[The Next Day]
Devils may not need sleep, but we sure as hell can get drunk.
"Eughh" Mammon and I got drunk, but it was well worth it..
We finally got a knowledgeable information source about their world. We didn't only get the finance portion of their society but also understood the theory behind their financial data.
The finance part is the most important though, because I am the devil's financier.
I manage all of the resources in this kingdom.
I smiled brightly, nothing excited me like conquering a new dimension.
Dimensions can be summarized into different classes, primary, secondary and tertiary.
Creative I know right, but there's a clear distinction between them.
Primary dimensions are quite small, oftentimes results of fractured universes, often containing no intelligent life or any life at all. Only a few Primary Dimensions have the right environment to sustain life. They're mostly useless and the extraction of resources would be the most optimistic outcome for finding one of these.
Secondary dimensions have quite the size. Often a result of a naturally smaller universe it holds the ability to cultivate intelligent life and rich natural resources.
Secondary Dimensions are where we cultivate most of our worlds and resources. We plant eggs for intelligent life to cultivate according to the circumstances of the dimension, with attributes inside them that let them come back to the main world without having to suffer through the pain of re-entry.
As they mature and develop they'll interact with the main world to trade with the rest of the demons and devils here. Demons who generally grow up in Secondary Dimensions usually have distinct traits usually from the need to adapt to their dimension.
Take Charlotte for example came from a Secondary Dimension full of green pastures and rich vegitative growth. She bore the resemblance to a demonized human because that's how her body can absorb the rich nutrients from the sun, while still being able to cross into the main dimension.
Tertiary Dimensions though, are what we're after. They're large dimensions with expanding universes with nearly infinite amounts of resources that have already cultivated life. They hold entire new laws of physics that define their universe differently from ours.
They're extremely rich with resources we've never seen before and connecting to a Tertiary Dimension is like having a near-infinite resource pool. We just need to find economical ways to get it!
If there was an analogy to these different Dimensions, Primary would be like a Leaf, Secondary would be branches, and Tertiary is the entire tree.
We cultivate insects to get the resources from the branches to trade with the main tree letting us grow even further.
If our tree can only produce Apples, connecting to a secondary dimension allows us to produce Oranges as well and a tertiary dimension lets us produce minerals!.
Earth is a target for our invasion as it's a Tertiary Dimension we have our sights on, hehe.
But this isn't an invasion with our guns or weapons, no, no, this is an invasion of using the markets.
I smiled, dressing up, putting my clothes on, I walked outside my castle. I took a deep breath in.
"Ahhh" I breathed out ,that sweet ashen smell of burning sulfur, like smoke from the hickory trees, but not so thick that it chokes me out. It's like the waft of the fireplace.
Below me I saw the hustling and bustling of Inkosyth's greatest Financial Capital. Ensyllis.
Ahhhh, Ensyllis. The beautiful city of money.
"Mammon" I whispered, I snapped my fingers, a portal of white flames appeared and as I stepped through I saw Mammon, without his shirt, on his chair sleeping .
"Fuck" I whispered. He was still asleep. Insokyth was in trouble even if it looked normal from the outside.
The cost to maintain such a strong dimensional empire is beginning to exceed the income we gain from maintaining such a strong dimensional empire. This won't be a problem for this generation, but soon, if the next generation's empire doesn't have enough funds to sustain the current status quo then it's possible that the empire's people will incur a revolution..
Well Why? You might ask.
It's simple, we can't pay people to stay loyal to us.
I'll use an example. Sydarthus was a small country that exists in a secondary dimension with rich aqua resources and a relatively small amount of intelligent life. Sydarthus had a leader which was elected through a large coalition of people and maintained in power by a smaller coalition of people.
The large selectorate of people who elected the leaders were the numerous nobles and businessmen that had to elect the leader into power. The smaller coalition though are the key people an upcoming leader needs to convince if he wants to overthrow the current leader.
People such as Military Generals, Important Civil Servants, Ministers of Finance, Leaders of Key Businesses are the essential coalition for the leader to stay in power. If these important people decide to betray the current leader of Sydarthus there isn't much to stop them from electing a new leader into power.
To prevent this, there is a very simple solution. Money! If you buy their loyalty, and make sure that the risk of betraying the current leader doesn't outweigh the benefits of maintaining the current status quo then even the least rational person would continue supporting the status quo. These important backers will then continue to enjoy reaping the benefits of being loyal to their leader.
