Max gave his best professional smile to Farseer Ernie.
“You have a keen eye, but at the moment, those are the only non-military vessels we produce. As you said, it is a niche market, so it may not be in our interest to increase the number made when we would only be getting copyright income from the vessels you make.”
Ernie nodded. “But they are also the oldest design that you have in current production, and you have developed two generations of more advanced hulls since they were placed on the market, so I believe that you will soon be transitioning to an ultra-modern yacht, either with the morphable hull or with the monomolecular design of your new World Ship.
If either of those comes to the market, this line of vessels will become functionally obsolete in your inventory, but there is still a strong but small market demand for such classically designed budget yachts. We would, of course, be willing to make direct examples of your design with the current credit scheme.
We would also not be the only ones that you have licensed for the production, and our analysts have noticed that while they are offered, your other partner has deprioritized their production, with wait times over two years before the hulls start down their line.”
Max hadn’t known that. But he had also never checked into how that deal was working out. They were supposed to be exclusive, but two years to start building the ship seemed excessive.
He made a note for the design department to look into it since the deal had been made with the help of Alliance lawyers to prevent the other party from holding onto the deal if they had functionally backed out of their side.
Max took the offer from the table and looked it over quickly to verify that it matched what was in the man’s mind.
“Now isn’t the time for a lengthy business deal, but I will schedule you a meeting with our negotiation and development team for sometime later this week after the battle on the surface is finished. I think we might be able to work something out.” Max agreed.
The easy agreement seemed to embolden the others, who didn’t see the deflection that the Farseer had done and assumed that his company only had small ambitions to be a budget yacht builder.
Not that there was anything wrong with that, but theirs were large corporations, and they were after generational Government Contracts. If they could land a deal to make even a half dozen world ships and a standard hundred-year maintenance contract, they would be set until the end of their lives.
World Ships was a massive investment, and while they didn’t know how Absolution was made, they knew that it was something new and incredibly capable, which would make it easy to market. For that reason, they had prepared very reasonable conditional contracts that would provide Terminus Trading Company with a fortune in Royalties if they could secure a government procurement contract to build vessels built on Terminus Trading Company Technology.
The World Ships of the Alliance were the so-called “Invincible Ships” to the people of this Galaxy and were heavily armed and defended, so any deal to provide them would involve providing the involved companies with plans for all the associated technologies and weapons.
That wasn’t going to happen, and the Farseer looked incredibly smug after his third eye flashed again, and Max saw a vision of the dejected representatives leaving the table.
They put their deals out on the table, then looked over each other, and quickly edited their own within the parameters that their company had allowed so that they could try to compete with each other. 𝐞𝗻𝐨𝘃𝗹.𝐜𝐨𝗺
“While I appreciate the effort that you all have put into your presentations, Terminus Trading Company is not in the market to distribute plans for military technology at this point in time. Should you be interested in another aspect of our business, I would be willing to entertain an offer, but the World Ships, with their unique capabilities, are not up for sale to any outside parties right now.
It’s not a biased matter, no company would have done any better, and not even the other human Factions will be given access to this technology for the foreseeable future.” Max explained, sliding the offers back toward the representatives.
“I see. My thanks for these moments of your limited time.” The representative on his far left agreed, and they all stood to shake his hand and left with the same dejected looks that they had in the Farseer’s vision.
Ernie stood a second after they left the table and shook Max’s hand. “I will be in contact after the battle. I am booked on Terminus for another two weeks, so there is no particular rush should you have other pressing matters to deal with before getting back to trade agreements.”
“It has been enlightening to meet you. Your insights are a unique ability.”
Ernie gave him a graceful bow and turned to leave, but Max could see in his thoughts that he was detailing how the flashes were thought to work. His species believed that the third eye saw through time and not light, though they had no scientific proof.
The Alliance recordings said that they did much like Max or the Illithid and read the emitted bioelectric signals and brain waves of living creatures around them, then came up with a probable outcome instead of actually interpreting the thoughts they detected.
Without data, Max couldn’t prove the answer either way, but for the first century or more after the System activated, humans couldn’t scientifically explain the mental manipulation type System Functions either, so he was willing to be open-minded, and perhaps see if he could find someone from that species to bring on board Absolution.
Seeing the future might not be real, but if they had some innate ability to calculate outcomes, it would be very valuable in battle if they were used as advisors on strategy.
