms of containment and initiation equipment."
"That's air-transportable, then. A biplane bomber could drop it." Iroh rubbed his chin. Such a weapon could appear anywhere on the battlefield. He'd have to spread his troops out across thousands of meters to avoid massive casualties…
"Oh, with spirit energy, we don't need to worry about transporting it! With sufficient staff, I could power Republic City with a spirit energy reactor no bigger than the Council Chamber, and give a plane enough juice to fly all the way to Bah Sing Se! It'd be some biplane, though…"
Raiko looked away. Varrick was on a roll again.
"Imagine the possibilities! Heating! Electricity! Ships that don't need fuel! Mining explosives! Rockets! Do you know how much easier it would be for my ships if we could blow up all that nasty sea ice at the South Pole's ports? Mr. President, if we gain the lead in Spirit Energy technology, Republic City's economy will be rock-solid for the next half-century!"
Raiko put his phone on the receiver. "If Kuvira has this weapon, we'll be lucky to survive the year!
The Avatar's voice was frantic. "Kuvira could level Republic City! Varrick, you have to find a way to defend against Spirit Energy."
"It's energy! Energy doesn't protect you from energy! Does being on a moving train protect you from a train headed your way?"
Iroh frowned. "What if we had this weapon?"
"How does that help us?" Korra raised an eyebrow.
"Well, we could threaten to use it against them. After all, deterrence is one of the missions of the United Forces." Iroh shrugged. "They bomb Republic City, we bomb Bah Sing Se."
Korra's jaw dropped. "That sounds horrifying."
"I'm not saying we should strike first." Iroh noted. "But if they attack us with the weapon, I see no reason why it would be wrong to strike back."
Raiko nodded. "Get to it. General Iroh, I want you to put together a study group to see how we should use this weapon. Figure out what targets we should attack with it, and what kinds of weapons we'll need."
The Avatar gesticulated to a map of the Earth Empire. "Woah, woah, woah! The Earth Empire is home to millions of innocent people. We can't just go around blowing them up the moment Kuvira attacks us!"
A thought occurred to Raiko, and he positively beamed with joy. "We won't have to."
"Kuvira is a nationalist, not a madman." Raiko snapped his fingers. "She wants conquest, not destruction, and she will only attack if she thinks she can win. She is rational. If she knows that we possess this weapon, she will not attack, because she will know that she will be destroyed if she tries. Nor will we have any incentive to attack her, since she might have the weapon too, and she can destroy us if we try, so she doesn't have to worry too much about an attack from us."
The room froze.
"Don't you see? If we get our hands on Spirit Energy Weapons before Kuvira does, nobody has to fight! Spirit energy weapons will make war so devastating it will become suicidal. Nobody will attack, no matter how much anyone might want to attack, because no sane government would make such a plainly suicidal decision. And never before has the argument that a decision is plainly suicidal ever been so clearly articulated!"
Raiko smiled at the last part. A nation might convince itself that superior morale or racial purity would triumph over population and industrial might, that a lightning thrust might topple a lumbering giant before it could mobilize.
But such arguments were far less convincing when the weapons involved created explosions that could level cities and obliterate armies at the touch of a button.
Spirit Energy Weapons would be the ultimate argument for peace, and against war.
Iroh, finally understanding, smiled faintly. "And there will be peace. Perhaps forever."
"A peace enforced by sheer terror!" Korra bit back.
"Don't think of it as enforcement. Think of it as… balance. A balance of terror, enforced by the most powerful weapons ever created."
Korra began to nod. It sounded insane… but at the same time, it made perfect sense. It was common sense, even. People don't play games they know they can't win, especially when they can't delude themselves into thinking they can beat the odds.
"It… could work, I guess."
"As the Avatar, it is your duty to maintain the balance of the world. These new weapons are merely a new means by which the world tries to stay in balance." Raiko explained.
"You must embrace this new reality, not stand in its way. If a balance is maintained only by someone constantly making a great effort to push on one side, it isn't a balance at all." He walked over to the door.
Korra gave a sigh, and nodded sharply. "You have my full support, Mr. President."
Raiko smiled. "Now, Mr. Varrick. I trust that you understand your role in this endeavor?"
"I don't want to be remembered for weapons and wars! I want to be remembered for my movers! And my shipping empire! And for a new world powered by spirit energy!" Varrick whined.
Should have thought of that before starting that civil war, Korra thought.
Raiko frowned. "Mr. Varrick, for the next six months, every dime being spent on spirit energy in the United Republic will be going into weapons research. If you do not cooperate, Hiroshi Sato and Future Industries will have taken over the Spirit Energy Industry before you've even gotten off the ground. And since I plan to declare a state of emergency anyway, I can have Varrick Global's assets in Republic City nationalized to support the war effort… that is, unless you cooperate."
Varrick gulped, and gave a slow nod.
"Excellent." The President cracked a smile. "Show Asami Sato, her father, and General Bumi in. We have much to discuss."
=O=
Author's note: On the other hand, "will make war too destructive to contemplate" was what they said of the machine-gun too, prior to World War I. Maybe this time it'll be true. Nuclear weapons are certainly powerful enough, and their historical track record in preventing large-scale war is as impeccable as it is crystal clear.