Cowboys And Aliens Ch 56

56. Election

As soon as they were leaving Corinth, Edward started asking many questions about what would happen if they joined the Federation.

Mark explained. "You would become their senator, but would likely have some competition when the next election came."

Upon returning to Colonia, they messaged Annabelle and were told to meet them at the high school.

Federation City had many schools, 7 elementary schools for grades 1 through 3, then they had 3 middle schools for grades 4 through 8, but they didn't have a high school as by that time you were training into a trade or profession, so they had stuck fairly close to the Federation breakdowns for the school system.

They had upgraded all the elementary schools. They were the easiest because they just needed a basic schoolyard with some playground equipment. Then they did the middle schools, which had some sports facilities, and finally they had built a high school, the high school was for anybody grade 9 and beyond, and they invited adults of all ages to go back to school to upgrade their education.

After touring the high school, they all went back to the outreach centre for supper, as Ra'ki came to invite everyone to the new restaurant she helped setup.

All the public buildings were actually setup by the municipal planning system in the computers. Once the pathways were down, they could now go in and create or build public buildings. They couldn't just create an unlimited number of buildings, though. The system knew the population and how much of the population was school-aged children, so it would only allow as many schools as the population required. Just like normal cities, as populations grew and school attendance in an area dropped, they often had to deconstruct an older, less-used school to build a new one in a more populated area. Other larger buildings like sports stadiums and event centres weren't able to be built until they met certain thresholds. Think of the municipal planning software as a real-life version of those city simulation games.

They could build even businesses like a restaurant through the municipal planning software, but they would charge the business owner for the building. The thing is, in a new community where there really wasn't any economy, many buildings were nearly free until the economy started growing. Then you could have the basic buildings built right away using the software, or you could buy the lot and have an architect design the building. It was like the meals at the outreach centre. Eventually, you just get bored with the basics. All buildings, custom or not, were subject to the contest period, although in Colonia there currently wasn't any contest period.

Ra'ki guided them to a restaurant on the edge of the lake. The entire family came out to greet the customers and smiled, seeing the King, the Senator and the Mayor all dining there. The daughter gave them a nice big table with a view of the lake and gave them some menu tablets.

Ra'ki then explained what she did to help set up a restaurant for this family. The mother and father were the cooks, while the two teenaged children shared the roles of hostess, server and cleanup. Ra'ki helped them pick out a few menu items from the food network. Currently, there were only half a dozen meal items. Just like the golf courses, they were just working on a minimum donation basis right now to help establish an economy. They also would not open for breakfast; the outreach centre had decent breakfasts and they wouldn't have to start so early.

Upon seeing the new restaurant, they packed the place in no time, even though they could get a free meal nearby.

The meals were a delightful change from the outreach centre meals, so Mark tipped them handsomely for all the meals, since it was one way to get additional money into the economy.

That scene repeated itself across many communities, schools and public buildings being started, restaurants and shops for all kinds of stuff. They rebuilt existing shops using new technology with modern amenities.

Finally, during the late morning on the second day, they left for Corinth to accept potential candidates for the leadership race.

They took a more leisurely trip back to Corinth, going up the western coastline and then further inland and seeing what communities were around. They found one large city that Mark suspected might be Alexandria, where the Pope was, but it just looked like most other medieval cities they'd seen—crowded and dirty.

There were about a dozen villages between Alexandria and Corinth, all along rivers that led to the ocean. There seemed to be a well-travelled road that went between Alexandria and Corinth, as the port city, with forks to each of the other communities along the way.

Mark instructed Cricket. "

Deploy a drop ship to map the entire planet and to deploy one drone at each village to assess the population and try to learn what they named the community. Also, try to figure out how far this Pope's influence has spread."

After a brief pause, Mark said, "Then send a drone to get detailed scans of that ravine road. I think we should start designing an outreach centre we can build over the road that function as a gateway to the city.

"

They eventually made their way to the cathedral plaza, where Mark setup a shaded tent area where citizens could come to announce their candidacy.

Over the course of the next while, four men and two women came by to announce their candidacy for the leadership race. Mark was glad to see Griffin was running for office. Although it surprised him that Nicholas, the Cardinal's father, had also joined the race.

For each of the candidates, Liyana conducted a bit of an interview. First, she asked them to introduce themselves and what they currently do for the community. Then why do they think they would make for an excellent leader?

After an hour, with no one else stepping forward, Cricket compiled all the videos and then had them broadcast as a big holographic display above each of the information kiosks. They were then also available for people to re-watch each candidate's video, then finally there was a reminder that the Federation would return in 3 days' time and setup voting booths around the information kiosks.

The next morning's daily reports, Cricket said that she had mapped the continent. It was roughly 8,000 kilometres east to west and over 4,000 kilometres from the large snow-covered mountains in the north to the shores of all other sides. The Pope's influence seemed contained mostly to the eastern side of the country. There was no sign of his influence on the sparsely populated western region, nor was his influence seen north of the large mountain range. The number of villages or towns under his influence was in the hundreds, but almost all of them were under 100 citizens.

