Pax Elysia Chapter 27: Council meeting

1999

Harry walked through the Senate building without anyone noticing his presence. He’d have been noticed had he not put up a notice-me-not ward on himself. Most days, he wouldn’t have done something like that. After all, as a politician, it was in his interest to be seen and accessible to the public.

But this time, he wasn’t interested in engaging people, even inside the Senate building. He walked through the halls of the Senate without a second glance. But he did stare at the glittering lights adorning the walls, and the shiny white marble covering the whole place captured the light within the building.

Unlike the Ministry of Magic back on Earth, this place was built with the mind to show off. After all, there was no need to hide the magic in Elysium. Magical lighting lined the walls inside and outside the building. The golden light of the candles filled the hallway as many other magicals walked by. The sweet scent of pine and apple trees in the hallway gave way as he reached the library.

The scent of jasmine filled his nostrils as he walked into the library. The door was charmed to remove all privacy charms and wards. So, the moment he crossed over, the notice-me-not broke.

“Mr Potter.”

“Miss Darlene.” Harry smiled at the librarian, a strict woman when it came to books but a fun woman overall. “All good, I hope. How are the children?”

“My eldest, Eckbert, is on a field trip from his school to a dragon sanctuary. The youngest, Emma and my husband are out to attend a concert organised by some crazy French witches.” Darlene said while she gave him a pass for the library.

“And you got stuck with these relics. That’s a shame.” Harry said.

“You’re only saying that cause you’ve not met my Emma.” Darlene said with a snort. “She is a little hell-raiser. I’m thankful it was not me out there.”

“Well, don’t let the kid hear that’s what her mother thinks of her.”

“I’m always on guard, Mr Potter. Enjoy the read.”

Harry just nodded before he walked further into the library.

Shelves upon shelves lined the vast chamber as he walked by, until finally he came before a section dedicated to Charms.

“100 NEWT Charms, by Anthony Price.” Harry said aloud.

The book zoomed out of the top shelf and gently flew into his waiting hands. He loved that particular enchantment. It was one of the useful enchantments put up by the Swedish wizards when the public library was opened inside the Senate building. The French Ministry contributed their floating-lights spell to illuminate the whole library, which used to be a salient feature in the Beauxbatons school. Those were special smokeless candles, and they were in high demand in Elysium as everyone loved to decorate their homes with a couple of these marvellous candles.

And the best part was the cushy seats in the library that were charmed to provide the best comfort while reading a book.

Harry took a seat inside a closed cabin and laid out the book before him with a notebook on the side to take notes. A month from now, Elysium would conduct its first NEWT level exams, and he intended to take them.

A timer in a glass casing with sand swirling around inside floated before his eyes.

“Set time stamp. I need three hours.” Harry said to the floating glass ball.

The sand inside glowed with golden sparks, and an expanding bubble was generated, which enveloped Harry and the cabin he was using. The sand inside the glass case paused flowing, and Harry marvelled at the time-turner the German Ministry contributed to the library. It was a novel device capable of space-time manipulation, which allowed the user to exist in a bubble of space untouched by time. Three hours in the bubble was three seconds in the real world.

As someone who had been at the rough end of a time-turner accident in the past, he could appreciate the sophistication the German wizards employed with this device. This was a far more secure use of time-turner than the ones kept by the British Ministry.

After taking a moment to appreciate the ingenuity behind the time turner, Harry turned his focus on the book before him. The NEWT exams for this academic year were now only a month away, and he needed to cover some theory. The library provided him with a conducive environment to study in peace, and for the next three hours, he focused solely on the study material.

When the three hours were finished, the bubble popped, and Harry returned to normal time flow. The time turner disappeared behind the floating lights, and Harry allowed the book to fly back into the shelf.

He exited the cabin, returned the library pass to Darlene at the counter, and then left the library.

