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Phase 7: No good deed goes unpunished

=SI=

Part 3

=SI=


Stark Industries and Starlight Consortium announce details of their deal. China will be building exoskeletons for civilian use.

Forbes Magazine

Stark Industries will begin testing powered exoskeletons and various "assistance" tools next month.

Science Today

US Navy launches program to explore the feasibility of armoring modern warships. SI's patented heavy polymer-based Permex building material cited as a key component of potentially viable warship armor.

US Navy magazine

Stark Industries licenses the production of SyntheticConcrete to over a hundred construction firms worldwide. Government sources confirm that the Infrastructure Bill passed by US Senate and Congress will require using SI's advanced building material to refurbish or rebuild infrastructure. Stark Industries is guaranteed to make billions from new license and patent fees.Financial TimesOfficials from the EU, NATO, Canada, Japan, South Korea, and China confirmed among the guests in Stark Industries prototype fusion reactor test in New York.

New YorkTimes


=SI=

Stark mansion
New York, US

The buying spree I went on during the investigation left me comfortably sitting at eighty percent control of SI's shares. This gave me more control over the company than ever, and it was something I gleefully used to push research and development ideas forward.

The downside was that now that I was paying attention, even with Jarvis' invaluable help, I was still swamped with paperwork. If I wanted to prevent a repeat of Stane's subversion of SI, it could be no other way.

The only reasonable answer was to vet more people and semi-regularly waste time ensuring no one else was subverting my company. I guessed that that would be less than ideal, but it couldn't be helped.

One of the many unfortunate consequences was I still didn't have the time to properly dedicate myself to exploring the potential of the Arc reactor and the Repulsor technology. I knew that those two could shine brighter with new materials and advances in supporting fields, just like everything else I was working on. The big difference was I knew the potential of the tech base I was attempting to rebuild.

This was the real world, not a movie. As they were now, the Arc reactor and Repulsors were far from enough to make a slim flying armor feasible, much less give it durability similar to that of a tank.

Heat was the primary problem, and that was something I would have to solve the hard way. Back in the universe I remembered, the heat was mostly a solved issue. Advanced materials, containment systems, and other technologies offered various ways to handle the heat.

I didn't have access to any of that. I knew that certain room-temperature superconductors would be of great help. However, making them in the first place, much less in an economically viable way, would require proper orbital infrastructure.

We needed better power sources and, ideally, better materials to get there. Ideally, we would like the fruits of said infrastructure to get those, so it was a catch-22.

Building fusion reactors all over the place and leveraging their energy was the way to break out of the trap. Fusion power and Ion engines could give us practical access to Earth's orbitals and the resources of the asteroid belt. That would be a jumping point for proper orbital industries and the resources of the whole solar system.

Those would be the next two giant steps towards uplift.

One could dream, right?

But until I had access to orbital industry, its products, and potential for experiments, I was greatly limited in what I could practically do.

The good news was I already had collated what should be possible to achieve and what we should focus on research-wise and sent it to SI's departments. Political and economic concerns slowed things down at this point, but hopefully not for much longer. I needed research institutes and laboratories worldwide to work on filling gaps and figuring out how to make my ideas a reality.

I was looking for the moment when I could focus on research and development beyond the foundational technologies we had to get off the ground before things could get interesting.

That train of thought brought me back to my current dilemma. I wanted the Arc reactor and repulsors as my trump cards. I wanted to be the one to push those technologies to the limit because, compared to everything else I was eager to share, those two items were what my father and I created. These weren't ancient technologies or newer development I learned from in school or by necessity over the past hundred years.

These were my family's legacy and my work as well.

That was how I found myself in my lab after getting back and checking on Hannah. Instead of working on making smaller fusion reactors a reality, I had Jarvis bring up schematics and development notes on the Arc reactor and the Repulsors.

I wasn't sure if this was a waste of time, a pointless obsession, or a possibility I had to explore before it was too late. The same went for sharing the technologies and letting others have a crack at them.

On the face of it, both technologies had the same limiting factors that made compact fusion hard: materials science and heat management. There were other issues as well, but those were the critical ones.

Compact designs required much stronger alloys to keep the generated energies contained. With a larger design, using the same technology would be easier. That would mean a much bigger containment chamber, where a large amount of the suitable gases could act as a buffer before even considering the thickness of the chamber's walls. Thick walls meant much more material to absorb and disperse heat. It meant large built-in cooling systems were possible.

