Collide Gamer

There were, in the broadest possible terms, three ways to approach the matter of land annexation diplomatically. One could state the desire in public, one could state the desire openly to all affected parties or one could gather up a cabal of persuadable forces. In other words one could be honest, one could negotiate or one could scheme.

Honesty was almost always bad in the political arena. It gave adversaries too much time to prepare to just state desires outright. Typically, when someone made a land claim in a public speech, it was either distraction from something else or that someone had long since forgone the idea of a diplomatic solution. Such speeches were for preparing a population for war.

John was not going to be honest. With Krieg’s warning hovering above his head and the situation on the ground being what it was, there was nothing useful that could come out of stating his intention to annex Akkad publicly. He also wasn’t going to mobilize the population for any of this, so any attempt to rile them up would just be wasted effort (at best).

Negotiation was John’s preferred way to do this, but this was where being a world power became a constricting factor.

When the USA had fought its war of independence against the British Empire, the rebellious colonies had been given extensive aid by the French. Why? Because it screwed over Brittain. That was all the casus belli France had needed.

World powers meddled in each other’s affairs constantly. That was what made them world powers. When it came to such a nation attempting to expand, the others would demand a seat at the negotiation table for no other reason than to assure a rival did not expand their reach too far. It was bothersome, but that was just how these matters were done. One could either invite a third, fourth and fifth party to the table or deal with trade embargos and sabre rattling.

Therefore, attempting a negotiation for that land was just too difficult. He would have to invite all of the Divided Gates and Krieg and try to appease all of them. He already knew that was going to fail.

The Concord of War stood in opposition to him. Even if he could get Lu Zhi and Lydia to back him, Krieg would align with Osman, and Remus could have spoken against John as the head of Prometheus. If not Romulus, then Sol and Luna would also protest against Fusion putting up shop in their hemisphere.

The only two ways for a negotiation to end was a hot war or John failing in his goal.

That left him with the choice between scheming and not pursuing Akkad at all, at least in this decade. The problem with that was that he had one woman who needed him to go over there and another that desired him to lay claim to those lands. What his women wanted, his women got.

So, the only option was to scheme.

When it came to land acquisitions, making a scheme was a straightforward and yet highly individual task. One had to scan the number of people invested in that land, then invite enough key members of that group that, with their approval, the annexation of the land was seen by other invested parties as something not worth making a fuss over. It would ruffle some feathers and tarnish his reputation, but that was a resource that John was willing to spend.

Who were the parties invested in Akkad?

There was the one major adversary, the Great Sultanate, to the west. There was the Greater Empire, its seat in Alexandria meaning that it was not nearly as far away from the area as one might guess. There was Prometheus, situated in Greece. Then, there were the multiple small guilds of Iran to the east. Lastly, there were the guilds of the Caucasus, currently under the Greater Empire’s sway, though not directly governed by them.

These were the interest groups that had a direct stake in the matter. If John just waltzed in there without clearing it with enough of them, they would unite in opposition and either bully him out diplomatically or unite in the world’s shortest land war.

Who was not even worth asking? Romulus and Remus were immediately out of the equation. Romulus was friends with Krieg, he would oppose John on this matter for that reason alone. Remus was too unpredictable. Whatever the Godmaker wanted still wasn’t clear, so John wasn’t going to pull him into one of his schemes.

That left John with the Great Sultanate, the scattered guilds of Iran, and the imperial Caucasus. One would instinctively think that the last of those three would be unapproachable, but the politics of a realm as vast and ancient as the Greater Empire were layered, the many heads of the hydra unaligned in its goals.

The guilds of the Caucasus were under the influence of Circassia, a puppet-guild created in the aftermath of the Three Day War. It in turn was effectively governed by a certain lord of the neighbouring, imperial province of Pontis.

“An honour to be part of your scheme, a true honour!” Suel announced himself to the room. The squalid man almost danced between the chairs of the small room, taking a moment to pat the shoulder of Osman, then got behind John. Pale fingers massaged John’s neck, as the fanged, red-eyed man bowed down. His breath was aggressively peppermint scented. “I remember it like it was yesterday when you told me I have no importance outside imperial politics and here we are!”

John smacked Suel with his knuckles. It was a minor hit in the jaw, enough to get a point across. Howling in pain, Suel stumbled back, then stopped and stepped forwards. There was an evil smirk on his pale lips.

“So rude,” he complained coldly, then took his spot in the third of the three seats at the table. “You could at least verbally rebuke me, your majesty.”

“Do we really need this clown here?” Osman groaned.

“Like it or not, he is the second most influential person in the area,” John remarked. In fact, he was willing to bet, if it came to a direct confrontation between Suel’s forces and that of Osman, Suel would end up winning. Once Osman took the throne of the Great Sultanate, that would change… well, that depended on how much his father continued to ruin the economy until then.

“And I am entirely out of the loop on what this is even about!” Suel lamented, dramatically. “Something horrifically evil, I imagine, if you invite the known embodiment of the empire’s corruption here. What bureaucratic wheels are you trying to grease? How do you wish to subvert Romulus’ empire?”

The Lord of Pontis’ eyes drifted from the Gamer to Osman and then the two women behind John. Metra wore her usual clothes, a brown tube top that was just big enough to cover her petite chest and matching hot pants that barely qualified as such. Ehtra, meanwhile, wore one of her dresses in the style of the Akkadian empire, with all of the tassels and layers that came with it.

“I feel like I am missing context as to the significance of who is present,” he confessed.

“I am sure you are,” John drawled sarcastically.