Similar to Ardent, the mountain range would be very difficult to traverse, which attributed the area north of the mountain range to be devoid of the Pope's influence, it also wasn't easily accessible by boat as the eastern shore north of the mountains was not boat friendly. Any locations that didn't have exposed reefs or lots of rocks, the shore was a sheer cliff and inaccessible.

Cricket had mapped two other continents so far; they appeared to be quite similar, possibly a migration factor because of a point of proximity where the two continents were only separated by a small sliver of water that connected two oceans. The distance to the other continent would be visible with the naked eye. These two continents were more like Corinth as far as their development. She still had 4 other smaller continents to survey, but so far all she had found were nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes.

"Cricket, all the drones have a little compartment that carries a construx, don't they?"

"Yes, that was added after you got buried in the Prince's secret hideout. If they would have had a construx then, I could've had you and Gyges dug out much faster. Those construx are emergency construx though, they carry little starter material so they can't do much on their own. They have to convert local resources."

"I'm considering building an information kiosk in every town, even if it's just to answer questions and helping guide their development."

"Those wouldn't take much material and if you want to secure it, we could give it roots down into the ground."

"Roots? That gives me an idea. We can make it look like pretty much anything, can't we? Maybe we could actually grow it like a tree, one that can produce clean drinking water and produce healthy fruit to eat. Then your avatar could flutter around the tree like a tree fairy, and we could include a fixed trash can they could dump any garbage into. That would feed the tree and clean up the community."

"It's like a REALLY simplified outreach centre! I will come up with a design, and we can upload it to all the drones."

The next day, Cricket started deploying the trees in the dead of night when no one was around. They looked like apple trees, standing roughly 5 metres high with a 1 metre high white container around the base, with 3 blue Atlantean Federation logos printed on it, along with two spigots for clean drinking water, and two recycle bins for any garbage. There was a small plaque on the top of the barrel that showed that the tree was a gift from the Atlantean Federation.

As expected, they met the trees with much trepidation. It wasn't every day that a full grown fruit tree in a planter just appeared out of thin air in the middle of town.

The first appearance of the holographic tree fairy frightened many people, but they soon got used to her and she was soon the answering many questions. The most asked questions being, "Who are you?", to which she would reply, "I am an artificial life form from the Atlantean Federation. It is my mission to protect and care for the tree, but also to help communities grow and thrive, while avoiding the pitfalls learned from billions of years of evolution."

The other popular questions was, "Where did you come from?"

To which she answered, "The tree and I are a gift from the Atlantean Federation. Our colony on the island continent of Colonia has determined that clean drinking water and healthy fruit were limited. This tree is a gesture of goodwill to help your community grow and thrive."

For the next two days there were more businesses started all over Colonia, and there were even some tourists coming to the island now.

Cricket had kept Mark informed of what had been happening in Corinth. She had also made him aware that the Pope's army had indeed left Alexandria and headed toward Corinth, albeit most of their soldiers were walking, so it was slow going. They could reach the edge of the ravine sometime tomorrow.

If the election goes well this afternoon, the first thing would be to create the new outreach centre they had developed to be built over the ravine path. The tunnel under the outreach centre would go from one side of the path to the other, preventing the possibility of accessing the city by land and not going through the tunnel. All that would be inside the tunnel would be library kiosks. On the town side of the outreach centre would be hover elevators and escalators up to the main level. It had all the features of a normal outreach centre, just raised one level higher off the ground and extending deep into the ravine walls.

They had brought many volunteers from the space station to help with setting up the voting booths near the information kiosks. They would ask people for identification, and if they didn't have any, they simply asked them their names and sent them into the booth. Without having a formal identification system, Cricket just knew approximately how many people were adults and would base the electoral results on that.

On arriving in Corinth, though, Griffin came to say he was withdrawing from the election. After trying to do the public figure thing, he realized that life wasn't for him. He just wanted to invent things. Then, just before Mark was to announce the opening of the polls, one woman also withdrew from the race. So that reduced the candidate count to four, three men and one woman.

Mark made the announcement of the two candidates withdrawing and went over the voting process. Then played the remaining candidates' video interviews. Once the playback completed, they announced that the voting polls were open. They were not only voting for their new leader, but also about whether Corinth was to join the Federation.

The voting went smoothly and without incident throughout the afternoon and by supper time Cricket estimated that about 95% of the adults had voted. Mark announced that polling would end in 15 minutes and then the results would be announced.

There were a couple more votes that came in at the last minute, but as soon as the time was up, Cricket displayed the voting results for all to see. The results were surprising, Nicholas had 46%, Sonja had 44%, Jason and Trey both had 5%. Mark suspected most of the women probably voted for the only women candidate just so they could prove something to the men, but the big surprise was that Nicholas, the father of the Cardinal they now despised, was the popular vote. This worried Mark somewhat since the Cardinal was likely with the Pope and planning to take back the city.

Cricket updated Mark, "

The army has stopped to make camp roughly 5 kilometres from the ridge and appears to be making camp for the night. Logic would dictate that they will probably try to sneak either assassins or spies into the city after dark.

