Chapter 35: The Council, Aleaxnder, and Chaos!
A meeting between the greater powers of the Orion Arm, outsiders excluded, where the most important meetings and decisions take place.
The Council.
The Orion Community may seem powerful, and it is, but only because these greater powers make it so, without them, the Community falls apart, so this could be considered the time when the real decisions are made.
These meetings are held after each vote in the Community to discuss the ramifications of the new policy, decision, or anything else the Community passed, they also discuss if any new threats have appeared, if drastic action must be taken against a civilization, or if the new policy law or decision must be removed.
Adam attended such meetings with a few of his guards since it was considered a show of sincerity if the leader himself showed up to such rare meetings, after all, only one thing gets passed in the community every year.
A majority of the rest did so as well since such a meeting couldn't be entrusted to a mere ambassador, noble, or anyone besides themselves.
In the few years since the formation of the Community and Council, Humanity earned its name among the other diverse races as one of the most durable, adaptable, and batshit crazy races out there.
Stories of Humans doing the craziest shit for the "LOLs" spread, and Adam burst out laughing when he heard about it.
Although many races were stronger, faster, and in general better than them in specific areas, overall, humanity was the most balanced and could do almost anything they could, albeit less efficiently than races that evolved for millions of years for that specific thing.
This meant that Humans who explored the stars found jobs wherever they went, with people deploying them to the most extreme and mild places and somehow still succeeding no matter what.
The first Council meeting was very fun for Adam because of this, as all of the other leaders looked at him with a mix of trepidation, fear, awe, and confusion, as if they didn't know what to think about humans yet.
nonetheless, the meetings were peaceful with the topic of the outer rim being slowly consumed being the only real emergency, but for now, nothing could be done.
The powers of the Council did sign research pacts with one another, hoping to accelerate their research speed and catch up with the outsiders in time, or else they would become subjects too, and prideful races like the ones which mostly made up the council would rather die than allow that to happen.
In the decade that passed, Alexander grew to be a good man, although still a teenager with the libido of a dolphin, he is careful about his attitude and does not bring shame to his father.
(Fun fact! Dolphins have sex fifty times a D A Y. They sometimes rape dead fish, and do... family "activities" together...I have to suffer knowing that, and now you do too!)
His muscular body and seemingly invulnerable mind shivered with fear every time the idea of doing that popped up, the fury of his father, a man who drove entire species to extinction without a shred of mercy, was not something to be underestimated.
Also, the young prince has found himself a girlfriend! This might not seem like an extraordinary achievement for the son of someone so rich and literally the man on top of the world, but that actually only made it more difficult to find someone.
He constantly had to look out for manipulative people, of which there were very few since most of them feared his father's retribution, but when they appeared, they came in full force.
Backstabbing, and manipulation, they did everything to make the prince break, and at first, he was powerless against such tricks.
But he grew, and when his father learned of the trouble his son was facing, he did not intervene directly, instead, he gave his son advice on how to turn the tables, how to establish dominance in a relationship, and how to turn the manipulator into the manipulated.
At first, it was difficult, but the gene lottery smiled fondly upon him when he was created, granting him great intelligence not only in IQ but also EQ, making it easy to reverse the situation in a matter of months.
He made sure he got his revenge, paying back everything with a fury his father must have felt when he lost his brother, that is the only thing he could compare his fury to.
Anyways, the point is, his mind became a fortress one would need to drop a figurative nuke on to make it crumble, making him an expert at hurting, but also helping others and their mental health.
This led to him becoming a psychiatrist, well not a fully fledged one, but just someone people could talk to online and confide in.
Many people met with him just to see the young Prince, which annoyed him greatly, but thankfully the people are mostly reasonable and such cases were rare.
And this is how he met his current girlfriend, Lea, her friends noticed her mental health declining and picked the most reputable free "Confider" they could find, which just so happened to be him.
During the next few months, the two met, spoke, and her mental state quickly improved, and eventually, she asked him out, and he gladly accepted.
Who would refuse such an offer from a beautiful blond with blue eyes, and an hourglass figure?
The two went out together, with Lea offering to pay half the bill every time, which scored points with him.
Once he even let her pay the entire bill to test her using some excuse, but she did it with no issues, no comments just a simple "Sure!" and a smile.
On that date, the two became official, and her friends were obviously going crazy on the sidelines this entire time.
The prince was trusted into the front of social media by doing this, and his girlfriend received insane amounts of attention out of nowhere, making her a bit stressed.
Nasty rumors spread of course, as jealous people and his father's enemies badmouthed them, using this as an opportunity to bring down the royal family a peg, which did not work.
His father manipulated social media, and he took the couple on many interviews in which the two took the central stage and spoke of how they met, and everything else that happened between them, mainly hinting there was no blackmail or sexual favors involved.
Serena worried for her child a lot, but mostly left these matters to Adam, knowing he as a man can help and understand her son better than she ever could.
After this was resolved, Adam continued business as usual, making little changes to the system as needed, increasing his own power and influence in the surrounding nations, and expanding the borders of the Empire into the few unclaimed systems left, as the Orion Arm filled with life.
With so much life filling the Arm, new civilizations formed, and as bandits established hideouts and zones of influence became more intricate and difficult to navigate, friction appeared, at first a few wars which exploded in magnitude, often dragging tens of surrounding minor powers into them.
Soon, the more influential powers got dragged into the storm, bringing destruction to the nations surrounding them and expanding at a rapid rate, which the Champions couldn't ignore.
Tensions spiked in the regions the Champions were in as they all moved, some to calm the storm while others joined in, also expanding at a fast rate, hoping to take the initiative and outgrow their fellow leaders of the Collective.
When the ones who tried to calm everyone else down saw this, they quickly gave up, and the wars devolved into absolute slaughters as life's competitive nature showed itself in its full force and glory, the once absolute Community rendered powerless as everyone ignored its laws when their survival was at stake.
The Empire's income from trade took a massive dip as trade became significantly more dangerous in a few months, with raiders and pirates running rampant like cockroaches and ants.
The Azburgian Protective Sphere held strong together, the space around it significantly more stable than the lawless battlefields beyond its reach, causing refugees to flock to them, all desperate to live.
The Empire took these people in, and soon, the Imperial Navy and all its sub-fleets joined in on the fun, reminding the Xeno why Humanity is to be feared and respected.
Additionally, seeing the chaos, the outer powers moved, capturing almost all of the outer zone, sometimes enslaving, other times purging, and a few times subjugating the lucky ones.
With the Empire now standing in such an unstable playground, hundreds of billions of their friends and enemies will definitely die in this war, but the Empire must stand, or all the Humans are doomed.
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