This time, he didn’t use the notice-me-not ward as he walked in the open. He greeted people on the way to the council chambers as he usually did. Once he reached the High Council chambers, the area became restricted from the public by the aurors. His fellow councillors greeted him as he took his seat. But not everyone was there. Three members had yet to arrive.

“I take it you had your little study session done.” Nicholas asked with a grin.

“I don’t know why you obsess over the need to show me you’re monitoring my every move.” Harry whispered back.

“Actually, I don’t monitor your every move. I just have an uncanny wife who happens to have the gift of foresight.” Nicholas reminded him with a chuckle.

Harry had forgotten about that ability Perenelle possessed.

“Why doesn’t she turn her foresight on something more productive instead of chasing after my academic inclinations? It’ll be far more useful.” Harry said with a huff.

“Oh, I don’t know about that. I’ve seen my wife occasionally collapse into bouts of laughter whenever she has a vision of you.” Nicholas said with an amused smirk.

“Somehow, I doubt that.” Harry rolled his eyes.

Just then, Rodion Belsky, Stephanie Beck and Josephine Fournier walked into the council chambers. With the tree remaining, the council members arriving, the High Council was in full attendance.

“Since we’re all here, we can begin.” Nicholas said, officially opening the session. “Master Dwarf, the floor is yours.”

The only Dwarf among them, Onfroi, began the council session with the general update on the banking sector. As a Dwarf, Onfroi was in charge of the overall oversight of all banks operating in Elysium. Unlike the wizarding world, where the banks were under the sole ownership of the Goblins, Elysium had no such restrictions. Anyone could start a bank. It just so happened that the Dwarves remained the largest bank owners as they routed a good portion of all their investments on Earth into Elysium upon migration.  

The discussion on the banking sector covered the current volume of loans being given and the implementation of the digital transaction system across the city. Though wizards tend to trust transactions using the Grian in its physical form, the banks were encouraging digital transactions. The digital payments system connected all existing banks, thereby facilitating easy inter-bank transfers between account holders. This was particularly preferred among business transactions as digital payments offered hassle-free transactions.

Still, most people preferred to hold a substantial sum of Grians in physical form. It was a tendency among the more traditional wizarding families.

Similarly, each of the eight members of the council presented their status reports on areas ranging from housing, city planning, power generation, policing, agricultural yields, critical resource allocation, mining, and many other critical sectors that facilitated Elysium’s smooth functioning.

The discussion turned to technology and the fleet's status. This time, Harry became the council's focus.

“Councillor Potter. I believe a status on the Potentia is due.” Nicholas said, nodding at Harry.

“We’ve successfully managed to stabilise the time-space continuum within the potentia and developed a self-charging rune-enforced containment field to bind the sub-space inside the crystal lattices. With this method, we’ve actually improved upon the Alteran design by reducing the time taken for production.” Harry explained.

“So, you’ve made one of these Potentias.” Councillor Bryce Leroy said with an impressed look.

“Yes.” Harry answered with a nod.

The other councillors were also looking impressed by this feat. They all knew they needed the Potentia to work, as it’d not only serve as an alternative power source to naquadah and naquadria but also make future work on their proposed defence platform easier. After all, their integrated Federation defence platform was conceived with the Ori in mind and a giant Goa’uld fleet.

For the defence platform to function at its peak, they needed multiple Potentia. The one they got from the Alteran jumper production station

“We’ve only streamlined the process and successfully developed a design using magic. We still need to test the device’s power generation and determine whether it’s safe to operate under duress. We’ll have to test the prototype developed under different conditions before we can approve its usage.” said Harry.

“When will the testing be conducted?” Onfroi asked.

“Tomorrow.” Harry answered.

“I understand there are risks involved with the testing.” Nicholas said with a hint of concern in his tone.

“There are serious risks. That’s why we have built a moon base in the Carthis star system. The system is bereft of life, which makes it an ideal space for testing.” Harry said before flicking his wand, pulling seven copies of a file from his enchanted pocket.