"

Mark said, "

They voted 92% in favour of joining the Federation, so I say let's get that outreach centre built. That would prevent outsiders from entering the city. In fact, let any citizen we've now identified pass through the tunnel under the outreach centre unhindered. Any outsiders will need to be stopped and asked to leave any weapons outside the gate.

"

Returning to the election, the other candidates were congratulating Nicholas on his win. Trey just seemed to be mad or upset that hardly anyone voted for him, so he left in a bit of a huff.

Mark congratulated Nicholas and declared him the new Mayor of Corinth and then welcomed everyone to the Federation since the vote to join the Federation was 92% in favour.

Nicholas stepped up to the podium, then bowed to Mark, "Thank you, my King!" He then turned to the podium, as his speech was being broadcast all over the city via the information kiosks, "People of Corinth, your trust in me gives me strength. I shall right this city and run it properly in the eyes of the Federation. As my first act as your mayor, I would like to do something unorthodox. As I am an old man and the election was so close, I would like to invite Sonja to be my second in command."

Sonja was standing nearby and joined Nicholas in front of the podium. She greeted Nicholas and then bowed to Mark and said, "My King!"

Mark congratulated both of them and informed them that the Mayor's second in command was called Assistant Mayor or Deputy Mayor.

After clearing up that, Mark announced to the crowd, "As a member of the Federation, the city of Corinth will now get an outreach centre and, over the next few days, the city will undergo a series of upgrades.

I have received word that the Pope's army is camping a mere 5 kilometres from the top of the ridge. Fear not citizens, as the King of the Federation I am charged with protecting all the people in the Federation. I am building the outreach centre as a gateway building at the bottom of the primary path out of town. We will construct the centre within an hour, and I will deal with the army tonight.

With that being said, the Mayor and Deputy Mayor will have offices in the outreach centre as of tomorrow morning and there will be a free breakfast. For tonight, though, relax and enjoy the evening. Congratulations on a successful election."

The voting booths were deconstructed, and the staff returned to the space station. Mark then invited Nicholas, his wife and Sonja, and her family to the space station for a good meal. Griffin was also nearby, so Mark invited him and his wife along as well.

Cricket had already redirected a lift from Colonia to Corinth, so once it arrived Nicholas, Sonja, Griffin and their families got on board and Mark went along just to answer questions. The rest of the gang hopped into Maren's shuttle and were up on the space station long before the lift arrived.

With the experiment of having the lifts going directly to the space station roughly 500 kilometres above the surface, they removed any speed limits once they got to a certain elevation, cutting the travel time to the space station down to roughly half an hour.

They had some pleasant conversation during the ride and Mark had informed them of what he was doing to protect the city from the army on their doorstep. They were concerned that the army had catapults and could easily hurl boulders down from the top of the ridge onto the city below. Mark assured them that anything coming down from the ridge above would be taken care of by the security drones.

He then had Cricket move some security drones to the top of the ridge, if any catapult, trebuchet or even archer looked like they were going to be firing over the ridge toward the city below they were to be given an audible warning that attacking a Federation colony would be considered an act of war. Then, if they attacked anyway, the people could be stunned and they could disintegrate the weapons. Then, if they had to stun anyone or disintegrate anything, it could warn again them. Any subsequent attacks would see all of their weapons destroyed, even bows, arrows and swords from their soldiers. Cricket was also deploying another kraken to patrol the sea around Corinth.

With the city protected, Mark and the families with him soon met up with the rest of Mark's gang and proceeded through the park to the restaurant on the mezzanine level. Just like the previous visit, the families were amazed at the technological marvel that was the space station and were also astounded at the quality of the food, following Mark and the group's lead for choosing their meals. Then they did the sampler dessert thing again, which was now a part of the menu for any meal parties over 10 people.

The dinner and dessert were amazing, as always, with lots of talk about how their city was going to be changing now that they were part of the Federation. Edward and Elizabeth had also been eating at the restaurant and sitting at a nearby table. Overhearing the questions, Edward introduced himself to Nicholas and Sonja as their Senator.

Nicholas asked what the Senator did, and Mark informed everyone that Edward was currently the liaison for all Federation communities on the planet to the rest of the Federation. Sonja then related, "So he's like your second-in-command?"

Mark quickly replied, "Not really! Yes, he is the top-ranking official on this planet, but he doesn't really have the same role as I do. He's at the same level as the senators on all other federated planets. As King, I'm not really in charge of the daily governance of society. All I do is make recommendations. The only thing I have any direct say in is security and emergency services, of which the outreach centres and space station are part of."

Sonja then asked, "So you really have no say in how we run our city?"

"Not really. The only way I have any say in it is if you would violate any laws. Otherwise, you're pretty much up to your own decisions. I will admit that as new communities come onboard, I do lots of things to help you get started that I really should leave to you to implement, like rebuilding the roads and pathways and transit stops, etc. All of which you can easily reverse or make changes, as they are within your purview."