Athena Conference , Compound A , New Astarte ,Planet Yuma

[Byron]

After having a close look through the information Mr. Kase had given to him, Mattia thought about some things to ask and say while listening to the Planetform delegate with one ear. Of course, especially the trees made out of metal were fasinating him, typical for an IMG representative. As creative as he used to be when thinking about profit, he already had a few interesting interesting ideas in mind he could present to the Minister.

After the Planetform delegate had finished, he looked up from his datapad and nodded to Kase. Clearing his throat quickly by pouring some water in it, he coughed slightly before beginning to speak. "Alright, this report is indeed very interesting to read, as Mr. Brooks already said. I for my part can tell you that IMG would be willing to work together with the Republic, to make Yuma as wealthy and rich as possible."

Taking a break for a second, Mattia continued. "Especially concerning these trees you found on Tripoli. They could be used to extract the said minerals in a huge amount, huger than I've seen it ever before. Ladies and gentlemen, just imagine gigantic plantations being filled with the seeds of these trees. If we keep the monopole for this way of extraction, we alone could literally flood the market with these various minerals and knock out many economic rivals of ours."

As he had to pause quickly to recover his breath, he looked into the various of the people attending this assembly. Their attention was fully his at this point. "But that's not all. While reading through it, I was wondering whether these seeds could also be used on different worlds to extract different kind of minerals. As far as I've understood it, the tree is built out of what the soil can provide. What if we put these trees into different environments? What if we could generalize this method to extract every sort of mineral we could think of? In my opinion, the possibilities here are endless, and we can and should definitely use these possibilities in our favour."

Looking at Kase, having one eyebrow raised, he asked: "If you allow it, my IMG team would like to have a more detailed look on the trees for themselves. Especially to gather information how to use the trees in an industrial way. Also, I'd ask some of the seeds to be sent to our own labs on Falkland. Our R&D teams would be highly interested in having a closer look at them."

[Atreides2]

Ryo waits for the Mattia to finish speaking , coughs and stands up.

"Yes, I can see how that can awake the interest of IMG" Kase smiles " and as I said, the continental masses are open for all of the members of this conference, however, would appreciate if you would take some of our Guards with you in case the native fauna wants to have a try at you. We will deliver to IMG the exact coordinates for the trees. Please feel free to extract one of the trees and try it. We can give you some additional information once Lab 4 is finishing it's testing."

Kase sips from his glass of water.

"Your idea to use the tree for the minerals ... Hmm ... Good point. It can be the beginning of a new way of planetary mining where we actually do not have to process the soil to reach for the materials. That course needs to be investigated. Would your team start some experiments on this as we will order Lab 6 to do it also ? "

Kase throws a quick glance around the room to see if anyone have anything to say and waits for Mattias reply.

[casualty]

Brooks glanced over the table at IMG representative and the Minister.

- Ecology, do not forget about ecology. If we are to introduce any of these species to another worlds, we need to clearly understand the implications. Which is, perhaps, impossible in such a complex system as a planetary ecology. It is easy to unbalance, and consequences could be disastrous.

He paused for a second, with light smile on his lips.

- Of course, analyzing planetary ecologies is Planetform's bread. We could help with that if you decide to stop mining asteroids and start growing orchards.

With broad smile on his face, Brooks turns to Mattia. However, when he turns back to Minister, he's absolutely serious again.

- Well, this report tells us lots about amazing things you found useful. But I want to hear why you had to bombard your own planet to contain some overgrown vegetation? Without much success, I must add. What are those plants that cause you so much trouble? And what if a seed or two of those gets in between the ones of our precious metal trees?

[Atreides2]

Ryo stands up and walks around his chair, showing that he was a bit stressed about this subject.

" As you know, today's Republic was build on the ashes of the old one. We are more open now to new then when we were in the past, however we are still militaristic. When we tried to colonise the landmasses of Yuma, our constructions were very fragile." Ryo shift his gaze toward the ceiling and talked with a low voice.
" The materials used by Hephaestus were not strong enough to completely keep the alien plant life out of the equation. In microcracks, seeds found a place to grow and with their growth the structural integrity weakened. And thus our constructions collapsed. "

Ryo stops and resume his seat.

" In desperation, at that time goverment ordered Malachite to open fire on what is now known as Meride continent. " Ryo introduce some commands in the console in front of him and on the monitors image of scorched land appeared.

"The power of the blasts cleared the area for a while."

New slides appear showing a small colony being build.

"And we tried to build in that area where the radiations from the blasts was lower. Yes we used a mixture of conventional weapons and atomics. However,we lacked some data and due to the radiations and what was shown until now to the delegations, the plants adapted and their growth rate was even more aggresive. Seeds were carried from outside the Colony and where they landed,the started to grow. The maturation time of the plant also increased and thus we had an enemy inside our walls. Is true that the plant life is now reduced but it is the growth rate that seems to be increased by a factor of 7."

Images of an abandoned city, overtaken by the vegetation appears.

