Chapter 269: Public Opinion War! UNSC High-level Officials Alarmed! The Age of Eqiumin!

"Officer Alex."

At this time, the voice of AI Loki came into Alex and Cage's headset communication.

"We have successfully suppressed the rebel fleet of the Front and taken control of the situation in the low-Earth orbit of Psychedelic. We have also intercepted the Nova-class nuclear bomb."

"Now, we are about to send a commando team to land in your area and completely control the city of Secudus below."

"Also, your direct supervisor Morgan Blackhand wants to contact you. I am connecting you to his signal."

Immediately, as soon as AI Loki finished speaking, Morgan Blackhand's voice was heard:
"Alex, Cage, and Rita, your three missions will be to assist the Megacorp fleet and members of various departments in dealing with the rebels in the Eridanus II system and taking control of the situation here."

"I have modified your mission instructions and uploaded them to headquarters. Your points are still valid. That's it."

Morgan Blackhand was conveying Leon's highest instructions. After all, this incident happened by chance, so there was no need to carry out the original mission.

The tasks completed by Alex and Rita this time will be accumulated as points and counted into their personal career performance tables.

"Okay, sir."

After Alex responded, he couldn't help but ask about the situation on Li De's side out of curiosity.

After all, she was just a special agent of the Intelligence Department, and she and Reed belonged to two different systems. Alex had no channels to get in touch with Reed who was on an expedition abroad.

"Ha! They are making good progress over there. They are now the top leader of the Star Alliance. Don't worry, the boss is in constant contact with them. There won't be any problems."

Morgan Blackhand did not hide anything from Alex, because this couple was a well-known model "couple" within the giant company.

"Okay, thank you."

After learning that everything was going well for Reed, Alex finally breathed a sigh of relief.

"I'll leave the matters here at Eridanus to you. Please be careful along the way."

After saying that, Morgan Blackhand took the initiative to hang up the phone.

Meanwhile, a brilliant meteor shower once again fell from the sky of the city of Secudus. It was an airdrop warehouse dropped by a giant enterprise, filled with "tin cans"!
boom--! !

When they were only a few hundred meters away from the ground, the airdrop pods activated their buffers to slow down, and then all of them fell near the military base.

Click!

The hatch popped open, and a group of Astartes warriors armed with grenade launchers quickly rushed out and took over the base.

As for the rebels around them, when they learned that their own fleets had been completely wiped out, they all chose to surrender.

When Rita saw the friendly forces finally arrived at the scene, she put down her weapon with a sense of relief. After being on guard for almost 24 hours, she could finally rest!
Under the comprehensive control of the Global Corporation Forces, the passengers and staff of the Neptune who were detained in the prison were naturally freed and could return to their homes.

But before going back, they still have to cooperate with the publicity department of the giant company to complete some filming and interviews. As for the content, of course, it must be "good reviews" that are beneficial to the image of the giant company.

……

A week later.

While the Eridani II system was being completely cleared out by the fleet of the Universal Corporation, the situation far away in the solar system was equally chaotic.

Solar system, Earth!

Under the transformation of the UNSC, Earth, the human home planet in the Halo universe, has become an impeccable military fortress.

In low-Earth orbit alone, a large number of defense arrays are deployed to prepare for any threats from outer space.

Whether it is an ordinary meteor or an unidentified thrown object, if it wants to fall to the surface of the earth, it must first pass through thousands of orbital close-in defense guns.

In addition, there are countless warships docked on the Earth’s orbital space stations.

The entire earth is surrounded by warships, space stations, and defense arrays, and dazzling jump lights flash from time to time.

The jump space in the solar system is extremely busy.

As the political, economic and cultural center of human civilization, the Earth naturally also serves as the core hub within the three rings of the near-Earth colony.

Mars, located in the fourth orbit, is an important production area for producing weapons and building warships, and many military families live on Mars.

In short, the humans in the solar system can definitely be described as happy, comfortable, and awesome. They enjoy absorbing the "blood and sweat" from the various colonies to their heart's content.

