"Mr. President, why do you think Eden overreacted so much to the idea of UN inspection teams?"

President Trump was currently holding a press briefing. When he saw the reporter that had asked the question, he recognized them from Fox News and smiled as he answered, "Although every country has some reason or other behind their actions, based on Eden's overreaction, they're really taking the most difficult path. Sanctions are gonna be imposed. So many sanctions. It's really gonna hurt them where it hurts. So for them to risk so much just to stop inspectors from getting in, that means they must have something really big to hide." Trump stopped there to allow the reporter to ask a follow up question.

The reporter didn't disappoint and immediately asked, "And what might they have to hide?"

"If it was me, and it wasn't, because I'm too smart to hurt this beautiful country with so many sanctions, but if it was me, then the only thing I can see myself hiding like that would be weapons of mass destruction. Of course, we already know what happens to countries that hide weapons of mass destruction," he said, sternly gazing directly into the camera. He wanted to plant a seed of doubt in Eden's credibility, and WMDs were the easiest accusation he could make.

Though it caused a commotion in the room, he didn't answer any more questions on the topic, having already said enough to cause the idea to take root in people's minds. He would leave the rest to his supporters and detractors to talk about, either defending his claim or refuting it. It didn't matter, the more they talked about it, the more his words would spread to the rest of the world.

He knew it was the start of their plan to crank up the pressure on Eden. They were planning on giving Eden and Alexander the Saddam treatment, and at the moment, the CIA was working overtime in coming up with, interpreting, or outright making up false intel in a way that would make their suspicion be seen as the truth by people suspecting them of having WMDs and interpreting everything they do as evidence in support of that conclusion. It was the same phenomenon seen in couples, where one half would suspect the other of being unfaithful and view them through the lens of that assumption being true.

...

"If I had enough SP to buy this, it would solve all the problems we have," Aron said as he read the description of a knowledge he couldn't afford at the moment.

[FTL (Faster Than Light) travelAlcubierre Warp Drive

A means of exceeding the universal speeding limit. This is one of the technologies that has been discovered by multiple civilizations in different times and is considered the minimum qualification to be considered a seedling of an advanced civilization.

The Alcubierre Warp Drive was theorized on Earth by theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre, based on Einstein's field equation. It is widely considered to be an entry-level FTL method and operates by generating....

Price: 100,000,000,000sp]

"Damn... if you need to have FTL to even be considered a proto-advanced civilization, what does that make us?" Aron muttered as he continued reading. The description of FTL travel as a category was rather lengthy, considering all the various means and methods involved in breaking the speed limit imposed by the laws of physics, so he had chosen the cheapest one to read about in further detail.

[You can just release product after product for the next two years to collect enough SP to buy it. As they say, it's better to be exceptionally good at one thing than moderately good at many,] Nova said, appearing behind Aron and reading the system screen over his shoulder. He had given her permission in the system long ago, so she could see its prompts just as easily as he could; but she preferred reading over his shoulder to reading it on her own lest she read too much faster than him and cause confusion in the resulting discussion.

"That would've been a good idea... if we were facing an enemy we know something about. Since we don't, we need to have a broad knowledge base so that no matter what they bring to the table, we have a better chance of countering it with something we already have in our arsenal. Plus, FTL would just get us there and we'd still likely be unable to do anything once we're right in front of them," Aron countered. He had the habit of saying things that he was sure Nova already knew. It was a good habit to have, as in the midst of saying his thoughts aloud, he may discover something important in them that would reveal a solution he had yet to consider. And Nova was aware of that tendency of his, so she was more than willing to play along. After all, as an artificial intelligence, no matter how sentient she was, she would forever be incapable of the fuzzy thinking and true randomness that humans used in their day-to-day thought process.

"Let's look at other things." Aron moved on to other things from the system.

[Robotics, tier 1

(Ed note: the tiers in the system use the Kardashev Scale. Tiers 1-3 are "pure" tech; 4-6 are aethertech, which uses naturally occurring mana sources to power technology; and 7-9 are magitech, which is a true blend of magic and technology.)

A technologically advanced solution to aid or replace manual labor in menial and dangerous tasks....

Price: 1,000,000,000sp]

[Yep, we need this,] Nova interjected. [Although the robotics research in Lab City has advanced enough to start rolling them, they aren't advanced enough to be able to participate in a war theater,] she continued, sounding so excited that Aron did a doubletake as he realized the reasoning behind her excitementshe badly desired a physical body so she could interact with the world on her own, instead of simply viewing it through cameras and other digital sources.

[Terraforming, tier 1

A method of converting a hostile environment to a beneficial one. It is the gateway to colonizing other planets and reaching beyond the cradle of your civilization. It has been independently discovered by many civilizations, but the first was....

Price: 2,000,000,000sp]

He then moved to another technology after bookmarking the previous technologies for later purchases.

[Artificial Environmental Shielding, tier 1]

[Galactical Navigation System, tier 1]

[Intermediate Runic Knowledge, tier 1]

[Tractor and Repulsor Beams, tier 1]

[Energy Weapons, tier 1]

[Psionic Shielding, tier 1]

[Spatial lock, tier 1]

...

He continued searching for things that he had thought about during his recent rest, and when he was done, Nova materialized a holographic screen summarizing the list so the two of them could jointly see the prices and discuss solutions. After going through it, they organized it by priority, from most- to least-necessary technologies, then grouped them further into absolute requirements and things that would be nice to have. The ones that would only be nice to have could be bought piecemeal and researched on their own in Lab City, but the priority required tech would be purchased whole and immediately implemented.