Chapter 40: Doomed meeting
"The first contact our planet had with an alien species was hostile in nature. What does this mean for our future?"
"Superheroes rose to resist the aliens. Mutants played a great role during this time. Are mutants still our enemies?"
"What is the world's response to the alien attack? How will the geopolitics of Earth change with the presence of hostile alien forces hanging over our heads like a sword?"
Every TV news channel, radio channel, and newspaper was talking and discussing the same thing, the alien attack that happened a day ago. The people were scared, confused, and uncertain about the future. There was a crisis looming on the horizon.
The atmosphere in all parts of the world was very gloomy. Economies were already showing signs of instability, suicide rates were seeing sudden spikes, and religious and spiritual places were packed full of people who were praying to whatever gods would listen.
In this Chaos, there was some good news as well, like the death toll that was announced to only be in the hundreds and not even reached a thousand. It was less than the worldwide daily death toll due to traffic accidents.
The heroes and the mutants were praised by everyone who had seen them fight the aliens. Even if it was just for a short time, mutants all over the world were hailed as heroes for having fought off the invaders. During that time, they were not mutants and humans but Earthlings.
But this would slowly fade away, the outside invaders will be forgotten once again and the targets would be placed back on the mutants soon. Taking advantage of the period of time when mutants had a high approval rate, a new announcement was made in the UN which shocked the world.
{Due to the help of the mutants, Earth was kept safe and the aliens were fought off with minimal human casualties. For this commendable service to mankind and to atone for all persecution in the past, the UN has decided to declare Genosha as the country for mutants. This proposal was brought to the UN by the leadership of the USA and its allies and was passed with a majority vote.}
The statement released by the UN didn't mention the mutants holding the world hostage during the alien attack in order to get this country. Nor did the public know about Magneto threatening to visit and uproot the capitals of the countries that refused to vote for the mutant nation's approval.
So, even though it was a unanimous vote, just for the sake of sounding realistic, the statement worded it as a majority vote to give the illusion that there was some opposition. It would cast more suspicions if there was no opposition and the approval of a mutant country was already very suspicious.
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"How long before the smartphones are released?" Savant asked Sage who was going through some documents.
"We can begin the sales from next month for the developed countries where we just needed to upgrade the network infrastructure. For others where we need to build everything from the ground up, we would have to wait a few months." Sage answered without looking up from the documents.
"Put a rush on it. We need to have control over the media as soon as possible. Doom should be starting to make his move soon. He called a while ago to tell me that Atlantis and Wakanda have agreed as well."
Sage looked at Savant this time, "Do you think we should trust Doom with such a role? He is after all a villainous man. Him heading a movement for a united world government doesn't sound like something people will agree to."
Savant nodded, "Doom is not the most righteous man in the world, and he can never be defined with the word good, but that's the same with all the politicians in the world bar some. But he is a great ruler, Latveria is an example of his leadership skills.
Not to mention, he might be one of the few people in the world who can go against Reed Richards in terms of his intellect. He has the influence, intellect, and power to become a leader. With a chance like the current situation, a man like Doom can create huge waves for a united world government."
"Why don't you do it yourself then? Why trust another man when there is a chance of betrayal?"
"Victor von Doom may have done many bad things but his massive ego would never let him go back on his words. Since he got back his mother's soul, now the only thing left for him to prove is his superiority to Reed Richards. I just gave him a platform for it. He will have no time to plot betrayal.
And I have already ceded the world to him, what would he gain from betraying me anyway. The world getting prosperous means a win-win scenario for both of us after all."
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In a secret meeting room in the White House, a high-level meeting was being carried out at the moment. All the high-level personnel of the government and military were present and discussing the aftermath of the alien attack.
"What are Latveria and Doom thinking? Don't we have the UN already? What is this bullshit about a unified world government? Does he want to seize power using this crisis?" The general from US Navy asked in anger after a presentation on Doom's new proposal to the world.
"He wants to create a governing body that represents the planet Earth itself. A government above all nations to put up a united front against everything that is out there in space." The defense minister chimed in.
The President of the USA nodded, "The proposal itself is not a bad thing. But how it was presented is a problem. Latveria, Atlantis, Wakanda, India, China, and 6 other countries jointly announced this proposal to the world with Victor von Doom as the representative.
They haven't come out and said it but this is a clear challenge to the political influence of the United States and our allies. They are demonstrating their political power and gathering allies to undermine our eventual influence over this new governing body."
One of the president's advisors added, "The inclusion of India in this is worrying as well. By our experts' estimates, India will catch up to us within the next decade or two at most if they follow through on those new policies they have been rolling out. And from what we have seen so far, it might be even faster with their policies on mutants.
China is starting to show its fangs as well. It's shaping up to become the industrial center of the world. India might slow it down in a few years but it still isn't good news for us. Two largest countries with the highest potential joining the alliance of Latveria, Wakanda, and Atlantis is a very huge political power."
General Thaddeus Ross sighed, "We should have come up with something like this sooner. Losing the initiative has already cost us a lot. We need countermeasures. But what I don't understand is why Victor von Doom became the face of their alliance and this proposal for a new governing body?"
"We are trying to gather as much intel as we can at the moment but our intelligence operatives are not very effective in the countries we are discussing. Even India where we had the easiest access before is tightening its security recently. Our operatives are getting caught at a much higher rate than usual." The CIA director said his piece,
A military general who had a feud with the CIA spoke up mockingly, "We don't want to hear what a failure you are at your job. Where does your budget go if you can't even train proper spies?"
The CIA director glared, "Thompson! Don't slander me. I can't do much about it when our opponents use mutants to find our operatives now can I? It's not like we have mutants to work as spies for us as well."
"What are you saying? Do you want to employ mutants as well? It wasn't enough that you have been recruiting some secretly and experimenting on them that now you want to make a joke out of our country to the world?" A very obvious mutant-hating minister stood up and shouted at the CIA director.
The president coughed once at this time, silencing everyone in the room, "Mutants aren't the problem right now. What are we going to do about Doom and his proposal? How can we regain the initiative before more countries join this alliance? We need actionable solutions."
"With the alien incident, Doom's proposal will have the highest approval all around the world. We will soon be getting pressure from the public to join, so we need to monitor and control the media as much as possible.
We can use disagreements in the charter presented by Doom to gain some more time and find more allies for ourselves. Or we can make our own charter for a new world government along with our allies by citing the disagreements with Doom."
Strategies to undermine or even completely dismiss Doom's proposal for the world government while creating one with the USA in the leadership were being thrown about in the meeting room. Some even suggested assassinating Doom or causing a commotion in Latveria.
Unfortunately for them, they were not dealing with an average politician. Every word they said, every opinion they had was clearly being relayed to Doom in real-time. And not just in the USA, but all over the world, Victor von Doom had already cast his net and was waiting for the fish to jump in.
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Where are my stones? My precious stonessss.
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