Kicking Away the Ladder
The chaebol chairmen seated for the "kicking away the ladder" meeting struggled to keep their expressions under control. Inheritance was the most sensitive issue for any chaebol head. A single misstep could bring down an empire built over decades. Moreover, the succession process often invited outside interference, leaving companies vulnerable to hedge-fund attacks. From a national perspective, it was never desirable for Korea’s flagship corporations to fall into foreign hands, so the government had long turned a blind eye to convenient arrangements during inheritance. Jeon Myeong-heon had just declared, in the most public way possible, that he intended to shatter that long-standing practice.
The chairmen misunderstood his true intent. Jeon Myeong-heon cared little whether Choi Hyun-hee devoured or burned his own inheritance. What mattered was the tax revenue generated during the process. At this moment, Jeon needed funds to weather the foreign-exchange crisis, and ultimately he wanted to reform Korea’s economic structure so that such a crisis would never recur. His larger ambition was to become the president who succeeded through economic policy, eclipsing both the military-backed leaders and the career politicians in a single stroke. For that, he required money, and he knew better than anyone that the only reliable source was the conglomerates themselves.
That was why Jeon Myeong-heon had accepted Yoo Jae-won’s radical restructuring plan without hesitation. Even if Yoo had proposed something far harsher, Jeon would have agreed. His trust in Yoo Jae-won had reached the level where he would believe a deer was a horse if Yoo said so. Since he had no intention of creating a slush fund, his demand that they pay taxes honestly was completely sincere.
“Well? Why is there no answer?” Jeon Myeong-heon asked again in a calm voice, his cold gaze fixed directly on Chairman Choi Hyun-hee.
Choi Hyun-hee was no ordinary man either. “Yes. I will do my utmost to contribute to the national economy.”
The situation was deeply humiliating, yet he quickly regained his composure, hiding the shock that had crossed his face and answering with what appeared to be genuine sincerity.
“Thank you. Because of the country’s circumstances, I had no choice but to burden all of you. But if you trust me and work even harder than before, better days will surely come.”
Even after hearing Choi’s reply, Jeon Myeong-heon continued to speak of effort until the very end.
“Well, let’s leave the difficult topics here. Since we’ve gathered after so long, I’ll treat everyone generously.”
He personally placed the order for the hotel’s finest course meal. The dishes had already been prepared, so the first course arrived within minutes. As expected from a five-star hotel restaurant, the food was excellent. Yet none of the chaebol chairmen could taste what they were eating. The very real fear that they might have to spit out tens of thousands of times the cost of this meal made swallowing difficult. Even Jeon Myeong-heon, himself a former chaebol, found the food tasteless; his hope that the conglomerates would receive special treatment had been shattered. Chairman Choi Hyun-hee in particular felt as though he were chewing sand. The inheritance-tax issue was bad enough, but being singled out as the second-largest conglomerate in Korea’s business world stung even more. The fact that Ilsung could not refute the “second place” label made the humiliation worse. In the early 1990s they had seemed poised to overtake Mirae Group, yet the gap had widened again. Naturally, Choi Hyun-hee resolved to repay this disgrace at any cost.
Jeon Myeong-heon’s bold moves continued the next day. This time he met with labor leaders, not in a luxury hotel but in the politically charged conference room at the Tongil National Party headquarters. The atmosphere was frigid from the start, and once serious discussion began, the temperature dropped further. Jeon Myeong-heon had suffered greatly at the hands of militant unions and harbored no goodwill toward organized labor. His expression remained sour—the same displeased look he never showed Yoo Jae-won—and he openly grimaced whenever the leaders of the two major federations made strong statements. Fortunately, although he frowned, he did not push back aggressively. He simply listened, exactly as he had told Yoo Jae-won he would. At the end of the meeting he even proposed the creation of a grand tripartite innovation committee involving labor, management, and government to overcome the national crisis, and asked for their full participation.
The Tripartite Grand Innovation Committee was to be the grand bargaining body that would set the direction of future economic reforms. Originally it had been called the Tripartite Commission, but Yoo Jae-won had insisted on adding “Grand Innovation” to signal a far more ambitious scope and intensity. The press coverage was favorable. Newspapers wrote positively about the new committee Jeon Myeong-heon had announced. In ordinary times they would have published sensational articles accompanied by photographs of Jeon frowning during the labor talks. However, the period between election and inauguration was known as the honeymoon phase, and the media maintained a generally friendly tone.
Jeon Myeong-heon’s final dramatic act was a visit to the ID Global Headquarters building—specifically, the Nextcom headquarters located inside it. The visit had, of course, been coordinated with Yoo Jae-won in advance. Still, the employees working in the office were thrown into confusion when the president-elect appeared. Jeon Myeong-heon had not come to waste time. He had come to lend his support to IT, Korea’s new growth engine. In addition, to strengthen direct communication with the public, he announced that the Blue House would create its own internet site. Because the official Blue House homepage felt too formal, he planned to open a “Conversation with the President” page on the Nextcom site, making it easier for citizens to approach the administration. He had come to Nextcom to make that announcement.
Until now, the media had served as the middleman between the president and the people. Presidential statements were filtered through the media’s own biases and sometimes heavily distorted. Yoo Jae-won, fully aware of these side effects, had recommended direct communication through an internet page. The site would not only relay the president’s words and Blue House policies but would also include a petition function so the administration could quickly respond to sensitive social issues.