Here is where the problems begin to mount, as the leader continues to use their resources to stay in power through inefficient sources of revenue such as high taxation, sooner or later they won't have enough money to purchase the loyalty of these essential people.
The essentials realize that the current status quo isn't paying them enough, and they would prefer another status quo which leads to them either initiating or allowing a revolution.
In the Inkosyth's Empire this might mean that in the dimensions would begin to revolt, not because it's better for the people, but because the essentials can benefit more from the exploitation of their own people rather than the trade through multiple dimensions.
For many people, especially businessmen, they prefer to work with the Inkosyth Empire because it's practically a goldmine to trade with us. They'll have greater access to customers, we've already built the infrastructure, there are greater access to resources to capitalize on, you gain access to different dimensions without having to exercise military power, there is a strong financial system established and they have to go through the Inkosyth Empire to trade between Dimensions.
The way the Inkosyth Empire is built, is that Dimensions can only trade with each other through the Inkosyth's Dimension. That's because some Dimensions are deadly to others, and peaceful to some, but Inkosyth's dimension is the only peaceful place where every dimensional being can reside peacefully. That's due to the demonic trait we give every fledgling civilization; without it they'll only be capable of adapting to their own worlds.
Imagine Charlotte once again, she'll be perfectly fine in her original dimension and in Inkosyth because she was raised with the demonic trait. If she tries to travel into a Dimension with Molten Lava Rain she'll die immediately. First from the strain of Traveling Dimensions, second the Molten Rain, third her body is incompatible with the Molten Lava Rain Dimension throwing off her natural balance. If the person from the Molten Lava Rain world came to her world, they would also subsequently die for similar reasons. Being part of the Inkosyth Empire bypasses these problems.
If I had to compare it, then connecting a dimension into the Inkosyth Empire is equivalent to a small village getting road access to a large bustling city.
But a small village will only want to be connected to the large bustling cities if the village chief is benefited from this connection. If he realizes that the people are paying less taxes he'll cut off the road even if it means his villagers starve and die poor.
We also need to show the villagers the benefit from being connected to a large bustling city because if the village chief cuts the connection, we need the people to love us in case we come with the military to forcefully re-establish the connection. If the people hate us then we'll be spreading our forces too thin enforcing each village, but if we are loved, the village chief needs to begin to weigh the benefits of the people revolting with a strong empire backing them up.
To keep the dimensions in control with the Inkosyth Empire we would need to show that the benefits of being part of the empire is far greater than not being part of the empire. We do this through economical resources, and the access to the different dimensions..
In essence, we provide a better life to people. .
When we lack the resources to provide a better life to people then it begins to become a problem.
The next generation will wonder why they're connected to the Inkosyth Empire, have a revolution for independence, we won't have the resources to deploy a military to stop all of them, and from there each dimension will begin to close off each other.
The leaders will begin to fight for larger slices of the pie at the expense of the people, increase tariffs between dimensions, and from there, I'll be leaving the empire worse than I found it.
To prevent that, we need to continue the perpetual growth of the Inkosyth Empire. Each new Dimension added to the Inkosyth Empire helps every other dimension also connected to the Empire. There are already a plethora of dimensions currently being cultivated that we expect to fund the further growth of the Empire but the number of dimensions we're finding are getting smaller and smaller.
The reason why every dimension is willing to be underneath the flag of the Inkosyth Empire is because even if they hold a small slice of the pie, they get extremely rich by holding a share of a massive pie that's continuously growing.
If the pie stops expanding, then the people holding shares of the pie realize that the only way for them to get richer is to take from others.
Thus wars, and conflicts, because there isn't enough to go around.
Think of the villagers going to the city to sell and buy things but no one is there to buy what they sell, and no one is there to sell what they want to buy. They'll begin to wonder, Why do we spend so much money maintaining the road to the city?
The Inkosyth Empire generates a lot of tax revenue but at the same time they also have humongous costs to maintain the Empire, each new Dimension costs more money to resource and maintain. Our military is strong, but it can be stretched thin.
If this trend continues then we can see a time when the pie stops growing and people begin to fight. The next generation might not see a world of prosperous growth but instead the ruins of our mistakes.
That's why it's important for us to begin importing more resources to another tertiary world such as Earth. From the information we've had on hand they have basically an infinite resource pile that they can't reach due to physical laws.
If we can begin connecting dimensions to Earth and the Inkosyth Empire the Empire can grow for much much longer. We can begin to extract resources from Earth's Universe and use them to further fund the status quo.