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Phase 7: No good deed goes unpunished
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Part 5
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SHIELD HQ
New York, US
"That's a great way to start world war three!" Fury snapped.
"You did ask for military expertise, and I'm giving it to you. In my experience, most worlds tend to either get invaded and united that way, get blown up in a global war, or suffer a bloody unification period. Those particularly lucky manage to get united before nuclear weapons enter the stage. We aren't that lucky." I explained. "The particularly unlucky worlds enter the galactic stage divided, giving everyone else great levels to divide and conquer military, economically or diplomatically."
"That's not something we can decide by ourselves, at any rate, Mr. Stark," Pierce interjected. He was obviously trying to prevent an argument. "Setting the question of global unity or its lack aside, what else can you recommend?"
"We all agree that if we get properly invaded tomorrow, there's nothing much we can do besides surrender, right?" I asked.
"That's the sad truth." Pierce quickly replied.
"Then my recommendations will concern the short-term management of threats we can do something about. That is covert alien operations and limited incursions to either test our defenses or search for artifacts that someone might have displaced back in the day. As a bonus, such options should be useful against enhanced people going rogue and terrorist threats."
"Now, that's what I like to hear." Rockwell's approval was loud and clear. "Do tell!"
"Nodal defense," I offered. "Quick reaction forces with the best gear we can make. They will deploy from bases worldwide, ideally ensuring both global reach and quick deployment to any trouble spots. Heavy conventional forces augmented by units with state-of-the-art equipment to act as power multipliers would be the second wave of deployment if necessary. Such a strategy will have various benefits facing limited incursions. It would ensure our best units can't be taken with a few orbital strikes if we face pirates or other small-scale raids with orbital support. There are other military and political benefits to such an arrangement."
I observed the councilors quietly murmur to each other while digesting my second suggestion.
"Mr. Stark, your ideas are similar to the capabilities SHIELD strategists would like to develop to handle various issues organically. SHIELD has been working to achieve global reach to allow insertion of direct action units in hot spots." Rockwell admitted. "It makes sense that SWORD would need similar capabilities to face more dangerous opposition."
"The political implications and access to relevant technologies help sell such an arrangement," Monet added, speaking with a barely noticeable French accent. "Do you have other short-term suggestions?"
"Until we have access to better technology and through its designs to put it to good use, our options are strictly limited. In that regard, I have a few questions. Access to alien materials, like the one my father used to make Captain America's shield, can offer shortcuts. A critical issue we have right now is managing heat and the need for better materials to make all kinds of compact technologies practical. Even a limited number of advanced materials or technologies to emulate what we have on hand can be tremendously useful. Ideally, we will get working versions we can build mostly with Earth technology. Then we can focus resources and research on replicating or finding ways around the critical components currently out of reach."
These words led to a brief discussion on the idea's merits and how to get such materials. If SHIELD had access to enough alien metals and other toys, no one was willing to admit it openly. However, judging by the excitement and wariness of some people, either the organization as whole or certain local governments had access to more than they were willing to share.
"On a different topic, what would you suggest that SHIELD and SWORD focus on regarding dealing with covert alien activity, Mr. Stark?" Goldstein, the Israeli representative, asked.
"Intelligence. In the short run, we ideally need ways to scan for alien infiltrators and find ways to detect and deal with alien interference in political decisions at all levels. We need to be wary of anything from covert assassinations to aliens using shapeshifting abilities or technology to implicate politicians and industrialists that are in their way of crimes and remove them that way. In politics, often just credible accusations can be enough, no matter if they're true or not."
My lords caused the loudest stir yet. How could they not, when the people in this room would be among the targets of such shenanigans if any alien intelligence agency figured out their position?
"Another thing to look at is the consequences of widespread planetary computer networks. The Internet with its implications in our case. One of the consequences is the truth becoming more subjective than ever. In many democratic or quasi-democratic systems, the truth often didn't matter. People tended to trust preferred sources of information, which often were private groups exclusively using the planetary networks to spread their version of the truth. This could lead to extreme divisions. Groups of people can take radically different things as their truth. The situation can easily reach a point where no one accepts evidence from sources they don't trust, which would be most of the existing ones."
More than a few people shared meaningful looks among themselves. It was more than likely a few of them had intelligent analysts who saw something like that coming and were preparing to take advantage of it. From what I recall, groups that saw what was coming in that regard and took the best advantage of it were often able to supplant many previously existing political organizations. They did it by carving out their spheres of influence on the networks and, through them, the society at large. Some of them did it by telling people what they wanted to hear. Others went to expose lies and thus gain trust, so they could sell their agenda to people now willing to listen to them. There were various ways to do it. The easiest way was to target societies that had large parts of the population ignorant and thus easy targets.
You needed better-constructed narratives and smarter people to properly manage educated societies that way, though it was far from impossible. Even the most brilliant people on a planet could only make decisions according to the information they had. That was why information control was always vital if you could achieve it.
If you had to invade, shattering local information networks and replacing them with your own could work in the long term. After all, if you repeated a lie long enough, people eventually tended to believe it, even if it took a generation or two.
That was precisely what I had to focus on over the next hour or so of discussing managing information flow and how critical it was.
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Part 6
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SHIELD HQ
New York, US
After a short recess, we were back at it.
"Mr. Stark, do you have ideas and recommendations that go beyond the scope of the topics we already discussed?" Hei, the South Korean representative, asked.
"I do have many ideas, yes. One of the issues we face is we lack actionable intelligence…." I trailed off and looked at the gathered people. "Unless we have a good picture of the galactic and regional interstellar situation, and they aren't sharing?"
