I used to hate politics... [pt. 4]
26 Jun 2023KrisKelvin
Believe it or not, before I ran off to seek riches among the stars, I tried to be a shrink. Yeah, I know. But I swear I didn't instrumentalize whatever chunks of knowledge on the matter I might have had to try and forge some confidence with the man. It just happened. And as someone who values trust, I will not break his in me. All I can say is that he's been through hell and back and still had the strength in his heart to see reason and not just blind anger. And that is what made him feel so helpless.What I did use my few learned techniques for was to help him get his talents back up and running. Besides all academic knowledge he had slipped on amidst our bohemian talks, I could tell he used to have a way with people. And it wasn't long before he could again convince anyone by just staring straight into their eyes and being honest. Believe me, it is a rare gift - even more if you consider the drowsy look he usually wears.
What surprised me the most was that he didn't even have to use it that much: a mob of eager academics, enthusiastic of his publications, showed up as soon as we posted the first public call to reassemble his disbanded research group. We had to improvise a selection process, because we had not expected so much interest so early. Less than a year later, we had a sizeable, well equipped and fully manned settlement to call our own. I funded it at first, but we managed to arrange a self-sustaining mining and logistics division soon enough.
With credits rolling in regularly, all costs and profits started to be divided equally; under Davis James leadership our community was more interested in getting the next results than in cashing it out to spend the rest of their days at some leisure themed planet. It was the time of our lives, meeting new people and building something that really mattered for everyone! It all grew so fast, and the prospects were some many that, at some point, the only thing standing between us and our shared objectives was... politics.