I Somehow Got Tasked With Managing A Realm

"Alright, it looks like we have everyone here. Let's get today's oval table meeting started!"

The person who energetically shouted these words was at the furthest end of the table looking around at the other members in green uniforms who sat patiently in their seats. Unlike those seated, this man, who looked to be in his late forties, was half standing with one hand pressed against the table and the other pointed outstretched towards the members and moving as if scanning every person present.

Some smiled, others yawned, but most looked at the man with neutral expressions, as if his display was nothing out of the ordinary.

The man himself simply grinned at the group as he fully stood and marched around the table, patting the shoulders of the members as he passed.

"I am sure you all enjoyed the last batch of anniversary celebrations. Our work, and the work of our past members, deserves to be honored. Think about it- we succeeded in fully terraforming Mars! In under 50,000 years since the first settlement was made, we can now all walk around outside without any suits, without any oxygen tanks, and without any flashes of heat or cold or pockets of radiation! It is all thanks to the leadership of Donstar and the drive of humanity."

A few of the members nodded and clapped as he eventually ended his brief walk in front of a wall filled with large screens. The man then pulled a small remote out from his pocket and clicked a button. Instantly, all of the screens moved together and interlocked, creating a singular large screen that seamlessly projected one large image of a green, blue, and partially red planet.

"As we went over in our last meeting, Mars finally being accessible means that we'll have plenty of time before we need to deal with another planetary overcrowding event. Even so, we can't procrastinate on our preparations for other settlements or our future Donstar councils will judge us and potentially even draw sad faces over our pictures in the Hall of Dons."

Clap!

The man clapped his hands together and looked over the members once more.

"So let's get to business! Will the head of the Dyson team come up?"

He tossed the remote to one of the sitting members as he said this, who absentmindedly caught it before standing up and approaching the screens.

With another click of the remote, the screen zoomed in on the image of Mars and focused on a mountain near the planet's equator. The entire south side of the mountain seemed to be covered in heavy equipment and materials.

"As of now, we are about eighty percent finished with the space elevator's foundational work," the team lead spoke, "The initial set of processing facilities in the area are nearly complete and ready for the high-end mineral extraction installations to be installed."

The man smiled, "Perfect. We're still on schedule even with the celebrations! Make sure you give out some generous bonuses to everyone who's been working so hard at Pavonis Mons."

As the Dyson team lead returned to his seat with a nod, the man turned his attention to another member sitting at the table.

"The head of the Venus Resettlement team is up next! How's the progress on the withdrawal?"

Without standing up, the member answered, "Progress is steady- we are evacuating the floating cities one by one and settling them in noachis terra as planned. We are working hard to make the transition as easy as possible for them, but constructing all of the facilities they need to be comfortable is proving to be difficult."

"Hmm.." the man scratched at his short black beard dotted with an increasing number of white hairs, "That is a bit of an issue..."

A different member raised his hand.

"Could we not reactivate some of the construction bots to help?"

"Ha! No way!" the man rapidly shook his head and made an 'X' with his arms, "We're done with the bots. Two uprisings were enough- I'm not risking a third one."

The member clicked his tongue, "Shouldn't a temporary activation be fine? We have enough safeguards in place now. Plus, we don't even have the chips in our heads for them to exploit now."

A few murmurs broke out around the table, but the man simply sighed and clapped his hands together once more.

"Sorry, but I'm shutting that idea down. If it were a real emergency, I might consider it, but this isn't something that can't be done with human hands," he spoke, taking out a small tablet while hurriedly typing, glancing back over to the Venus Resettlement team leader, "I'll notify the recruitment branch to try to get your team some more support. Our goal is still to have everyone off of Venus before we get the mirrors in place- I want to start right up on the planetary freeze right after the V.T and Dyson teams get them constructed."

Even with the statement, the member still argued, "The place is so far out of the way. By the time the recruitment team finds people actually willing to move out to Pavonis Mons, the bots could have the whole city built."

