?


    News of the sessful series ofunches had spread everywhere. And after more than two weeks straight of sessfulunches, they had finallye to an end. There were now fifty satellites in various orbits, from low earth orbit all the way to high earth geosynchronous orbit, and all of them were dedicated to serving Aron''s growing conglomerate..


    Together with the news, Nova kicked things up into a higher gear and started promoting the uing productunch all over Pangea. The data they had already collected from users of the app ensured that the advertising blitz was asser targeted as she could make it. And even though people were only seeing ads they were interested in, it still spread out to catch any their lists might have missed, as people—and interaction bots—were all talking about what they had seen. Fans of GAIA Tech were already excited and had marked their calendars; theunch event was set for a week after theunches finished.


    Together with the promotion, invites started going out to everyone she thought would be useful, including tech influencers. It was a time where not many of them had been invited to events like those, so it caused even more buzz around the uingunch.


    As for the technologypanies, they were in apletely different mood. Many of them had made their peace with GAIA bing the monopoly of the OS market. Some willingly, and others only because their tforms had virtually no users at all, let alone developers. The GAIA OS had done what no softwarepany had ever done before: consolidated the userbase. There was no longer a need for developers to work on multiple tforms, or for users to argue the merits of them. Adding to that, the revenue sharing was fairly generous to developers, so even amateurs entered the marketce topete, and usually fail, against the professionals.


    But to those who hadn''t been forced to give up their market share by GAIA Tech, the news was nothing good at all. Rumor had it that the upstartpany was about tounch hardware products. And if the consecutive flurry of satelliteunches was anything to go by, the executives of thosepanies all had nightmares as they thought of what product would be released and what capabilities it would have. It might even be as disruptive, if not more, than the first iPhone productunch!


    ...


    White House.


    "So, we can consider them an ICBM-capable nation, right?" Obama asked as he read the final report that came from the Joint Space Operations Center (JSpOC) regarding theunches that had taken ce over the past weeks.


    "Yes, sir. Based on our analysis of all theunches that took ce, we can say with certainty that if they develop a warhead and targeting system for their rockets, they canunch ballistic missiles without any trouble. But that''s only if the government received a copy of the ns... or they can just ask for thepany to build the boosters for them and they can focus on researching the second stage rocket engine and guidance system, so the conclusion is the same," replied General Welsh, the Chief of Staff of the Air Force. He was the one who had been tasked with investigating Eden''s spaceunches.


    "Are we in their range?" Obama asked.


    "Yes. But everyone is technically in range of an exoatmospheric ICBM. ''Range'' stops being a concept when they canunch missiles into low earth orbit, after all. But whether they can hit us or not is a different topic entirely," General Welsh answered with confidence that stemmed from his knowledge of America''s air defense systems.


    Obama turned to his chief of staff and said, "Get the state department to reach out to them. If they can drop ICBMs on us, they''re better friends than enemies."


    He turned back to General Welsh and put the folder on the table, then asked, "So what''s your personal view of the situation? What didn''t make it into the report?"


    "Although their tech seems to have advanced very fast, based on their ability tounch the satellites into different orbits without trouble, it only shows they''ve developed their own mature rocket tech. We didn''t find anything that even hinted at them stealing the designs of anything that already exists. But we don''t know whether or not they''ve developed warheads that matter, or guidance systems that work. So while we should assume they have and take them seriously, I''m sure a developing nation like Eden won''t poke this particr bear so we don''t have much to worry about."


    "Although what you said is true, you failed to consider their international political stance. They dered neutrality, meaning they don''t have allies to support them, yes, but at the same time, it also means there''s no limits on who they can trade with. So there''s really nothing stopping them from selling their tech to North Korea, or even the Taliban. And if they choose to do so, more and more countries may gain internationalunch capability. And the more ICBMs there are, the higher the chance that at least one of them will see some use," Obama exined.


    "I don''t think that''ll happen," the general replied.


    The people in the room waited for him to continue, a wait that stretched as the general gathered his thoughts. He knew if he said something dumb, he was likely to be reced; the Joint Chiefs are political appointees, after all.


    After taking a moment to gather his thoughts, he exined, "I considered their stance when I told you my opinion about them. Their neutrality is the main reason I didn''t even bother to mention the possibility of them selling their tech to others. I''m sure that, before they announced their neutrality, they must''ve studied the history of other neutral countries before them, and the problems those countries faced.


    "Taking that a step further, we can assume it means they know that, in order to defend their sovereignty while maintaining their neutrality, they''ll be heavily investing in their defense. That''s backed up by recent history, as well: President Alexander Romero recing their entire state military with a PMC not only increased their defense capability, but also freed up the budget to invest in research and development.


    "When you add oil money to the equation, their defense spending will probably skyrocket... even after you consider the socialist idealized health care system he wants to implement. But that then circles back around to their neutrality, and why I think it''s the main reason they won''t sell any of that tech: why would they arm their enemies with the fruits of their ownbor?" he finished.


    "Good thinking there, but that''s all under the assumption that they''ve studied history and are nning on avoiding the pitfalls they discovered. And that''s nearly impossible, since their country is almostpletely backward. It wasn''t until recently that they even had clean water and reliable power," Obama countered.


    "But doesn''t Romero have unlimited power due to winning more than ny percent of the positions in their government? He''s also the one that picks the judges, so he has control of all three of their government branches, doesn''t he? Then doesn''t it follow that he''s only a ''president'' in name, but is actually just another dictator??" General Welsh asked. He knew that most of the countries that had previously attempted to maintain their neutrality had failed because of many different beliefs in their government, but Eden''s differencey in their own politicians and their unity. While the country may im to be a democratic nation, their president was all but a dictator and his political party had almost every seat of power avable. So what was the difference between him and his predecessor, other than Alexander''s basic benevolent stance toward his people?