" This is Acropole now. We were forced to move the people out because of the buulding conditions. The plants on that zone are now growing faster then the other continents."

Ryo pauses and raises his eyebrows.

" And that is a valid point. What if there are other seeds present. I will order our University to send us a report about the fastest growing plants that we discovered up to this day. I hope this can give us some new ideas on how to tackle this issue."

[Byron]

Mattia looked straight into his eyes, still being fascinated by the ideas he had just spoken out to the group, as his words had literally spilt out of his mouth. He nodded. "IMG would like to get some deeper testing done by our own specialists indeed. Show us the locations of these plants, and we'll try to find out whether these trees can really be used to extract ores in a huge fashion. Or..." He stopped for a moment. "... whether we are really awaiting the 'revolution of mining'." Saying this, he smirked at Brooks and his witty comment, chuckling slightly. "Don't joke about it, we actually got something in front of us that could possibly change the landscapes of today's markets completely. To our advantage, self-evidently. Anyways, we'll do our own experiments on it, trying to plant them on different grounds with different minerals in it. Let's see what we can achieve there." He raised his glass slightly as a gesture of a following joint cooperating, and sipped from it to wet his dry mouth again.

[casualty]

Dan listened carefully to the story that Minister told. He nodded several times, as if his thoughts were confirmed.

- Well, so we will need something that we could draw upon if things go south. Hope our little project helps to solve it. Unfortunately, we didn't take the radiation factor into consideration in our initial tests...

He made another pause, looking through his documents.

- Here, I will ask doctor Berg to double check these concentrations in our field tests. We will probably have to increase them to make those hormones, Kimberlins, work as intended. Then, I will make another series of tests on the genome structure of those fast-growing plant species. Let's see if we could create a protein or an amino acid that could damage the nucleotides responsible for growth rate and for dissemination. Combines with hormones, it will produce more reliable effects.

Brooks made quick notes in his records as he spoke. He was pleased with how the meeting went, but started growing impatient to begin the actual work he arrived for. Even his allergy seemed to let go of him, suppressed for the time being by excitement of a new challenge.

- Now to the plans for expedition. As I understand, we will need to build a camp somewhere close to the most interesting samples, and grow a garden of a sort to apply our reagents in controlled environment. In parallel, we apply them in vivo and compare the two test sets. Then, when we come up with effective solution, we start producing it on one of our chemical plants and ship to Yuma.

[Atreides2]

Ryo makes notes for himself to present to Lab 4 to work on alternative ways but he also catch the last phrase regarding the expedition.

"Yes about that. Temporary camps can be made on the mainland , actually on to the coast. But for the moment we use Celestra transports to pick us and deliver us to the islands. Now , you all agree , I must say that for the future we should explore the Karabar continent. Is rather unique from what we found until now. At the moment we are more focused on Tripoli as we intend to make there the first mainland settlement. "

Ryo turns towards Mattias :

" I will arrange a delivery of some of the plants. However , if you wish to explore that region for yourself ," *shows on the map* Grid 21-C on Tripoli. I can arrange to have some escort. Our native fauna are a bit ... mean , so to say." *smile*

" As for Karabar , I am going to present you now a map of the continent. Please select the areas that you want to explore so we can coordinate our efforts"

"Anything else ladies and gentlemen ?"

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[casualty]

Brooks raises and says in somewhat dramatic tone:

- Now this is time to move on to our experiment, my friends! It was real pleasure to meet all of you. You all will get the report from our field tests as soon as we prepare it. Let it mark a dawn of a new era in our history.

Daniel slightly bows and then looks at Minister.

- I will send you coordinates which we would like to explore on the second continent, Minister Kase, once I review the satellite imagery. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, as I said, I'm glad to work with you.

Spoiler

[Byron]

Mattia would briefly clear his throat before speaking again, still holding the glass of water in his right hand, silently tapping with his fingers on it as he had been lost in thoughts for a mere ten seconds. "We would prefer doing field studies right on the continent, Mr. Kase", said he in a calm tone. "Not only do we have to study these trees on their own, but also how they interact with each other and with the nature around them. This will also be an important studying area we will have to get deeper into. Possibly in a cooperation with Planetform Inc." He would then tilt his head slightly, looking to their company's delegation right beside him. "I will trust your words, Kase, if you say that the plants down there are highly aggressive, if I understood you right there? It would be a pity if our team died of an unknown toxic before we reached anything." A slightly sarcastic smile would play around his lips. He straightened himself on his char again. "As with Karabar, it should be plainly obvious that IMG is mostly interested in the mountain chain in its centre, as well as possibly the arctic regions up in the north."

[Atreides2]

"No, not only the plants , also the fauna is a problem on Karabar"

Ryo looks around the room and he makes the final notes

"Very good ladies and gentlemen, we will re-convene in a few weeks. I hope we will have good news when we meet. " Ryo stands and waits for the people to vacate the room and he mumbles for himself

"This went well , now I have to inform our teams and 53rd about the new developments"

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