[author] Sorry for not being able to publish on the past Saturday and Monday. I fell sick last Friday with a chest cold that got me really hard, and today is my first day back on writing. Will try to publish again tomorrow if I can squeeze some time into finishing a chapter.[/author]
"Are you being upset on cue just so nobody starts accusing the Awakened of being Espers?" The question Elena asked caused Adam to tense up immediately. Without even realizing it, he was looking wide-eyed at the Venusian woman who had followed him the longest. She then added, "Yes, it's that obvious."
"I don't know what you're talking about. This is a serious matter, Sergeant, whose records we should set straight." Adam still insisted firmly on his position despite being seen through by Elena.
"Sir, yes, sir." Elena replied with a shrug, but her voice was obviously soft, and the response came with no salute; she was simply leaning against the antenna of the Command Center's Scanner Beacon.
Adam wasn't calm on the inside, calculating every step that might go wrong, thinking of scenarios and remedies for issues he hadn't anticipated.
[author]
Just as he worked with Solana to establish an energy detection protocol to detect any use of the registered Runes within any area monitored by the Scanner Beacons, the Base's System responded, telling Adam the following:
> REPORT — YOU HAVE DEVELOPED [ ESPER ENERGY SCANNING SYSTEM ]
Being branded an Esper in the Solarium was simply bad news, worse than bad news; it meant that your life was no longer yours by default. Unless you were from a family of Espers that was either affiliated with the Armada Bellarium or were Privateers, your life was practically forfeit. Not that you would be killed, but you would wish that were the case.
ESP is short for Extrasensory Perception. Some would call it the Sense, the Sight, the Gift, or the Curse, depending on how it manifests in people. It always starts with strong sensations, better detection, and minor precognition, then it develops wildly. Some Espers begin to affect others' minds via telepathy; others affect the world around them via telekinesis; others break the known rules of the universe, appearing and reappearing wherever they wish via teleportation. Then there are those who master their powers and awaken all sorts of crazy skills; those with Esper bloodlines who can manifest certain ancestral powers; and finally, those who contact powers through the void and draw from them through dark rituals and witchcraft.
The stance of the Solarium on Espers was as follows:
Contacting the powers beyond is a taboo, punishable by death. Training your powers without sanction is a taboo, punishable by death. Failing to report getting powers is a taboo, punishable by death. Failing to report the power of any citizen you witnessed dabbling in the supernatural is a taboo, punishable by death. Being in close proximity to a Heretical Esper, whether knowing it or not, is a taboo, punishable by death. Being subjected to any kind of ESP sorcery is… You guessed it… a taboo, punishable by death. Interacting with a forbidden material that discusses ESP is different... Just kidding! It is also a taboo, punishable by death.
And that is when the Monitora Ordinarium finds you, not the HereTechia Inquisitorium, not the Tribunarium, and not even Sanctus Scriptorium. If an inquisitor were to catch a hint of an Esper engaging in taboo practices, it's off with their family's head.
On the other hand, if you were proven innocent and your powers were still latent, you'd be taken and examined by the Luminare Scriptorium before undergoing surgery to install a Kill Switch. This insta-kill trigger is given to your new master, whoever they are, depending on the assignment.
If assigned to the Scriptorium, Espers become Confessors, lie detectors among Script Monks to ensure the sanctity of the Sacred Code; if assigned to the Titharium, Espers become Navigators to guide the ships through the void of Hyperspace; if assigned to the Inquisitorium, Espers become Heresy Tracers, humans reduced to hounds on a leash, trained to sniff out heresy; if assigned to the Ordinarium, Espers are assigned as Navigators in the same sense as the Titharium, but their purpose is to integrate into Esper families and enhance their bloodline by breeding and birthing; if assigned to the Bellarium—the department of war—it is actually the luckiest assignment for an Esper, either becoming a Combat Esper, an Armada Navigator, Armamenta Droner, or adopted by a Knight Order and trained to be an Esper-type Paladin, especially a Banneret.
