July 23, 1639 – Capital Arcopolis, Annonrial Federation

  The Council Chamber beneath the Hall of Sovereignty was built into the cliffside like a stone verdict. The wind from the southern sea beat hard against the iron-gss panes of the arched windows, but inside, the air was sharp, clean, and unusually tense.

  At exactly 9:00 AM, the door tches clicked open, and the chamber filled in practiced order: bck suits, dark coats, ceremonial capes where appropriate. Ten seats. Ten departments. Ten minds that had not agreed on anything unanimously in three years — and yet they had all come. Not even the Council on Continental Integration could say that.

  President Zaratosthra, composed as ever, took his pce at the head. He wore no medals, only a colr pin of the Federation's sigil — a stylized winged arc over a rising sun.

  "Let the minutes reflect," he said dryly, "that no one tried to bomb the pce. We're already doing better than half the globe."

  A few muffled chuckles rolled around the marble room, quickly swallowed by silence.

  He nodded to the Intelligence Chair. "Begin."

  Director Valyen Trask, head of the Federation National Security Intelligence Service, stood and opened the file folder in front of him. Paper. No screens here. Annonrial still believed in gravity and ink.

  "Global surveilnce confirms full-scale integration of Earth nations across the surrounding continents," Trask began without ceremony. "They've not only survived the summoning — they've adapted. Infrastructure deployments continue on all fronts. Ports, highways, communications towers, orbital unches."

  "Orbital?" the Minister of Resources asked, brow raised.

  "More than orbital," Trask corrected, flipping over a satellite photograph. "They've gone fully operational in space. Multiple unches—weekly. Not one-off experiments. Repeatable systems. Civilian and military agencies. And some... corporations."

  Heads turned.

  "Corporations?" repeated the Minister of Infrastructure, like he'd just swallowed a gear.

  "Yes. Several Earth-based private ventures are independently maintaining orbital fleets. They unch, nd, and re-unch the same vehicles within days."

  "You mean automated liftoff and recovery?" asked the Transportation Chair.

  "Yes," Trask said. "They nd their rockets vertically. On pads. Sometimes ships. Reuse them multiple times. Some cores have flown fifteen missions."

  The room went silent.

  Then a muttered voice: "You're joking."

  Trask didn't flinch. "Their unch infrastructure is beyond anything we've fielded. Remote-controlled telemetry. Deep-space antenna arrays. Real-time LEO imaging. And full Earth-surface mapping via satellite consteltions."

  The Minister of Energy slowly lowered her pen. "Consteltions?"

  "Hundreds of satellites. Swarming. Coordinated. Data-linked in real time."

  "By magic?" the Statecraft Minister asked, incredulous.

  "No. By software. Signal protocols. Algorithms."

  "Spells?" asked the Defense Minister, groping for a reference point.

  "No spells," Trask said. "Just physics. And efficiency."

  A pause. Then Karl Krunch leaned forward, voice low.

  "How many unch-capable sites do we estimate?"

  "Over thirty major pads. More from sea ptforms. We've confirmed eleven nations with full independent unch cycles."

  "And how many have pced assets above our skies since the summoning?"

  "Nearly all of them."

  President Zaratosthra's voice was soft. "So they're watching us."

  "They have been," Trask replied. "From orbit. For weeks. Some just updated their imaging arrays. They've been observing Annonrial... and the Frozen Continent. Our aid missions. Our drone convoys. Even our weather balloons."

  The Foreign Minister exhaled audibly. "They knew we were helping their outposts before we ever introduced ourselves."

  "And didn't say a word," Trask said. "Because they already assumed we were watching them too."

  "But we weren't," whispered Mina, the Science Chair. "We can't. Not like that."

  No one corrected her.

  "Elsewhere, there's an increasing economic absorption of native kingdoms. The western pins region has seen a 34% increase in literacy since the introduction of cloud-based learning systems. In the eastern forests, agricultural yields have nearly doubled thanks to drone-assisted soil analytics. And in the central basin, Earth-backed infrastructure has paved three full cities in under sixty days."

  The Trade Minister raised a brow. "And here I was thinking their obsession with concrete was an aesthetic choice."

  "Noted," Trask said, deadpan.

  He continued. "Social mapping indicates they're embedding themselves without conquest. No direct annexation. Influence through stability. Currency, media, medicine. Soft hooks, firm results."

  President Zaratosthra tapped the table. "Any signs of military alignment?"

  Trask nodded. "Several Earth military coalitions are forming. Cooperative policing. Disaster response. And... quiet projection of force. Local powers now defer to them for security without resistance."

  "And resistance?" the Minister of Defense asked.

  "Minimal," Trask said. "Except in one southern empire — industrialized, militant, rooted in outdated fascism. Still operating on steel warships and propeller aircraft. Style over substance. But noisy."

  The room shifted slightly. Not armed — just mildly irritated.

  "Ah yes," said the Minister of Statecraft with a sigh. "The empire with a chin fetish and battleships three decades behind. Do we care?"

  "Not particurly," Trask said.

  "Then skip the drama," the Minister replied. "We can swat that tantrum ter."

  Zaratosthra tapped the table once, bringing the previous whispers to heel. "Let's talk opportunity."

  Mina Khaldrin, Chair of Science and Technology, stood — not slowly, but deliberately, like someone with a knife under her coat.

  "Earth is not evenly advanced," she began, voice calm but clipped. "But their top-tier economies are no longer industrial. They're post-industrial. That word matters."

  She pulled out a thick file — no digital dispy. Still paper. Still Annonrial.

  "Let me be clear. We were prepared to meet a world with radios and combustion. We were wrong. Their highest producers operate on ptforms we've never conceptualized. Systems with no mana. No ritual structure. Just raw logic."

  She paused.

  "They have machines that learn."

  That stopped half the room.

  "What?" said the Defense Minister, not quite mocking, but close.

  "Artificial intelligence," Mina said. "We thought it was theoretical. They have working systems. Publicly avaible. One of their consumer-grade AI ptforms was trained on a hundred billion lines of nguage data. It can write, draw, simute, pn. That's the commercial version. We don't know what the cssified ones do."

  Even Trask, the intelligence director, looked visibly unsettled.

  Mina set the folder down. "They're using these models to generate weather reports. Medical diagnostics. Autonomous vehicles. Supply chain forecasting. Legal drafting. Real-time battlefield simutions."

  "And this is... on their consumer market?" the Commerce Minister asked, visibly pale.

  "Anyone with a data terminal and currency can access it."

  Karl Krunch leaned back, jaw tight. "So while we are burning mana fonts to run batch-looped compiler glyphs, Earth civilians are asking computers to write their taxes and design their homes."

  "Correct," Mina said. "And they're doing it in seconds."

  The room fell into a heavy pause.

  Then she opened the next file. A spread of charts and satellite images.

  "Semiconductor chips: their fabrication precision is below ten nanometers. The scale is microscopic. Entire data clusters encoded into an object smaller than a fingernail. They mass-produce them in automated clean rooms running non-stop."

  "Our foundries run at guild pace," muttered the Infrastructure Minister.

