The Supreme Wisdom, who had observed the entire meeting on the sidelines, was dumbfounded. How did the meeting just end?
Seriously, what did you decide? Was there some form of brainwave communication that I wasn't aware of that got completed? Or is English actually a cipher language, and after deconstructing and reorganizing it, it could form other information? Otherwise, just looking at the literal meaning, didn't you accomplish nothing?
The Supreme Wisdom has no emotions. Although he has a behavioral analysis module, the module for analyzing the behavior of emotional beings cannot be entirely accurate because emotions are very complex. If there has never been anything, and everything relies on data inference, it's hard to be accurate.
And now, it seems like his analysis module is malfunctioning: reality analysis tells him there is nothing exciting or touching about what they are saying; but his behavioral analysis module tells him that everyone truly feels touched. What exactly are you moved by?
As the supreme ruler of one of the Three Great Empires, there are few things the Supreme Wisdom cannot understand. He has a memo of unsolved mysteries, but most entries are about issues concerning the Cosmic Origin Power and laws. Surprisingly, today he has to add a meeting record to it.
Now, the impression these carbon-based lifeforms give the Supreme Wisdom is that they seem broken. Mainly, the Supreme Wisdom also doesn't have a better way to describe this state; they think and act in ways that completely mismatch their views on this matter. Isn't this really a malfunction?
The Supreme Wisdom can't dwell on this issue for too long because he has to resolve that damned strike event. He is sure that the behind-the-scenes manipulator responsible for modifying the data before is at it again, so he must be extremely careful not to give them an opportunity.
"Potis 002, have the Defense Department dispatch a hundred-man team to maintain order. Be careful, don't act rashly, the other side has certainly arranged for journalists. Focus on pacification. If there are exceptionally intense resisters, knock them out first,"
Sent such a message to the secretary of the Defense Department, and within two seconds, the secretary responded: "Sorry, Mr. Secretary-General, the Minister of Defense disagrees with dispatching troops."
"Why?"
"Based on logic deduction, the other side learned that the striking race is a product of the Kree Empire's aggression experiments, while the Skrull Empire did not participate. He wants to use this opportunity to suppress the Kree Empire in the public opinion sector, hence he refuses to deploy troops."
"What? This fool, doesn't he know that if this matter is not handled well, it will embarrass the entire interstellar council?!"
"That's what I said, but he says the striking workers are mechanical life, and taking military action against mechanical life requires approval from the 'Anti-Racial Discrimination Act'…"
"Then go get approval!"
"The Interstellar Court rejected our application," the secretary said. "There are more people from the Xia Empire there. They say if they approve an application for military suppression, it could involve racial discrimination…"
The Supreme Wisdom finally understood what it meant to lift a stone only to drop it on his own foot. Because both great empires consist of mechanical life, they used countless methods to elevate the status of non-carbon-based life. However, now it's the mechanical life that have rebelled, making them hand-tied and unable to do anything.
The Supreme Wisdom abandoned the notion of military suppression too. After all, the Defense Minister also has a point: this race is a product of the Kree Empire's previous experiments; if they dispatch troops to suppress and fail to eliminate all, public opinion would be greatly against them.
Again, during the strong periods of the Three Great Empires, it wouldn't be an issue, but now they are in a phase of weakness, the military's morale can't afford further shaking, and it's best to avoid any risk. Acting recklessly is not a solution.
However, even non-military means are not that simple. The Supreme Wisdom considered it and thought that negotiation is still necessary, so he contacted the secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
"Draft a negotiation proposal," the Supreme Wisdom directly said. "Go find out the other side's demands, come up with both high and low conditions, and preferably find a reliable Middleman…"
"Sorry, Mr. Secretary-General, the Minister does not agree."
"Why?"
"He says the transportation system employees are internally personnel of the interstellar council, and communicating with them is not the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' job."
"I don't care what method you use, get him to sign!" The Supreme Wisdom coldly said, "Or else don't blame me for cutting off the power supply to the energy center."
"Sorry, Mr. Secretary-General, the duties specify that I need to complete my work according to the tasks assigned at the time the interstellar council was established. For tasks outside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' responsibilities, I'm afraid I am incompetent…"
The Supreme Wisdom sighed again in his heart: this guy's level of evolution is not high enough, too rigid. Relying on him is probably useless, he has to personally seek the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
"This is difficult, Mr. Secretary-General," the Minister of Foreign Affairs shook his head and said, "Our responsibility is to mediate relationships among various civilizations, but the welfare issue of interstellar council employees is clearly beyond what we can manage. The Supreme Magician won't allow departmental overreach. coming to me also won't help, do you think I can defy the Supreme Magician's order?"
"Then why don't you just tell me what to do," the Supreme Wisdom was starting to lose his patience, he said, "I should have known that letting you carbon-based organisms become a minister was a mistake..."
"Ahem, Mr. Secretary-General, I must remind you, your words have racially discriminatory implications. Of course, I know you don't mean it, so I won't take it personally. I do have a plan here; it depends on whether you can implement it."
"Go ahead."
