Interlude XXXI

  (Larry Yo-Boy’s BiPrism News + Magical Supplies)

  “Regionals? Am I right?” Larry asked, a semi-defeated tone filling his voice, only made more pathetic by the cast he was now sporting on stage. While he was at the center of the screen a number of servers with various odds and probabilities of winning spots flashed over his head. Most showing red arrows pointing down, while a few green arrows pointed up. If you looked closely you could see the names of key revenue generating figures and profiles listed next to each server. For those that had a lot of red arrows and dropping probability percentage points, the list of tops names for each category were shown and grayed out, indicating that certain players that had previously been locks to go on were now out.

  “As you can see there are two sets of numbers for each of the major factions. The first down percentage indicates the odds of a particular guild winning everything. The next down arrow represents the amount of Ad Revenue that was withdrawn as a matter of the noted losses.” Larry began, then taking a deep breath, he paused and made sure to stress.

  “Now, this is not a lesson on gambling, but really a warning for anyone thinking that gambling is a safe and harmless way to make money then you would be wrong as you can see most of the major alliances lost key members of their Guild who died during regionals and were forced to respawn back on the seven designated core worlds.” Larry noted and took a deep breath to pause himself.

  “While it could be seen that these numbers are here to show bet wagering locations, that is not the case. Instead, it is a sign of how these early losses at Regionals are impacting the overall survivability of each server. Take for instance how a few disenfranchised former members of Nebula’s own Gundgnam Style Force made it a mission to use their last lives to take out the stars that effectively rose from the ashes of their hard work.”

  As Larry spoke, a video showed a massive, pitched battle in space filled with asteroids, clouds of exploded dirt and radiation fields, where two wings, or a total of ten mechanoid suits were deployed for two distinct factions. As the screen showed both sides preparing their deployment, Larry began to speak.

  “Typically such deployments would be met with a breakdown of two groups of five versus five, for a total of twenty. Or some overall balanced approach to this set up. Instead, what you have is a hide and seek format, where The Opulence Resistance gathered their entire ten-person cluster into the same battlefield region as Gundgnam Style Force’s primary wing led by Mr. G-Cubed himself. As you can see all ten mechanoid suits converge on and swarm the five members of the half wing formation used by Gundgnam Style Force. This put two suits on each of Gundgnam Style Force’s mechs, and then they kamikazed themselves. Detonating their over compacted cores, killing themselves and the entire primary wing of Gundgnam Style Force’s first wing.”

  A pause as Larry took a moment for the film to show the explosions of each of the mechanoid fighters and then their subsequent rebirths on the primary core planet, wearing only basic starter gear, with one life missing and all their Merits removed.

  “In that one move, ten last lifers sacrificed themselves to take out the number one, four, six, seven, and ninth best pilots of the original powerhouse that was Gundgnam Style Force. This is why their numbers are down and almost all of the ad revenue has been withdrawn.” Larry paused, as he let that information sink in.

  “What’s worse, is that there are now rumblings of an FBI probe into the underground gambling dens who are alleged to have provided revenue for the seventh life pilots of Opulence Resistance who ironically are not as resistance to luxury as their name might imply. Also, it is alleged that kickbacks from those same underground betting organizations to the direct family members of Opulence Resistance’s members have been identified and are being flagged as part of the massive investigation.”

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  “What does this all mean?”

  “Well for starters, it means that as I have been saying for a while, gambling is a sin and anytime you have the potential for millions of credits to be wagered and lost by possibly controllable outcomes, the odds of having those odds influenced by malicious external entities is almost a given. This is what happened to sports gambling in the early 21st century, and now we are even seeing it’s possible reach to something as wholesome as pitting retired elderly up into the equivalent of pit fights for a chance at survival. I’m not saying that this is wrong, but I am saying that the government needs to look into this and realize that this is not a viable solution to their current problems.” Larry commented, as he spoke, a crisp conviction filled his voice as he paused for a moment, then continued.