  "They have no guilds," Karl Krunch snapped. "They have fabs. Machines running other machines. Perfect cuts. No calibration drift. No burnout. No mana fatigue. Just signal."

  "They've already moved beyond what we call 'devices,'" Mina said. "Earth is now a ptform economy. Their rgest corporations don't just sell products — they run environments. Operating systems. Cloud infrastructure. Entire global data ecosystems that adapt to user behavior."

  "They do this with spells?" asked the Minister of Statecraft.

  "No. With code. Text. Instructions. Nothing more."

  The Minister of Commerce leaned forward, slow.

  "...What do they need from us?"

  Mina paused. "In certain sectors, medicine. Energy theory. Aerospace propulsion. Our bioengineering. Nuclear control."

  "But they don't need those things to run their world. They can ignore us, and still dominate."

  Karl Krunch rubbed the bridge of his nose. "We are wealthy. But our systems are not scable. Our runecasters burn out. Our compiler shrines overheat. We build power by hand."

  He looked around the room.

  "Their machines build other machines. Their factories are modur. Portable. They can move a microchip facility across an ocean in cargo containers. They don't hand-carve precision. They press it. With pressure and code. And those facilities run 24 hours a day. No rituals. No overseers. No dependency on moonlight or mana surges."

  "You're saying we're obsolete," the Defense Minister said quietly.

  "I'm saying we're artisanal," Karl corrected. "Which is elegant, noble, even powerful — but it won't survive a world where everyone else is automated."

  The room sat with that.

  A nation proud of its hand-carved glyphs. Its master spellwrights. Its towering rune towers — and now, all of it felt like bronze filigree against steel and silicon.

  Even the military couldn't argue. They had long suspected Earth's weapons operated beyond ballistic—autonomous, linked, data-driven.

  But it was the economy that broke the silence.

  "How big are they?" the Trade Minister asked. "How big is Earth's financial engine?"

  Karl flipped a chart. "One Earth power alone produces goods worth more in one year than our st five decades combined. They have international financial protocols, trading ptforms, energy futures, decentralized currencies, and digital assets managed by algorithm. Their economic cycle runs faster than our Parliament."

  Mina leaned back.

  "They've conquered time. That's the truth. It's not their weapons. It's not their speed. It's the cadence. They make decisions faster, produce faster, correct faster. We're pying chess against a machine that already knows all the endings."

  Zaratosthra didn't speak.

  He simply tapped the table once, and the chamber fell silent again.

  They all understood now. They weren't dealing with foreign kingdoms. They weren't rising among peers.

  They were facing a pnet that had already arrived at the next epoch — and didn't need permission to move forward.

  The silence that followed Mina's briefing wasn't just heavy — it was structural. Like something had cracked beneath the polished calm of the chamber.

  President Zaratosthra didn't speak at first. He simply adjusted his cuffs, expression unreadable.

  Then he looked up. "And the satellites?"

  Trask didn't need notes. His memory had the weight of reconnaissance.

  "Confirmed. Multiple assets from several Earth nations have overflown our territory — some at intervals of less than 90 minutes. High-resolution. Infrared. Synthetic aperture radar. We estimate 18 orbital systems capable of consistent coverage over Annonrial alone."

  He tapped the st folder.

  "They've seen everything. The aid drops in the Frozen Continent. Our logistics convoys. Even the test bed we ran near Arcopolis for mana-conversion turbines. All logged."

  "They watched us help them," the Minister of Statecraft said quietly. "And said nothing."

  "They didn't need to," Trask replied. "They have a permanent manned structure in orbit. Multiple nations maintain it. Cooperative asset. We've confirmed it's real. Functional. The International Space Station."

  The room jolted.

  "You mean they live in orbit?" asked the Energy Minister, blinking.

  "On rotation, yes. Manned crews. Robotics. Laboratories. Science modules. Continuous habitation. For over twenty years."

  The Minister of Defense let out a slow exhale. "We can barely maintain unmanned sub-orbital altitude without unching a prayer first."

  "They've mastered low-Earth orbit," Mina added grimly. "And they built an outpost to remind themselves of it every 90 minutes."

  "No wonder they didn't panic when they arrived here," muttered the Minister of Commerce. "They brought their whole sky with them."

  The Foreign Minister sat back. "So we've been hiding behind curtains in a gss house."

  "No," Karl Krunch said ftly. "We've been standing naked on a lit stage with the spotlight on — and we thought the audience couldn't see past the curtain."

  Zaratosthra stood.

  That, more than his words, brought the chamber fully silent again.

  "They've had the capacity to study us. They chose not to engage. That means either caution... or confidence."

  His eyes moved across the council. "We've seen enough now to know the shape of the world we've been summoned into. And we're not alone in it anymore."

  The Minister of Infrastructure cleared her throat, voice still hoarse. "Are we ready to speak? Or will we wait for them to knock?"

  Zaratosthra stepped away from the table and paced once toward the tall window that framed the southern horizon.

  "We've spent months assuming our greatest strength was discretion," he said. "But the game has changed. They are already setting the rules."

  He paused.

  "And so we must enter the room. Not with apologies. Not with demands. But with purpose."

  The Foreign Minister straightened. "Formal outreach?"

  "Yes," Zaratosthra said. "Target the five most technically capable states. Engage their scientific departments, not their armies. Request mutual exchanges — no less than parity. Medical, infrastructure, spaceflight, materials, AI."

  "Do we admit our position?" the Minister of Statecraft asked.

  "We admit our ambition," Zaratosthra replied. "And our potential."

  Karl cracked his knuckles. "And what do we offer first?"

  "Our stability," Zaratosthra said without hesitation. "We are wealthy. Peaceful. Politically intact. Let them look elsewhere for chaos."

  "And second?"

  He turned back to them, the high sun lighting one side of his face like a judgment.

  "We offer the truth."

  Another silence, this time not from fear — but from unity forming around it.

  "No more watching," Zaratosthra said. "No more waiting."

  July 23, 1639 – Later that afternoon, Arcopolis Government Broadcast Wing

  The press team had cleared the central hall of Arcopolis' Broadcast Wing for the first time in years. No state address, no election updates, no internal decrations had ever warranted a setup this expansive. It wasn't the space itself that made the staff nervous — it was who the audience would be.

  The world.

  And not just their world. The other one.

  The one with space stations and reusable rockets. The one that had been watching them from orbit while Annonrial sat in quiet dignity, assuming no one saw.

  That illusion was over now.

  In the briefing antechamber, Minister of Foreign Affairs Ryna Selene tapped her stylus against the speech draft, redlining paragraphs with ruthless precision.

  "Cut this—too defensive. And this—too formal. We are not here to beg. We are here to state."

  Her deputy nodded quickly and updated the script.

  Across the room, Karl Krunch stood at a side table, murmuring into a secure line that fed into a desktop comm box still warm from Trask's st call.

  "Yes... no. No we don't open with the trade offers. They'll read that as desperation. We present capabilities, then needs. We position ourselves as near-peer aspirants, not petitioners."

  He gnced up. "And the visuals?"

  The assistant waved a confirmation. "Only minimal sets. Fg. Federation seal. No holograms, no effects. The president will speak against a neutral stone background."

