[The second-to-last item on today's schedule is the military,] Nova said. [With the designation of Mars as ARES Command, Lab City is in the middle of the final push in materials science to develop a new alloy that'll turn the entire planet into a fortress. The design is finished and will include surface domes and a tunnel network that delves all the way to the solidified core, where we'll house the necessary reactors and quantum superclusters. Work on that front has already begun and the mobile atomic printers we deployed reached the halfway point two days ago.]

"How long will it take for the necessary advances to be completed?" Aron asked. "If necessary, I can join in on the research and cut the time down by quite a lot."

Only Nova knew that he was talking about purchasing another knowledge from the system. She thought for two whole nanoseconds before answering, [That won't be necessary for now. The research should be completed within a month or two, Lab City time. There are better things to spend your limited time on, sir.]

"How long will construction take once the necessary materials are in place?" he asked.

"Three years, tops," John cut in. He was working on the design of the base with Athena, as experts should be left to perform the tasks they were knowledgeable in; otherwise, why even have a council of advisors at all?

"Good. Send me the design when you've got a final version and I'll approve it and send it to the printers once they're done in the core of the planet," Aron replied. "Moving on," he turned to Athena, "how are we coming on the space fleet design?"

[Lab City is having issues finalizing a design and choosing a weapon type. They're too busy arguing the merits of various existing designs from science fiction franchises,] Athena sighed. If she were a "real" human being, she suspected she would have the mother of all headaches after listening to even a few minutes of the neverending Star Trek versus Star Wars debate in Lab City. [I really can't deal with them, sir. They're just too... enthusiastic. What the hell are phasers and photon torpedoes and blasters and....]

She sighed again, her shoulders slumping. [I'd rather deal with bored soldiers, sir. Please assign someone else as a liaison between Lab City and ARES,] Athena begged.

Aron was a little taken aback. It was the first time one of his higher-order AIs had had any issue fulfilling the tasks they were asked to do. Then he couldn't help but belly laugh.

"I'm sorry, I couldn't hold that in. Sci-fi geeks are your kryptonite, I suppose." He brought his expression back under control and cleared his throat, then turned to Nova. "Anyone want to liaise with Lab City on Athena's behalf, Nova?"

[Sir, I don't think any of us higher-order AIs can cope with being dropped into that particular fire pit without the permission to use our admin privileges. It's been burning for two or three hundred years for them, now, and I don't think it'll be solved in any of our lifetimes,] Nova said.

"Time to create another higher-order AI to oversee Lab City?" Aron asked with a frown. He would really rather not add another AI to the higher order, as there were already plenty, in his opinion; that was why he had begun using more virtual intelligences of late. But for solving an argument like Trek versus Wars... he might have to authorize a new AI to oversee Lab City, and for herding researchers, only a higher-order one would do.

[Perhaps, sir. I suggest we give it a few weeks first. Chaotic clashes between research methodology and ideas often produce the best results in the end, so I'll keep an eye on things and let you know if the situation starts spiraling out of control and seriously affecting their work. But at the moment, there's nothing but beneficial rivalry between them.]

"Good. Let's set the cutoff date for that situation resolution to our next meeting in two weeks," Aron said, still with a slight frown on his face. He wasn't happy that the researchers he had spent so much time and effort to "recruit" were handing him petty problems like an out-of-control debate and holding things up even for a second.

"What's the status on Fleet Command?"

[We've inserted the appropriate influencing elements to the game. It should inspire a lot of people to sign up for our space fleet,] Nyx answered. [It's currently ready to be announced as soon as there's an opportunity when we aren't already busy announcing other world-shaking changes, so that people can focus on our new 'gaming' products.]

"Good. John, Athena, anything else to add?"

"Yes, sir. We need bodies. I know we just got fifty million new recruits, but that's still far from enough. In order to staff ARES Command, we estimate we'll need...." He looked to Athena to give the actual number.