The only department in the government that doesn't accept Espers is the Tribunarium, where Justiciars and Judges are trained, especially since the Tribunarium was an independent department from the authority of the Physical Government of the Solwoken, and directly but indirectly under the ATEN, the Metaphysical Government, which in turn is under Sol Imperius himself.
So this sets the scale of the problem: if the Awakened were to receive Esper treatment, it would be bad on all fronts, especially since Adam, the Commander who self-appointed himself as a Justiciar of the Tribunarium, a department of justice that seldom accepts Espers, would be seen as one.
Adding the fact that Adam 100% needs his summons, who are trained Solarium fighters, to fight for him, hence he needs the Solarium faction's support. He also 100% needs human survivors to rebuild civilization. Since the Awakened are humans, this leaves a lot to process.
Sadly, Adam didn't have the time to process that, especially now that everyone was gathered and looking at him.
"So…" Megan met Adam's eyes, waiting for him to dictate the way forward in this situation.
The gravity of the situation was easy to grasp for her and Kave, the two looking concerned, while it seemed that Yuki and Ajax were filled in by Buzz on the way.
Elena still looked passive about the whole thing, whereas Wrench was still dangling from the beacon.
"If the Awakened are considered Espers by our Wartopian friends, there will be a lot of conflicting opinions about this phenomenon, the more we expand our operation, especially with people I can't just outrank, like Captain Creed."
Adam divulged this dilemma to the Earthling members of his group, looking for an answer from their collective creativity.
"Awakened and Espers can't be the same." Yuki declared flatly, "If I understand right, Espers are people with psychic abilities who were born that way. Awakened people are those who have had to go through an Awakening. They were born normal."
Yuki made a valid argument, but this sound logic was the problem in itself.
"Espers in the Solarium would suffer all sorts of unreasonable treatment. It is unsanctioned ESP, a taboo punishable by death," Kave replied.
"Also, you can't ask the Solarium to follow reason. The Sacred Code has ordained something this way, and that is the end of it," Megan added.
"What about simply re-identifying the concept in the Code itself?"
"Possible, but I'd sooner make Captain Creed jump through a needle's eye." Adam shrugged, "Not that he would listen to most things I say."
"Can't we just convince them all then?" Kave asked, a bit hesitantly, as he already knew the answer. "Elena would surely see reason."
"She may, but others won't." Megan clarified with a tired voice, "Think about the Fossil Power situation. Just to build one, people had to freeze to death, and they still opposed it; some outright said they wouldn't work and disobeyed direct commands. Esper discrimination is a core tenet in the Solarium, along with Fossil Fuel prohibition, and the Sacred Code is the secret will of Sol."
"Like she said." Adam agreed, "The word Esper already appeared, so we can't accept the classification as such. Never!"
"So the solution here is…?" Kave asked, ready for anyone to answer.
This felt like it would take a lot of brainpower to patch up, but as the group focused on the problem from their angle, another perspective was missed entirely. It was then that he spoke.
"Sir, if I may, I think I have a suggestion," Ajax spoke, making the others turn to him.
"Go on, Mr. Wills." Adam nodded.
"It appears to me that you were trying some sort of technology to search for Runes, but it is now considering the Runes as Esper powers, am I right in that assumption?"
"You are." Adam nodded.
"But it is detecting Runes, not Awakened," Ajax said.
"Not sure what's…" Adam felt short on following that bit of logic, but it seemed the rest had caught on.
"Oh, that's smart." Kave commented, "As if the Runes are the Espers, not the Awakened individuals."
"Oh!" Adam caught on at last, now thinking of the basis of this new realization. "This one may actually work. It is still dangerously close to ESP, so we're still in the area of taboo and capital punishment, but it actually nullifies the core reason for Esper discrimination."
Adam said, nodding to Ajax's realization, then walked away, telling the group to rest. He went immediately to find Sister Solana, who seemed to have made an issue out of that Esper thing, and the group was told to wait for further orders.
During that, Yuki asked a question:
"How can there be justified discrimination? I know that hate exists, but how did the Solarium legalize discrimination against Espers?"
But as Megan and Kave gave lore-based answers, it was Ajax again who gave a direct insight.
