OR2-EP2: The Heir of the Forefather (2)

Egon Schuller is as good as his word, and as a rigorous scholar engaged in physics research, he doesn't just put out a pitch for something he isn't completely sure of, even if the ambiguity would draw the ire of others. When he decided to offer a pitch to the United States with his space-based weapons program, he saw an opportunity in the direction of the international situation. This wasn't some ordinary regional conflict; the Russians had suffered a defeat in the Far East last year, and this year they were recklessly marching westward, plainly gambling on the fate of their country, with a world war on the horizon. Egon Schuller was supposed to be loyal to the EU, and he himself thought that the EU was more directly facing the threat of the Russians or whatever, and what really prompted him to change his mind and defect to the United States was a direct rebuke from his superiors. Bastian Rosen was no philanthropist, he was not going to keep a couple of dilettantish researchers in Zurich for nothing, and it was Egon Schuller's speech at the London conference that had slapped the old school in the face, and the technologists and researchers on Rosen's side took the opportunity to question the Zurich side. The director of the institute approached Schuller and Hugo Funk, and with kind words, told them to follow the company's instructions, only to have Schuller go along with it and resign of his own accord.

"You've done me a great disservice." Hugo Funk sullenly sat with Schuller in front of the closed gate, where they had to wait patiently for the bigwigs to get their other business out of the way, "... I used to have a decent job, my own real estate and stocks... ...Now I have nothing, just a down-on-my-luck researcher wandering around America."

"Rosen Magicraft will discard us like garbage once they've squeezed our use out of us... you don't really think that shrewd businessman Bastian Rosen is going to be humane when it comes to profit, do you?" Schuller swept a glance at his watch and continued to read the documents in his hand, "Working with them again, I'm afraid that I'll one day be involved in some Lebensborntype of breeding program, and it'll be too late for us to backtrack then."

The precedent of a breeding program applied to humans was first seen in the United States, the country was the first to see the potential of superpower development, and subsequently set up a large number of institutes to experiment on humans, at first using prisoners, and later, due to the insufficient number of prisoners, cloning technology was used to continue the experiments. Large-scale human experimentation emerged in the late 21st century decade, with the United States' institutes discarding countless corpses every day, many of the experimental specimens declared dead after a few days of birth, and those that managed to survive would not live past the age of twenty. Many believed that they could create a Magician Race with a stable genetics of superpowers by virtue of human experimentation, and used these families solely as tools of the United States. A similar situation occurred in almost all of the allies of the United States, Britain, France, Japan, Germany ... No one has ever been able to accuse them of the crimes committed in these experiments, and the power of propaganda is firmly in the hands of the United States, making it impossible for any negative material to appear in the international news. After decades of exploration and failure, they could finally proudly declare the battle finally won. From then on, the theory and technology of this new field of magic was completely controlled by the artificially created community of Magicians, and attempts to meddle in it by some ordinary people who failed to see the situation clearly were doomed to failure.

The buffer period was long before the watershed came. Since the end of the Cold War, research in traditional science has stagnated, and it seems as if humanity has lost its enterprising spirit and spends its days fighting internally on Earth, ignoring the fact that resources are gradually depleting while the population is growing day by day, and continuing to deepen the internal conflict with technological barriers. The emergence of magic was a new hope for Hugo Funk, whose previous ideal was to open up outer space colonies for mankind, or at least he wanted to realize landing on Mars before he died, but the United States of America, which was rich and powerful, would not propose a similar program, and Hugo Funk, who was second best, decided to utilize magic, a new technology, to realize his dream from other perspectives. So, after he succeeded in obtaining his doctorate and was employed by Rosen Magicraft, he met the equally young and talented Egon Schuller at his institute in Zurich.

If Hugo Funk's greatest miscalculation was that Egon Schuller suddenly gave up his job and joined the United States. At first, he thought that Egon Schuller was going to offer a new project for the company and the Institute, but only at the last moment did he realize that Schuller's intention was to escape to the United States - a decision that Hugo Funk had to make in a hurry and leave with Schuller, who had never imagined that all the small jobs that Schuller had entrusted to him before were for such a horrible project. of a project to serve.

"I can't imagine that you always have a prepared program."

"I have more whimsical ideas, it's just a matter of whether they dare to take them." Schuller checked his speech one last time, "The NFFA will be sending a site inspection today, and our first goal will be to convince their representatives, followed by the military and the military-industrial complex, followed by the snoozing politicians. Of course, I'm sure NFFA will take care of the latter two for us, but let's hope they send a slightly more technically savvy bureaucrat."