While enjoying great material abundance, a strong armed force can also give them a great sense of security.

At this time, humans in the Halo universe have not yet learned of the existence of the Covenant and the Forerunners.

Except for the top humans and the scientific researchers involved in the Forerunner ruins, the rest of the humans even think that they are the only "players" in this universe.

When the vast universe became a stand-alone game, humans living on Earth did not feel the slightest bit of tension or worry about survival.

After all, all the resources and planets in the universe belong to them!

This is the United Nations Space Command, UNSC's Earth headquarters, Sydney, Australia.

As the headquarters city of the UNSC, the city of Sydney has become far more prosperous and larger than cities such as Reach and Arcadia after hundreds of years of development.

The daily worry of the people living in this shining pearl-like city is to think about which galaxy to travel to tomorrow.

As for work, people from other colonies had already provided services for them.

After all, the reason why some people can live a peaceful life is because there are others who carry the burden for them.

At this moment, the top leaders of UNSC, UEG and ONI, whose originally peaceful days were disrupted by the strange changes during this period!
The heart of Sydney.

In the mid-level conference room of the UNSC headquarters tower.

"It's been so long, and we still haven't gotten any concrete information about the Universal Corporation. Are all your ONI intelligence personnel useless?"

As an angry roar sounded, the people outside the meeting room subconsciously slowed down their pace, trying to eavesdrop on the shouting inside.

"It's fine that you can't get any information about the Universal Corporation, but you don't even know that the Neptune disappeared in the Eridanus II system. The rebels took hostages right in front of us. This is a provocation to us!"

"We, the UNSC, spend so much military money every year to provide intelligence to your ONI department, but in the end, there is no intelligence at all."

"Your people took all the public funds and put them in their own pockets, and used them for eating, drinking and having fun, right? Speak up!"

The person cursing in the conference room was Admiral Terrence Hood, the supreme commander of the UNSC Navy and chairman of the UNSC Security Council.

In this conference room, he is considered to be the most powerful person present, commanding the strongest military force of mankind, and can be regarded as the top human being in "Halo"!

"General Terrence, please calm down. You and the other generals present here have been through many battles. You shouldn't get angry and lose your mind over such a small matter."

Vita Lopizzi, the female executive who spoke back to Terrence, is a special inspector of ONI and has the power to supervise and impeach executives of various departments of the UNSC.

She belongs to the ONI department, so she stands on the side of ONI's interests, defends her own people, and refutes the powerful Admiral Terrence.

The people in this conference room are all the top dignitaries in the human camp of "Halo". They are either senior executives of various departments, or high-ranking generals and commanders.

The core point of their dispute today is actually just one, and that is the global giant enterprise!
The previous front-line rebels were at most annoying and a hindrance to the UNSC, but the emergence of the Universal Corporation has shaken the foundation of their rule.

At this moment, the executives were having a heated discussion about a series of events triggered by the global giant, but if you listened carefully, you would find that they were all blaming each other and arguing.

There are only a handful of people who really explore solutions!
Not long ago, Alex and others mistakenly entered the city of Saigudus. After they had someone draw lots to deal with the rebel base camp, the entire rebel army began to surrender to the Universal Corporation on a large scale.

Although the hostages were released, the rebels had a new master, a powerful and influential one.

This made the UNSC executives present feel deeply uneasy.

Coincidentally, within a few days, a large number of media reports on global giants appeared in the colonies around the world.

But the source of this information cannot be traced, as if it appeared out of thin air.

The information published by these media includes introductions to the technological products of the world's giant companies, such as hard light weapons, technical weapons, kinetic weapons, and various genetic weapons.

In addition, there are various corps and armed forces of the market development department. At the same time, the media of the world giants have made public the existence of the world of the heavens, the giant buildings, and the world trade circle.

There is a large amount of video footage as evidence, which left a group of viewers who did not know the truth stunned.

