Agent047
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942 - Between a Rock and a Hard Place
🕑 Added 2025-07-11 23:53:26 +0000 UTCThe representative's face carried an almost imperceptible sign of agitation as he looked at the man in front of him. He sat across the virtual table from Youssef, his crystalline form reflecting the sterile, featureless walls of the Empire’s standard diplomatic meeting room in the VR. The viral spread of Dreznor’s message, detailing the horrors of slavery and the ongoing liberation, had become a storm in the Conclave’s digital world, and now, it was knocking on the Empire’s door.
“Unfortunately, that is something we cannot do,” Youssef stated, his voice calm, polite, and utterly unyielding. He did not raise his tone, nor did he break eye contact as he watched the representative’s subtle reactions.
“What? What do you mean you cannot?” the representative retorted, his voice rising in pitch, cutting off Youssef mid-sentence. “Do you not see the level of problem this video is causing? It is tearing apart our internal unity, creating civil unrest on dozens of worlds!”
“As I was about to say, if you had allowed me to finish,” Youssef continued, his composure unshaken, as if the interruption had never occurred, “the conditions we signed prior to the formation of the VR network within your civilizations were quite explicit. The Empire would not be permitted to interfere with your side of the social networks. The algorithm would remain neutral, its sole purpose to disseminate information based purely on user engagement. That rule was put in place to prevent the exact scenario you are now asking us to create: for the Empire to exert undue influence on your internal affairs.”
The representative’s face stiffened. He could not retort. Youssef was correct. The Conclave had insisted upon those very restrictions, wary of the Empire’s burgeoning power. They had sought to limit any potential for covert manipulation. Throughout the VR network’s rollout, they had found no evidence of Imperial meddling, not even when Kumakar’s government openly orchestrated the campaign of hatred against Imperial citizens in the VR.
The Empire had simply absorbed the digital blows, maintaining its silence, punishing individual transgressions per the agreed-upon rules, never once altering the underlying system. The Conclave leaders, steeped in their own political games, would have immediately exploited such a justification.
The Empire, however, did not. Even when the Empire could have simply adjusted the rules regarding "killing" or "torture" within the VR, deeming it beyond mere vandalism, a power that remained explicitly under their jurisdiction, they had maintained the same, original ruleset. This made Youssef’s argument a fortress, impenetrable from any angle.
“You can do something about the algorithm, can’t you?” the representative asked after a moment of strained silence, desperately trying to find a loophole. “What if our civilization permitted you to modify it? Gave you direct permission?”
“We cannot touch the algorithm,” Youssef replied, shaking his head. “Firstly, there is truly nothing ‘wrong’ with it. The video went viral because it resonated with an enormous number of users. It was shared, discussed, and amplified by the very people accessing it. The algorithm, in its neutrality, simply pushed what the users themselves found compelling. This created a feedback loop, driving the video to more and more people, who reacted in the same way, causing for further spread.” He paused dramatically, then, with a subtle gesture, a massive contract, tens of thousands of pages thick, materialized between them. It began to auto-scroll at a rapid clip, pages blurring past until it stopped, highlighting a single, stark clause in shimmering golden text.
“Secondly, any modification to the algorithm, or indeed, any of the agreed conditions, requires unanimous support from all Conclave members to prevent situations precisely like this, where one power might exert pressure on another to change the rules for specific, self-serving purposes.” The highlighted clause and the contract vanished as swiftly as they had appeared. “So, unless you can gather unanimous support from all one hundred and twenty-three Conclave members for the proposed changes… the answer is no.” He had given his answer without uttering the word, but by presenting the impossible path to achieve it.
The representative’s body recoiled, looking as though he had been physically shoved against a wall, gasping for breath that wasn’t there. He was cornered. Finally, a new, almost pleading note entered his voice. “Minister… I am not doing this for my own good only. This is to save you as well.”
Youssef raised an eyebrow, a flicker of satisfaction in his eyes that remained carefully hidden from the representative’s view. He let the silence hang, allowing the representative to continue.
The representative, sensing the shift, adopted a grave, earnest expression, as if he were doing the Empire an immense favor. “Many civilizations currently consider you to be the power behind Dreznor’s actions. Your inaction, your continued allowance of this message to spread… it will only solidify their suspicion into absolute certainty. Only a power that benefits from such a destructive situation would allow it to continue spreading, despite being capable of stopping it, and despite the damage it is inflicting upon its own citizens in the VR.”
Youssef maintained a facade of surprise, a slight widening of his eyes, as if hearing such a wild hypothesis for the first time. The representative’s satisfaction visibly deepened.
“And how does that connect us, when the video was not posted or even initially spread by the Empire?” Youssef asked, feigning an attempt to regain his composure.