Now, on one hand, a much smaller device wouldn't need to generate anywhere near the power of a large commercial reactor. On the other hand, in comparison, the containment vessel would have a much smaller proportional surface and mass to handle the stress. That was true for the heat too.

In theory, I could try to make the Arc reactor in my chest orders of magnitude more powerful. The math didn't lie. I could push it to about eight to ten gigajoules per second.

I didn't know of a material we could make on Earth in the foreseeable future that could safely contain that amount of energy without failing in short order if used in a containment vessel small enough to carry. That was just handling pure energy. The heat produced by eight gigajoules per the second reaction would be tremendous. That would be enough to flash-fry me even if the containment vessel didn't simply melt or even vaporize.

In comparison, the reactor in my chest had the constant output of two to three car batteries in a much smaller and lighter vessel. That was nothing to scoff at if we didn't consider the price. For most applications, cost, and space-wise, a bunch of car batteries or just plugging something into the power grid would be better.

This was the frustrating part, just like with the fusion reactors. I knew what was possible and what I needed to make it possible, yet doing so was out of reach for the time being. Perhaps for years or even a decade or two.

The Repulsor tech had the same issue. The devices were inherently short-lived with available materials before either frying themselves or suffering a catastrophic overload. The latter was how the Jericho warheads worked – a short burst of acceleration to get the sub-munitions to target, followed by intentional overload. The third ingredient was a dumb AI calculating how to best shape the resulting explosions so their geometry would reinforce the destruction.

Again, the only practical way I could see right now was to go big and use the sheer mass of the resulting device to contain the energies involved and help handle the heat without catastrophic results.

I shoved the holographic images aside.

"Jarvis, open a new file called critical stepping stones."

"It's ready, Sir."

I began to dictate a concise list of what supporting technologies we would need to develop and make practical for mass production for steps two and three of the uplift. I still wasn't sure what to do with the Arc reactor and the Repulsors. However, even without them, the same technologies would be needed. Those would be the supporting technologies that I needed the whole world to be busy researching soon.


=SI=

Part 4

=SI=


SHIELD HQ

New York, US

About two weeks before my prototype fusion reactor would be ready for ignition, I got a 'request' for a meeting in one of the many skyscrapers in the city. Instead of more negotiations between SI and one of the many corporations eager to get a piece of the pie, this one was worse.

I knew that sooner or later, I would have to get directly involved in politics, and this was it. No good deed gets unpunished. This would be part of the price I would have to pay to keep Earth from getting subjugated and ensure a good future for Hannah.

Speaking about politics, it was no coincidence that Mr. Agent met us at the entrance.

"Mr. Stark, I'm glad to see you under better circumstances." Coulson smiled pleasantly.

"I'm about to wade into politics again. Those aren't much better circumstances." I pointed out.

"You're familiar with the beast?" He didn't even bother to be subtle about fishing for information.

"I remember being the military governor of a few systems a handful of times. At least it's beneficial because that gave me a reason to be involved in figuring out alternative methods of manufacturing certain essential building materials.

"The patents that are currently revolutionalizing construction." Coulson nodded in understanding. "Please come this way, Mr. Stark. The meeting will happen on the top floor. Your security detail can wait with those of the others attending in person."

Mr. Agent led us past a regular-looking lobby to a row of sleek, fast elevators, and soon we reached our destination.

Groups of SHIELD security outfitted for combat held the right wing of the top floor. Coulson got us past them without incident. We got to a long hall leading to open conference and meeting rooms, with a large cafeteria to the right. It was complete with groups of bodyguards. A closer glance showed pins with the flags of multiple countries on their lapels.

I nodded at the commander of my security detail and let Coulson lead me to a nearby secure conference room. He opened the door and waved me in.

Several people were clustered in small groups talking to each other. Large monitors lined the walls or stuck from the ceiling above a long wooden table.

My breath hitched, and unbidden fury erupted in my chest when I saw a tall, dark-skinned man wearing a leather trenchcoat. Save for the eyepatch and two flesh and blood hands, he could have been Windu's twin brother. I was already reaching to lash at him when reality caught up with me.

More than a few people stared at me with interest and worry while I glowered at the bastard and examined him through the Force. I struggled to contain my fury.

"Is there a problem, Mr. Stark?" Mr. Agent asked warily.

"It's not every day I meet the twin brother of someone I loath." I bit out.

That man's Force signature was nothing like Windu's, even if the resemblance was uncanny.

The bald man narrowed his eye at me.

