Cold, Insidious, and Complicated (4)

Faced with that display, however, more than half the users in the Union merely shook their heads and registered their disapproval.

And the reason for that, of course, was thoroughly practical.

Every other consideration came second. The real point was that even if you swallowed a base whole, the outcome was already written on the wall.

So, as always, the plan had been to take a "do whatever you want, not our problem" stance and leave it at that…

Except at that exact moment.

A user by the name of Durian flashed a spark of cunning and floated the idea of deploying the Base Union's specialty — their greasy, underhanded brand of politics.

Curious about just what he intended, the users began to fix their attention on the one who had dropped that line into the chat.

And right after that—

Even if the "clan leaders" swept up in the opinion they controlled did something stupid and got purged by Icarus—

By then, public opinion inside the Icarus Kingdom would already be dancing on their strings. And if more than seven thousand users rose up at once, no matter how many Unlimited Mercenary Groups or Leviathan Fleets Icarus had, there would be a limit to how he could respond.

If they freely weaponized the user sentiment already sitting in their grip, Icarus was still only human, after all…

And so the wicked, underhanded fingers of the Central Base Union — specialists in greasy political games — turned in just that fashion toward our Icarus Kingdom.

They went around pitching a "Hey, you're a chief-mayor too, right? Why not form a clan and milk that seat for a long, long time?" routine…

Unfortunately for our friends in the Union, reality refused to flow nearly as nicely as they had hoped.

Contrary to the rosy future they had been dreaming of, two bases outright refused to have anything to do with them right from the opening move.

Fortunately, the chiefs of the remaining bases — including Barracuda and Spiralis — all agreed to join their proposal.

But for the Base Union, the real problem was something else entirely.

Cold, Insidious, and Complicated. (4)

The trouble was that the rest of the clans were in roughly the same boat.

No matter how sweetly the Central Base Union friends sweet-talked them, no matter what glorious futures they promised—

The problem was that handling all the various chores required along the way was something the clans of the Icarus Kingdom found far, faaar too bothersome.