Chapter 150: The Master of Earth
After a brief explanation, President Baldwin was escorted to a secret chamber.
He had brushed off the agents who wanted to check it beforehand, saying it was pointless.
“There are no secrets here. Just stay outside for a while.”
When they were alone, he brought up the topic that Arma had anticipated.
“Personally, I’m willing to accept President Yu’s offer.”
“But you can’t as the president of the United States.”
“President Yu, you’re very quick-witted. Who do you think I am?”
“Edmund Baldwin Jr. The president of the United States.”
“No, I mean my essence.”
“…Black.”
He nodded his head at last.
“President Yu is yellow, and I’m black. This proves that we’re not mainstream in the true sense.”
“The Democrats are against it?”
“Not just the Democrats, but the entire Congress, the Pentagon, various government agencies and countless corporations… All of these are dominated by whites. I’m just a minority.”
He became president only because Bryant, a white politician from the Democratic Party, had died.
In other words, if Yu Ji-ha hadn’t intervened, the US president would have been white.
He muttered that the view outside the window was very nice.
The chamber was located underwater, so he could enjoy the underwater scenery.
He admired the fish in the window. “My grandfather used to catch fish and crayfish in Louisiana. There were many blacks there, but I didn’t mingle with them. I worked hard to climb up the social ladder. But I couldn’t become white. Because of my skin.”
He stroked the back of his hand.
“This skin can’t be changed. I graduated from a good college and did a lot of social work, but I always ate with the blacks. The whites accepted me as a political colleague, but they never invited me to their homes.”
Racial segregation was officially abolished, but it still existed in many parts of American society.
There was no place for blacks in white neighborhoods, and there were separate schools for the upper class.
The same was true for Hispanics, and Asians were treated as foreigners because they were outnumbered.
But President Baldwin didn’t want to talk about the deep-rooted racial discrimination in American society.
“America is a white country. I realized that as I grew older. I’m just borrowing a seat from them.”
“White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant.”
“They are the mainstream that rules the current America. And since America rules the world, they can also be called the masters of the world. Although the atmosphere is a bit different these days.”
“So the master doesn’t accept me.”
President Baldwin smiled bitterly.
“Isn’t it obvious? President Yu is taking away their jobs. The unemployment rate is skyrocketing, and it’s not just in America. It’s hidden by statistical manipulation, but if the truth comes out, there will be chaos.”
Yu Ji-ha’s initial skill didn’t bring only positive effects.
Korea was relatively better off, but the rest of the world had to face big and small economic crises, and it was still ongoing.
It was hard to fill the shrinking jobs with new industries like nuclear fusion or space development.
“Korea is sucking up the wealth of the world. I know where that money goes, but there are a lot of debates about whether it’s suitable for today’s society.”
Yu Ji-ha leaned forward as he heard that.
“Are you thinking like that even when monsters from space are threatening us?”
“People are inherently conservative. They can’t change their positions easily even when the situation changes. Look at the semiconductor companies. They had to cut 40% of their staff after the Ethyl processor came out. Where can they go?”
“They can get education and training and be placed in other fields. It’s common in Korea.”
“You mean management through artificial intelligence. That wouldn’t be accepted in the US.”
“Well, they still use the yard-pound system despite its many drawbacks, so I guess that makes sense.”
President Baldwin’s face reddened and then shook his head at that remark.
“It costs too much money. And people’s perception is also like that.”
“I often hear reports like that. Whenever there is a friction over measurement issues with the US government agencies or companies, they always insist on the yard-pound system.”
“I’ve heard those reports too. But Silla Group never changed it, did they?”
“Because there’s no reason to.”
Why should they care when they’re transferring the technology, not receiving it?
President Baldwin nodded.
“President Yu definitely has his own opinion. But most Americans don’t understand that. They think we’re the masters of the world and you have to follow us.”
“That attitude is dangerous.”
“Because President Yu will make them extinct… Is that right?”
“No. The monsters from space will make humanity extinct. I saw a future where the US dominates the world. It didn’t last past 2100.”
“I heard that before. It sounds like you’re saying we’ll be destroyed, but honestly, I don’t feel it.”
Who would seriously believe that humanity would be extinct in 70 years?