  "Good," Karl said. "We're here to signal strength, not spectacle."

  Meanwhile, in the inner studio, President Zaratosthra rehearsed the tone of his message with Mina Khaldrin and Director Trask.

  "No threats," Mina said. "Not even implied. This has to be clean. Measured. Rational."

  Trask, reading through the briefing points on a notepad, was less idealistic.

  "They already think we're secretive. Calcuting. If we sound too calm, it reinforces it."

  Zaratosthra exhaled. "What then? Sound frightened?"

  "No," Trask said. "Sound interested. Curious. But unimpressed."

  Mina ughed. "We just admitted their satellites can see the heat signature of our coffee urns."

  "That's why it's important," Trask said. "They need to believe we belong in the room. Even if we only just knocked on the door."

  By 6:00 PM local time, the speech draft was finalized. The transmission schedule was locked.

  The Earth rey frequencies had been mapped from captured transmissions — transted, mirrored, encoded. Simple radio waves first. Encrypted digital stream second. Followed by archived message distribution to all known Earth-aligned communication hubs.

  It was old-school by Earth standards, but symbolically rich. The Federation didn't try to overwhelm. They weren't showing off.

  They were showing up.

  As the final countdown began, Ryna Selene turned to the president and adjusted the pin on his colr.

  "We've been patient," she said.

  "Too patient," Zaratosthra replied.

  She hesitated, then nodded. "At least we look good doing it."

  August 5, 1639 – Cartalpas Coastline, Holy Mirishial Empire

  After 2 months have passed away. The morning air over Cartalpas tasted of brine and old pride. From the terrace of the Seventh Sea Café, the salt mist rolled in off the coast like a zy curtain, veiling the broken outlines of fishing ships and merchant vessels. Seagulls hovered above the waterline, their calls half-lost under the low hum of civilian patrol drones gliding across the sky.

  Down in the harbor, cranes moved like mechanical priests, offloading a shipment of prefabricated Earth containers under tight customs watch.

  Inside the café, the city's more conversational css had already settled into their routines: unionists, retired civil officers, dock workers with half a shift behind them, and bureaucrats too low-ranking to matter but too entrenched to leave. The chatter wasn't loud, but it pulsed — sharp, clipped, political.

  "I heard they've started putting rice in boxes," said one man, lifting a tiny ceramic cup of dark roast. "Not sacks. Boxes. Sealed. With the air pulled out. How do you even do that?"

  Across from him, his friend — a grizzled municipal inspector — shook his head. "Compressed air pumps, probably. Saw it once on a documentary from the Earth channel. Whole factory run without a single spell."

  "No spell?" the man ughed bitterly. "What is this, alchemy by button?"

  "They call it vacuum-sealing," came another voice from the counter. "Preserves shelf life. Efficient, clean, and cheaper than a cooling rune."

  The ughter stopped. The silence that followed wasn't insulted, just... resigned.

  Efficient. Clean. Cheaper. Words that, in Cartalpas, used to describe the Empire's own methods. Now they were Earth's. Now they were not ours.

  At the far end of the café, a television flickered quietly in the background — mounted to the wall just above a rack of rolled newspapers and spell regution posters.

  The weather came first. Always.

  "High tide expected around 3:47 PM local. Mana storm conditions above northern isles remain stable, with oceanic convergence clouds pushing innd. Expect mild heat glyph distortion in elevated zones..."

  As the broadcaster spoke, a satellite overy bloomed across the screen — not from Mirishial weather casters, but from Earth orbital feeds. The logo in the corner showed a stylized swirl with three stars — a joint space program insignia shared by two Earth powers.

  No one even blinked at it anymore.

  The café buzzed with the usual morning chatter, but a palpable tension lingered in the air. Patrons sipped their drinks, eyes occasionally darting to the television mounted on the wall.

  The screen dispyed images of the Zeroth Fleet, once the pride of the Holy Mirishial Empire, now reduced to smoldering wreckage. The fleet had been dispatched to assert dominance over the Kingdom of Morocco but met an unexpected and devastating defeat.

  "I still can't believe it," murmured an elderly man, his voice tinged with disbelief. "Our mighty fleet, decimated by a nation we considered inferior."

  A younger patron chimed in, "They underestimated Morocco's capabilities. The Moroccans employed modern tactics and weaponry, including F-16 fighter jets and cruise missiles, to devastating effect."

  The television anchor provided a detailed account:

  "The conflict, now referred to as the War of Casabnca, began when the Holy Mirishial Empire's Zeroth Fleet approached Moroccan territorial waters, ignoring multiple warnings. In response, Morocco unched a coordinated defense, utilizing F-16s to disable the lead ship, IMS Friso, and following up with a barrage of cruise missiles that sank several Mithril-css and Gold-css battleships."

  The café fell silent as footage showed the burning remains of the once-formidable fleet.

  "It's a national embarrassment," someone whispered. "We've always prided ourselves on our naval superiority."

  Another patron added, "And now, we're negotiating the return of our prisoners of war. The Moroccan forces treated them according to international standards, something we didn't anticipate."

  The anchor continued:

  "Morocco's swift and decisive response has forced the Holy Mirishial Empire to reconsider its approach. Diplomatic channels are now open, with discussions focusing on the return of prisoners and potential reparations for the conflict."

  A sense of unease settled over the café. The realization that their empire was not invincible weighed heavily on the patrons.

  "If Morocco can challenge us," a woman mused, "what about other nations? Are we truly prepared for the modern world?"

  The television shifted to a new segment, discussing the emergence of the Gra Valkas Empire. The anchor described them as a rising militarized faction with ambitions of regional dominance.

  "While their tactics are aggressive, their technology is considered outdated compared to modern Earth standards. Analysts believe they do not pose a significant threat to the Holy Mirishial Empire."

  The patrons exchanged skeptical gnces. Recent events had shaken their confidence.

  "We can't afford to underestimate anyone anymore," someone remarked.

  The steam rising off fresh-brewed café noir did little to lift the weight in the room. Since the news about the prisoners returning from Morocco, not much had been said. The café wasn't empty, but it felt smaller — like the walls had pressed in a little.

  Old pride and recent shame sat side by side at every table.

  But the silence didn't st. It never did in Cartalpas.

  "In other defense developments," the anchor said, "Imperial observers and Earth-aligned analysts have confirmed the resurgence of a new militant power in the western ocean: the Gra Valkas Empire."

  The screen cut to grainy footage: warships steaming through gray-blue waters, gunmetal hulls, sharp angles, smokestacks, and armored turrets. Uniformed crews with peaked caps saluted atop outdated battleship decks. Marching formations, parades, banners. The aesthetic was cold, militaristic, and brutally clean.

  "While their internal propaganda decres a return to 'imperial glory,' military experts note that their capabilities remain firmly based on Earth's mid-20th century doctrines — pre-satellite, pre-digital."

  A long exhale came from an older man seated at the corner.

  "So they found a World War museum and turned it into a government," he muttered, shaking his head.

  His friend — a retired Navy officer — gave a single dry chuckle. "Looks like it."