"Do we have a problem, Stark?" He demanded.

"You look like an uglier clone of a certain bastard who crippled my wife a few decades ago." I slowly lowered my hand. "That's what my new memories tell me anyway."

"Well, that's a novel reason for someone not to like the Director." Mr. Agent quipped.

"That's your boss? Fuck my luck."

"Mr. Stark, Tony, it's good to see you again." An older British woman left her group and approached me with a smile.

"Mrs. Hawley?" It took me a few seconds to place the face and name. I remember her visiting Howard at least a few times back in the day.

"It's Pamela, Tony. I'm glad we have you on board and want to finally personally thank you for what you're doing." She did her best to defuse the situation.

"You're welcome?" I used my anger to sharpen my focus. The realization that this wasn't Windu, who died long ago, did help in that regard.

"I'm also sorry about what you had to endure, even if it is beneficial in the grand scheme of things." Hawley continued.

"Yes, those memories come in handy more often than not."

Everyone was looking at us curiously, judging and evaluating already.

"Let me make an introduction so we can begin. Please join me and take a seat, Tony."

If nothing else, the woman was genuinely happy to see me. However, I doubted it was because of her connection with my father.

I soon got a complete introduction to the people who oversaw SHIELD as a whole, as well as its director, Nicholas Fury, who was supposed to have no connection with Windu. It had to be a quirk of genetics. He looked close enough to the actor who played Windu in this Earth's Star Wars prequels.

Just from the people present in person, or the few who attended over an encrypted satellite link, it quickly became apparent that SHIELD had more reach than I was aware of.

The interesting thing was who wasn't represented on this Council. There was no Russian representative, no one from Africa or South America. However, save for Russia, the principal economies and military powers that mattered were on board. That by itself was nothing to scoff at.

"You didn't call me here just for a meet and greet session." I pointed out after the introductions were mercifully over. "Who wants to spill the beans?"

"Tony, we've taken notice of your actions, claims, and achievements as of late. We've been evaluating you for the past few months and recently reached a few conclusions." Pamela explained. "We are here to get a first-hand experience with the new you. We want to give you further opportunity to demonstrate your expertise beyond the sciences you're pushing to their limit."

I pondered Hawley's words for a few seconds.

"Is this a job interview?" I asked in a bemused tone.

"At the very least, we'll want you as a consultant for a new organization we're creating under SHIELD's aegis. It will focus on global defense against alien threats," Hawley continued. "We want you as a consultant for SWORD, the Sapient World Observation, and Response Department."

"You people do love your acronyms," I noted. "What do you want to know?"

"We would like to hear more about what you can offer as a strategic adviser beyond the technical details of the uplift effort you're already involved with, Mr. Stark." The Indian representative elaborated. "What are your thoughts on global defense, and what advice can you offer on short notice?"

A test, then. This was almost like my last stint as a professor in a military academy during my retirement.

"The key word here is global," I began. "This matters when dealing with an alien aggressor interested in more than wholesale destruction. Borders? National identities? Those don't matter. The most dangerous part of an invasion is establishing a beachhead. In that regard, the worst-case scenario for the defender is if the enemy can do it unopposed because they have local sympathizers. For a global defense initiative to work, it needs global reach and everyone on board as far as a defense against alien aggression is concerned." I gave the Councilors a deadpan look. "I have no illusions that everyone can or will just come together singing kumbaya. In the coming decades, we'll need a united front to show the galaxy at large when we have the tools to defend ourselves. Failing to achieve this by any means necessary can be the greatest threat to Earth once we have defenses that matter. That, however, is beyond the scope I can influence. It's your job and that of your governments."

Those words alone earned me many thoughtful looks. Hawley and a few other Councilors appeared particularly pleased with my little speech.

Others, not so much. I was well aware of the implications. Doing this in any way that mattered would require unpleasant political choices. Those included bringing into the fold hostile nations or neutralizing them both as a threat and a potential friendly staging ground for an alien invasion. In the long run, doing so would sometimes require covert regime changes or even direct military action to neutralize threats and establish defensive positions against an alien invasion.

I wondered if anyone would have the stomach to do this without half-assing it because there were no good options in the time available. Without extreme measures, uniting Earth to face alien invasion would take much longer than getting the technology and industry ready. That was already a project that would take decades.

Then again, the uplift alone would shatter the existing world order and cause more than a few wars. That usually happens when something suddenly turns a current world order on its head in places nowhere near as divided as Earth.


=SI=

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