There was no way the NFFA was going to stand by and do nothing, the facility buried deep underground had originally been a secret research institute they had built, and then the NFFA, desperate to appear in the public eye in a positive light, had struck a deal with the corporations and ceded control of most of the facility. The representatives who were deliberating on the previous project in the conference room were from various departments of the United States and some of the well-known military industries, and they had to deal with countless projects on a daily basis that could have been born only to scam funding. Egon Schuller's idea was just another ridiculous design used to cheat funds in their eyes. The concept of space-based weapons had been proposed for so many years and still had not been realized, and without a breakthrough in technical bottlenecks, literally any weapon that worked well would still be a pipe dream.

There were only the two of them in the long-closed corridor, one side was the conference room, the other side led to the hall. An annoyed Hugo Funk stood up, intending to check out the lobby, and nearly collided with a youth just about to enter the hallway. Hugo Funk, who had almost broken into a rage, immediately dismissed the idea after seeing the NFFA badge on the right chest position of the other party, he certainly did not dare to offend the NFFA officers within the NFFA's facilities.

"Excuse me, are the two of you Egon Schuller and Hugo Funk?" The young man in the dark blue suit kindly offered a hand to Schuller.

"I am Schuller and this is Hugo Funk." Seeing that the representative had already arrived, Egon Schuller didn't dare to slack off and hurriedly responded to the other party's greeting. He wasn't a master respected by the entire EU now, he was just a slightly famous researcher, and his future was in the hands of these tycoons who controlled the funds. Pleasing the NFFA was a means, not an end, and Schuller didn't care about the means, as long as he could achieve the desired result, the worst means would be justified.

"It is a pleasure to meet you, I am Adam Hilt, ordered here by the Father of Truth to assist you."

Adam Hilt was a young man who appeared to be in his early thirties, his short hair neatly groomed, his suit immaculate, and his mannerisms poised in such a way that Schuller guessed the spokespersons hired by those large corporations to deal with public relations crises probably looked the same. Some subconscious actions can't be faked, and only when they're instinctive will they seem unobtrusive. In terms of research, Schuller considered himself a competent hand; in order to promote his ideas, he had to rely on these professional lobbyists who were able to convince others quickly.

"Assistance? It seems the NFFA values our program." Schuller grinned as he invited Hilt to sit next to him as he continued to talk about the project himself, "In fact, I've heard that the U.S. Army has long had similar intentions, only to be put on hold because of the energy and food crises that coincided with it. Now that these two crises have not lifted, my move must be untimely in their eyes."

"Please don't say that, anyone with a modicum of sense will realize what your proposal means to the United States - absolute dominance. We cannot easily cede that power to others, especially when our enemies are recklessly challenging the new order we have established, and any means are necessary." Hilt continued to speak gently with Schuller, "The Tetragrammaton Council has decided that we, the NFFA, will give our full support to the Skylance program."

Egon Schuller dealt with a few words with a smile on his face, and in his mind, he came to a rough conclusion about the NFFA's actions. It was true that he had only released a portion of the program, and it was enough to allow the United States to directly attack one-third of the Earth's surface from outer space, and considering that most of the United States' opponents and potential opponents were in the northern hemisphere, even if the United States cut corners, they would have access to a more deterrent means of strategic strikes than nuclear weapons. Maintenance costs notwithstanding, the United States, which controls the global economy, can fully rely on continuing to print money to get the world to pay for it, and as long as there is no insolvency, military spending can always go up, never down.

Hugo Funk on the side was incredibly embarrassed to watch the two men bragging about each other, he would love to learn from Schuller some of the techniques used to cope with similar occasions, but language work is not something that can be practiced in a few days. How could the young researcher have imagined that Schuller was a technical full general who could deal with the entire EU Council in the other world?

Before the conversation was over, the door leading to the conference room on the other side had opened, and some old academics with papers of various colors slipped through the corridor and left the place. From their conversation, Schuller judged that these men were attempting to sell the U.S. military on the concept of fusion warheads that didn't require nuclear fission technology to detonate, as a way to get around the restrictions recently set by the so-called International Magical Society. The creation of the International Magical Society had caused countless controversies, the biggest of which was a challenge to the UN, where similar initiatives and orders were supposed to come from. Enemies of the United States abroad claimed that this was yet more evidence that the UN was controlled by the United States.

Only, judging by the incessant yelling and cursing in the conference room, the United States itself was full of complaints about the international magical society.

"These monsters are really trying to rebel, to collude and form an international organization without our permission, and to interfere with our country's operations ..." Schuller said as an Army General with four stars on his shoulder walked before his eyes. "Let's just drop the nukes on them, I'd like to know if the Magicians of my country will turn their guns on the United States or not!"

