Alex III was satisfied with the results on Five Star's side; all that happened followed his plans.
It's not that he predicted everything precisely; it's just that his plan is flexible.
The best plans aren't those with microscopic precision.
After all, unless someone is all-knowing, something in the process will eventually go wrong.
That tiny deviation can ruin everything if the plan is rigid and inflexible.
The best plans are those that can adjust and tolerate some deviations.
Alex's plan was only a general direction; specific events were not all in his plan.
For example, one of the steps was taking over a country on Five Star's side; It could have been the entire Five Star country or only part of it.
As it turned out, taking the whole country was impractical, so it ended up being only part of it.
Taking the whole country would have been slightly better, but only autonomous regions are enough for his future plans.
At most, he has to adjust a few things.
There are many advantages on Five Star's side.
For one, they are technologically advanced, and with advanced communication equipment like television, the internet, and airplanes, spreading information is far easier.
Those infrastructures are ruined now, but the technology is not lost. In at most a decade, the technology will recover nearly to what it was.
In the past year, Alex tried to encourage his scientists to copy the technology of Five Star in Alex's kingdom, but all of his efforts failed.
It's as if his people can only understand medieval science; no matter how much they tried, they failed to learn modern technology.
Alex III was astonished; are people in his Alex kingdom dumb?
He refuses to believe that his people are intellectually inferior; how can the people who have him as their king be dumb?
It seems as if there is a barrier preventing them from learning modern technologies.
He put finding the reason why at the top of the agenda, right behind spreading the rumor of him being a vampire.
...
Five years later.
UISEC has been established for five years now.
The system of governance in UISEC country is by holding elections. However, elections are just a show.
Each candidate must swear an oath to Alex's party platform before they run.
Sure, there are different parties; they differ on policies such as taxes and social issues.
But, on the question of Alex kingdom's influence, nobody can object.
Also, the candidate qualification commission can reject candidates who are 'objectionable.'
What election is democratic?
Opinions may differ, but there is one principle that most agree on: who can run or not run must be objective, not subjective. Objective criteria, like age, years of citizenship, etc., are preferable.
Subjective criteria, such as the candidate qualification commission monitoring, picking, and choosing candidates, are less democratic.
If the criteria are objective, most times, it's much closer to democracy. If they are subjective, it's usually not a democracy.
Five Star Country's criteria are objective; no commission or court could disqualify people.
Because of the proportional representation and party system, the parties can and will choose candidates based on subjective criteria.
But that is because parties want to preserve their ideological integrity.
Those who want can make parties effortlessly and run their own parties; the threshold is only 1%, so it's relatively easy.
But, on UISEC's side, a commission could remove candidates for no reason and any reason.
Even though there are elections, parties, parliament, etc., UISEC is not democratic.
As for the presidential election, the candidate qualification commission must also assess presidential nominees.
In the most recent election a year ago, the commission didn't approve of any candidate; as a result, President Stevenson remained the only candidate and got 100% of the vote cast with a 9% turnout.
It should not be surprising.
The candidate qualification commission is made up entirely of Rob's appointments. He, of course, would only appoint loyalists willing to do his bidding.
He is not as evil as Alex III but no saint; he felt no guilt for destroying free and fair elections.
As long as he is president, he can appoint candidate qualification commissions, and as long as he handpicks the candidate qualification commission, nobody else can be president.
There is no legal way to make him lose in an election, as no one can run against him.
There is also no term limit for the president.
Alex III wanted to abandon all this 'nonsense' democracy stuff.
But Rob wanted to have the legitimacy that elected leaders have.
So, even though he had the power to dispense with elections, he still decided to at least keep it on the surface.
Still, Rob wasn't a corrupt president.
He appointed the most qualified to non-political positions in the past few years.
UISEC did better recovering from the Dream Switch disaster.
It should not be surprising.
Every system has its advantages and disadvantages.
Even dictatorships can have advantages.
It's luck; if a country gets lucky and a benevolent dictator who is smart and thinks for the country's good comes to power, they will perform better than democratic countries.
Of course, the overwhelming majority of dictators only think of their pockets and power, so the chances of finding a good dictator are tiny.
In democratic countries, there is much wrangling about all kinds of details, and many policy decisions are made based on appearances and politicians' concerns about their next elections.
Dictatorships, like UISEC, however, don't care much about people, so they have the space to think long-term.
Rob was smart, and he had Alex III's help.
Alex III was evil, sure, but so were most medieval leaders in the history of everywhere.
One look at history can prove this.
Acts like slaughtering cities, killing whole families for the mistake of one member, using people as objects, torturing people, etc., were everywhere in medieval times.
Alex III is not particularly cruel by medieval standards.
In fact, it's extremely rare to find a medieval king who can be considered 'good' by modern standards.