Ehtra stepped forwards, too impatient to wait for them to get through their bantering dialogue tree. “Metra as first of the Metracanas and I as First of Hatred lay claim to the lands of Akkad, a claim that we present to our king, our emperor, John Newman of Fusion. He will govern the first empire and you two creatures will aid him in that endeavour.”

Blowing air out of his nose, Osman had just one comment to that, “You’re noisy, woman.”

“And you are out of line,” John remarked coolly. “Remember a modicum of respect.”

Osman’s dismissive stare wandered to John. “You need me for this, we both know that.”

The Gamer did not confirm nor deny, he simply glared at the prince, his face unmoving. Though Osman may have had the better political position in this specific circumstance, he was short on will. After thirty seconds, he cast his gaze to the side.

“Though it is your house, so I will oblige your traditions,” he relented as smugly as he could.

‘At least he isn’t suicidal,’ John thought. “As Ehtra says, Akkad will be mine,” he continued on with the meeting, “but I am not unreasonable. You will want concessions in order to accept this development, I understand.”

“Before I begin listing my desires, I do have to ask… do you really think this is enough?” Osman asked. “My father may remain alive for some time and he is just a provincial governor.”

“One that is scandalized by the claim being made,” Suel said in the least surprised tone possible. “Though also interested. Akkad… that is Mesopotamia, correct? It has so very little of worth in it.”

“Quite so,” John agreed. “So little, in fact, that it would be a waste of time to bring this to Romulus’ attention.”

“Indeed! If he ever did want that land, he should wait until someone else has developed it.” Suel agreed. “Though Osman does make a good point. You are covering the west and the north, what about the east?”

“I have made contact with some of the Iranian guild leaders. To invite them here would have been too suspicious, so my arrangement with them will have to wait for another day.” John also did not want whoever he talked to among the Iranians to be in the same room as Osman. It might very well be the case that the thing he offered the Iranian guild leaders for their compliance was covert support in an attempt to unify the area, which the Great Sultanate would not be too amused about.

Their support was ultimately tertiary though. Most important was that he got the Great Sultanate on his side. Getting the sultan himself was impossible, but Osman had put his own power base into Syria. Enough support of internal mechanisms had shifted to him and that power imbalance would only grow after he had hoarded the resources that would surface in the upcoming pulse of Natural Barriers.

It could very well be the case that Osman would succeed his father ahead of schedule.

“The concession I desire is simple,” the prince stated. “Fusion will only hold a limited area directly. The rest will be de-facto and de-jure owned by the Great Sultanate, me specifically, and I will graciously allow it to be developed by Fusion.”

That was the expected ask and it wasn’t an utterly unreasonable one. ‘What do you think of that?’

‘We can crush his descendants in a century, once the situation has calmed,’ Ehtra responded plainly. ‘Proceed as we have planned.’

“The limited area I desire, were I to acquiesce to that demand, would stretch from the shore of the Persian Gulf to where Akkad once stood. Does that have your agreement?”

Osman sucked on his lips, then slowly nodded. “Quite a large area you wish for, but that is agreeable.”

“And you, Suel?” John asked.

“As a lowly statesman, I cannot ask for any such direct involvement,” Suel lamented. “Neither can I offer you Romulus’ ignorance.”

“No, but what you can offer me is that you will advise him that it won’t be worth his while,” John reiterated their earlier point. “Which you know already. What’s your goal in playing dumb?”

“Perchance I just need a moment to think, this was all sprung on me very suddenly.” Suel rolled his shoulder. “I suppose I could be convinced to assure the Greater Empire that this is a purely… cultural outreach if fresh goods were to flow through a new trade route?”

‘From which you will no doubt benefit the most,’ John thought. He already knew how that game was played and, ultimately, he could not act against it. He could only bend the rules in his interest.

What followed was an hour of discussing details. The borders of the new province Fusion would establish and the goods that would flow into Circassia and Pontis. John would not have all of Akkad, but Ehtra was not so insistent on the point that she would demand he’d get all of the empire at its zenith immediately. She could wait one or five hundred years.

Having the backing of Osman and Suel in this was not enough to guarantee Romulus wouldn’t turn this hot, but it was enough to make it highly unlikely. In the end, it was an undeveloped stretch of desert. Unlike the mundane, where there was oil to be extracted, there was quite literally nothing there but trouble for any expanding empire.

Once his co-conspirators had left, Metra plopped down on the seat Suel had occupied. Simultaneously, Lady Vengeance kicked over Osman’s chair. “It’s not at fault for who sat on it,” John remarked, amused.

“I will hang the prince creature from his entrails before long,” Ehtra threatened. Those were not empty words.

“Why didn’t you invite the Horned Rat to this, by the way?” Metra asked. “He does owe you a favour.”

“Either I did or did not,” the Gamer responded jokingly.

“Still convinced that Suel is the Horned Rat?”

“I am convinced that it is a possibility that he is,” John answered. “To that end, the fact that I could invite him to this organically is quite helpful. Either he is the Horned Rat and I get him involved in this without cashing that favour or he isn’t the Horned Rat and I get to do something without that god’s fingers in the pie… well, at least directly in it.”

“You don’t think he’ll try to subvert our moves here?”

“And deprive the Illuminati’s ally of a way to open an additional front against the Greater Empire, should it ever come to war?” John shook his head. “No, he will permit this… but I do think he will act against Fusion in subtle manners in other arenas. We’re becoming too successful. We aren’t a good card to play against Romulus if we become just stronger than Romulus.”

Global politics were complicated like that.