“Can you explain how someone entirely unknown, someone who explicitly states he was a slave with no knowledge of your network, managed to get such a video into the VR and spread it so widely without the Empire knowing his identity? Are you taking us for fools?” The representative pressed, his voice sharp, accidentally revealing that "us" included his own civilization and others who harbored the same suspicion.
“Ahaaaaaaaaaaa…” Youssef leaned back, a soft, protracted exhalation of dawning comprehension. Then, a chuckle escaped him. It built into full, unsuppressed laughter, resonating for thirty long seconds. When he finally calmed, wiping a tear from his eye, he began to speak.
“Once again, as negotiated and signed into the contract regarding VR,” Youssef explained, his voice still tinged with amusement, “it is impossible for us to gather identity information about an individual who has chosen to remain anonymous in the VR. All the data we receive is a random numeric identifier, and the answers provided during registration. There are no rules, no requirements for entry beyond possessing a network tower and a VR device, both of which can be acquired by anyone with enough credits. The rest, as they say, is history. Furthermore, we are forced to rely on local information databases for the wormhole network, a needless expense if we had direct access to all their civilian data through the VR. So, if Dreznor’s words are true, and he has managed to take over a hundred star systems, what makes it impossible to imagine he has spies embedded in your territories? Spies who could easily access your VR networks and spread his message? We can trace the first account that posted the video, yes, but we would not know their real-world location beyond their planet. And even that requires cooperation from the local governments, which, as you know, is not always forthcoming.”
His answer left the representative speechless, his carefully constructed argument crumbling. He had been outmaneuvered, his plan derailed. After a few more tense, silent exchanges, the representative merely bowed and dissolved, leaving Youssef alone in the meeting room.
“Saying no is always easiest,” Youssef chuckled, rubbing his face. He felt mentally drained. This was his twentieth meeting of the day, and more were already being scheduled. Civilizations across the Conclave were turning to the Empire, desperate for a solution to the crisis Dreznor had unleashed.
The viral spread of Dreznor’s message was indeed causing fractures. The ongoing conflict between Dreznor’s Liberation Army and the Conclave’s reclaiming fleets had been compounded by the eruption of the slavery debate. The digital storm was too powerful to be drowned out by mere breaking news. Only something catastrophic like the assassination of a king, the revelation of a royal scandal about the prince not being the king's son but his most trusted confidant, or a full-scale, losing war, could redirect a significant portion of the public’s attention.
{The situation is not looking good on their side,} an instance of Nyx materialized beside him, her tone thoughtful. She was monitoring the Conclave’s internal Pangea discussions, their private chatter. {This topic is causing significant fractures among the Conclave members. We are seeing individuals within their governments threatening to hold the current military operation hostage unless the issue of slavery is addressed immediately. Otherwise, they risk full-scale rebellions in their own civilizations.}
“Dreznor just threw mud in their pristine white uniforms,” Youssef responded, a rare note of genuine admiration in his voice. He understood the strategic brilliance of the Emperor’s gambit, the way it had complicated the Conclave’s position, trapping them between a rock and a hard place.
{They can continue dealing with Dreznor’s forces to try and liberate the captured planets,} Nyx continued, her analysis revealing deeper layers of the strategic landscape. {But that means the majority of their forces will not be immediately available for reinforcements in case the internal situation escalates.
And it will escalate if they do nothing. Not only that, but continuing the fight without addressing the slavery issue will be seen as them endorsing the treatment of slaves, an additional powder keg in the situation.
But if they try to deal with the situation at home first, each civilization has a different outlook. The majority of the top ten are heavily invested in indentured servitude, with many auxiliary civilizations under their protection. They will be strongly against the abolition of slavery. If they merely agree to tighten enforcement of existing rules, it will not be seen as enough, prolonging the crisis.
And that is time they don’t want to give Dreznor, who will know they are coming for him the moment they solve this. The lower-level civilizations, who have lost territories to him, will not want the operation to stop, despite being the most heavily affected by slavery. They will fear that Dreznor might use this time to gain further intelligence from those who want immediate action on slavery, creating a back-and-forth debate within the Conclave itself.}
Nyx’s words painted a vivid picture of the Conclave’s no-win scenario, and with each sentence, Youssef could see the intricate masterstroke the Empire had dealt. He couldn’t help but admire the Emperor, the primary architect behind this complex, layered strategy. How could a human plan so far ahead, so intricately, something that only the most advanced machines, capable of digesting unfathomable amounts of data, but lacked the human intuition, could do only with the human in the loop system? It was a frightening, beautiful thing to behold.
Comments
Sol_Invictus(Hail the Terran Empire)
TYFTC!!
Jade
Thank you for the chapter agent!