Of course, these are not the worst things.

The most terrifying thing is that the Universal Corporation has actually dispatched a large number of agents to assassinate senior executives of various departments of UNSC, UEG and ONI.

First, various evidences and letters of denunciation were listed, and then the whole process of the killing was made public. This satisfying and refreshing approach instantly gained the support of a large number of grassroots people.

But for the top brass of various UNSC departments, this is like shitting on their heads!
According to normal procedures, criminals must be tried before they can be executed.

However, the agents of the global giant first used so-called evidence to prove the criminal's negligence, and then took private action to kill him by force.

Throughout the entire operation, the corporate agents completely bypassed the UNSC's judicial procedures, and this intention could not be more obvious.

The global giant corporation is going to completely seize their power!

From trial to execution, everything was done in the giant corporation's own way. They used their own justice, morality, and weapons of violence to execute high-ranking UNSC officials in front of countless people.

This is simply killing people and destroying their hearts. It is fundamentally undermining the credibility of the UNSC!

Cybersecurity personnel on Earth and in various colonies are also actively controlling comments, attempting to delete and block content that is unfavorable to the UNSC.

But they simply can’t delete all of it, nor can they control the rapid spread of information. Even smart AI is helpless against this!
Now, information about the world's giant companies is like rapidly dividing cells, quickly occupying every corner of the Halo human network world.

In just a few days, public opinion dominated by giant companies has created a huge uproar.

Faced with the uncontrollable public opinion controversy, the senior officials within the UNSC were divided into two factions. One faction wanted to succumb to the giant corporation, fearing that they would become the next target.

After all, senior executives who can make it to their level all have some unknown black materials in their hands. As the superiors, if they don't take a few lives, how can they get to the top?

Therefore, most of the doves expressed their willingness to cooperate with the world's giant companies for a win-win situation.

The Universal Corporation is a human civilization that came from a parallel universe, which means that their strength must be far superior to ours, and a head-on confrontation will certainly not yield any good results.

The remaining hawkish members firmly stated that they should not give in to the other side so easily.

In their view, these public opinion wars are nothing more than simple tricks to mislead people.

As for the wealthy and powerful and the petty bourgeoisie, they just treated the news as after-dinner jokes and watched the show calmly from the sidelines the whole time.

No matter how many dynasties change, it will not affect their good life. They can eat and drink as usual.

When the situation becomes clear, they will emerge in time to stand on the side of the winner. This is how the human aristocratic factions have basically survived for thousands of years.

Only those ordinary people in the colonies who have suffered oppression and belong to the marginal areas regard the world's giant companies as truly capable and powerful rebel organizations.

They are not stupid. They know that this information is "made up" and is of the same nature as slogans like "The Great Chu will rise and Chen Sheng will be the king."

It doesn’t matter if we engage in false propaganda, as long as we can crush those UNSC bastards!

So when they saw that the rebellion tactics of the Global Corporation were more numerous and more novel than those of the Front rebels, they all chose to stand on the side of the Corporation and expressed their strong support.

However, all the UNSC high-ranking officials present were well aware that all this information and data was true, and they could not find any signs of falsification.

Because as early as when the battle broke out in the Eridanus II system, UNSC spies had passed the information there to the headquarters.

It's a pity that after the Universal Corporation took over Secudas, the spies planted inside lost contact and were probably caught by the Corporation's intelligence department.

Now, the UNSC has completely lost sight of the Enterprise and has no idea what the enemy will do next!
Faced with ONI Inspector Vita's retort, Admiral Terrence was so angry that he laughed. He stared at the ONI executives present and said in a deep voice:
"Yeah, we old guys have lived for so long, and we've never encountered anyone who dares to rush into our front door and take away our scientific research members and artificial intelligence devices."

"A department specializing in intelligence work was attacked twice in the same day by the enemy, and in the end they couldn't even find out where the enemy was."

"Where is your sanity? Has it all been eaten by pigs and dogs? Why don't you use your brains to think about how the enemy did it!"