Nearly all historical dramas on Earth sugarcoat the history for their audience, removing the atrocities.
The evil acts of Alex III do not stand out that much when compared with other medieval figures because most were evil monsters in their own ways.
With all that said, Alex III is not one of those kings who indulged in his harem, only thinking about his lower body and worldly enjoyments.
He is very focused, exercising and training with swords daily, paying close attention to all affairs.
It's just that he never focused on improving people's lives.
His focus always was to strengthen the military, attack, and expand.
Alex country was weaker than most of its neighbors at the beginning of his reign.
He attacked surrounding countries for years, strengthened Alex kingdom, and destroyed the Spike dynasty, the strongest in the surrounding countries a few years ago.
Now, Alex country is the strongest country in this area.
Alex III is a good strategist.
If, in the far future, they create a TV series based on him, they would remove all atrocities and justify those that can't be removed.
The viewers would be his fans because, in the end, he made Alex's country strong.
As for the atrocities on the way to make the country strong, they would mostly be forgotten.
There are too many examples of this in many worlds; the bad side often would be ignored if the result makes the country as a whole stronger.
...
With Alex's advice, Rob made many wise decisions to make UISEC strong; it's in their interest for UISEC to be strong.
With a lot of work, they repaired the internet infrastructure.
Then, UISEC started sending aid to surrounding countries.
Alex's kingdom couldn't look for the doppelgangers of leaders of neighboring countries.
Doppelgangers of those countries' leaders fall outside Alex's kingdom's territory.
For now, UISEC doesn't use aggressive methods; they just send help.
But, the end goal is winning influence over them.
The governments of those countries fell apart, but most now have at least regained the territory partially.
The internet is truly crucial in spreading rumors; without it, the job would be much more challenging.
Some big cities already have the internet back, but many places are still disconnected.
During the Dream Switch disaster, most servers were destroyed, and many factories that could make computer equipment were ruined.
But people with knowledge survived, so it's only a matter of time before it all returns to normal.
...
The conference the Alex Kingdom set up took place two years ago.
Delegates from twenty countries attended.
In that conference, Alex III brought a few what he called 'death row prisoners right in front of all foreign delegations, many of whom were high-ranking government officials.
Then, he slashed their throats, collected fresh blood, poured it into a cup, and drank it.
Many felt horrified, but as they were in Alex kingdom's territory, they didn't say anything and acted as normal as possible.
Alex III acted as if it was normal to drink human blood.
Then, he put the cup aside and started the conference as if nothing happened.
The main goal of this conference is to exchange talent.
Talent exchange conferences used to be common.
Some countries are good at farming, some good at forging, some good at crafting, etc.
In such conferences, for example, one side gives an experienced farmer and the other a skilled metal worker; if both are satisfied, they exchange them.
Both sides benefit from it, so why not?
Just one talented person sounds unremarkable, but one person can teach many.
Talent exchange conferences have changed countries in the past.
Even though Alex III drinking blood horrified them, leaving was not an option.
If they cannot leave, then they can only continue.
After a while, all the talk finished.
It was time for talent exchange.
Alex's kingdom sent many people who were talented in farming to all twenty countries in exchange for gifted people in various fields.
After a few months, the ambassadors left with talented individuals they got.
Those sent by Alex were agents responsible for spreading rumors about their vampire king, Alex III.
Alex III specifically drank blood in front of all foreign ministers for three purposes:
To show that his being a vampire is no secret.
To let the higher-ups of those countries be sure that he truly is a vampire.
To show that even though he is a vampire, he is not dangerous.
When those agents go to those faraway kingdoms, as people coming from far away, many would be interested in their stories.
They would say all kinds of shocking tales about Alex III, the vampire.
Alex III hopes these rumors spread like wildfire. There are three possibilities:
Nobody believes them, and the story fizzles out.
A lot of people believe them, and the rumor spreads everywhere.
Many people believe and become so terrified that they want some action.
Alex would like the second possibility to happen.
The story he instructed his agents is designed to be exciting and not too threatening.
Some of the countries that came were strong, so Alex III must be careful not to provoke them too much.
There is a 50% chance the second possibility will happen.
However, there is a 30% chance that people will feel terrified enough to demand action. They could:
Demand a war to destroy Alex kingdom.
Demand no relation with Alex kingdom.
Demand taking guard against Alex kingdom, increasing defense forces, etc to defend against Alex the vampire.
The chance of them demanding war is less than 5% because they are terrified of the evil empire, so they want to avoid it, not attack it.
Alex III calculated all the risks carefully and decided to do this.
However, even if it fails, he still has other plans.
His plans are very flexible, so there is room for error.
With all this done, he sat on his throne and watched things happen.
Now, two years later, his spies reported some promising results.