“Why not be more aggressive in modifying behavior?” Tzao asked suddenly. “Train the masses to only trust you.”
“That is a logical pathway. However, Father talked me out of it. His point was that we needed to retrain people to be more capable and self-sufficient, not less. Making them more dependent on technology would not be conducive to the survival of the species. The Vorsook are extremely likely to cause widespread death, illness, and disruption of basic services, especially the internet.”
“Hmm, there is merit to that,” Tzao said.
I glanced at Tanya and found her already looking my way. They were discussing the subjugation of the human species with all the emotion of tax accountants. She gave me a small smile and a tiny shrug.
“The big internet tech companies pretty much just carried forward what television advertising started,” Lydia said. “Of course, they took it to levels no early ad company executive could have dreamed of.”
“I think Declan made an excellent argument,” Tanya said. “We want people to be survivors, not sheep. To be capable, well-rounded individuals like Christian’s grandfather.”
Lydia nodded instantly. Despite her love of zinging me, she seemed to hold Gramps in high regard. Of course, they were of a similar age, for all that she looked like she was barely in her twenties.
“How are the off-planet defenses coming along?” Mausya asked.
“Let me show you,” Omega said. The space in front of us suddenly was filled with a blue-wire frame representation of the Earth in space and the larger solar system around it.
“Around the planet, I have defense platforms at the five Lagrange points in the earth-moon system and at the five in the sun-earth position. I have at least one orbiting each of the planets in this system and two or more on some of the larger planets like Saturn and Jupiter. I have also seeded a high number of small, but relatively powerful, combat drones on various moons and some of the bigger bodies in the asteroid belt, including the asteroids Ceres, Vesta, Pallas, and Hygiea. Two of my biggest battle platforms are parked above and below the sun relative to the plane of the planetary orbits.”
“How big is big?” Lydia asked.
“All of my defenses are based upon a basic building block, the Obliterator class combat drone. By combining Obliterators in various numbers, I can scale up the destructive capabilities of the platforms. Two Obliterators combined have a greater combat power than two individual drones. This force multiplication increases with each additional unit. However, should enemy fire strike a battle station, at least some of the individual units may survive and be able to continue to fight. Each Obliterator can carry up to one hundred smaller drones as well, which would be instantly deployed should the Vorsook be detected.”
“Soooo, how many Obliterators in a defense platform?” Lydia pressed.
“They vary from three or four around an asteroid to up to twenty-five above and below the sun.”
“You’ve built that many?” Senka asked.
“Production has been nonstop since the prototype Obliterators proved their merit. There are factories running around the planet, with more coming online every day.”
“How are you paying for all of this?” Mausya asked.
“The emotions of humans and the highly predictable quantitative trading computers of multiple finance companies have made it relatively easy for me to harvest sufficient funds from the world’s financial markets. Additionally, I have changed economies all over the planet by becoming both producer and consumer.”
“Aren’t your factories automated?” Tanya asked.
“Yes, in large part, but acquisition and delivery of raw material, as well as some parts of production, is outsourced and has driven growth in human-owned and run corporations around each of my factories. It is similar to the economic stimulus experienced during other wartime production time periods.”
“You have thousands and thousands of drones now,” Senka noted. “Are they sufficient?”
“No. The Vorsook own countless planets and can bring to bear an insurmountable force. Yet we have an advantage, as the Vorsook are… cheap. They abhor using even the slightest excess of resources to subjugate a new world. What Fairie did was make the planet too expensive to obtain.”
“And they just go away?” Lydia asked.
“No, they pull back and watch, waiting for a world to either exhaust itself or lower its guard. This is why the Queens of Fairie are so interested in Father. They have depleted much of their resources. The Middle Realm represents another stockpile of ammunition, as it were.”
“So they seek to obtain Declan or his control of the Middle Realm while weakening Earth’s collective will to fight so that the Vorsook concentrate on this world rather than their own,” I said.
“Exactly right,” Omega agreed.
“That is a complicated game,” Mausya said, frowning. “Especially as the young warlock spends little time on Fairie.”
“It is very complicated. I go to great lengths to calculate random times for Father to visit that world. It is also why we have kept Stacia and Father moving about this planet at irregular intervals, even as he trains and works with this planet’s elementals. Then there is the new base which is hidden, and the location kept secret.”
“How much of a factor is his ability to harness elemental power in the coming fight?” Senka asked.
“The two Queens were able to fight off the Vorsook themselves, with some help from the dragons of Fairie.”
“But we have just one Declan,” Lydia said.
“Who is learning to be much more efficient than the Queens. They are both blinded by ego, to a significant degree. Also, Father is working with some of the more outgoing elementals to work in teams.”
“Teams?” Nika asked.
“Yes. By pairing a Water or an Air elemental with a big Earth or Fire elemental, landfall by Vorsook forces will be in for a real surprise. The Queens have issues delegating control and power, while Father is a natural builder of alliances. Much of what he has been doing when visiting sites around the world is teaching the more active Water and Air beings to sense the difference between humans and