  “Now this is where this breakdown becomes big, and why point shaving, or in this case blatant odds manipulation is wrong. And how it could exist in any server. What we saw happen to the Gundgnam Style Force is but a microcosm of the potential illegal operations that these formats are inspiring within competitors who have nothing else to lose. They are already dead, all you can do is offer them a chance that their children and offspring will have a better shot at life, and that is enough for many to sacrifice whatever life they have left to do any last-minute action, even if it is dying for their last time.”

  “The mere perception that people could still manipulate the outcome of these tournaments are enough to cause the revenue companies to pull back their investments, as they don’t want to seem like they are encouraging such reckless behaviors. This is why, I am urging all of you right now to stand up and vote with me to end the these qualifying rounds and come up with a solution that helps save everyone!”

  With that a message appeared on the bottom of the screen. Join me and vote #EndTheQualifiers, #SaveTheRetirees.

  ***

  (The Executive War Room)

  Click.

  The live feed of Larry Yo-Boy and others blinked off the screen, as did other news feeds all showing the same trending hashtags.

  A person in a powerful blue suit sat in an executive chair at the middle of a circular table. Then taking his gaze away from the blackened screens, they turned to face their entourage of cabinet members, their press secretary, and their PR rep.

  “All right, this looks bad, but tell me how bad is it?” The person in the blue business suit asked, though their tone denoted no doubt that they wanted answers immediately.

  “The scandal, or the funds?” The Press Secretary asked, taking out her notepad and proceeding to write down notes.

  “Both.”

  “Well, for starters, the scam is just the tip of the iceberg. We have known that both legalized gambling and underground gambling books have existed for these platforms for a while. Now we could use this to our advantage,” the PR rep added.

  “How?” The one-word command was all the PR rep needed to spread their idea.

  “Well, revenues have been pulling out after this latest scandal, not wanting to be implicated in it. This means that those companies that stay can be classified as still having skin the game and prompt further investigations into their books and ties to organized crimes,” The PR rep pressed.

  “And how is this good for us?”

  “Well first, it will draw attention away from us defunding the retirees servers, and also allow us to investigate the Goldman Group.”

  “The Goldman Group is still investing?”

  “Yes, quite heavily, as you may recall, they are trying to save the servers by making it so every full retiree who gets uploaded to a server will get a vote. The idea being that they will be able to easily gain a majority consensus by having everyone from every server vote for their golden candidate.” The PR rep concluded.

  “So, us linking them to organized crime, or at least causing them to be linked to this scandal will stop their growth and show us their books?” The executive seeking another consecutive reelection asked.

  “Yes, it will give them a black eye for supporting this endeavor, and allow us access to their books. There is just one catch.”

  “I think I know where you are going, we need to cripple their proposed voter base before they have a chance to rally by the next election cycle?” The executive asked.

  “Yes, meaning we will need to push forward faster with the qualifiers, after which we will produce a final report showing how multiple organizations were involved in supporting illegal gambling. Then cancel them all. Leaving only the seven core servers as the ones we are supporting. And putting the fear that we will defund those remaining servers if they vote for someone that the Goldman Group endorses in as president.” The PR rep stated.

  “How much of an impact will this have on my numbers?” The president asked.

  “We are expecting a perceived uptick of five percentage points by speeding up the time between the qualifiers. This will also result in an overall worse program as the audience will not have a chance to get emotionally attached to the contestants. The speeding up of qualifying matches can be done as a way to keep illegal gambling organizations from having as much chance to contact or sway the outcome of each event. But the speeding up of these events is also projected to lower overall viewership, making ad revenue lower overall for these servers trying to save themselves. Making it so it is a self-defeating prophecy, that these servers will not generate enough revenue to keep themselves alive, let alone a few dozen extra servers. While we do expect the favorability points to drop once the closing of the servers is announced, it will not be as much if people are already disenfranchised with the product provided.” The PR rep concluded.

  There was a pause as the president went over the numbers in his head, then finally the president spoke three words that would forever change the life of over a billion souls. “Make it so.”

  “As you command,” was the PR rep’s only response as he nodded and proceeded to work with the Press secretary on how to spin the messages that would distract and divert the media’s attention away from what was happening.