Malcolm Shore was flanked by a security agent and his Secretary of Interstellar Relations Lorum Ki. They briskly made their way across the atrium plaza. The soft incandescent light glow of augmented sunlight seemed to filter through the various glossy panels above, accentuating the alabaster colored fountains, classical statues, and lines of greenery that graced the area near the seamlessly melding walls. For Ki, it had been his first visit and as they walked through the plaza he was mesmerized - it felt like some sort of surreal dream, like even though he was a patriotic Terran he was actually stepping onto another, wholly alien world. He found it hard to fathom that so many wandered through this plaza every day from the lowliest technician’s and security personnel to persons of the leisure class and high officials.
How could they be so used to it, that nothing stood out anymore? His wonder was tempered by logic and he supposed that if one was a resident of a place like this, that it would be normal as walking about the comparatively drab streets of Caminais City was for him.
The three figures -Terran, wolven, and sophont- came to a stop near a vaulted opening that lead into a specially prepared conference room. Ki and Shore gave the appropriate greetings to whatever press and dignitaries that happened to be present.
The chamber was vast, with its tall ceiling ornate and intricately carved light fixtures placed in between large arched windows that let in a misty, almost ethereal and heavenly view of the indomitable large city and country scape within the Terran habitat. From rolling hills and forests to the north to the towering cloud covered spires to the south it seemed as if this conference room was designed in the likes of an ivory perch.
Of course it was no such thing, it was just a gathering area and anyone who came here would keep that obvious thought in their minds even if they momentarily got lost in the view. The yellow rays of the sun diffused by the misty clouds outside simply blended in to the light within the chamber offering a sheen upon the large mahogany colored table. The banners of attending stellar powers flickered to life on opposite walls in the room, Shore and Ki took their seats at and near the head of the table.
President Malcolm Shore had only been in office for a couple of months. The warmth and euphoria of victory began to wear off bringing the young leader slowly back down into the mine fields and muddy quagmires of politics that seemed to grace any representative system. Shore had been to Talos many times and struck many deals within the vast structure of seamless metal and force fields that made up the station, only before he was merely a diplomat or an envoy, now he was the president of the United Terran Alliance.
He had long gotten used to the idea of being a diplomatic representative of a superpower, in his capacity as secretary of interstellar relations he had been the mouthpiece for the policies laid out by the President. Now he had a chance to make foreign policy without too many of the limitations he had been used to before. Shore sank back into the conformal chair under him and idly folded his hands on the table in front of him, his eyes shot a look toward Ki, the Wolvian seemingly couldn’t avert his gaze from the view outside.
“You think we can get this treaty hammered out?”
Ki shifted his trance broken by the soft and casual tone of the president, he looked back at him and thoughtfully replied.
“Considering the forces of nationalism that got this killed in the GESO assembly last month it could be a tough sell. Hopefully the leaders that attend this meeting can see the bigger picture.”
Shore let out a sigh, a cup of water materialized out of thin air on a contact just to the right of one of his hands. He slipped his fingers around the frosted glass and sipped replying sardonically.
“Nationalistic forces you say...do you think that’s all it was? Consider the delegates who spoke firmly against it, refusing to see reason refusing to even add their own improvements to the treaty. They acted as if they were a parliament of owls under the spell of the moon.
It seemed more like a vain display of ignorance in my eyes but democracy is democracy."
Shores tone changed and was more analytical and thoughtful.
“Consider the history of non-reg nanopaste in the galaxy, in every single case of a containment breach or deliberate use the galactic scene was altered not just on a small scale but a profound scale.
Let's look at the Rethast for example, they swept through the Gamma quadrant and plunged it into anarchy centuries ago and nearly threatened the other quadrants as well. We were lucky enough they died out in some manner before they caused more damage. And even now we’re still tackling the anarchy in the gamma quadrant. They were nanomachines, let’s look at the second case the quick bronze incident in the martian era. Nanopaste weapons were used and entire areas had to be laid to waste as it went out of control.
Now the third and most bewildering case brought up by the Houseidians. The Basaka, yet again we have the same pattern of unregulated weapons turning or out living their creators and slowly laying waste to large sections of a quadrant, and yet even they refused to back the proposal that would limit unregulated weapons of that class and other classes because of some national agenda.”
Shore placed his glass down and drove his point in to Ki’s mind with a bitter sweet display of satisfaction.
“Either this nationalist zeal has made these delegates blind fool’s, or they’re playing a very dangerous game of short term politics at possibly the expense of billions of lives in the future. I honestly hope and think it’s the latter.”
Ki was momentarily stunned, he knew the President was not pleased by the way the GESO had handled the proposal, he had helped found it as secretary of state, of course there would a bitterness to an assumed failure. Yet Ki didn’t exactly know what conclusions Shore had drawn. It made sense now that Ki thought about it saying in a careful manner.
“It appears sensible that the whole affair was for lack of a better word displaced by political self interest rather than actual self interest Mr President. But I think we should focus on this bilateral step for regulating weapons of mass destruction of all calibers.
For all we know if we start leading by example with other powers, we might displace any partisan debate within our own sphere of allies.”
Shore looked at Ki and nodded simply saying as he fingered the empty glass of water on the desk thoughtfully.
“Yeah I suppose you’re right, I can only hope the leader of the Directorate is more amenable to working with us."
Ki shrugged and leaned back in to his chair he turned to face the window again. President Shore placed a finger on a hidden contact just under the table ordering the glass he had to be refiled. Only time would tell what would come of this conference , the critics at home would always have their ears to the ground or eyes to the holoviewer keeping an eye on proceedings. If there was one thing he thought , that he missed about not being in the big chair was the fact that he had a lesser amount of scrutiny placed upon him.