  "Their fleet consists primarily of steel-hulled capital ships powered by oil combustion. Fire-control systems appear analog, and air superiority assets include propeller-driven aircraft — some reports confirm jet prototypes, but limited in number."

  Someone at the bar scoffed.

  "Propellers?" A younger man leaned on his elbow. "Is this a joke?"

  "Maybe they think the future is bck-and-white newsreels," another replied.

  "Gra Valkas has reportedly annexed smaller coastal nations, seizing resources and establishing supply bases on several isnds. However, their strategic doctrine remains untested against high-tier adversaries."

  That st sentence stirred something deeper.

  At a nearby table, a man in city uniform gnced up at the screen. "They're loud," he said, "but not dangerous. At least not to us."

  "They've got steel ships, and they fire iron shells," someone else chimed in. "We've got skyward mana reys and floating citadels."

  "And we got smoked by Morocco," the barista mumbled from behind the counter, not loud, but not shy.

  The others gred, but no one argued.

  "In contrast to recent events in the western continent, military advisors stress that the Gra Valkan arsenal does not currently include radar-evading aircraft, cruise missiles, or satellite-linked systems. Most airframes ck composite shielding. Surface-to-air defenses are line-of-sight based."

  "One Earth-aligned analyst reportedly described the Gra Valkan fleet as 'formidable only in the absence of modern opposition.'"

  The anchor turned slightly.

  "Holy Mirishial's High Command issued a statement earlier this week: 'We do not view the Gra Valkas Empire as a strategic threat to the Order of Civilization.'"

  That brought audible murmurs from around the café.

  "See?" one man said, standing just a little taller. "Finally, someone speaks with sense. We still stand above these imitators."

  "They're a fossil," someone added. "All noise, no substance."

  "We've bent to Earth where we had to," a woman near the back said, "but we don't bow to pretenders out of time."

  "Let them march. Let them fly their fgs. They'll crumble the moment they meet a real fleet."

  But not everyone seemed convinced.

  A quiet voice came from a man hunched over a notepad, scribbling something beside his cup.

  "That's what we said about Morocco."

  The café dipped quiet again.

  He didn't eborate. He didn't have to.

  Outside the window, far beyond the seawalls of Cartalpas, the ocean looked deceptively calm. But the people inside the café — for all their jabs and ughs — had learned something recently:

  Mirishial wasn't untouchable.

  And not every threat looked like a monster. Some came dressed in old uniforms, riding old ships, speaking old words.

  Back on the screen, the final line of the segment pyed, almost too casually.

  "And in unreted airspace data, Earth-based weather satellites continue to register increased activity around the southern por region. Analysts are still debating the origin..."

  No one in the café paid it much mind.

  The café's lighting hadn't changed, but the air had.

  People leaned in slightly as the broadcast shifted tone. The news anchor's voice, already formal, grew ftter — precise. Not solemn. Not excited. Just... expectant.

  "...And now, a global message, distributed across all major Earth communication ptforms and international frequencies. The Annonrial Federation, until now operating in concealment, has released the following decration to all nations and powers present in this world—native and summoned alike."

  [BEGIN VIDEO BROADCAST]

  The screen faded in — not from darkness, but from light. The sea shimmered pale and cold under a clear morning sky. A harbor curved like a polished bde along white stone shores, its waters calm but purposeful. Moored at the edge, a line of sleek naval vessels sat still — not funting their guns, but their precision.

  Above, towers rose from the heart of Arcopolis, carved in a bance of history and future. No spires meant to dominate. Just structure. Proportion. Authority. Steel and stone intertwined with cultivated green — treelines mirrored along tram rails, rooftop gardens blooming between aerial highways.

  Nothing glowed. Nothing sparkled. It didn't need to.

  The voice came without fanfare — steady, centered.

  "You have watched the world change. So have we."

  A woman's voice — neither young nor old, but practiced. Clear. Sovereign.

  "We are the Annonrial Federation. And we have always been here."

  The feed moved to the capital's central tier — a long white pza leading to a marble rotunda. Inside, parliament sat mid-session. No speeches for the camera. Just work. Delegates — winged and unwinged — speaking in measured tones, documents passed, decisions signed.

  Aerial footage swept across residential districts — rows of banced architecture, woven with quiet parks and transit lines. Not rich. Not poor. Stable.

  "We did not withdraw. We prepared.We did not slumber. We watched."

  A series of scenes followed — not dramatized, not exaggerated.

  A medical wing: a woman in a care unit undergoing regenerative nerve treatment, serene as rune-linked monitors pulsed above her.

  A university atrium: students debating a mechanical schematic scrawled across a board, one pair of wings fring in exasperation as another student pushed a revision through.

  An engine testing room: technicians adjusting a jet turbine under violet warning lights, their coats branded with Viren Industries. The sound of ignition followed — clean, sharp, successful.

  Then: a nuclear control chamber. White floors. Polygss walls. No magic. No chanting. Just math. Readouts blinked quietly in the background. Operators moved with the kind of pace that comes only from confidence.

  "You awakened the world. And now... you've awakened us."

  A shift in rhythm.

  Cadets unched in formation from a wind-bsted coastal ridge — jet-assisted, their wings fring behind them. Officers tracked their arcs from reinforced ptforms below. The footage didn't linger. It moved — tight cuts of naval coordination, weapons checks, and quiet drills. No show of force. Just force, quietly prepared.

  Then the fg appeared.

  Dark blue under open daylight. The twelve stars. The white burst. The golden crane.

  The screen cut sharply — not to warships or banners, but to speed. A single crimson vehicle shot across a curve of white-paved tarmac, its engine howling like a storm. The camera followed the F1 racer as it passed a roaring stadium built into a coastal cliff, where the crowd — some with wings unfurled, some not — rose in a single, unified cheer.

  Fgs waved high. Not just in the stands, but painted along the cliff face, sewn into jackets, etched into the railing. An elderly man stood with his grandchildren, both of them mimicking the driver's final turn, ughing as the car vanished into the distance.

  Then the image shifted — a cssroom where students argued at a shared table, notes scattered, a globe between them. Outside the window, a sleek commuter tram rolled past manicured gardens.

  Another cut — two young girls, one recently fledged, comparing the growth of their feathers with amused pride. Then to a young man holding a ring, nervous on one knee under an evening skybridge. And finally, to a woman standing alone with a telescope, not looking at the stars, but the silent glow of Earth's orbital ttice.

  The voice returned. Not soft, not asking.

  "We did not wait in hiding. We waited for the world to speak. And now that it has—so do we."

  Footage transitioned to an orbital view: the Frozen Continent below, vast and untouched. A second camera panned over the curved arc of Annonrial itself — a nation lit from within, not funting, but showing just enough.

  "We will not be defined by silence. Nor underestimated by distance."

  "We do not seek permission to stand where we already belong."

  The next sequence moved fast: Parliament raising the new diplomatic accord; freight ships unloading aid containers in a por wind; engineers coordinating over scaffolded towers where a communications dish blinked red and white against a winter sky.

  No music swelled. The screen faded to a single emblem — the starburst, ringed in twelve, the words beneath it clear.