Even though Yu Ji-ha said that, the leaders of each country didn’t fully believe him.
They acknowledged Yu Ji-ha’s foresight ability and knew the power of the space monsters, but they didn’t believe that future.
If a Goliath-class had come this time, humanity would have felt the crisis of extinction firsthand.
But luckily, a Beast-class that could be solved with the current military power came, and the US gained unexpected confidence.
They explained countless times that the Beast-class was the smallest and weakest creature, but they didn’t know where that confidence came from.
‘In the end, you have to experience it yourself to feel it.’
Humans only see what they want to see, and repeat the same mistakes.
Isn’t there a saying like that?
The United Human Federation also ignored all the warnings of the prophet until the Plague invaded on a large scale.
As a result, 500 million people died on the Night of Sorrow, and they were completely destroyed in less than 80 years.
Except for Yu Ji-ha.
“Do you not believe it either, Mr. President?”
He shook his head.
“I’m a realist. I believe it because everything that President Yu warned has become reality. In fact, it’s not that other people don’t believe his words. They just can’t accept them because they are too shocking.”
“They may need some time to come to their senses. But we don’t have time.”
“Hoo… Do you mind if I smoke for a moment?”
As he said so, President Baldwin lit a cheap cigarette and asked.
“My opinion is not very important in the monster matter. What matters is what the party thinks and decides. Because I raised President Yu’s hand in Europe, my position has become very narrow. If it weren’t for the monster, I would have had something to say.”
“It seems that the senators didn’t like that you made such a deal in Europe.”
“Not just the senators. There aren’t many people in the federal government who agree with me. So re-election will be difficult.”
A long smoke of regret came out.
“Be careful. They are different from me. They will try hard to take the initiative from you.”
“They should have realized that it’s impossible by now… It’s a pity.”
“There aren’t many cards left. But they won’t give up. They think this world, this earth, is theirs.”
Then they will only realize that it’s a delusion.
When Yu Ji-ha didn’t react much, President Baldwin rubbed out his cigarette.
“I was going to propose something like a joint countermeasure committee, but seeing President Yu’s expression and attitude, I guess it won’t work.”
“There is only one way to defeat the space monster. To be under my control.”
“The whites won’t like that. They were the mainstream in every field of history and culture.”
“Anyway, let’s end it here today.”
He got up and turned around and said.
“By the way, today’s talk is…”
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear it.”
With a faint smile, President Baldwin disappeared and Yu Ji-ha was left alone in thought.
‘As expected, they can’t admit it.’
They were afraid to abandon what they had achieved, even if they couldn’t believe Yu Ji-ha’s story about the space monsters.
It was not easy to give up everything they had inflated excessively: the economy, the real estate, the culture, and more.
And to enter a total war mode.
It was the same for Korea.
Could anyone who owned an expensive apartment in Seoul sell it and get a residence permit in Megacity?
And there was something unsatisfactory about Yu Ji-ha’s method.
The citizens with a strong sense of democracy would not accept the dictatorship by artificial intelligence.
The Earth was still not ready to fight against
the Plague.
So he had no choice but to do it alone.
***
The countries of the world reacted differently to Yu Ji-ha’s proposal.
Some, like the United States or France, openly expressed their skepticism, while Russia promised full cooperation.
The others seemed hesitant.
They were reluctant to act even after seeing the monsters from space and hearing that humanity was doomed.
It was not incomprehensible.
Following Yu Ji-ha’s plan meant giving up their sovereignty in the end.
Germany suggested that it would be better to lead an international cooperation like the UN.
But for Yu Ji-ha, international cooperation was useless.
In the end, it would take too much time to get the approval of the majority of the members to do anything meaningful in the war against the Plague.
The plan to obtain the world’s cooperation failed.
However, it was not a complete failure.
They managed to expand the Aether Research Institute of the United Human Federation and send some psychics there for exchange.
The psychics were freed from their shackles.
But what Yu Ji-ha needed was not psychics, but genes.
So he decided to be content with that.
“Don’t be picky about the means and methods. Just secure the genes. I can even give you an android if you want.”
The genes they secured went through various processes in the genetic engineering facilities, including the biobag, and became psychic seeds.
