After the many different governments that had space agencies confirmed Eden's statement, the world tipped over, and the discussions moved from Eden being the bad guys to the incoming aliens. It wasn't that Eden's reputation had suddenly become better, but rather that the attention span of the populace was limited, and the news of aliens completely overtook the more "local" gossip.

Over the previous two weeks, people had been comforting themselves by believing that Eden was wrong. After all, what could a nation that had no reputation and no world-renowned experts know, anyway? But the series of announcements by more credible experts had yanked that security blanket away from everyone. Currently, the dam had been broken, and the only things preventing complete chaos were riot police and the constant reminders that humanity still had time before the "visitors", as they were being called, arrived.

....

"It really worked," Aron said as he watched the announcements with a smile on his face, reveling in the satisfaction of a perfectly executed plan. "I love the smell of chaos in the morning."

[It would've been weird if it hadn't worked,] Nova said.

"By the way, how'd you do it? From what I recall, you said you had to use another means of detecting them since their light had yet to reach us," Rina asked, as by the time she had been informed about the aliens, Aron's plan was already in motion.

"You're right. But since the light has yet to reach us, we just had to make it appear as if it already had, at least in the direction we told them the aliens are coming from," Aron explained.

Rina understood what he was talking about, but was a little lost on how he had managed to accomplish it.

Seeing her confusion, Nova decided to explain in detail. [It was quite simple, really. While we can't exactly tamper with their observatories and satellites, we most certainly can intercept the signals coming from them. Once we broke their encryption, we could insert the data we wanted them to report into the signal. And since it would use their original encryption, they'd be none the wiser,] she began.

[The only tricky parts were figuring out which signals were being sent by hardware that was capable of detecting things at that distance, and flawlessly generating the false data. But once we figured out all the different hardware, all we had to do to generate the correct data was simulate it in VR, where I'm constantly running a galaxy-wide simulation. Then we harvested that data and inserted it into the signal feeding back to their supercomputers to be rendered.]

"Wow, really smart thinking on your side," Rina said. She was very impressed by how they had come up with a plan and executed it in such a short period of time, especially how flawlessly the whole process had been carried out.

"That's just for the satellite telescopes. Those were the easy partthe real difficulty came in how to insert our false data into the ground-based observatories and radio telescopes. Those couldn't be done wirelessly, like we handled satellites, since they rely on fiber instead of wireless signals to transmit their data. Luckily, observing space isn't considered a secret, for the most part, so all of their facilities were connected to the internet. That let us send a trojan into their systems and spread it all over, giving us a back door for the same data swap.

"Besides, there aren't that many supercomputers that can render images and files of that size, so we also snuck our data in there. Just as a backup in case we missed any of the other signals. That took a bit more work on the part of our operatives, since using the internet as a vector of attack against a supercomputer is bound to be noticed. But a technician doing routine maintenance on them, on the other hand, is just normal daily operations." Aron couldn't help but smirk a bit, proud of the wool he had just pulled over the whole world's eyes.

Aron and Rina chatted about the incoming aliens for a while, and potential countermeasures, until the subject naturally changed to the upcoming emergency session of the UNSC.

"I don't think America will vote for the united earth initiative, since the Morgans will never allow it to happen," Rina said. She'd thought about it, and had come to the conclusion that, evenor especiallyif her father decides to go along with it, the Morgans would definitely still oppose it. They had a vested interest in the status quo, after all.

"Not really. In fact, it'll be quite the contrary. The Morgans will help push it along, due to the optics if nothing else," Aron said with a smile on his face.

"Why do you say that?" she asked.

"Because they know there'll be a veto, even if it passes. So they'll take it as an opportunity to make America look good, since someone else will definitely jump out to be the villain that prevents the unification from peacefully happening. Then they'll use the chaos that arises from the failed UNSC vote to take power while everyone's busy guarding against everyone else. After all, it's easy to defeat a distracted enemy that has no allies, but if they had to face a united group of enemies it's another story entirely.

"With the likeliest outcome of the failed vote being a global war, the Morgans will do what they do best: coopt the American military to serve for their own benefit and profits," Aron explained.

"You mean there's only going to be a few remaining nations within a few years as a result of a massive war?" Rina asked, very surprised by the revelation.

"That's how they'll think of it. All they have to do is come to an agreement with the nuclear powers to not fight each other, and everyone else will be nothing but chum for those few sharks with nukes. It'll be another age of imperialism, but this time with them being the sole party in power... or so they think, anyway." Aron wasn't just rambling, but explaining the results from millions, if not billions of simulated situations, designed with the assumption that Eden refused to get involved. But once they added Eden to the equation, it completely flipped around; Eden was the absolute winner in 100% of their simulations.

"Or so they think?" she mused.

"Yes, or so they think," Aron repeated with his usual smile on his face, his mind still swimming with the satisfaction that the first step in his grander plan had been successfully taken, and the second step was in progress.