  Then Zaratosthra stood at the steps of Arcopolis — no stage, no ceremony, only the rising sun behind him and the fg to his left. His hands remained still at his sides. When he spoke, it wasn't loud. But it didn't need to be.

  "To those who've built this new world in motion — we have seen your works. Measured your direction."

  "The Annonrial Federation steps forward not to echo power, but to bance it."

  "We bring what we are — not in rivalry, but in recognition. Not in submission, but in crity."

  "To those who choose discourse, we are ready.To those who seek alliance, we will listen.To those who value order, you will find us familiar."

  "We are not new. Only newly seen."

  He paused just long enough.

  "The world has turned. And now... so do we."

  Then the screen faded — not to bck, but to the silver-gold arc of the Federation crest, steady and unshaken.

  [END BROADCAST]

  The television screen dimmed, the final line of the Annonrial broadcast trailing off into silence, repced only by the faint hum of the café's lights and the soft ctter of a mug settling into its saucer.

  No music. No news anchors returning. Just silence.

  For a long moment, no one in the café said anything.

  It was the same kind of silence you heard in a courtroom after a guilty verdict. Clean. Absolute.

  Then the murmur started.

  "They have jet engines?" a dockworker near the window muttered, his voice cracking like something old inside him just gave way.

  Across the room, a city clerk turned away from the screen slowly, his jaw still halfway open. "That was... Arcopolis?"

  "It looked like Cartalpas should have looked," someone else said, bitterly.

  "They were supposed to be a backwater," an older woman snapped, as if angry at the television for lying. "Barbarians hiding in the cliffs. Weren't they still riding feathered carriages a generation ago?"

  "Feathered carriages?" the barista scoffed. "That's what they taught you?"

  The café erupted into overpping voices.

  "The Federation? I thought they barely qualified as a state. Now they're sending aid to Antarctica?"

  "What aid? They were monitoring Earth broadcasts while we were still throwing mana detectors at the sky!"

  "Did you see their parliament? Their hospitals?"

  "I saw their navy. Sleek. Calm. Not for show. That's what real deterrence looks like."

  A man near the door, retired military from the look of him, stood slowly and turned back to the screen.

  "We ughed at them. For years. We wrote reports calling them insignificant. Weak. Arrogant in their isotion."

  His voice lowered.

  "But they weren't arrogant. They were patient."

  Someone scoffed again — younger, defensive.

  "They're a federation of flying monks with pretty buildings. So what? We're still the Holy Empire."

  "Are we?" a woman asked sharply. "Did you see their energy sector? Nuclear, controlled, sustainable. And no glow from mana burnout. Did you see their medical tech? That's not holy magic. That's regenerative science."

  "You think they're better than us?"

  "No," she said. "But I no longer think we're better than them."

  In the far corner, one of the café's regurs, a retired history professor, finally spoke — voice calm, but pointed.

  "We assumed silence meant weakness." He sipped his tea, eyes fixed on the banner still faintly visible in the corner of the TV screen. "But they were watching the same skies we were. They just didn't feel the need to announce it."

  "They knew about Earth for months," said another man. "And they waited. Watched us fumble into war. Watched us bleed against Morocco. Then, just as we start talking like we own this new world, they step forward."

  A silence spread again.

  But this one wasn't calm. It was heavy.

  In the back, a teenager who had been glued to the screen during the broadcast stared down at her drink.

  "They race cars. Real ones. Not enchanted wood chariots. Engines that scream and hug the ground."

  "F1," her brother said, almost reverently. "It's like a rite of speed. I thought Earth invented it, but they've been doing it too."

  Their mother frowned. "That's what you focused on?"

  "They're alive," he said. "Not just functional. They're proud. They have art, sport, identity. And wings..." he added, gncing toward the window where a flight squad passed above. "Real wings. And they don't posture about it."

  At the counter, the barista finally leaned forward.

  "You all feel that?" she said softly.

  A few looked over.

  "That sound? That thump in your stomach? That's what it feels like when the world changes — and we're not at the center of it anymore."

  A few stared at her, but no one contradicted.

  Then came the anger.

  "This is humiliation," barked a merchant. "First Morocco breaks our fleet, and now this? Some hidden kingdom of schors strolls in with a smile and a nuclear reactor?"

  "They didn't boast," the professor replied. "They didn't even posture. They just showed us what already was."

  "Why now?" someone asked. "Why reveal themselves now?"

  No one had an answer.

  A low voice near the window offered one.

  "Because they knew we wouldn't listen until we were already broken."

  The café hushed again.

  Outside, the waves kept rolling in against the harbor wall.

  Seagulls called overhead, but even their noise sounded smaller than before.

  On the screen, the Annonrial crest remained — steady, calm, clean.

  "Glory. Freedom. Advance."

  For decades, the Holy Mirishial Empire had told its citizens that Annonrial was a distant relic — a failed union of mystics and mountain people who hid their poverty behind arrogance.

  But no one in that café believed it anymore.

  And across Cartalpas — across the Empire — others were watching the same broadcast. Others were asking the same questions. Feeling the same slow erosion of a pride they thought untouchable.

  Annonrial had not come to make war.

  They had come to exist — and that, somehow, felt far more dangerous.

  August 6, 1639 – Inner Hall of State, Runepolis, Holy Mirishial Empire

  The broadcast hadn't been over more than seven minutes when the arms began.

  Not red, not wartime — but the internal kind: priority channel pings, encrypted briefings, urgent fgs fshing across department terminals. No wails, no sirens. Just a quiet flurry of messages cascading from diplomatic outposts, military observers, and—most critically—Earth intelligence liaisons.

  In the heart of Runepolis, under the marble dome of the Hall of State, senior officials began arriving in yers of confusion and unease. The usual pomp was absent. No ceremonial pacing, no dramatic capes. Just boots hitting stone and voices bouncing off cold walls.

  "Where is the footage being rerouted from?"

  The question cut through the echoing marble of the Inner Hall like a shard of gss.

  A junior officer, fnked by two reys staffers from the Ministry of Communications, looked up from his tablet-like mana-linked dispy, face pale. "Multiple global reys, sir. Not just Earth civilian lines — military, commercial, diplomatic. They hit every major Earth-aligned satellite uplink simultaneously."

  "Simultaneously?" Percs repeated, blinking as if the word didn't register.

  The officer nodded once. "Confirmed. The signal originated from their southern hemisphere unch tower — possibly buried in the gcial belt — but the package was pre-coded. Structured for multi-protocol injection. They knew exactly which satellites to hit. Which time bands. Which nations would rebroadcast. It wasn't guesswork."

  Arneus Freeman's chair scraped as he leaned forward, knuckles tense against the briefing table. "Are you saying the Annonrial Federation accessed Earth's orbital media net?"

  "Not accessed. Anticipated. They precompiled for it. Their signal matched the time-division multiplex protocols Earth uses in emergency diplomatic scenarios."

  "Emergency protocols?" someone muttered. "That's impossible. That's restricted to Earth major powers."

  "Apparently not anymore," the officer replied.

  That silenced the room.

  Then a lower-level policy director whispered, almost to himself, "The Federation? That was the Annonrial Federation?"