Terrence's words were completely swearing, blaming the ONI department for its incompetence from all aspects from the perspective of dereliction of duty.

Upon hearing this, the faces of the ONI executives suddenly turned dark. They certainly knew what Terrence was referring to.

During the riot on Reach, Dr. Catherine Halsey and the intelligent AI Sifer were all abducted by the world's largest corporation, and there has been no news of them since.

But this is not ONI's fault.

Their intelligence department was not originally intended to engage in combat, so it was normal that they could not defeat the enemy given their fierce firepower.

If the UNSC customs hadn't let these robbers in, how could such a thing have happened on Reach?

So in the final analysis, it’s still the fault of their UNSC Customs!

Just when ONI's top brass wanted to continue to pass the buck to the UNSC, a shrewd and capable middle-aged female executive spoke up in time to stop this ridiculous dispute.

She opened her mouth and said to everyone:

"Everyone, the purpose of holding this meeting is to solve the problem of Universal Corporation, not to blame each other."

"General Terrence, I completely understand how you feel right now, but for the sake of the overall situation, I still hope that you can be more tolerant of your colleagues in various departments. After all, you still need ONI's intelligence department."

The person who spoke was the commander-in-chief of ONI Intelligence, Colonel Margaret Parangoski. As the head of ONI, she had considerable say within the UNSC.

In some ways, his power is no less than that of Terrence.

Inspector Vita Lopez, who just challenged Terrence, is one of her lackeys.

After hearing what Margaret said, Terrence didn't say anything more, but just looked at her coldly. The ONI department was so incompetent, and Margaret, as the commander-in-chief, must be held responsible for it.

"Colonel Parangoski is right. Now is not the time for us to act arrogantly. We must find a way to deal with this unknown giant enterprise."

The person who echoed Margaret was Andrew Del Rio, the highest-ranking commander of the UNSC Naval Operations Force and captain of the Carthage-class aircraft carrier.

Logically speaking, Andrew should be under Terrence's management and should speak for his own admiral.

But Andrew himself has a relatively rational and peaceful personality, and has no direct factional inclinations. He is considered a pragmatist within the UNSC top brass who only knows how to do things honestly.

So even though Andrew was speaking to Margaret, Terrence was not very surprised. He just stared at the ONI executives without saying a word.

"Colonel Parangoski, since your ONI department had some friction with the agents of this force as early as last year, and it has been so long now, I believe you should have some research results."

As expected, Andrew's next sentence pointed the finger at Margaret, which startled the ONI executives present and they all looked at their commander-in-chief.

Faced with Andrew's questioning, Margaret did not rush to answer him, but operated the touch device in front of her to mobilize several holographic screens.

On the screen, the ONI headquarters on Reach and the ONI research institute in Arcadia appeared. These were the images recorded by the surveillance equipment.

At this time, Margaret continued to speak:
"This so-called giant corporation actually attacked our research base last year. This is the footage recorded before the surveillance equipment was blocked."

"It is obvious that this special forces team is very large, and it is not ruled out that they have undergone professional genetic modification."

"Of course, this information is not the main point. The main point is why they came to the research base and stole a large amount of scientific research data."

After she finished speaking, Margaret called up the images and some information about the remains of the Forerunner civilization.

Then, she began to explain to everyone:

"Many years ago, we discovered many alien creatures in our colonies. Most habitable planets have these creatures."

"After decades of research and analysis, we have confirmed that the remains of this civilization exist in Arcadia, Reach, and the habitable colonies of various tribes."

"Before its demise, this civilization was at its peak during a golden age called the Eqiumin Era, when it had achieved extremely high artistic and technological achievements."

"But for some unknown reason, this powerful civilization suddenly declined rapidly in a short period of time until it was completely annihilated."

"But the only thing we can be sure of is that all the relics and objects that we humans have surveyed today are from the Eqiumin era of the last civilization!"

(End of this chapter)