Paris, the E.U. Central Assembly Hall.
The semicircular, tiered chamber had a lengthy official name, but ordinary citizens preferred to call it the Forty-Person Committee. The name came from the forty delegates who had first helped establish the union system after the Great Revolution. The problem was that, over more than two hundred years, seats had steadily multiplied to accommodate Member Districts, financial conglomerates, trade associations, dominions, and special political groups. Today, more than two hundred committee members actually sat in the chamber.
Only the name retained the simplicity of the Revolutionary Era. Behind the dais stood a transparent, temperature-controlled case containing Napoleon's preserved head. Beside it hung the guillotine blade that had executed him.
The committee had always declared that this was the free Republic's warning to any would-be dictator.
Its opponents pointed out that, without Napoleon defeating Britannia and unifying most of Europe, they would not even have had the privilege of arguing in the same chamber.
That dispute had dragged on for more than two hundred years without a conclusion. The speaker presiding over the meeting struck his gavel for the third time.
"Order! Order, please! Today's emergency agenda concerns the Kashgar extraterrestrial life incident, whether to participate in the planetary defense plan, and Great Han and Holy Britannia's so-called-"
"Great-power arms race!"
A committee member from the Free Iris Zone stood up and cut the speaker off.
"I object to using a deceptive term like planetary defense for this military competition. Great Han and Britannia are exploiting the alien crisis to drag all humanity into a space arms race dominated by two empires. If the E.U. joins, we will effectively be acknowledging that these two autocratic regimes have the right to define humanity's future!"
The representative from the Ironblood Industrial Zone immediately slammed the table.
"But