  "Was?" snapped Minister Veruno, his voice colder than usual. "It still is. And apparently, it's everything we never believed it could be."

  The golden doors at the far end of the chamber did not swing open so much as part under tension, like great ptes of authority being peeled apart by the will of the man behind them.

  A sudden stillness seized the air as every voice in the room fell quiet—not from command, but reflex. Even the air itself seemed to slow.

  Emperor Milishial VIII stepped inside.

  He did not stride. He did not announce. He walked as if the room had been waiting for him to arrive all morning and had only now remembered its purpose. His long imperial coat, patterned with a white-threaded crest of sunburst and sword, barely brushed the marble behind him. Each step sounded like a single chime in a clock tower—rare, deliberate, final.

  He brought no ceremonial guard, no fluttering banners. Only three aides, silent and expressionless, bearing no symbols—just heavy folders and sealed tablets in their arms.

  As the Emperor moved, ministers unconsciously straightened in their seats. Binders were closed. Pens were capped. Even Veruno's habitual foot-tapping ceased, as if the marble floor itself refused noise in His presence.

  Milishial's eyes drifted once around the table—not scanning, not searching. Measuring. He passed each man and woman with a gaze like an ancient architect appraising cracked pilrs: not angry, not surprised—only disappointed that they hadn't held better.

  He sat without flourish, letting silence settle around him like a cloak.

  Then, calmly:

  "Begin."

  Director Arneus Freeman, head of the Holy Mirishial Intelligence Bureau, looked as though someone had carved the blood from his face and repced it with ash. His posture was stiff, his jaw tense, and his hand trembled only slightly as he pced a thick red-stamped dossier on the obsidian table between them.

  The pages inside were still warm — fresh off the secure press, not even clipped.

  He didn't look at them. He looked directly across the table, as though daring someone to blink before he did.

  "They bypassed every sensor array we had on their border," he said, voice clipped, sharp. "Every long-range sweep. Every diplomatic intercept. Our runic surveilnce nets, our aerial scouts, our informant webs... nothing. Not even an echo."

  He let the words sit, then added with a heavier tone:

  "Which means it wasn't just oversight. It was concealment. Deliberate. Refined. Professional."

  Across from him, Minister Schmill Pao, broad-shouldered and always half a breath from barking, leaned forward with narrowed eyes.

  "Concealed?" His tone dripped with disdain. "Or staged? That footage could've been spliced together in a backroom theater. Those cities could be empty shells. Actors in costumes. Where's the hard confirmation?_"

  Freeman turned slowly to him, not with irritation — but with the calm of a man long past patience.

  "Minister, with respect, that denial reflex is exactly why this happened. While we were spinning fiction for our people, they were building a nation beneath the clouds."

  He reached for the dossier and flipped it open. "We cssified Annonrial as a spiritually driven, economically stagnant federation — an academic curiosity with no real geopolitical weight. We said their military consisted of ceremonial guard units. Their fleet? Non-existent. Their industrial base? Stone tools and prayers."

  He paused, letting that list of outdated intelligence bite deeper.

  "But what we just saw was integrated force structure. Disciplined personnel. Functioning nuclear energy. Modern turbines. Civil governance that rivals the structure of Earth's most advanced nations."

  The room didn't just stir. It ripened with unease. Veruno, always the more composed among the cabinet, spoke quietly — as though saying it too loud would make it real.

  "They had nuclear energy," he said. "Controlled. No mana containment. No external glyph stabilization. Just... pure physics. Turbines, grid systems, clean delivery. That wasn't some staged show. That was a working infrastructure."

  "And medical," added a staffer from the rear. "Their regenerative work — it bypassed rune-assisted biology completely. They were rebuilding nerve tissue like it was routine."

  The silence grew suffocating.

  Liage, the seasoned envoy who'd spent decades crafting speeches that never had to be challenged, cleared his throat with visible discomfort.

  "For the st thirty years," he began, "our schools, our libraries, even our diplomatic protocols have beled Annonrial a minor civilization. A spiritual republic too shy to engage. A winged relic that feared the future."

  "Because that's what our intelligence told us," Schmill Pao snapped.

  "No." The voice came from the far side of the table — not angry, not loud. Just cold.

  It was one of the Emperor's aides, a gray-robed advisor rarely known to speak during full chamber meetings.

  "Not what the intelligence told us. It's what we preferred to believe."

  That struck harder than any accusation. Because it wasn't a criticism. It was a confession.

  Freeman didn't flinch. He leaned forward now, sensing the crack in the wall of denial.

  "We told ourselves they were small because we wanted to feel rge. We cimed they were outdated so we didn't have to question our own stagnation. And now..."

  He gestured toward the darkened holo-dispy still frozen on the Annonrial fg.

  "Now they've stepped forward — not as students, not as subjects, but as equals. Or worse: as peers we failed to anticipate."

  No one spoke.

  Then a subtle shift.

  A rustle of robes. A chair creaking in the corner. Eyes flicking slowly toward the high-backed seat at the head of the room.

  The Emperor hadn't spoken.

  He hadn't needed to.

  His silence filled the space heavier than shouting ever could.

  But now, he did.

  His voice was not raised. It didn't echo. But when Milishial VIII finally spoke, the entire hall leaned in as though gravity itself had changed direction.

  "We have always understood that pride, if untested, will rot into arrogance."

  "We thought we were watchers of history. But now we see — history was watching us."

  He turned his gaze slowly across the table. His stare nded on no one in particur, yet everyone felt it.

  "The Annonrial Federation did not arrive. They simply stopped hiding. The mistake was ours."

  He paused, letting the weight of the word ours crash across their backs.

  "Do not speak to me again of 'barbarian nations.' That age is over."

  A single hand rose.

  Calm. Firm. No flourish.

  And the room obeyed.

  The ripple of tension that had rolled through the Hall like a rising tide broke instantly against the raised palm of Emperor Milishial VIII. Voices fell. No order was spoken, yet every throat tightened shut as though they'd all forgotten how to speak.

  He didn't move in his chair. He didn't clear his throat. He simply allowed the silence to resume its reign—and from his seat, it obeyed as if silence had never left.

  Then, with a voice that didn't demand attention but assumed it:

  "Remind me," he said, "when was our st formal contact with the Annonrial Federation?"

  He asked it like a king asking for a date in a ledger — but no one mistook the meaning.

  A pause. No one rushed to answer. The silence stretched again, and then Freeman, always first to take the fire, finally broke it.

  "Forty-seven years ago," he said. "A diplomatic trade proposal. We initiated. They declined."

  The Emperor gave no sign of emotion. He simply pced his hands atop each other, fingers interlocked with the same precision the Empire was once known for.

  "And in those forty-seven years," he said, almost contemptively, "did no one in this chamber think it wise to look again?"

  No answer.

  Not even from Percs.

  Not even from the diplomats.

  The question wasn't a rebuke. It was a diagnosis.

  And it nded harder than any accusation could.

  It was Percs, the seasoned Minister of Foreign Affairs, who dared speak next — and even then, cautiously.

  "Your Majesty," he began, voice steady but low, "this broadcast — while bold — does not yet present a threat. Their tone was measured. Their nguage? Diplomatic. They didn't posture. They didn't demand. They extended the nguage of engagement. Perhaps this is... diplomacy. Not decration."

