Chapter 4 - fair & foul: Part 8

10 minutes

“Oh. That's right... That's something you would know better than anyone else.”

The Cavalry suffered a lot of deaths at the coup d'etat of Edenhall. A large majority of them had been those who were turned to Cie'th by fal'Cie Barthandelus. What Rygdea had gotten compensated for with the blood of Raines was later paid for by the blood of his own subordinates.

Ironically, the ones who benefitted the most from Raines's death were the former Sanctum dignitaries. While the ones who paid for it was the Cavalry.

Bartholomew turned his eyes to the footage of the large hall. The spectator gallery was almost entirely full. It was mostly filled with the same faces as the ones that filled the spectator gallery of Edenhall.

P182-183

They all insisted that the former Sanctum had already paid their dues and continued to sit their posts. Primarch Cid Raines had paid with his life, they said.

The fact that most of PSICOM's field officers had perished in battle was also advantageous for them. This was because they made the best subjects for shifting the blame onto, seeing as how the dead spoke no words.

In particular, it was proclaimed that Jihl Nabaat and Yaag Rosch, though they were already deceased, would be stripped of their civil rights for bringing unprecedented calamity upon Cocoon.

It was again ironic that a recording created by Colonel Rosch would become the trump card used for wiping out the old guard. It was likely that ever since Rygdea had acquired that ID Card, he thought it would be the only weapon that could defeat those who used Raines's death.

Either way, he was glad that Rygdea was the type of man who could make such cold calculations. If he had been the impulsive type who would bristle with indignation and go for assassinating congress people, then Cocoon could have been in the midst of a civil war by now.

He had heard that it was actually also Rygdea's suggestion that they refashion this concert hall into the parliament building. Although, it was apparently more something that he pushed through by taking advantage of the confusion rather than a suggestion. After he had the unburned records of proceedings and documents moved there, he may or may not have said, “It'll take too much work to move elsewhere and I can't get together the manpower, so why don't we just have the parliament here?”

He had probably already been working on modifying the security camera system and the storage room at that time. It would have been hard to do those kinds of preparations after the congresspeople started coming and going frequently.

It seemed there had been petitioning amongst the congress people for a new parliament to be constructed, but it was dismissed an outrageous request as a great number of citizens were still being forced to live in inconvenience.

Even if there hadn't been an issue of materials and manpower, Rygdea would no doubt still have done everything in his power to prevent the construction of a new parliament. Because his true motivation for choosing this concert hall was on stripping the legislature of its influence. Well, he hadn't asked the man himself, but Bartholomew was confident that this was the case.

“In a way, it's a good thing that Eden fell. The congress wasn't meant to be at a place where citizens had to look up at from below.

It was because Rygdea had said this around the time when reconstruction efforts were still close to nil. Even though it had been Palumpolum's most historical and prestigious concert hall, it was a place that residents would regularly visit.

Differing from how Edenhall was closed to the public for the supposed protection of dignitaries, the large hall from where concerts had been televised, would be watched by citizens in some way. If they were at a place people were well acquainted with, then there would be no sense of authority or mystery...

“I guess I've found some work to do.”

Mumbled Bartholomew with his eyes turned to the screen. He would open to citizens places that the former Sanctum had made closed to the public and enforced access restrictions on. Even if problems of security were to arise, those were different issues. The right to knowledge and safety could by no means be traded off with each other.

P184-185

Before long, footage of the Chairman walking to his seat on stage was being projected. “Now, let's see what you're made of,” muttered Bartholomew.