Dark Fate, Chapter 250

Chapter 250 – Founding

Ganymede Prime was the name of the colony. The first human colony on the solar system’s largest moon. The teleport pad in the center of the complex was set up and ready, connecting Ganymede to the facility on Ceres. Now, I was here, looking out at the place.

The construction was finished, but it felt cold, even though the environmental systems were working perfectly. The place was too new, like Ceres had been, at the beginning. Even though Ceres as a colony was not even two years old, the asteroid had developed a warm, lived-in feeling, as people personalized things, and made the space their own. The things that made a place not just a place, but a home.

However, as the first colonists began gathering in the central square, I knew that this colony would take on a new atmosphere soon enough. People always adjusted their environment to make it feel lived in. Even on warships, where regulations mandated certain standards, people found ways to make the ships feel less antiseptic, and more like someplace that people were meant to be in.

Five thousand in this batch. Enough to form a small town. Enough to start a small colony. Enough to be the beginning of something new.

I looked out at the crowd. Engineers, workers, some scientists. Families. Flight crews and pilots for the first squadron of X-pattern Hunter fighters that would be stationed on Ganymede. And some adventurers, looking to help the newborn dungeon planted from a dungeon seed grow.

Ganymede Prime had facilities and room for up to a million people. We’d started with plans for the future already in place. It was easier to build everything in the initial construction, then trying to tack on additions one by one afterwards. Nature of the beast when everything you were building had to be as close to a closed system as possible. Sure, there was an atmosphere on the moon, but it was entirely too thin for anyone to consider breathing it, even if the cold wasn’t deadly. Fortunately, magic and advanced technology helped a lot not just with the construction process, but also with ensuring that the colony remained safe and livable in the future. Creating colonies on barren moons wouldn’t be possible without it, after all.

They were expecting a speech, something to inaugurate this special day, the founding of the colony, and an expansion of the Kingdom of Ceres. The Kingdom might be part of the Ceresan Empire, now, but the Kingdom still existed, and I was its ruler.

I paused, looking out over the crowd. When I spoke, I infused magic into my voice, allowing them all to hear. It wasn’t a skill, as far as the System saw it, but it was something that anyone who had enough power and control could do, with practice.

“People of Ceres! You stand here at the dawn of a new day, the beginning of a new stage in the rise of the Kingdom of Ceres and the Ceresan Empire! Today, we formally establish the colony of Ganymede Prime, first colony amongst Jupiter’s moons, and only the second permanent extraterrestrial colony Earth’s people have ever produced, behind only Ceres itself! You stand as the pioneers of a new age, as those born of Earth begin to leave our home world’s embrace, and extend our grasp to the stars, as is our right, and our privilege!”

Cheers. These people were not the kind of people who timidly waited for others to light the way. The idea of being pioneers, in a world where, before the Initialization, there were vanishingly few areas where the average person could hope to explore, was like a drug to them.

Oh, it wasn’t that there was nothing to explore or no new discoveries to be made back on Earth, even before the Initialization. However, in the world before magic, you needed a lot of VERY expensive equipment to explore the ocean depths. And while new species of insects and plants were found in the wild places of the earth semi-regularly, finding those species was a matter of luck, and needed skills and equipment simply to survive in the environments they lurked, to say nothing of being able to properly identify and categorize the different flora and fauna to ensure that these were actually new species. There were things to discover, but the barrier to entry was high.

Now, though, the frontier was wide open. Classes, skills, races, and items made breathing underwater possible. Moving from planet to planet was no longer a dream. Simply existing in space without having to deal with massive health problems like atrophied muscles, bone density reductions, and increased cancer risks had opened space up for exploration. But with those new frontiers came new dangers. Not everyone was up to being a pioneer.

“I will not tell you that the days ahead will be easy, for that would be a lie, and you all know it. But nothing truly worth doing is ever easy, for the best things in life take work to get, and more work to keep. And if you take the easy path, you will always be going where others have gone before, smoothing the way for those who came behind, but never striking out into the unknown, discovering new things and making your mark on history, and the world. To be a pioneer means to embrace hard work, but it also means that you get to go where no one has gone before, doing things that, if you looked at Earth before the Initialization, you would say were the stuff of badly written science fiction!”

That got a laugh from the crowd, as I’d intended. Couldn’t be too doom and gloom at what was supposed to be a triumphant moment, after all. However, it would be foolish to not acknowledge that there were going to be trials in the future. They were going into the unknown, after all. No one knew for certain what challenges they would face.

“But you wouldn’t be here if you were scared of a challenge. You wouldn’t have come to plant the seeds of a new world on the furthest rock from Earth any earthborn soul has ever tried to make a home on. You wouldn’t have come to a barren rock and tried to make it something that people could live on.

“Some people will say that the people who are the bravest are the fighters, the people who go out and put their lives on the line, whether they be military, first responders, or adventurers. Understand that I have multiple timelines of experience when I say that while those answers aren’t wrong, they’re not right, either. It takes courage to go into those positions, don’t get me wrong. But that courage is augmented by training, by skills, and by equipment, and is bolstered by the knowledge that, past them, there are people who will die if they do not perform their best.