“Korea was the first country to begin the IT revolution. Building on that strength, the Jeon Myeong-heon administration will prioritize communication with the people through both the Blue House homepage and the Conversation with the President page on Nextcom.”
Jeon Myeong-heon stood before the cameras and recorded a short video message—an inaugural greeting that would be posted on the website once his term began. Even though it was a brief recording, he had to redo several takes, yet he maintained a smiling face until the end. Having operated the safety-inspection team homepage during his time as prime minister and seen both his recognition and approval ratings rise, Jeon Myeong-heon felt no resistance to running an official presidential website.
The media, naturally, felt strong displeasure. Many viewed the president bypassing the dozens of resident reporters at the Blue House to speak directly to the public as an act that undermined the established media order. Unable to express their irritation openly, they could only voice indirect concerns. Yet they sharpened their knives, ready to pounce at the first sign of any flaw. Those who believed that shaping public opinion and setting the frame was a privilege belonging solely to the press were especially negative. What they overlooked, however, was that the IMF era had not even begun. While daily bankruptcy reports had become routine, the truly large-scale collapses were only now approaching. Moreover, the media bore a significant share of responsibility for triggering the foreign-exchange crisis.
Around the same time, Yoo Jae-won was aboard a flight bound for Washington, D.C. Long flights no longer bored him. The improved performance of his laptop allowed him to handle work and even play most games if he lowered the graphics settings. The only real inconvenience was that internet access remained unavailable at cruising altitude.
The game Yoo Jae-won was currently enjoying was, of course, StarCraft, whose gold version was about to enter mass production. He had previously played with data-only builds; now he was testing the nearly finished gold edition. He was extremely satisfied with the completed game. Unlike the version from his previous life, this one had been strengthened in many areas. Graphically, the quality had improved dramatically. The earlier build had used VGA resolution with very rough pixels; the finished version used XGA as standard and supported HD resolution. Choosing HD mode widened the screen and slightly increased the amount of information displayed. Unit models were far more detailed, and their animations smoother, yet the distinctive impact feel unique to StarCraft had been preserved. Although the game could have been made fully 3D, units remained 2D while maps were rendered in 3D, allowing excellent elevation expression that could be used strategically. Sound was recorded at standard CD quality, and each race’s units received distinctive voice acting. Background music had been recorded with a skilled band and orchestra. A new music-feedback technology was also implemented: the melody changed dynamically according to the situation—calm during production, urgent once combat began—greatly enhancing immersion. Finally, the cinematic sequences, Blizzard Entertainment’s specialty, had been greatly expanded. The CG videos, created using ID Technology’s data-center computing power, surpassed even Pixar’s Toy Story in quality. Even the brief taste of the opening CG shown in the demo had generated enormous excitement among gamers. Threads on 2CH.com’s strategy-game board were filled with nothing but StarCraft talk. To display these high-quality videos without compression artifacts, the files had been encoded at high resolution, resulting in a total game size that required two CDs. Of course, the most fundamental feature—multiplayer—had not been neglected. Multiplayer was an entirely different game from the single-player campaign. The e-sports support functions were excellent, allowing spectators to watch matches and even save ongoing games. Yoo Jae-won had ultimately decided against including a replay function; he felt it was a double-edged sword that would eventually turn the game into a pure physical contest once strategies and control skills were fully exposed. While every game was influenced by physical skill, he wanted to delay that shift in StarCraft for as long as possible.
The release date had been set: January 17, 1998—the first day of the new year. Pre-orders were currently underway, and every edition—from the standard package to the collector’s and limited editions—had received far more orders than expected. Only a few years earlier, the name Blizzard had been unknown; now it had become a major publisher people trusted. Industry analysts credited the well-made demo for part of that success.
Because so much effort had gone into the game, Yoo Jae-won played StarCraft wherever he went. He was doing so now as well.
“Want to play another round?”
After finishing a 1v1 match against Kim Dae-seok via direct connection, Yoo Jae-won called for a rematch.
“Aigoo, Mr. Chairman, I think I’m done for today. Besides, we’ll be arriving in Washington, D.C. soon, and there are things I need to prepare.”
Kim Dae-seok waved both hands in refusal. It was understandable—he had played four straight games since takeoff and lost all four. He had chosen his main race, Zerg, while Yoo Jae-won had switched between all three races and even gone random in the last game. Still, Kim Dae-seok had not won a single match, nor had he secured even one victory in the many team fights that occurred during the games.
“Well, if that’s the case, there’s nothing to be done.”
Yoo Jae-won coolly let him go. Kim Dae-seok’s statement that they would soon arrive in Washington, D.C. was true. Even so, Yoo Jae-won did not close his iWorks laptop. While online play was impossible, there were still ways to enjoy the game alone. He could create custom games on infinite maps to practice 7v1 computer rushes, or play the various modes made with the map editor. He had done everything possible to ensure that the proverb “a famous feast has no food” did not apply to StarCraft. Because of that, Yoo Jae-won had no doubt that StarCraft would join the ranks of ID Entertainment’s hit titles.
The meeting with IMF Managing Director Michel Camdessus would proceed in the same confident manner. They would land in Washington at 3 p.m., head straight from the airport to IMF headquarters, and begin talks with Camdessus. Yet Yoo Jae-won showed not the slightest worry. His face radiated absolute self-assurance as his fingers danced lightly across the mouse and keyboard. The countless units produced in the game moved organically under his control, as though they were a single living organism. It was the image of an emperor ruling the world at his fingertips.