Yu Ji-ha’s plan was to insert those seeds into the next generation and create artificial psychics.
This was the method used by the United Human Federation and hated by Yu Ji-ha, but there was no other way for now.
Anyway, this fact was not disclosed to the public and was carried out secretly.
It was too much to hope that the secret would be kept, since so many people had heard of it, but it seemed to be well protected so far.
However, some of the plans were leaked and discussed in depth on Reddit and other places.
―Yu Ji-ha is giving away his technology? And for free?
―Come on, there’s no such thing as free. There must be some under-the-table deal that we don’t know about.
―I know someone who works at the psychic research institute. He told me that the psychics have become quite free lately. They can even travel.
―Railgun, ion thruster, iron beam… How much are these worth? He’s giving them away?
―Think about it. He’s giving them away because he doesn’t need them anymore. He has something better.
That was true.
Yu Ji-ha agreed to give away various technologies in exchange for inviting the psychics of each country to Terra Island.
It was to show some color in advance, since analyzing the corpse of the Plague would naturally lead to various technologies.
But it was not a direct transfer, but a way of sending android technicians to the site and pointing out improvements.
Hafnium-2 explosive was also included, but the US strongly opposed it.
―Making a warhead with hafnium-2 is no different from a tactical nuclear weapon. Giving it away is nuclear proliferation.
―Does nuclear proliferation matter when monsters are coming from space?
“It’s important to us. I’ll say it again. We don’t care about the other technologies, but hafnium-2 is absolutely unacceptable.”
But Yu Ji-ha’s stubbornness could not be stopped by the US.
After all, Korea and the United Human Federation were in a situation where they were far from the US’s influence, so they had no reason to listen to them.
A technology agreement was signed on Terra Island to give away the hafnium-2 explosive manufacturing method, and the US mobilized its fleet to pressure them, but they couldn’t do anything substantial.
In fact, it was not very difficult for a country with a particle accelerator and psychics to produce hafnium-2.
The problem was that they lacked the technology to handle ether waves precisely, and the price of tantalum had risen sharply.
Korea, which received all of its supply from Russia, was better off, but a civil war broke out in the Republic of Congo and Rwanda.
France, which had been exerting considerable influence on the Republic of Congo, stepped in.
They claimed to restore order in Congo and return power to the citizens, but their real goal was the tantalum mine.
In this situation, when Yu Ji-ha offered to give away the hafnium-2 explosive manufacturing method to each country, France was shocked.
“What did you get in return for giving away something like that?”
“We spent 11 billion euros to power up hafnium-2! Germany was just waiting for Yu Ji-ha’s word!”
“The spread of hafnium-2 is not desirable for world peace. How can you guarantee that it won’t leak to terrorists?”
The French government, as well as the media and the military, poured out all kinds of complaints and warnings, but it sounded like a different universe to Yu Ji-ha.
To make hafnium-2, you need an Aether wave accelerator, a well-trained psychic, and tantalum, which was impossible for a terrorist group to have.
France’s dissatisfaction subsided a bit when the United Human Federation returned the cocoon they had stolen.
Although they returned it to the US, they agreed to destroy it under the auspices of France and Britain, so there was not much difference.
In return, Yu Ji-ha gained the right to invite as many US psychics as he wanted.
The US was a country that had developed railguns and ion thrusters considerably, so he needed a different bait.
And so the Earth Fleet that had stolen the cocoon sailed out with it.
Their destination was Norfolk Naval Base on the east coast of the US, which boasted the largest scale in the world.
This return process attracted the attention of not only the US but also the whole world.
The reason was that the Earth Fleet had flown with the cocoon fixed by the ether field.
It was not nine ships like before, but more than twice that: twenty ships.
But they couldn’t capture it on camera.
They had flown up to an altitude where they couldn’t claim the airspace, probably thinking of the friction with the US.
The sight of twenty ships flying in formation in the atmosphere was truly spectacular, but it was not revealed to the public at all.
The US noticed that the Earth Fleet was flying at 50km altitude, but they didn’t protest.
It was almost like space, so they hesitated to claim it as their airspace.
On the other hand, the US military felt a serious sense of crisis about the technological gap with the United Human Federation.
