It made no sense to Selene McGriff, a DSSD engineer. Earth Alliance didn't want to do anything with them for many years.
For a simple reason that most of them are Coordinators. The only time they would spare some money is as a PR stunt to satisfy the public, to show the public that they care about space exploration and the advancement of humankind.
Which is nonsense to people who know better.
Yet today, a massive warship arrived at their doorstep, sending a message… one that was too good to be true.
The issue is… they can't ignore it. The warship is the biggest they have ever seen! That thing was as huge as their space station!
"I will go out to meet them." Selene, the dark green-haired lady, said after thinking for a while. There is no way for them to get rid of them!
So simply put, she will sacrifice herself… in the worst-case scenario.
"What if they take you hostage?"
"...And what if they don't? Would they believe us if we told them that the system they want to trade for is faulty and doesn't work most of the time?" The engineer lady rolled her eyes. What the Earth Alliance wants is something they haven't been able to make work properly yet!
That is right! What Marcus Anahein wants is faulty at best; it stops working midway through the solar winds that it should pick up, and it simply doesn't work.
The programming is something that they can't figure out yet. It will take at least two years to fully incorporate the technology the way they want it to be.
"That's… I mean… can we just tell them that technology is bust the way it is?" He said to the green-haired lady.
"That's what I will do, in person," Seline said with a serious expression.
"I see. Well, then, good luck."
~~~
Marcus looked at the green-haired lady before him. She looked nervous.
Instead of taking her to some sort of meeting room, the disguised Emperor took her to a simple living room with couches; the ship was large enough to have such areas.
"That expression you have is telling me that something is of.
So, let me tell you something, I am very, very fond of space exploration. If you don't believe me, you can ask my wife or my kids." Marcus chuckled as he took the tea his wife had made for him.
Lacus gave the green-haired lady one cup as well.
"I don't question that. You contributed a lot to the coordinator's cause. The issue is not on your side, but my DSSD."
"Oh?"
"The propulsion system you desire… it's not working properly… for at least another two years… It's still in alpha stages of development. Especially for anything that you want." She grimaced while explaining to him.
"I never said that I want it working. I make that myself."
"...Umm… with all due respect, are you an astrophysician?" She frowned. The lady didn't question his genetic capabilities, but instead other fields.
"Do you want to figure that out?" He slightly winked at her.
"..."
"Show me." He motioned towards her to give him the memory disc she had.
"..."
Seline sighed as she gave it to him.
Moments later, Marcus checked on a laptop.
His eyes skimmed through the files.
"I see. The sail doesn't pick up the solar winds because AI is positioning it incorrectly. Your AI algorithms don't calculate the simple fact that the sun is moving as well.
Our solar system is moving all the time; the way the sun and planets rotate is simply not finished in the software."
As he said, he edited some of the paragraphs and added extra rotations.
He then pressed execute, and the OS adjusted.
"..."
"...Y-You are right! I-I-I completely forgot the bigger, way bigger picture!" All of a sudden, she got animated.
"It's a simple mistake; humans rarely notice that they are rushing through the cosmos at absurd speed." Marcus chuckled. He recalled reminding his kids of this exact thing several times before.
"...Y-Yes."
"Anyway, here you go, I have copied the files, you can have the disc back." The Earth Alliance Boss handed the memory storage drive back to her.
"A-Are you sure?" She looked surprised to get it back.
"Indeed, and you fulfilled your part of the deal, and I will do my part.
Everything that I have promised in the message is now in effect as well. Your DSSD can use Panama's Mass Drive."
"...You are serious…" She was speechless!
"Indeed and… take this." Marcus gave her another memory stick.
"...This is…" she looked at the thumb drive.
"Check it once you are back in your office." He smiled a bit and then winked at her.
"..." Seline looked at the drive before nodding at him. There was a thin blush on her cheeks before she left the room with a thank you.
"...You can't just stop seducing women, can't you?" Lacus, who was standing behind him, 'smiled' at him.
"What are you talking about?" Marcus frowned as he turned his head and looked at his wife.
"Hmph! You gave her everything that she would ever need!" The pinkette crossed her arms in annoyance.
"From money, to resources! You even solved her propulsion system errors! Basically, accelerating her project by years!" The woman ranted in annoyance.
"...I didn't do it for her." The disguised Emperor rolled his eyes at her.
"It was for her DSSD and space exploration as a whole. I helped this world's humanity recover its lost years. It just turns out that it was a woman who went to meet me." He said to Lacus, who puffed at him more.
~~~
Selene returned to the space station with good news. In fact, for a while, she forgot about the thumb drive as she checked the changes Marcus had made to the software.
"U-Unbelievable. Who did all of this? This data pushed the schedule by over a year and a half! The model… He knows in depth how the sun emits the solar wind!
Is he some sort of expert in Sun?"
"...Not that I know. More importantly, if we calibrate according to this model." Selene looked at the data before her.
"We should have a working model in a matter of weeks, not years."
"Good, then let's do it!"
With that said, the team focused on developing an operational propulsion system for their prototype Stargazer Gundam.
By that, the dark green-haired lady forgot the thumb drive for several days until she stumbled upon it by accident.
"...What is this?" She inspected it before having a flashback of Marcus giving it to her with a mysterious smile.
Just remembering him made her slightly flustered.
