After Sean returned to New York, he once again found himself buried in a busy life of documents and meetings: Umbrella's energy rollout, cooperation contracts with the Pentagon, budget reviews and financial reports from various laboratories. That was with Skynet, the artificial intelligence, already handling part of the workload for him.
Sitting in his office chair, Sean let out a long breath. His sponsorship of Jane Foster's research was meant to give humanity a preventive shot. In the vast depths of the universe, Earth was not the only planet with a living civilization. Once the Chitauri army descended, humanity would realize that this planet's conflicts and infighting would only keep draining the strength of the human race.
Rather than endlessly fighting among themselves over resources and land, why not turn their eyes toward the Star Dust Sea? Using this Blue Planet as a starting point, they could begin exploring the cosmos, much like the Age of Discovery in the fifteenth century. As transoceanic voyages expanded and major geographical breakthroughs were made, new sea routes were opened, continents began to interact, and Eastern and Western cultures and ideas clashed fiercely.
Those navigators had risked their lives, setting sail into the boundless ocean in pursuit of legendary riches and treasures. It proved once again that as long as the rewards were tempting enough, humanity had never been stingy about paying the price.
In today's world, nations were plunging into a frenzy of resource plundering, while dwindling energy supplies foretold ever more intense conflict. That was why Tony had dedicated himself to promoting new energy. Compared to the arms industry, that was the truly inexhaustible gold mine.
Sean, however, believed that establishing contact with the great civilizations among the stars could trigger a technological explosion. Just as Europeans had done in the past,