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Chapter 553: Poseidon’s Palace

The Poseidon Group was the first to discover the planet By then they were already a famous family, with a third for the secrets of the universe

When their discovery was relayed to the West they deainst everyone’s expectations the Poseidon Group refused Instead they chose to flex theirthat if they took the planet their faer be affiliated with the Western Alliance Their headquarters and assets would be moved to the North It would make them an enemy for life

If any other faovernhed in their faces They wouldn’t shy away from more underhanded measures if they became necessary However, the Poseidon Group was powerful and had their fingers in everything Their influence resonated through all levels of government If they did leave, it would have collapsed Western econo up a planet clearly rich in resources would undere to their prestige would be disastrous This, too, would reflect very poorly in their economy

Parliament wasn’t sure how to respond They were prepared to deal with such a suddenly and openly hostile former ally While they debated, the Poseidon Group used their connections in government to propose several stipulations Included were assurances that half of the planet’s mined resources would be sold back to the West at a reasonable price In addition, the Poseidon Group would design and manufacture a Bastion ship to offer in trade

The money and resources needed to create these cosmic fortresses was astronomical In all the years previous the Western Alliance had ous machines were the symbol of human power!

The West noted this contribution and stopped any further efforts in retrieving the planet It was forreed to pay taxes and swore not to create any weapon of war stronger than a stellar cruiser

For the Poseidon Group to have enough resources to build their own Bastion ship was a problem If they applied themselves toward unbridled development, they would becoovernment With so much wealth they would need an army to protect it, hence the West’s insistence on a stipulation to control their military They were allowed as much firepower as the North had had in their Seventh Fleet

The Poseidon Group lost a great deal of capital in that deal, but earned their own planet They stayed a part of the West, and their reputation continued to grow until it was a shining geovernment, that was crazy!

Over the next fifteen years the Poseidon Group toiled to create the most modern Bastion ship the West had ever seen They called it a Poseidon-Class Bastion, and to this day it patrols the West’s borders

The gift was a benefit for the Poseidon family in several ways Most notable was the fact that much of the ship’s creere members of the Poseidon family In order to protect their sizeable investe portion of the Bastion’s military personnel had to be froood portion of that ship was still under Poseidon control Building a ship took resources, but keeping it running was just as pricey! Taking into consideration the faovernet their numbers up to one third the total personnel The commander didn’t have any connection to Poseidon – at least on the surface Whether or not he had any sort of relationship with the universe’s most powerful family was impossible to say

The Group’s business headquarters was on Europa, but the true heart of the family was on Cobalt The planet did not have to adhere to any higher government, so whatever the Group did was co eyes The West sent a representative once every year to make a cursory examination, and that was it

Indeed, the Poseidon Group had spread across all of human space They were a fact of life in every industry In the West their influence was only getting stronger Sharp-eyed specialists were often quoted as saying, ‘The future of the West is Poseidon”

But they were sovern in their areed to and were only used as protection for merchant vessels Every business had to deal on soot themselves involved in military They kept theroups, and restricted their financial endeavors largely to the West This restraint earned the strictly business, the Poseidon Group continued to win allies instead of enemies

They were quick to open their coffers for humanitarian aid as well To use their oords; ‘For the People’ The Poseidon Group often liked to call thees affirns of manufacture and development on every island, but it was kept sh for a ship to land on

This was largely symbolic, most people suspected The planet’s primary feature was its vast kilometers of ocean But was that true?

The Poseidon Group called the ocean Achanis Its surface was perfectly still, like a mirror But underneath it was an entirely different world

On the seabed, twenty thousand h to kill ht existed in the darkness