―50km altitude is no different from space. That means the warships of the Earth Fleet are not ships, but spaceships.
―The Earth Fleet crossed the Pacific and the US continent in two hours with the cocoon tied by the field. We never thought this was possible.
―Someone with this technology is afraid of the monster from space and asks for international cooperation. Is this really okay?
The US military’s suspicion was a natural and reasonable inference, but the politics ignored it half-heartedly.
They had their own reasons.
To accept Yu Ji-ha’s proposal, they had to abandon the pillars that supported the US.
They had to give up not only the financial system represented by Wall Street, but also the huge real estate market and the influence they had on the world.
Could a politician who needed votes from voters make such a choice?
In the government and academia, there were many people who took the space monster seriously, and they argued that they should talk to Yu Ji-ha again, but it was not a mainstream opinion.
There were still many people in the US who believed in flat earth theory.
Since that population was 15%, they couldn’t ignore it, and it had a great impact on the decision-making process of the US government.
So instead of turning the world upside down, the White House planned a small show.
It was that the allied fleet would beat up the monster from space.
It was a possible show because Yu Ji-ha had given them information about the monster.
―The space monster will wake up from the cocoon in two days. It will be weaker than before because it couldn’t absorb metal around it.
―If our army defeats this monster, support for the government will increase.
Some in the US argued that they should teach the monster from space who was the owner of Earth.
They originally wanted to do it alone, but they had to give in because France and Britain strongly opposed it.
The US wanted President Yu Ji-ha to attend the event, but he refused.
There were various speculations about this, but in reality, he was just not interested.
The Beast-class was the weakest among the Plague, and it was nothing but a bioweapon. He had no reason to care about it.
He had blocked the psy-field, so the possibility of the main force invading was very low.
That’s how the space monster woke up again in front of Virginia.
It was standing on a huge barge without knowing what was going on, when it suddenly got bombed.
Fighters from the US, France, and Britain dropped hafnium-2 warheads on it.
The bioweapon’s body was disintegrated in an instant by the three explosions at close range.
A huge explosion occurred, and the Plague and the useless cocoon were scattered.
It was a death that didn’t need confirmation.
“Wow!”
“Awesome!”
“Hey, monster! You must have learned who’s the owner of Earth!”
Many Americans who watched the show cheered.
The major media wrote and broadcasted articles about this scene, and the world confirmed the power of hafnium-2 warheads.
―With that kind of power, we can handle it even if the space monster comes back.
―The US is definitely a superpower. France only made a few, but they had dozens.
―It’s a different class from the start.
While such a noisy event was happening on Earth, Yu Ji-ha was looking down at the base on Mars in his assault armor.
“Is the next relic a supermassive particle accelerator?”
「Yes. It’s the biggest and most important among the relics.」
It’s a relic that can create antimatter.
It’s the only way to inflict effective damage on the Plague horde for now.
To do that, they had not only modified the mass driver to capture it, but also built a full-fledged base on Mars.
The mining fleet had grown to five ships and carved out Mariner Valley with a gravity crane, and walkers were mobilized to assemble the base.
When Yu Ji-ha lifted his head, the head unit of his synchronized assault armor did the same.
The information from Siber satellite appeared in his sight.
The Earth was in a festive mood for killing the Beast-class Plague.
The media exaggerated the destructive power of the space monster every day, and the pilots who dropped the hafnium warheads became famous.
It was a bit too much for killing one Beast-class, but he didn’t need to pour cold water on it.
‘I was worried that there would be a great chaos, but I’m glad it didn’t happen.’
What Yu Ji-ha feared was that people would flock to Megacity in a panic.
Except for Terra Island, the rest was still under construction, so they couldn’t move in yet.
And even then, they were going to set some qualifications.
It would be troublesome if they accepted anyone and caused trouble inside.
Anyway, the appearance of the Plague brought a lot of benefits to Yu Ji-ha, except for the possibility of being noticed by the main force.
‘Now I can bring out my technology without worrying.’
He had never cared about what others thought, but it was a big deal that the countries stopped doubting him.
On the other hand, the likelihood of friction with the US increased dramatically, but that was an inevitable fate.
To become the owner of Earth, he had to fight against the US eventually.
They wouldn’t give in anyway.
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