The Rise of the Black Plain

"Ultimately, only our government can ensure that this service is done for the best possible outcome for the Black Plain." That local civil servant commented, finishing stating his thoughts.

What he was suggesting was indeed the best way to solve the problems of the orphans of the local wars. After all, marginalizing them was the fastest way to nurture future lawbreakers, criminals.

But a good state would not leave to deal with problems only when they appear!

Acting in advance to prevent problems from arising or worsening was essential in the development of a state, something fundamental for a superpower to be born.

And with this in mind, that official had thought of this option to deal with this issue, something that, despite its negative implications, was in line with the views of the other people in that room and also of young Stuart.

It was terrible that many people would die during the war of independence. 

They didn't like that since Minos, his officials, all preferred not to waste time in a war. Instead, they would rather invest this time developing the Black Plain, bringing more people here. They would prefer to increase the planted area, reforest the territory, create new cities, etc.

And that would have been the plan if House Brown had not refused the request for local independence and forced the Black Plain Army to start this war.

After all, Minos didn't need to use the war to profit. He had all the conditions for developing his territory without having to destroy regional families.

Unfortunately, he didn't have the power to scare the greediest people in that region and, as such, had been forced to fight.

With that, casualties, the tragedy of war, could not be avoided.

But worse than the many deaths that would occur, the cruelest part of this reality was what would happen to the children, the descendants of those killed.

Such people would lose their greatest supports, perhaps the few truly irreplaceable people in their lives!

However, even though they did not want this outcome, Minos and his soldiers would not diminish their actions.

They would not stop eliminating the enemies of the Black Plain!

That might be terrible for the child victims of their war, but they were not here fighting for useless things. The opposite of that, they were seeking their freedom, the safety of their families!

Did they have to give up their lives just because their actions would harm others?

Was it wise to kneel to an enemy that historically only exploited their territories and subordinates? 

Would it be acceptable to die for the sake of strangers they perhaps didn't know and would never meet?

No, it would not!

It was a shame that people had to die, that even more people had to suffer from the negative consequences of war. But Minos' forces were prepared to kill every single person who stood against them, no matter who it hurt!

They would rather not fight, but since they were forced to, they would slaughter their enemies mercilessly and even take the opportunity to educate the orphans of the war.

It was cruel to think that many of these children would be raised by the forces responsible for their relatives' deaths. But this was the best response of the Dry City government to give these people a chance.

Or perhaps it would be better to just slaughter children? Kill entire families?

They didn't think so!

Consequently, upon hearing that man's suggestion, no one in that office disagreed with this proposal, despite the apparent fact that the government would manipulate the history these orphans would have access to.

With an orphanage, they could educate the orphans of the war to understand the terrible side of the Brown family, the real culprit of it all. But, at the same time, those victims would learn how the Black Plain was only protecting itself.

And fighting for freedom was always more interesting and more straightforward to justify than fighting for pure greed. As such, the very nature of the facts would help them.

On the other hand, the manipulated story would be partially true.

But, at the end of the day, seeing things that way was obviously an exaggeration. After all, life was not all about such simple things.

However, with the victims' awareness and the comfortable lives, full of possibilities they could have here, Mia's group already hoped that such a strategy would lessen the chances of orphans being marginalized.

Mia then commented. "We will do as Mr. Darek said."

"We will put the orphanage issue among the priorities regarding local works."

"That needs to be done urgently."

"Already make arrangements regarding the personnel who will operate such a place. All staff members should be soldiers of the army, among those most experienced and loyal to our organization."

"We also need to acquire arrays to do kinship testing. Any orphans of the war will have to come under the full supervision of the state when their adoptive parents are not first-degree relatives."

"But even those will be partially supervised by our organization," Mia said as she observed those people making notes about it.

After a while of talking about the future orphanage in Dry City, two of those individuals left Minos' office, leaving only Mia and an elderly gentleman there.

"Secretary Mia, I have to warn you that currently, we don't have that much space available in the protected area of the wall anymore." He commented, remembering this critical fact for the near future of this city.

"Oh?" Mia said in surprise, looking over the side of the glass wall of that office, noting the obvious.

'Indeed, there's not much more space left!'

Dry City had grown a lot in recent months due to the steady increases in the number of residents, many of whom had been allocated to the construction area.

Because of this, much of the area protected by the dome was already occupied by buildings, some of them still empty but ready to receive services and residents.

The man then continued. "Currently, we have already built on more than 92% of the defensive dome inner area."

"And considering that some of the local buildings were built with the possibility of future expansions, the actual space left for new construction is only 6% of the total area."

"So, we have to start working with those limits on space."

"The orphanage can be done without a problem. But we have to start slowing down the development of the local infrastructure, think about prioritizing certain buildings over others."

"I see... Well, we'll work that out."

"In any case, once the local war becomes known throughout the region, I doubt we will continue to receive any migration. So, stopping the construction of residential and commercial buildings shouldn't be a problem." Mia said this after thinking about it for a while.

Slowing down local infrastructure development would mean that there would be fewer services in the city. Consequently, this could slow down the local economy. 

On the other hand, this would hardly turn Dry City into a home for the unemployed. After all, the crops continued to grow outside the dome, as well as the services in the city were increasing in volume and options.

So, instead of just a decrease in the supply of jobs, there would probably be an upskilling of some jobs, while the supply of simpler ones would continue to increase.

Because of this, with no more significant population growth for a while, Dry City could experience an increase in the quality of services and a general increase in the level of the population.

And this would be an excellent thing considering that if they won the war of independence, there would undoubtedly be mass migrations to the Black Plain in the future.

Once such a thing happened, it would be nice if the local population had certain advantages over the new immigrants!

While it was good to respect immigrants, people who could add much to their new homes, valuing those who could have participated in the most decisive moment in recent history was something important.

And such a change in local development already solved this problem because citizens would have the time to take advantage of the opportunities before a possible arrival of thousands of immigrants!

Anyway, with these ideas in mind, those two finished discussing this last issue, going their separate ways.

One went to the department in charge of construction.. At the same time, the other continued to resolve local leadership issues, replacing Minos and Dillian, who were busy with more urgent things.