Eternal City Crystal Tokyo

Chapter Seventy

"Welcome to Tonight in Crystal Tokyo. I'm your host, Yuuki Konno," she smiled, her long purple hair flowing behind her.

Frankly, Yuuki was surprised at everything that happened in the past week. She had several interviews with network heads after her story on the Princess' betrothal hit. Not long after that, the hosting job was offered. Of course, Yuuki knew part of the reason she got the job was because she was now well known. That didn't mean she wasn't going to enjoy it, though.

"In politics, the League of Non-Aligned worlds formally protested the Crystal Tokyo's unprovoked attack on unarmed ships," Yuuki delivered, deadpan. She smiled as she added, "Crystal Tokyo's space navy countered with video of the 'unarmed ships' staging a pirate attack on one of our freighters. They were repulsed by our fighter divisions."

"Yesterday, Emperor Tenchi of Jurai offered his formal congratulations to Princess Usagi and her consort, Sailor Saturn." Yuuki continued. "There is some rumors of conflict in his court, as some Jurai nobles had hoped for a marriage alliance. However, no one opposed to the wedding has officially spoken up."

The several day delay in officially offering their congratulations was something Yuuki wasn't going to bring up. On one hand it might be considered insulting, but there had been Ayeka snd Ryouko here to personally speak for Jurai.

"We've also recieved messages of congratulations from the Khanite and other interstellar powers," Yuuki added. She smiled wryly, "The League has yet to decide on an official position."

"In local news, the Earth First arrests continue to shake several political groups. The Japanese Heritage Party may well cease to exist, after everything comes out," Yuuki noted. "It's leader, Kenichii Hiroe, as well as most of it's leading members, have been charged."

Pictures of very unhappy politicians appeared behind her. Old fashioned offices were shown being raided for documents. In reality most of the data was acquired electronically, but it made for a good image, anyway.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Later as Yuuki met with her director she observed, "I'm really not surprised that JHP got nailed. They were always a bit lunatic fringe. I was a bit surprised at how blatant they were in funding Earth First, though."

"They were old, rich families in Japan," Satoko Tamakoshi, the director and former host sighed, "and figured their reputation would protect them."

"I suppose so," Yuuki conceded.

"I know the Princess' marriage is the big social story right now," Satoko noted, "but do we have anything more on the Fudou/Kinomoto engagement?"

"Nothing other than the announcement from the agency Fudou works for," Yuuki confirmed. She added, "Between you and me, I don't think Fudou wanted this publicized. Despite her fame, she seems like a very private person."

"That makes sense," Satoko conceded. "I'll have someone contact the agency, see if the couple wants coverage on the event."

Yuuki nodded. They covered a few more issues then she asked tentatively, "Uhm, why is it we don't seem to have anyone on the interstellar news desk? We only seem to just use the Interstellar Network News feed."

"Our stringer out in the League quit recently, and we're looking for a replacement," Satoko told her. Wryly she added, "That's the official story. Unofficially, he was encouraged to quit after we found out he was taking bribes to kill stories that would hurt his ."

"Shit," Yuuki blinked.

"Yeah," Satoko agreed, "and whomever we hire will have to actively move around the League and the Khanite, neither of which are that safe. So we're having a hard time finding someone."

Yuuki had to admit that Satoko made the job sound reasonably interesting. Maybe she'd apply if she got tired of doing the news here. Anyway...

"One thing I wanted to bring up," Yuuki added, "in addition to hosting, I do want to still write my own articles etc etc. Would that be a issue?"

"As long as it doesn't conflict with filming, I don't see why not," Satoko agreed. Curiously she asked, "Was there something you're working on?"

"Nothing terribly firm yet," Yuuki conceded. "I'm still interviewing subjects at the palace, I've been researching Siobhan Quinn, there were-pire, and I'm angling to interview Luna and Artemis."

"The guardian cats?" Satoko blinked.

"They functionally retired not long after Princess Usagi finished her time trips." Yuuki noted, "But what are they doing now? No ones seems to know."

"All right." Satoko agreed. Most stories involving the Queen got views, so it should be a good story to follow up on. "I will want to see it before we go to air."