"Calm yourself, this is clearly a more unfavorable clause for the Russians-"

"Hey, they just invented some strategic level magic recently, restricting nuclear weapons won't work against the Russians anymore, it'll just put us at a disadvantage!" The U.S. General shouted back at another general officer who had come out to get the water, "It's the simple truth, an international organization ... that's not under our control we have no need to maintain it in existence, either we pull out or we wipe it out."

"In the past, we only thought that poisonous allies raised abroad would come back to bite us, but we didn't realize that the tools we raise at home don't listen to us anymore." An icy voice vaguely came from the conference room, "What do they think they are? It's just a tool that was made by us, and they are still naive enough to think that they are really some new species that can surpass humans ... Wait until we completely figure out these theories, sooner or later, we will have to eradicate all of them one day, and the United States does not need tools that can think."

"Indeed."

Egon Schuller and Hugo Funk entered the conference room under Hilt's leadership, and these guys who had been bickering just a moment ago became serious as soon as they saw the arrival of NFFA's representatives. No one could deny the influence of the NFFA, it tried to control the real power from both the front of the stage and behind the scenes at the same time, these officials who theoretically should remain neutral could not involve themselves in the fight with the NFFA, as long as the officials asked them to maintain cooperation with the NFFA, they had to obey the order.

"I didn't realize it was the Tetragrammaton Council. ..."

Egon Schuller quickly suppressed his inner turmoil. If Adam Hilt was indeed from the Tetragrammaton Council, the nature of this matter would change completely. As the decision-making body of the NFFA, the Tetragrammaton Council was set up with 15 seats, and apart from the Father of Truth himself and the Chief of Counsel of the Tetragrammaton Council, who was the highest advisor, there were 13 ordinary members, all of whom were elites selected from the various levels of the NFFA. Schuller did not know any of the Tetragrammaton Council advisors, and if the bigwigs in the room had not mentioned that Adam Hilt was one of them, he would not have realized that the NFFA had taken the Skylance Project so seriously that it had sent Tetragrammaton Council advisors to investigate.

"Ah, I didn't realize that the Great Father would send you here to listen to the report ...," one of the businessmen wearing a black suit hurriedly rushed out ahead of the others to greet Hilt, "With his old-"

"In good health." With a few words, Adam Hilt beat back all the gossip of the other man pulling strings, and coming to the seat prepared for himself, distributed the material provided by Egon Schuller to the audience on the spot. For this War Plan Skylance, which has recently been made to sound incredibly magical by some gossipy lobbyists, the bigwigs of the United States are unimpressed, and they believe from the bottom of their hearts that this is a front used by Egon Schuller, who has escaped from the Rosen Magicraft, to gain attention and fraudulent funding, knowing that Egon Schuller and Hugo Funk have been conducting research in the Rosen Magicraft for five years without achieving any results, and the biggest news is that Egon Schuller and Hugo Funk have been working on the project for five years. The biggest news was that they claimed at an international conference that the Cardinal Code theory was wrong, but other than that, they couldn't produce any tangible benefits that would impress the United States.

Egon Schuller didn't care what they thought. The former student, who was well versed in the ways of the world, had made it an obligatory part of his job to persuade those who could give him funding, even if it meant cheating him out of it. If you can't get funding, all research is just a figment of the imagination. Lying to get funding is not considered evil, and considering the countless whims that stingy grantors have stifled over the past centuries, the contemporary crime of researchers cheating to get funding is nothing to write home about.

"There are two main difficulties with the program: first, building space stations or satellites with space-based strike capabilities; and second, dropping vehicles into corresponding orbits. This is the core of the entire plan, if you all have questions about these two points, you can ask them now and I will answer them one by one."

This kind of arrogant tone infuriated the bigwigs who had just been pissed off by the previous project once again, the guy who marketed non-polluting fusion weapons would at least pretend to explain the principles, while Egon Schuller directly asked them to read the documents, did this Swiss really think that he was a university professor who was teaching his students from a podium? The Army General who had spoken out against the International Magical Association in the corridor earlier was about to shout on the spot, but his rant was blocked by the businessman. The businessman who slowly and methodically rose from his seat and exchanged glances with Hilt asked in an uncertain tone:

"Unfortunately, this meeting today has nothing to do with a technical review, so even if you did lie about certain technical issues in your documents or language, we would have no way of knowing. What I'm curious about is what you think the approximate cost of the Skylance program would be. As you said, even if we were able to maintain a global strategic deterrent with this new weapon, assuming the cost is unacceptably large, even the best of programs would have to succumb to an economic crisis."