"Then it's an issue of motivation, not of manpower. I'll give permission to classify the project as an urgent task so that the volunteers can earn double points," the man glanced at the head of the Venus Resettlement team, "Even if the facilities are still a bit behind, there should be enough B-rank housing available for a wave of volunteers to use while they work, correct?"

"B-rank?" the head paused before nodding, "We have about five thousand B-rank homes available in the area, but we could house four times that if they stayed in the C-ranks."

His proposal was quickly met with an emphasized thumbs down from the man.

"Not happening. The volunteers are saving us a lot of trouble and doing hard work for us; giving them a nice place to come back to at night is the least we can do. I highly doubt there will be any shortage of workers with those terms, but I'm open to extending the offer to the Venus settlers if there's still a shortage of manpower."

Even the member urging for the bots had to hold his tongue with this arrangement, and the issue seemed to be put to rest.

"Okay, onto the next topic. With Mars done and Venus underway, there's still the need to expand beyond the solar system for the safety of humanity and to avoid another overcrowding event in the future. Does the Planetary Research team have any updates? At the last meeting, you were discussing research into the Keplars-"

Knock. Knock. Knock.

A few knocks sounded through the meeting room, cutting off the man's speech. The members all turned toward the door curiously, while the main man brought the remote to his lips and pressed a button with an icon resembling a microphone.

"Come in!"

Fwoosh!

The thick mechanical door opened seamlessly, splitting down the middle and disappearing into the wall. In the opening stood a woman who looked to be in her upper twenties, dressed in a white lab coat.

"Ah- Samantha! You finally used the knocking doorbell!"

The woman's expression flashed with brief annoyance before she replied, "While I heavily question your choice of a wooden sound for a door made from carbon fiber nanocomposites, it was the only way to notify you that I was here without outright barging in. I apologize for interrupting your meeting, Mr. Donstar, sir, but I have an important update."

“You’re the only one who calls me that. Please- just call me John,” the man requested as he finally sat down in his seat.

Samantha shook her head.

“I can not do that, sir.”

“Tsk. Come on, Samantha- doesn’t it get exhausting always being so professional? I'm going to add some training on ‘how to be more laid back’ to your schedule. Actually, I’ll sign my son up, too. You two are the king and queen of grumpiness.”

The woman simply gave a weak glare at the sudden nagging.

“I don’t think you could convince Don to do that, sir.”

The man shot up, slamming his hand on the table, “See! Right there- you called my son by his name! How come I’m always just sir!?”

“Don is not the current head of Donstar whose in charge of humanity’s survival, sir,” she answered flatly.

“That’s just my position! We’re all just people at the end of the day and there’s still a really cool person under that responsibility who wants to be acknowledged!”

“That position supersedes the person.”

“So you’re saying my title is the only thing that matters?”

“In practical terms, yes.”

“How mean…" John Donstar let out an exhausted sigh and slumped back into his seat, "That's not a philosophy I can get behind."

The members looked at the head of Donstar with mixed eyes; some with pity, others with annoyance, and a couple with humor or apathy.

Regaining his attention, the man straightened his posture and leaned forward in his chair.

"So, what brings you here so urgently? Since you didn't stop my rambling, I don't think there is anything dangerous going on, but I can't see you interrupting such an important meeting for anything lackluster."

"Your deduction is fairly accurate. My reason for seeking you pertains to the object recently found in a side channel of the Tiu Valles River."

A flash of curiosity appeared on John Donstar's face.

"You're talking about the thing that Jimmy kid found, right? I'm assuming you've figured out what kind of mineral composite it is?"

Samantha nodded hesitantly, "That's right. Our team made a breakthrough with determining its composition... but I need to speak with you privately after this meeting to go into more details."

"... Privately?" John Donstar squinted, "You interrupted this meeting to tell me you wanted to speak with me privately?"

"Yes, sir. The results are confidential."

An exaggerated sigh left the leader's lips.

"Just tell me now. Everyone here has class A authorization."

Samantha paused, a brief debate was obvious in her eyes, "It's a class S matter, sir."

The room fell silent. Even the soft sound of breathing ceased as everyone held their breath while their mind struggled to catch up to processing the reveal.