"Understood," Yuuki nodded.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

As part of their version of 'Social Studies' the students at Crystal Tokyo's main public school had to watch news programs. Then of course, they had to discuss the issues behind the stories, which could be difficult on slow news days.

"Can we debate on the actress who lost her clothes?" Erica teased. "Again."

The teacher snorted. "No, we can't," she said firmly.

"Then I guess we'll do Earth First," Erica sighed.

"Subaru, how about you go first," the teacher nodded to her.

Subaru gulped but nodded. "Earth First is a semi-isolationist movement that believes humans have been poorly treated by our galactic allies and should concentrate on our own needs rather than others," she said.

"Is there any factual basis to that?" the teacher asked.

"We generally export much more than we import," Erica noted. "One of Earth First's issues is that we won't deal with certain people," she added dryly.

"Manpower, Nergal and Mesa in general?" Catrine suggested.

"Exactly," Erica agreed.

"Mind you, there's no proof they're behind Earth First," Catrine noted responsibly.

"Thank you for trying to be fair, I suppose," a student sighed. "I think we all know they're guilty as sin, though."

Alicia Testarossa frowned, the still new student looking confused. "If we know Mesa is as bad as you say, why haven't we done anything about it?" she asked.

"Well, part of it is Queen Serenity's vales," the teacher noted. "As the individuals involved with Mesa willingly chose to leave Earth and her rule, she doesn't feel that she should impose our values on them."

"Ah," Alicia nodded.

"The other reason, of course, is practical," Erica noted dryly. "Mesa is part of the League, and is on the far side of League space from us, out in mostly unexplored territory. We'd have to fight our way through multiple systems just to reach them."

"Eeep," Alicia made a face.

"Exactly," Catrine agreed.

Spacedrives used hyperspace to travel from point to point, remaining partially in our universe and part in an extra-dimensional space. You could use it to travel between solar systems at incredible speeds, cutting down trips that would take decades to just days.

The problem with most hyper drives was that you had to go sub-light to move through high gravity areas, like near suns. So, usually, you had to slow to go through a solar system, which left you open to attack. That was why merchants had to travel in armed caravans to fight off pirates, and why invasion fleets had to be ready to fight solar system by solar system.

"That is also why the new Swordbreaker class of cruiser is a potentially destablizing factor," the teacher noted. "It's shields have proven resistant to all conventional weapons. With enough of them we could, potentially, successfully invade the League."

"And now the government is debating building more of them, and potentially scaring our neighbors, or keeping a small fleet of them and eventually being caught up to, technology wise," Catrine observed.

One of their classmates groaned, "Politics makes my head hurt."

"Well done, class," the teacher noted after the discussion rambled on a bit longer. "Pick a person or place in the news, and give me a five page report on it for next week," she ordered. "Single side, I'm not a sadist." she added.

There was groaning, but not too bad.

Next up was Athletics, and the class trooped down to the gym. They had a variety of options of activities to choose from, and today Erica chose kendo against a practice robot.

"Wow," Shinobu noted, watching Erica repeatedly score on the robot.

"She's really good," Catrine agreed, watching her girlfriend sweep in and strike again.

Dropping her voice a bit Shinobu noted, "I heard you're girlfriends. Good one."

Catrine blushed a bit.

"No sitting around, children. Pick an activity," the teacher minded them.

"OK, ok. Weights I guess," Catrine gave in and set up a weight lifting system from one of the wall units.

"Can we use our devices and spar?" Alicia asked, waving to Subaru nearby.

"How much collateral damage could there be?" the teacher wondered reasonably.

Alicia thought of Subaru having recently learned Starlight Breaker. "Possibly some..." she admitted.

"How about some staff sparring instead," she suggested reasonably.

To be continued...

Notes: While I expect there's cyberpunk types who just get their news downloaded into their brains, I also think that regular TV news will continue in some form. On a basic level I think people like interacting with another person, like a TV host.

I'm probably going to keep using Yuuki as a generic news person when I need a news person. Other than that, we'll see. I still have to decide how she got digitally downloaded etc etc. I don't THINK I'll have SAO be canon, but I haven't made up my mind yet.