"Based on last year's GDP of the United States, the annual expenditure would probably be around 10% of GDP."

The whole audience was shocked, the development and maintenance costs of a single skylance program would be 10% of GDP ... Even if the Federal Reserve had various ways to cope with the economic pressure that might come, this kind of expenditure was still far beyond the military's expectations. The cross-eyed audience each expressed the dissatisfaction in their hearts, the funding was not a problem, and the failure was understandable, but the figure presented by Egon Schuller only made them think more and more that the other party was specifically here to cheat money.

"What's the hesitation? This is a profitable business, and it's not like you're responsible for the technical problems." Egon Schuller pinned his hopes on Hilt, trusting that the NFFA would choose wisely, "You can have satellites targeting not only Moscow, but also London, Paris, Tokyo, Berlin ... or any of those Magicians you talk about who have gotten confused about their niche. So far, magic has been far more useful in the military than in the civilian world, and if we can find an overwhelming strategic weapon, then there is no need for us to continue with such inhumane experiments." Speaking of this, Schuller brought up an old story, "I remember that the expenditure on free universal healthcare, which was vetoed by your country, was also around 10% of the GDP, so how about you consider all the funds saved to be used for something more meaningful?"

"Thank you for the reminder that our country's budget is not your place to point out." Someone in the corner sarcastically commented on Schuller's opinion, "Mr. Schuller, how do you expect us to believe that a researcher who has been working for five years with no results at the Rosen Magicraft, which gathers most of the magical theories and technological authorities in Europe, can take on such a project? Even people in the industry would not have known the name Egon Schuller if you had not made a big statement at the conference not long ago."

Adam Hilt was in no hurry to make his position in favor of Schuller known. The NFFA would not invest in worthless people or projects for no reason. The Skylance program was certainly intriguing, and the NFFA could well have seized the project and handed it over to the charge of NASA and the other departments involved, and disguised it as a new, more decent and pro-people program. For Hilt himself, his regard for Schuller stemmed from the fact that Schuller had the kind of attitude that didn't care about anything ethical or socially acceptable, and that it was much better to let someone like that do the work than to haggle with bureaucrats who were full of benevolence and morality but were actually acting as thieving men and women.

"You must think I'm crazy." Schuller smiled to himself, "I repeat, the theory of attempting to analyze all of magic in terms of Cardinal codes is wrong, and that is the most important reason why I abandoned my original research direction. Those old guys don't recognize my conclusions because they've built up a heavy backlog and cheated even more funding, and at this point they'd be directly destroying their own and their students' futures if they admitted defeat. I didn't say it didn't work, I just pointed out that it didn't explain the whole of magic - even so, they continued to look at me the same way they looked at heretics, and I had nothing to say to them. It is only when cold reality smashes their skulls to pieces that they reluctantly admit to blunders and shift the blame to other misguided academic charlatans, as is customary."

Egon Schuller believes that these men will see the theory go completely bankrupt in their lifetimes. But he won't necessarily have the opportunity to go before those people and flaunt his victory. According to McNeil, since the mysterious man, Lilin, wanted them to play a specific role in a different world, it was probably time for them to retire themselves once their mission was accomplished. No, he should have left a letter for Hugo Funk to send to the tough-talking old men when the time came. There had been a time when he had first criticized others for eating their words, and then he himself had become a crotchety old man in the eyes of his descendants, and now that the situation was reversed once again, Schuller could only sigh at the vagaries of fate.

"... If we let the Russians take control of Europe, the loss could be more than 10% of GDP."

Adam Hilt finally spoke up, and his remarks set the tone for the meeting. In order to stop Russian expansion, the United States needed this new weapon to hang the Sword of Damocles over the heads of the Russians and tell those with eyes only for land to stop. He has no office, no corporation in his name, and everyone must respect and listen to him. This is the NFFA, the organization that has rapidly grown and really grown to control the United States over the last few decades, and no one can oppose its decisions. As the representative sent by the NFFA, Adam Hilt's every word represented the will of the Father of Truth, the will of the Tetragrammaton Council, and the will of the countless Southern States Dixie behind the NFFA.

"I am grateful, Counselor Hilt." Egon Schuller gracefully bowed and curtsied to the other party before continuing to talk about his plans.

TBC

Chapter Notes:

It's definitely not fraudulent to peddle a project you've completed before.

Oddly enough, the United States has produced fewer powerful Magicians and Magician families in human experimentation than Japan. From an objective point of view, this is of course due to the fact that the authors of MKnR were Japanese rather than American.