"WHAT!?"

"Did she say class S!?"

"Her glasses are so hot~"

"Class S is a thing!? I thought that was a myth!"

Clammer filled the meeting room, but their mouths quickly shut as John Donstar rose from his seat. His normally laid-back expression was now dead serious.

"You said it's Class Snow? Do you really mean that?"

Samantha nodded, "Yes, sir. I am fairly confident in that classification based on my data."

The two locked eyes for a moment before the leader's gaze settled, and he took in a deep breath.

Haaaah.

His posture slightly relaxed as the air leaked from his lungs, yet the tension in the room remained unchanged.

"This certainly warrants the interruption," he muttered, taking a moment to speak, "As head of the Scientific Research and Innovation Department, you are the only person aside from me who officially has Class S authorization. Even so, it is a bit of an open secret about what Class S deals with."

A series of weak nods followed from the members around the table.

"I've never liked hiding information, though I know that most of what is classified is for the public's safety and peace of mind. While one day I'd like to make everything public, now's not the time for that debate," John Donstar continued, taking another breath, "But I definitely can't justify hiding information from those who have already devoted so much to humanity. I will grant permission to share your discovery with the group present. Everyone here represents the best of Donstar- I think they can handle whatever it is you found."

The members looked at the leader, then back at the intruding woman. Although still stiff with tension, an almost anxious feeling was clear from the table.

Samantha glanced at each of the members' faces and let out a sigh.

"Very well."

Click.

The woman reached up and tapped a button on the edge of her glasses. Instantly, the screens on the wall lit up to display an image of a black, oval stone.

"I will start with a brief recap since many of the people here have no idea what we are referring to," she began, "On the first day of the anniversary celebrations, the stone you see on the screen was found buried in mud in a side channel of the Tiu Valles River. This stone was discovered to emit an odd and faint glow, only visible in darkness, and it was reported to Donstar the next morning."

With another tap on her glasses frame, the image changed to show the stone placed in an advanced laboratory.

"While it was initially suspected of being some meteorite fragment, our initial analysis quickly ruled out that possibility. The stone lacked many features typically expected of that kind of debris, but actually testing the material turned out to be extremely difficult and forced me to personally get involved."

Another tap caused the image to change to display the stone placed in a dark room. A slight blue glow was emitting from its surface.

"I was able to verify the existence of the stone's glow fairly easily, yet this was odd for several reasons. First and most evident, there can not be a glow without some sort of energy to supply it, yet we simply could not figure out what was supplying this stone with the energy it needs to emit light. That leads me to the second point- the glow only appeared when it was recently interacted with by human hands."

A new series of murmurs came out from the table, but Samantha continued.

"The time it glowed following a touch varied between several seconds and several minutes, though I have not yet been able to find a solid explanation for this discrepancy. Regardless, that does provide some explanation as to how it could maintain its glow despite the object's age- it is conserving whatever energy it uses to produce the light impossibly well."

John Donstar raised his hand.

"From what I'm gathering, it sounds like this object has the potential to be an almost fully efficient battery. That's really great timing, considering we're ramping up our production for the Dyson swarm. Do you think your team could find a way to replicate it?"

Samantha shook her head, "That's getting a bit ahead of ourselves. We couldn't even figure out what was supplying that energy, though it was clearly not any form of electromagnetic or electrical energy we are familiar with. As I kept exhausting all possible explanations, I eventually turned to the pre-Cataclysm archives... and since this is a Class Snow matter, I am sure you can gather what I concluded."

At this point, many of the members at the table looked a bit lost, so John Donstar gave a brief explanation.

"Prior to the war that caused the Cold Cataclysm, there was an odd event in Earth's south where these unknown energy beams shot down from the sky like lightning and struck a boat in the ocean. When the governments at that time were examining the boat, they realized that these beams made the material it hit several times stronger... and the military implications of that increased the tensions of Earth's countries just enough to cause the next conflicts to escalate much further than they probably should have, and led to the nuclear war that our ancestors failed to prevent. It was even more stupid since they were never able to develop anything meaningful with the materials before the war broke out."