"Because people with such abilities are like tools with a mind of their own. You don't want a gun to grow legs and think for itself, do you?" He replied.
"But wasn't the government always trying to make supersoldiers, killing robots, and AI armies and such?" She asked.
"That was just sci-fi; no one was dumb enough to make a weapon they don't control." Ajax shook his head. "Actually, I believe the U.S. would have done the same thing as the Solarium regarding Espers; no freedom or human rights would have stopped that. Espers are walking disasters from what I heard, ticking bombs in the best-case scenario. You should, of course, control such a variable on your own soil. That's why Runes are a way better alternative to Espers."
"Because they are tools. You can disarm their wielder, shut them off, or destroy them. Even without them, the owner is just a guy," Kave realized.
"But there is an exception right now:" Megan interjected, looking at Ajax, "Raising a stat past 10 grants you powers even without Runes."
"Not the most impressive of powers, but rather passive auxiliary abilities," Kave replied, scratching his chin.
"If Mr. Wills' second-class power couldn't be detected by the beacon as a Rune or an ESP, I guess those powers would be safe." Yuki added her voice.
"Well, I guess Adam will have a lot of workarounds to implement tonight."
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And that he did. Adam stood facing Solana, the two unwilling to see eye-to-eye on this matter.
It was exactly as he feared: the Nun was now actively hostile toward the Awakened being Espers. But as Adam proposed that Runes were the true Espers while the Awakened were just mediums, Solana still persisted with immense stubbornness.
Eventually, Captain Creed was dragged into the matter as the morning came. He, too, was opposed to the idea of Espers roaming unchecked, but he had a much more positive view on the whole thing compared to Solana.
"I have had the pleasure of serving alongside many Banneret Brothers who were burdened with the power." Creed explained his point: "Espers weren't the problem. They were the first to set foot on the field and the last to leave it."
"But they are dangerous, Brother-Paladin." Solana insisted.
"Completely!" He agreed.
"Yet you two keep missing the point!" Adam finally had enough as he skipped back and forth in the most central area of the bastion building. "In this world, Runes are the source of ESP; they are tools to be wielded, not part of the nature of the Awakened."
"This raises a good point, Sister." Captain Creed continued to be the Yes Man in the conversation, which slightly annoyed Adam.
"But power such as this gets to the feeble minds of people; give a man the power to do more than his human form limits him to, and he will abuse it," Solana said, still insisting on her stance.
Adam was of half a mind to unsummon her, but he reminded himself to be political and patient.
"Sister, I can argue the same about wielding a Plasma Gun or a Solar Blade. It is a statistical fact that newly selected Paladins and Warrior Monks are some of the most trigger-happy idiots in the Solarium, am I wrong?"
The look on both the Paladin and the Nun seemed agreeable to him; memories of Initiate Knights going wild and Acolyte Monks losing control were simply proving how an uncontrollable factor can lead to great losses. However, the argument here was that both Paladins and Monks were some of the most disciplined and well-trained individuals in the Solarium, whereas Espers had no such thing as mastery, for the powers that sought their ruin would always be greater than any human control.
Adam then made it clear: the Runes were tools, maybe ESP-based, but tools nonetheless. And tools could be shut down, taken from their users, and reassigned to others, just like a Tank or a Blazer. Those others are the Awakened, people who could be trained to handle tools, and if they show failure or inability, the tools could be taken away.
A new act was needed, a charter to organize the use of Runes. The Earthlings were able to use them, whereas the Wartopians wouldn't be able to attune with them. These were established facts so far. Adam could devise a workaround, but he needed the Wartopians to be on board with him, and despite how reluctant the Nun was, Adam could finally sway the Paladin to his opinion, pushing forward the idea of recognizing the Runes as ESP-based tools, not the Awakened as Espers.
With that bullet dodged, Adam proceeded to test the technology he had discovered and work on fixing the Force Rune that Ajax gave him, the latter proving critically essential to a plan Adam was hatching: What if he changed the Wartopian opinion on Runes by completing the Holy Furnace with Runes?
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