While people did share looks, everyone almost immediately turned their gazes toward Fury.
"We're in the vicinity of at least two interstellar states that are at war with each other. We know little about them beyond their proven hostile nature or what else exists out there." Fury didn't bother sugarcoating it. "It's not like we ever had prisoners we could properly interrogate or anyone bothered to make an official diplomatic contact."
"That is precisely one of the long-term issues. We need more information. We need diplomatic relations, recognition, ideally trade, and perhaps protection if it can come at an acceptable price. Like it or not, becoming someone's protectorate or the like might be better than being invaded or bombed back to the stone age." I noted.
"We'll keep it in mind when we have diplomatic contact with aliens." von Holstein offered. "Can you go into more detail on how we might solve some of the issues you just raised, Mr. Stark?"
"Until we are contacted, or we can contact someone, we can table that part beyond planning how to handle it in the future," I agreed. "In that regard, for security reasons, SWORD will need a sub-division or a third agency to deal with intelligence gathering beyond the solar system. SHIELD and SWORD should be able to handle signal intelligence and counter-intelligence. Depending on what we would end up dealing with, we would need an appropriate intelligence agency to give us a comprehensive picture of the interstellar strategic situation. I shouldn't have to point out why said agency should have limited contact with our domestic counter-intelligence services, SHIELD and SWORD, in particular, should I?"
"If nothing else, we all have some experience dealing with intelligence and classified information. We can see the obvious utility of limiting the vectors through which alien powers can compromise our security." Goldstein pointed out. "We'll cover the idea of creating and overseeing yet another organization in the future."
"If the opportunity arises, trading for certain technologies, ideally the know-how and industrial capacity to build them ourselves, can spare us a lot of research and development time and boost our uplift efforts. That said, while such efforts can be vital in the long term, they aren't an option for the time being. Unfortunately, without a better idea of what potential threats we have to prepare for, there isn't much more I can offer beyond helping prepare plans on how to handle peaceful contact better and best exploit such an event. The same goes for the uplift effort. Within a few months, on the outside, I expect to be focused on long-term projects. Unless we achieve some breakthrough, it would be a lot of work with little to no short-term pay-off while building our future infrastructure backbone."
With my piece said, I waited to see what the councilors would do now.
"Mr. Stark has my vote." Goldstein ended the brief silence that followed.
That simple statement opened the floodgates. Unsurprisingly, it took almost an hour of answering innate questions before it was over. In the end, there was a majority in my favor. What did that mean? Well…
"Mr. Stark, we officially invite you to become a consultant and one of the Oversight Councilors of SWORD." Pierce offered with a smile. "Now, to be clear, considering your unique situation, if you accept, you will face increased scrutiny by both SHIELD and SWORD."
"There are always strings attached. I accept." This was my way in. I just had to be careful in taking advantage of this new development.
"More paperwork too. We can't forget that." Rockwell grumbled good-naturedly.
A relatively brief dog-and-pony show followed. I had to officially swear myself in as a member of the Oversight Council. Then I had a large stack of documents to review and sign – many were non-disclosure agreements. Confirmations that I now had access to some of the most classified documents on Earth followed. More documents needed signing to confirm I understood the penalties of mishandling them, etc. An upgraded security clearance was excellent in theory. It remained to be seen how useful it could be in practice.
After all that, Rockwell led me to a smaller conference room, which was nevertheless full. Six of SHIELD's Oversight Council members were inside, chatting with several military officers from various NATO and other allied countries. The most visible were small delegations from Japan and South Korea, who tried to stand as far from each other as possible.
Beside the Councilors, the only other familiar face inside was General Danvers.
Rockwell brought me to one of the few accessible seats and sat while nodding at the leather chair beside his.
"For the time being, we're SWORD's Oversight and command group. Over the next few weeks, at least six more Councilors will join us. However, they won't share duties on SHIELD as well." Rockwell explained. "Right now, SWORD is more of a concept than organization. Our job is to change that."
The good news was that Hawley had already briefed everyone on my earlier suggestions about SWORD, so I didn't have to repeat myself. The bad news was that my workload significantly increased. At least it meant that I could begin to slowly influence, forge and shape Earth's sword, pun intended.
Between Japan, South Korea, Australia, and of course, the US, SWORD, in theory, had the Pacific covered. Deals with India, once in place, should cover the Indian Ocean, leaving the Atlantic as a NATO lake. The reason for this train of thought was simple – most of Earth's surface was water. An alien invasion wouldn't necessarily need to create a beachhead on one of the continents. That was true for observation posts and covert operation bases. There were countless tiny islands you could dig into with the right technology, not to mention using underwater bases. In that regard, SWORD would have to work closely with SHIELD to create new sensor networks.
There wasn't much I could contribute on that front without focusing on developing better sensors from the ground up. These technologies were something I would be focusing on eventually when I had my hands less full.
In practice, for the foreseeable future, SHIELD and SWORD would retain many similarities and share SHIELD's already established logistics network. The short-term goals would be establishing a network of quick reaction forces with global reach and the best tech available. They would serve the dual purposes of forming the cores and training cadres for future mass deployment of state-of-the-art weaponry throughout Earth's militaries. In theory, those nodes would also serve as a potential core for resistance movements if we were successfully invaded.
More importantly for me, SWORD, when fully established, would be the organization I would have to work with on the orbital industry part of the uplift project, among other things. At least, in theory, that would streamline and simplify things, at least as far as some of the politics and bureaucracy were concerned.
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