“However, it takes a very different kind of courage for people who are not fighters to go out into the unknown. To stake a claim and build something new, in an environment that is desperately trying to kill you every second of every day. Where a mistake means death, for you, or for those you care about. To look such dangers in the eye, without the skills, and training, and equipment that a martial path accrues, and still step forward, into that unknown? That takes a kind of courage that even those forged in combat sometimes lack. The King of Ceres salutes you.”

More cheers. People liked it when someone important, who had a great deal of combat experience, tell them that even noncombatants like them can be brave, too, in different ways. Not competing against the warriors, but complementing them. That was a powerful message, especially coming from someone like me, the martial leader of a martial people. That was the kind of thing that made loyalty the only natural outcome.

“As much as I would like to devote all my attention to helping you build this colony, the one all other Ceresan colonies will be based upon and learn from, even with multiple timelines of experience, I have yet to discover how to give myself more time within the same timeline, and the duties of a King and Emperor are many. So, I have sought out qualified individuals to serve as my eyes and ears, my hands and feet, to build this world from the ground up with you.”

That was the signal, and four people stepped forward out of the crowd. Two were in the uniform of the Ceresan Royal Navy, an Elven woman with Squadron Leader markings, and a human man with a Commander’s insignia and obvious Asian heritage. The third one was a human man wearing practical armor fit for a ranged attacker, to match the rifle and twin pistols he carried. The last was a half-dragon woman with golden scales and clothes that screamed ‘prim disciplinarian’. Unlike the others, she was clearly not a fighter, despite having dragon blood in her.

I pointed to the half-dragon first. “Evie Ryan will be the Governor of Ganymede, and have the ultimate civilian authority for the colony, after my will and Imperial law. As a Bureaucrat class with the Scribe profession, her skills at managing projects and ensuring that the optimal outcomes are achieved, already well known before the Initialization, have become recognized by the System itself! Already, she has presented proposals on how best to begin the industrial buildup of Ganymede, so that the colony is not wholly dependent upon the greater Empire. If there are better hands to leave the civilian leadership of Ganymede in, I either haven’t met them, or already have them doing things for the Empire as a whole.”

Next, I pointed to the gunman. “Jacob Harper, here, is a Spellshooter and Hunter, nearly to Tier 2 already. He will be leading the Ganymede chapter of the Imperial Adventurers Guild. Not only will it be his duty to ensure that the newborn dungeon we planted grows properly, but he will be the one who speaks for the adventurers of Ganymede, and those who visit from elsewhere. He will be the one who helps guide young adventurers, helping to reduce the number of casualties, without simply carrying them, which would rob them of any true strength.”

A pause, and then, “As for the dungeon itself, it is still early days, but according to the information provided by the System, the dungeon is going to be starting with Plants as the primary creature type. According to records, there are only six Plant dungeons in Sol System. This means that, regardless of the type of creatures found, the resources obtained from the dungeon will be sought after by crafters throughout the Empire, ensuring that the Adventurers of Ganymede will have a future that is secure.”

Next, he pointed to the Commander. “Commander Yada Shinzo will lead the Ganymede Territory Defense Force. As the primary military commander for Ganymede, the responsibility of defending the colony against raiders or enemies will fall to him. But Ganymede will not stand alone, even when the Territory Defense Force is filled out. The Home Fleet of the Ceres Royal Navy patrols Sol System, with not just the Hellspawn, which helped bring us victory against the Oscuns when they tested us, ensuring that the people of Ceres are regarded as Peers and Friends of their Clan, but also her sister ships in the fleet. And I am pleased to announce that the newly-refit Black Tear of Night’s Folly, an advanced superdreadnought designed by the Great Horde, a power further towards the galactic core, and adapted to human needs by our talented designers, will be conducting its trial runs starting next month. This single ship is more powerful than all the Oscuns raiders that attacked Sol before, combined. With it on our side, any enemy that would threaten Ganymede and the Empire will have their work cut out for them!”

More cheers. In a universe that had, quite dramatically, proven that there were dangers out there, the idea of having dangerous people with guns on the wall to keep the dangers at bay was comforting. Not that my people were necessarily warmongers. They just tended to have a healthy appreciation for the fact that having the strength to say ‘No’, and keep anyone from telling you differently made things a lot more peaceful in the long run.

“Finally,” I said, pointing out the last of the four, “we have Squadron Leader Clarisse Dumont, Valiant Leader, callsign ‘Victoire’. She leads the newly-organized 401st Ganymede Fighter Squadron, equipped with the latest models of the X-pattern Hunters that you have all seen in use before!”

More cheers. Fighter pilots were always a hit, no matter where you went. After a moment to let them cheer, I raised a hand for attention, and said, “To the new leaders of Ganymede! To the Kingdom of Ceres! And to the Ceresan Empire! Never will we bow!”

The cheers were deafening.