Astardis wrote:It will be a hard battle for Jason to gain the acceptance of the Siann and the Empress.
First of all, he has to go against House Trillane. Trillane is a highborn house with tight connections to Merrane. I guess that even with the Faey, blood is still thicker than water.
Trillane has connections, favors and influence inside the empire, gained over thousends of years of time.
But on the other hand, Jason has several wild cards. First of all, there is Myreena. She is a Merrane, so the new House of Karinne might be recognized as a highborn one, too.
The Siann charter / imperial law is on his side about the possession of earth.
It's hard to believe, that Trillane is fullfilling the food quota at the moment, since they are abandoning north america and preparing to destroy it. So the empress might not be too pleased with them.
And at last, there is the replicator technology. The ability to produce food and other complex molecules will do much more than just solving the food shortage.
If you can produce the food on board of warships you reduce the amount of logistic significally. Less logistic means more personal for other operations, less danger for supply routes and longer operational time for fleets. If you can produce food, you are able to produce medicine and other organic substances, too. Maybe even small mechanical or technological parts, which will decrease logistics further and allows faster onboard repairs. The possibilities for those replicators are probably endless and will do ALOT for the Faey's military power.
So I can wholeheartedly agree with Jason, that those replicators will be his biggest chance to get a Siann charter for his house but the effect might be much differend than he is believing.
Astardis
Actually, first will
not be kicking Trillane off Earth. His first goal is to evacuate The Legion off Earth, then get an audience with the
Siann, and especially the Empress, but both are required.
Jason will pop into earth orbit, drop down over north america, most likely completely jam all sensors and communication in the area, possibly even with his enhanced tools for such, and recall everyone out of Cheyenne Mt. And Fel has already said that the
Scimitars armor will be what drives Trillane silly, they'll probably shoot at it like mad, and not do so much as a dent, but that's guesswork. Once he's done, he's gonna head for Draconis.
His second step is to actually
convince them that he is who he claims to be. The buildup of his public face by the Kimdori was the first part herefor, he's now recognized by the Imperium as someone. Someone who's crafty, seemingly invisible (until he was captured), very well versed in keeping Trillane at bay, and especially as the Rogue Defender of Earth.
The second part of that will be his showing up in Draconian space with the
Scimitar, a
Karrine Scout Ship. Add in his
gestalt the ownership of the Karrine Ring, his DNA, and how he will be approaching the
Siann and you have, if not solid, at the very least
enough circumstantial evidence to get them thinking.
And when he's finally convinced them of his status,
then Jason will start to bargain with Merrane for Earth. Only once he's recognized as noble, he will throw the
Siann Charter into their faces, and demand that he be given his homeworld, but not as Human, but as Grand Duke of House Karrine, and as rightful owner because he has the longer standing rights.
And this is where things will get tricky. And Myleena having been Merrane is actually pretty much irrelevant too, as she no longer is.
Fel explained that Jason will get another house to do the actual farming, with nothing but Imperial Troops doing the overseeing of everything, no House Forces. At. All. This is supposed to be the beginning, and to entice the Empress in agreeing, Jason will dangle the advanced replicator technology in front of her. But don't mistake this tech with anything from Star Trek. They are better than those the Faye currently have, but they're not
that good. Yet, at least.
They have two major advantages over the currently in use technology. First, they can go higher up in the periodic table. This is one extremely
huge advantage. Fel said that previously, replicators only went up to Palladium, that's #46 on the periodic table. The Karrine version went up to Iridium, that's #77.
Edit: I've been corrected on the numbers, and double checked it with what Fel wrote in the story, 46 and 77 are correct. I think Fel might have either mixed up some older notes, or I completely misunderstood what he said in the ch18 spoiler thread, where he talked about the details a bit more. Since my reply was based on what he said there, not in the story, I got it wrong. /edit
The second
major advantage of the Karrine replicators is that they can do more than push out single base atoms; they can create small molecular structures. As it just so happens,
sugar is something even the old replicators could have made, had they been able to combine to molecules. The improved version can do that.
So when Jason drops the bombshell of the new replicators, and as Fel said, offers the patent rights to Merrane, the Empress will have an absolutely
incredible hard time not accepting the deal.
In the end, Jason will have a transit period where someone
not Trillane gets Earth for food production, the Faey get higher Replicator Technology that can make food that's edible and nourishing, the Empress will get truly silly amounts of money from the patents, and Earth will be protected, especially once the transit is made. As Fel said, everyone wins; except Trillane
There most likely will still be farms, but the greatest danger of starvation, or dependancy on food imports, will be banished.