  It wasn't cowardice. It was deflection. But everyone heard the strain behind the practiced tone.

  "Perhaps," came Veruno's quiet murmur, almost over his own breath, "but you don't pre-record a message like that unless you're certain it will be heard. That wasn't just for Earth. That was for us. That was for everyone."

  All eyes drifted to the frozen emblem still flickering in soft blue light on the wall monitor — twelve stars, one burst, one crane.

  A fg.

  A message.

  A correction.

  "Did you see their fg?" whispered Siwalf, the junior diplomat, almost to himself. "It wasn't just symbolic. It was structured. They've had a unified identity under our nose for decades. While we... published policy reports calling them a fragmented archipego of pacifist cults."

  The word cults nded heavier now.

  Because it was the word they had all used.

  Then came Schmill Pao, leaning forward, the chain on his shoulder glinting as he shifted weight.

  Growling, not out of fear — but pride bruised.

  "We should test them," he muttered. "Quietly. A naval probe. We don't need to fire, just observe. Track their port movement. Launch satellite pings. Let's evaluate before we—"

  "No."

  The Emperor hadn't raised his voice. He never did.

  But the word came like stone falling into deep water. Heavy. Singur. Irrefutable.

  Pao froze mid-breath.

  Milishial didn't look at him. He didn't need to. The entire room froze again, like animals trained by instinct to stillness.

  Then he spoke again.

  "They did not shout. They did not march. They did not wave torches at the sky."

  "They showed discipline. Not defiance. Caution, not cowardice."

  His tone didn't rise. It lowered — deepened like a cold current.

  "This was not a child knocking at the gate. This was a neighbor revealing a door we never saw—because they built it behind us."

  No one moved.

  Even the aides in the corners of the chamber — people trained to move only when ordered — had forgotten to breathe.

  Veruno, gathering himself, finally leaned in again. But this time, there was no argument. No attempt to reframe. His voice was more hushed than ever.

  "They have Earth-based orbital positioning data. They knew which global channels to inject their message into. They've monitored our airspace patterns. If they have predictive systems, they might even know our satellite orbits. Our patrol routines."

  He swallowed.

  "They aren't just not behind us, Your Majesty. They may be... adjacent."

  He hesitated.

  "Or ahead."

  "But how is that possible?" asked Liage, voice trembling between fear and disbelief. "We've never seen signs. No movement. No acceleration. No experimentation. Why would they hide all of this? Why let us continue thinking they were..."

  The room waited.

  He didn't finish the sentence.

  But the Emperor did.

  "Barbarians," he said softly.

  It wasn't a question. It wasn't rhetorical.

  It was a confession he forced the room to confront.

  The word sshed across the polished walls like a bde.

  No one challenged it.

  Because they'd all used it.

  And then the Emperor stood.

  Not fast. Not dramatically.

  Just purposefully.

  The chair made no sound against the marble.

  He turned — not to face his ministers, but to face the southern window, the one that had always framed the arc of the empire's greatness: the fleets, the floating towers, the citadel beyond.

  But today, the view seemed smaller.

  Or maybe it was the man standing before it that seemed rger.

  He folded his hands behind his back.

  "Update every record," he said quietly. "Reassess every assumption. The Annonrial Federation is not the empire we believed we could ignore. Nor are they the enemy we once thought to create."

  "They are something else."

  He looked past the horizon now. Not toward war. Not toward alliance. But toward a future they no longer owned alone.

  "They are something careful."

  Around him, ministers began moving.

  Aides whispered. Briefings were requested. Intelligence links were opened. Diplomatic arms were already whispering to Earth-aligned stations, trying to cw back context.

  But the Emperor remained at the window.

  Still the Emperor.

  But for the first time in decades—

  No longer certain.

  October 16, 2023 – The White House, Washington, D.C., United States

  The television had long since gone dark, but the silence in the Oval Office still held.

  No one spoke until the President set the remote down beside his coffee. It clicked on the wooden surface like a gavel ending deliberation.

  President Joe Biden leaned back slightly in his chair, his fingers steepled beneath his chin. Across the room, senior advisors from the National Security Council, State Department, CIA, and Pentagon sat with tablets open, paper copies scattered, and expressions drawn.

  "Alright," Biden said finally. "Let's talk about what the hell just happened."

  Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke first. Calm, practiced, but visibly focused.

  "It's credible. We've confirmed the signal originated from the southern por region. The timing wasn't random—it hit every major broadcast rey and social feed on schedule, including encrypted diplomatic channels. That wasn't an accident. That was a staged entry."

  "Entry into what?" Biden asked.

  "The geopolitical board," Blinken replied. "They just stepped into the game."

  Director William Burns of the CIA followed up, his voice low and analytical.

  "We've had fragments on Annonrial for months. Atmospheric shadows. Aerial anomalies. Civilian radar ghosts over southern ice shelves. Their decision to go public isn't impulsive—it's a test. They've been watching the rest of the world scramble. Now they're showing us what they've got."

  "Why now?" asked Jake Sullivan, National Security Advisor.

  "Because they saw weakness," Burns said bluntly. "Not ours. Everyone's."

  "Are we talking military threat?" asked Lloyd Austin, Secretary of Defense.

  "Not immediate," Burns answered. "Their doctrine seems defensive, highly structured. Their broadcast focused on stability, science, national culture. But there were military symbols baked into it. Engine tests. Cadet flight drills. And they closed with a fg shot — twelve stars, gold crane, and a phrase that wasn't poetic. It was intentional."

  Glory. Freedom. Advance.

  "Catchy," Biden muttered.

  There was a pause. Blinken leaned forward.

  "Mr. President, there are two ways to look at this. Either Annonrial becomes a stabilizing influence — potentially aligned with liberal democracies and international norms — or they drift into strategic alignment with autocratic blocs."

  "China," Biden said ftly.

  "Russia too," Sullivan added, "but yes. Mainly China."

  Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen spoke next, flipping through a set of satellite recon summaries.

  "They're post-industrial. Not hyper-automated like our network, but functional. Their infrastructure is built. No indication of currency peg yet, but they operate with a unified state model. Heavy state investment. Centralized tech-industrial base."

  "Any threat to economic stability?" Biden asked.

  "Depends who gets to them first," she said.

  A beat passed. Then the President looked up.

  "Let's game it out," he said. "Jake?"

  Sullivan nodded. "Alright. Here's the rough matrix."

  He walked to the couch table and tapped the surface. A portable dispy lit up, showing four colored blocks representing major alliances.

  "Best-case scenario: they lean West. We get in early. UN engagement, tech exchange, limited arms consultation, cultural diplomacy. Pull them into our frameworks — Geneva, G7 observers, perhaps even an Antarctic cooperation charter."

  "And worst-case?"

  "They go quiet again," Sullivan said. "But not before cutting deals with Beijing. Supply chain routes, data exchange, and military non-interference cuses. If China gets access to their aerospace R&D or their nuclear systems—"

  "That's a big if," Austin interrupted.