One by one, those files came into the hands of the seven remaining councillors in an orderly fashion.

“Please look at page 6. You’ll see the procedure for testing the prototype Potentia laid out. We’ll be testing the prototype to determine its maximum energy draw and test the stability of the time-space continuum within the crystal module.”

“What sort of blowback do you expect should the containment fields inside the Potentia fail?” asked Oscar Truman.

Harry now faced several concerned eyes on him.

“You must understand this is power extracted from sub-space. If the containment field fails, we’ll be tearing a hole in space. The energy released from such an event could theoretically consume the star system.”

There was an awkward silence in the council chamber as they realised the seriousness of the situation and the power of the Potentia technology. The rewards if they succeeded were indeed steep. But the cost of failure was astronomical.

“Are we sure we want to pursue such a dangerous technology?” Josephine Fournier asked, breaking the awkward silence that filled the chamber. “We have substantial naquadah and naquadria deposits for commercial and defensive purposes. Even our economy is partially built on the volume of naquadah extracted from the mines of Elysium and Isaldrir.”

Harry raised an eyebrow at the sole Veela in the room. He could understand why the Veela representative would lean heavily on naquadria. After all, the Veela clans ran the naquadria extraction units on the planet Isaldrir. They were also the ones handling the distribution of the mineral into Elysium and Svoriin.

“We can only know whether it’s safe if we test it.” Harry pointed out.

“Indeed.” Nicholas said with a nod. “Besides, the Alterans have shown their technology works, and we have experts in the field monitoring any time-space anomalies during the procedure.”

That earned thoughtful nods from most of the council.

“Then the test will go ahead as planned, and the results of the test will be filed within three weeks' time.” Harry said, closing the matter.

“Good. Now, give us a status of the fleet.” said Oscar.

“We have the Spitfire, Hammerhead, as the Merlin-class dreadnoughts. The high-yield ion cannons have been installed successfully, and all flight tests of the Avalonian have been completed. That is the third Merlin-class operational in our fleet.”

The holographic image of the Avalonian appeared inside the council chamber. Harry changed the image using his wrist device to show a shorter and sleeker ship.

“The ship you see in the image is the newly designed corvette. It’ll be armed with Alteran drone weapons and can reach higher speeds in space than our dreadnoughts. We’ve designed the corvettes with a grade 2 stargate in mind.” Harry explained.

The image shifted to show a larger stargate than the standard gates in use across the galaxy.

“What will this achieve? We already have hyperspace engines capable of fast travel.” Councillor Stephanie asked, frowning at the imagery.

“The grade 2 stargates are aimed at transferring our fleet across another galaxy. This’ll give us a strategic advantage as our ships will be safe from power drain from using their hyperdrives.” Harry explained.  

“Lesser energy drain means we have more energy for weapons and shielding. That is smart.” Councillor Bryce commented with a nod of approval.

“With a larger gate facilitating fleet movements across large distances, we can project power better within Federation planets. We can have the gate warded from enemy eyes as well.” Harry added, outlining the military advantage of having a larger stargate.

“I assume you’re also looking into a gate capable of having our dreadnoughts transported.” Nicholas said.

“Yes. Remus Lupin has assured that he can build the units capable of building those super gates. Also, three more dreadnought ships will be built by next year, increasing our fleet’s strength to six dreadnoughts. The corvette numbers will be kept at ten. Currently, we have two operational corvettes, and the crew has started training aboard these vessels.”

“Then, it seems the fleet is on a growing trajectory as we planned.” Nicholas said before directing the council to other matters on the agenda.

Harry leaned against his seat as he thought about the test planned for tomorrow. He hoped the test would be a success.

His attention went back to the discussion on adopting a new calendar system. Apparently, someone in the senate had formed a committee seeking a unified calendar system unique to wizardkind, and they were after implementing a calendar based on Merlin’s arrival on Earth.