So she swiftly connected to her computer and checked out.
"..."
But then she looked confused.
All she got was a single image, which was confusing, as she could see circles and symbols.
"..."
'Is this some sort of… riddle?'
Selene stared at it for a while.
She was about to close it, but then she looked at it from a different angle.
'...Wavelight… no… sound?' After looking a bit more.
'...Is that… density? Rock?'
For a moment, she pondered before sharing this with her co-workers.
"...You know… sound waves… if applied properly, it could do some seriously impressive things. Especially if you add a bit more power."
"...It could even impact gravity at some point. Our Voiture Lumiere is basically what you are looking at, but it's just a different approach; we use light instead of sound.
If we apply this… wait…"
Her co-workers double checked, before their eyes widened.
"HOLY SHIT!"
He copied what he saw and added it to a notepad app.
"This is a formula! Look, if you add this, and this." He pointed with his fingers.
"...you get a form of propulsion based on sound, no… vibrations!"
"...You mean if we follow this…" Seline's eyes widened as she saw the math before her.
"Precisely! According to this schematic, if we use this form of limestone and add sound resonance, it could technically generate a form of gravitation frequency. If we apply it properly, it could work something like a warp drive.
How the hell did you get this?"
Seline got spacey. What the hell does this mean? Why did Marcus Anaheim give her something like that?
It's civilisation properling technology!
"...It doesn't matter. How long until we can use this?"
"Are you serious? This is nothing more than a simple equation, with possible materials, we don't even have a platform, it could take decades."
"...Still…"
"Indeed, I suggest we should start testing first before shelving it."
Selene nodded as she wondered what this meant. Marcus Anaheim had something like this, which is superior to anything that DSSD had produced, yet he focused on their Voiture Lumiere.
'Did he want us to produce it?'
Sadly, she will never learn what it means, as by the time they have a successful model, Marcus will be long gone from their reality.
What he gave them was 'hope' for interstellar travel and humanity to achieve greatness as fellow space lovers.
~~~
By the time the Disguised Emperor returned to the moon, the army was in deep preparation as ZAFT were on the move.
However, what got his attention was something else. It was the recon team that returned from the mission he gave them.
"Sir, we have acquired something that would interest you." One of the officers walked over and offered him a datapad.
Marcus inspected the device and saw a huge space station design and, of course, a mobile suit design.
"...This machine." He looked at Gundam on the pad before looking at the man.
"We captured for you. It's in the hangar, waiting for you." The man said with a smug grin.
"I am impressed." Marcus looked impressed for a second. He didn't expect a Gundam!
"Sir, check what it's powered by."
Marcus checked deeper. It was a nuclear reactor.
"This machine is powered by something called Nuclear Jammer Canceller. If we can utilise it, we can use nukes once more."
"Yes, but more importantly, the nuclear power plants can restart." Marcus rolled his eyes at the officer.
The first thing they think of is the nukes, which made the Earth Alliance Boss snort at how excited the man looked at the idea of shooting nukes.
"O-Of course."
"However, you are right." Still, he agreed with him. They still need the nukes; blowing up the Genesis is still something they must do.
"Begin its production, and send it to the energy sector to fix the nuclear plants." The Boss Earth Alliance motioned to do it.
"As you wish!"
The man swiftly scrambled out of the office.
Marcus's gaze went to the ZGMF-X12A Testament Gundam—one of five mobile suits in development by ZAFT after the development of the Dreadnought.
ZAFT developed Dreadnought after getting the data from four stolen GAT units. One could say it was the very first Gundam platform from ZAFT.
Once the mech was a success, well, it's not quite a success. Dreadnought is nothing more than a mash-up of the GAT-series Gundam and ZAFT's GuAIZ.
But it was a success, as they built a platform to produce their own first-ever proper ZAFT Gundams.
The most famous of those five is Freedom and Justice, but there were three more that came with it.
Providence, Regenerate and… ZGMF-X12A Testament Gundam.
Now Testament Gundam is not that special, apart from having a nuclear reactor, it has a Quantum Computer-based Virus system and potent antennas for the horns.
Marcus has no interest in the Virus… but the Antenna that can interface at the quantum level? For him? An Innovator?
He can make stuff happen, especially once he has the Voiture Lumiere system.
A small smirk appeared on his lips, ir turns out he won't be that bored. He might tinker around with these sticks and stones to make something beautiful.
With that in mind, he pressed a button on the comms.
"Tell Lieutenant Mu La Flaga that he is getting GAT-X102 Duel, I no longer need it, and I need a manufacturing team to be ready; there is something that I need them to make for me." As Marcus said that he pulled some of the designs he had stashed away from his library, it's nothing fancy, something based on a particle system.
It works perfectly with Mirage Colloid and, of course, the Voiture Lumiere propulsion system.
'But now…Patrick, you gave me this; I will pay you back with defeat.
Just like you envisioned, in the Testament, a covenant between God and humans.'
Marcus looked at the Testament Gundam, the machine that envisioned Patrick Zala's superiority complex, thinking that he was some sort of leader of the gods or whatever.
The man is simply… delulu, and he will make sure to see it in person.
~~~
Book Two is approaching finale, I still have a bunch of lemons to write, and a couple interludes, among them 'First Contact' before Book Three so there won't chapters for a week or more until Book Three starts
~~~
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