  "It's not impossible," Sullivan said. "Their tech is decades ahead of their supposed development arc. Which means they either recovered old tech, accelerated through isotion, or they've had a separate tech tree entirely."

  "'Separate tech tree,'" Biden repeated, almost amused.

  "Think of it this way," Burns cut in. "They didn't arrive in the modern world. They parallel-evolved to it. Their infrastructure doesn't mirror ours, but it serves the same purpose. They're not catching up. They're redefining what it means to be advanced."

  Biden narrowed his eyes.

  "So what's their py?"

  "Power with pusible deniability," Blinken said. "They're not asking to join our system. They're announcing that they already have one — and that it works."

  Austin leaned forward, arms folded.

  "They showed jets. They showed fusion reactors. But they didn't show missiles. No war games. No destroyer squadrons. Just enough force to make us think before poking. Cssic deterrence signaling."

  Sullivan nodded. "And they did it without ever naming a single Earth nation. Not a word about China. Not a word about us. Just: 'We're here. We're watching. Let's talk.'"

  The room fell quiet again.

  Then Biden spoke.

  "Let's say they're genuine. Let's say they're not posturing. What do we do?"

  Blinken didn't hesitate.

  "We open the door," he said. "Send soft contact. Humanitarian frame. Education delegation. Maybe a joint science summit. But we get inside."

  "And if they don't want us inside?" Austin asked.

  "Then we go teral. Strengthen Antarctic outposts. Lock down our orbital footprint. Make it clear that any partnership with authoritarian blocs will be met with counter-alignment."

  Biden let that hang for a moment.

  Then, turning to Burns:

  "What's your gut?"

  The CIA director looked down at the dossier again, then back up.

  "They're not bluffing. They're a culture with wings, fusion, and discipline. That's not a threat."

  He paused.

  "That's a reminder — that we're not alone anymore."

  The President stood, slow and thoughtful, then crossed to the tall window behind his desk.

  Outside, the fgs along the South Lawn barely moved. But he watched them for a long moment.

  "We were handed a new world," he said. "And we assumed we'd write the rules."

  Another pause.

  "Well," he muttered, "guess it's time we learned to read."

  October 17, 2023 – Private Club atop IFC Tower Two, Shanghai, Republic People of China

  The air smelled faintly of sandalwood and imported whiskey.

  Beneath a wide canvas canopy atop one of Shanghai's most exclusive clubs, four men and two women sat in deep leather chairs surrounding a stone table lit by a sunken brazier. Below them, the Bund shimmered in quiet confidence, colonial facades gilded in gold light while high-rises blinked blue across the river.

  It was not an official meeting. Nothing written. No statements. No names. Just influence — and the kind of measured conversation that had always preceded policy shifts, market surges, and quiet diplomatic pivots.

  "I never thought I'd see the day," said a man in a silver tie, nursing a small porcein cup. "A nation we didn't chart, didn't trade with, and didn't sanction... suddenly appears with jet engines and nuclear fusion."

  "Not fusion," corrected the woman across from him, an investor in state-linked biotech. "Efficient fission. Advanced, yes — but achievable. Manageable."

  She sipped her gss. "Interoperable."

  That word mattered.

  A tech executive adjusted his gsses. "Their broadcast architecture was Earth-compatible. That's not nothing. They studied our protocols. Their format was deliberate. That was not a culture shouting into the void."

  "Agreed," said a voice beside him — older, measured, quiet. His name didn't appear in media. But his family had built half of southern China's ports. He spoke rarely, and only when he'd already decided how something would end.

  "They didn't enter our world," he said. "They waited for it to come to them."

  A pause.

  Then the youngest in the group — mid-thirties, venture capital, former diplomat — tapped a cigarette on the table, unlit.

  "So," he said, "what's the move?"

  The silence was not confusion. It was calcution.

  Then the woman spoke again, pcing her gss down with a soft click.

  "They've already made it clear: they are not looking for a patron. But they're certainly open to a partner."

  The group nodded slowly.

  This wasn't posturing. It was strategic nguage. The Annonrial broadcast had gone viral on Chinese ptforms — scrubbed only at the surface. The Party hadn't yet released a formal position, but the fact that this meeting was happening now told everyone at the table that Beijing had already begun its assessment.

  The Annonrial Federation had appeared with quiet force — calm, stable, literate, sovereign. They had not praised democracy. They had not condemned autocracy. They had said nothing about Earth's systems. That silence had power.

  It meant they were watching.

  And it meant they could be approached.

  "Think they lean West?" the tech exec asked.

  "Not necessarily," said the port magnate. "But they'll lean toward infrastructure. Which we understand better than anyone."

  He gestured with one hand to the skyline below — to cranes in the distance, to maglev lines humming between towers.

  "They understand the nguage of state-backed logistics. Of centralized pnning. National branding. We built an empire on that."

  One of the men tapped a screen built into the table. The Annonrial emblem appeared. Twelve stars, golden crane, silver burst.

  He didn't speak for a moment. Then:

  "They don't trade slogans. They trade function. That motto of theirs—'Glory, Freedom, Advance'—it's not for populism. It's a system."

  "Exactly," said the woman. "And that means they'll respect other systems. As long as the offer is clean."

  Someone finally lit the cigarette.

  "So... do we move first?"

  The port magnate smiled faintly.

  "No. Not first. Not visibly."

  He leaned back, folding his arms.

  "Let the Americans gesture. Let the UN invite. We supply."

  There was a small flick of a remote, and the table's screen shifted to a data feed — fresh logs from China's Antarctic listening posts. Flights. Heat signatures. Aerial movement around the gcial territories below.

  "Here's the card," the woman said. "We've been there longer than most. If they're going to establish Earth-side retionships, it'll start in Antarctica. Quietly."

  The youngest man grinned. "Science partnership, climate tech, green corridor deals..."

  "Rare earths," the port magnate finished. "And data transmission systems. The Federation wants to join the digital world without being colonized by it."

  A pause.

  Then someone finally said it:

  "Do we align them against the U.S.? Or with us against the U.S.?"

  The mood shifted slightly.

  Not hostile. Not opportunistic. Just real.

  The Chinese elite didn't operate in binaries. They understood that leverage was a spectrum — and today, a new pyer had walked onto the stage. The question wasn't if Annonrial would change the game.

  The question was who they'd help tilt the board for.

  "No need to decre anything," the older man said finally. "We use silence. We show respect. And we offer what matters most."

  "Which is?"

  "Trust without arrogance."

  That earned a few nods.

  "Start with soft culture," said the woman. "Transtion initiatives. Quiet university exchanges. We don't need a headline. We need a working retionship."

  "Tech licensure?" the exec asked.

  "Carefully. One system at a time. If they've built analogs of AI, let's offer them context. Not control."

  "And if the U.S. tries to lock them down?"

  A pause.

  Then the magnate smiled faintly.

  "Then we offer them options."

  The fire pit dimmed as the lights of Shanghai brightened beneath them.

  Down below, the world moved like it always had — with noise, light, ambition.

  But above, in that quiet circle, something had already shifted.

  The future wasn't just between East and West anymore.

  A third voice had entered the room.

  And China, wise as ever, was already listening.