The head of the Dyson team joined the conversation with wide eyes, "But we have it now! Are you saying there's a way to increase the strength of the materials we use? Doesn't this have the potential to solve the scientific bottleneck we've been dealing with? Forget interplanetary skyhooks- we might be able to make interstellar ones!"

Excitement was growing in the room, but Samantha had to intervene.

"Hang on. Yes, if the thing powering this stone is the same energy from that time, I do not doubt that it would lead to a scientific revolution not seen in twenty thousand years. The issue is that I don't believe this energy is the same thing that was witnessed on Earth."

The chatter died down a bit at her words.

"So, if this is not the energy from that time, why would this be a Class S matter?" John Donstar questioned, tapping his fingers on the table.

"Although I don't believe it's the same, I think it's highly related to that energy," she explained.

With another tap of her glasses, several more images appeared on the screen. Samantha zoomed in on one image that resembled a metal-infused wooden stick.

"In the process of trying to confirm whether the stone matched that energy, I was able to construct a device using blueprints outlined in the last batch of the pre-Cataclysm archives used to detect this energy. It even contains pieces of a wooden board struck by one of the beams that was preserved in our ancestors' vault. "

She switched the image to a video of the stick being held over the stone.

"The reaction by the stick is a bit different than what it is supposed to be based on the past research of the scientist who developed the initial prototype. While the stick is supposed to have a consistent vibration as its components get in close proximity to one another, this stick only began vibrating once the stone was glowing and stopped once it deactivated. The vibration itself is also off, and it resembles shallow waves rather than a consistent power, which was described in the writing. The differences are simply too great to overlook- it has to be a different kind of energy."

While the members processed what she said, one member raised his hand.

"So you're stressing about how a stick you developed is vibrating? If it gets the job done, what does it matter? AGH-"

Samantha squinted her eyes and pressed a button on her glasses. Instantly, the members grabbed his head and collapsed onto the floor, foaming at the mouth. The room fell quiet aside from the man's groans.

"Samantha, how many times do I have to tell you to stop doing that?" John Donstar sighed.

"He had ill intentions behind that question, sir."

"That wasn't bad enough to concuss him," he complained, standing up from his seat, "While we wait for the medic to show up, I do have a few more questions. If it's a different kind of energy, do you think it would still have the same strengthening properties as the past beams? Also, like I asked before, were you able to figure out what that stone is made of?"

"I can't answer your first question yet. More research needs to be done before we can determine its exact properties- we're still just starting our experiments," she hesitated, "As for your second question, the stone seems to primarily be made out of a dense carbon structure."

This revelation caused the leader to pause.

"It's made out of carbon? Could it possibly be organic?"

Samantha took a deep breath, "Based on 0n structural patterns we found through spectrometry and advanced imaging, I believe that is likely the case. The only issue I'm having is that this does not make much sense considering the age we're estimating for the stone."

"Okay. We'll send out some search teams to the area to see if we can find more samples. I'll make sure we provide that Jimmy kid and his family with permanent A Class housing and food for this discovery," John Donstar stated as he began rapidly typing on his tablet, "You said it's old, though... how old are we talking? We've only been on Mars for 50,000 years."

"We couldn't use environmental clues to date the stone because of the terraforming in the area, and carbon dating was useless because of its age... I had to use the intrinsic radiometric clocks on some of the trace elements contained in the stone's structure. Even then, it is much older than the first human settlement on Mars."

John Donstar looked at her skeptically.

"You're saying it could be some sort of fossil? We haven't found any signs of life on Mars until now..."

"Yes, that's why I am confused, as well. With that being said, we haven't exactly bothered to look for fossils based on my knowledge. It was likely only possible to discover the stone due to the recently flowing water in the canal that loosened the soil just enough to somewhat expose it."

The leader put down his tablet and locked eyes with the scientist.

"... So how old is that stone?"

"From everything I've gathered..." she paused, "It looks to be roughly four billion years old."

Silence filled the room.