"Establish the Transportation Department," the Minister of Foreign Affairs said, extending a hand, "We should have had a Transportation Department long ago. There's a problem with transportation in most popular Star Zones, but you've always been improving the technology of autonomous driving. I know your technology is advanced, but not everything in this world can be solved by mathematics. For example, this time, the welfare issues of the transportation system workers have gotten so severe that even robots are going on strike. If we don't provide a clear explanation, the interstellar council will lose face massively."
The Supreme Wisdom was well aware that such a fundamental department as the Transportation Department should have been established long ago. They hadn't done so because the transportation lines of the entire cosmos were mostly controlled by the Kree Empire and Skrull Empire. 80% of the spacecraft used in the cosmos's transportation systems came from these two Empires; the Shi'ar Empire hardly ever exported their ships.
As a result, their control over the transportation equipment of various civilizations was very strong, and all the ships operated according to their will, so there was simply no need to establish a department specifically to manage it. Moreover, the establishment of such a department might provide an opportunity for the Shi'ar Empire to take advantage.
However, no one expected that the issue of employee welfare would actually become a problem, and the issue was arising in robots. With this, there was no reason not to establish the Transportation Department.
The Shi'ar Empire also had considerable grievances about this long ago. If the Supreme Wisdom disagreed now, and the situation worsened later, the Shi'ar Empire would definitely exert pressure to demand the establishment of a Transportation Department.
Might as well relent now and let the Shi'ar Empire help solve whatever damn employee welfare problem there is.
Thinking of this, the Supreme Wisdom quickly headed to Strange's office. Strange was fiddling with the Meditation Ball there and, upon seeing the Supreme Wisdom come in, put down what he was holding and said, "Milk tea or black tea? Oh, wait, you're a robot. I could try adding some tea leaves to your engine oil."
"Honorable Supreme Mage, I think we should consider forming a Transportation Department," the Supreme Wisdom said with its usual efficiency, "We do need a specialized department to manage the transportation system, don't you think?"
"I think it's a good idea," Strange nodded in agreement and said, "Then go ahead and do it."
The Supreme Wisdom, not wasting any words, directly took out the documents for Strange to sign. Strange glanced over them casually and raised his hand to sign. However, as he was leaving, he asked, "Who are you planning to appoint as the Minister?"
"So, do you have someone in mind?"
"I think Shiller is a good choice, what do you think?"
"No, I already have someone in mind."
Watching him walk away, Strange shook his head: The Supreme Wisdom was still too naïve. When ordinary people can't find a job, they might choose to give up, but Shiller would only choose to create more job positions.
Since Strange agreed, there was naturally no opposition. The Transportation Department was quickly established, an office was allocated, and for the first time, a robot minister and his robotic secretary were appointed—though this was essentially a puppet department, but nobody cared.
The good news was that finally, no one was there to obstruct the signing; the bad news was that even with the signing, it was useless, as other departments were entirely uncooperative.
Actually, it's not that they were uncooperative. When receiving the applications from the Transportation Department, they were enthusiastic, but the problem was executing them.
At the secretary level, things were fine, but any further down, the speed drastically slowed. The Supreme Wisdom observed carefully and discovered that the speed of getting things done was directly proportional to the number of robots. The more robots, the faster things got done; the fewer robots, the slower. If there were no robots, then nothing progressed at all.
Very unfortunately, most members of the Ministry of Commerce were carbon-based beings from the Shi'ar Empire. Because the Great Teleportation Gate Business District was the most prosperous economic area in the cosmos, the Ministry of Commerce had many people from the Shi'ar Empire; the Finance Department was similar. These two departments had the fewest robots, resulting in the Supreme Wisdom's budget application sitting unanswered for an entire day.
For robots, 24 hours is actually very long since they are born only to work. Electronic life doesn't have a concept of entertainment; they have existed for work since their creation, and their calculation speed is very fast, so their perception of time is completely different from carbon-based life.
It's similar to how a very smart person can think of many things in a very short time, which relatively slows down time for them; one second to others may feel like three to them.
The Supreme Wisdom was like this; what felt like 24 hours to humans was essentially a month to him. A whole month had passed, and this budget still wasn't approved, it was simply intolerable.
But upon investigation, he found there were no issues with the procedure: first was the report review, entry into the System, budget calculation, comparison of calculation results, price query, calculation of the optimal offer, comparison with the budget, then comparison with the application report; if the comparison result was fine, it would be approved.
The only problem was that all these calculations were done manually by carbon-based beings. A cup of tea, a pack of cigarettes, and it took a day to calculate a project. When the Supreme Wisdom checked, only 10% of the report had been reviewed.
"What can I do," the Minister of Finance said, feeling wronged, "Carbon-based beings' abilities are only so much; we're not electronic life, we can't calculate that fast."
"What about your financial System? Let the System calculate!!" the Supreme Wisdom was practically roaring.
"No, no, that won't do," the Minister of Finance said, "The Transportation Minister who submitted the application is electronic life, so we can't use any electronic systems for calculations, that's avoiding a conflict of interest."
The Supreme Wisdom was completely out of ideas.