Chapter 274 Echo Chambers and Incompetence
The day after Alexander's speech and announcement, all parties that had been involved in the bidding went crazy. Including those spectating "experts", of course.
Many of them complained about why the country had decided to trust an inexperienced company that had never been involved in the oil industry to drill the reserves.
Others that had watched Alexander's speech understood that he wanted to develop a domestic industry and chose a local company, Connect, as a way to kickstart their domestic growth. Even though they weren't an oil company, at least they had some kind of "drilling" experience... for whatever it mattered. Drilling for oil had nothing in common with drilling tunnels, after all.
The parties led by candidates that lost their presidential bid (the most popular of which having only received 2.45% of the votes) tried using that to sling mud at Alexander and paint him as corrupt and Connect as a company that bribed him. They insinuated that Connect wouldn't even be doing the drilling themselves, but would rather contract it out to another company. The inexperienced politicians thought it would benefit them after Alexander's term in office ended, and that they would be able to win the next election—or at least gain positions in the government in the upcoming round of elections—but they failed to account for one thing: Aron himself. There was no chance that Connect would fail in their task, or that they would violate the agreement between the government and the company.
Still, it would make Alexander's first few months or years in office rocky, and that's all they cared about. After all, if they couldn't have it, they didn't want anyone else to have it either.
With the international oil giants fanning the fire in an attempt to make the negative news as huge as possible and use it to further pressure the government into changing the winner of the contract, well... they simply acted as nothing but ammo for the other parties to smear the new president's reputation. That said, no matter how greedy, selfish, or incompetent Alexander's opponents were, they definitely wouldn't allow an outsider to benefit over them.
But the amount of backlash wasn't as effective as they had expected it to be, regardless, since the platforms they used to fuel the fire didn't have the user bases they once had. Most Edenians had already adopted Pangea, and when anyone tried using bots, they would be disappointed if they knew the actual results. Though from their end, everything looked like it was working, what they didn't know was that their instigation was only made visible to people that already shared their opinion. In later years, experts would call the phenomenon a social media echo chamber. For now, though, the people promoting the controversy thought they had achieved a great success and that "everyone" agreed with their points of view. This was despite them failing to sway anyone who didn't already agree with their opinions in the first place.
......
The day following the speech, Felix called for a press conference. And the turnout was enormous, as many news outlets wanted to know what they would be saying.
Felix entered the auditorium in their headquarters building, which was now being used as a press room, and walked to the podium amidst the camera flashes. He cleared his throat, then greeted the attendees before immediately getting to the main point.
"Firstly, I'd like to thank President Romero for trusting in the domestic industry's bid and going with us as the sole extractor of Edenian and Esparian oil. I'd also like to take this opportunity to issue a promise to the citizens of both countries that we'll do the best we can to ensure the trust placed in us isn't misplaced. We'll ensure that the citizens of both nations will see the benefits, and we'll do so without an iota of corruption.
"To that end, we've formed a subsidiary branch of Connect: Helios. They'll be responsible for oil and gas, and any other form of energy, both now and in the future. By the end of the week, the contract will be in place and we'll immediately begin constructing derricks. We expect to begin seeing results within the month, and within three months from today, we solemnly vow that you will see the benefits as well.
"I'll now take questions from the press." With that, the announcement was over and Felix pointed at a reporter in the audience. "Go ahead," he said.
"What do you have to say about the increase in the cost of oil for Edenians over the past month?" the reporter asked. The abrupt increase was unexpected, and seemed to be specifically targeted at Eden.
"One of the companies we've been purchasing oil from, Gazprom, decided to terminate their contract with us. That forced us to increase the amount we import from others, and due to the abrupt increase in quantity outside the original contracts with them, we naturally had to pay a premium," Felix answered. He was firing shots, uncaring about the potential consequences of naming and shaming a global oil giant.
"Isn't three months way too fast? Will you be skimping on safety to accomplish an unreasonable goal?" another reporter asked.
"We were forced to expedite things on our end to combat the temporary price increase sooner. The faster we have at least one oil field producing, the better it will be for everyone involved and the sooner the price of crude oil drops for everyone."
The next reporter asked, "Is it true that you are planning on paying another company to do the construction and digging for you?" He was obviously one of those in the same echo chamber as Alexander's political opponents, or perhaps had been bought and paid for by one of the oil giants, or maybe she was just really curious and wanted answers.
"No such thing will happen, as the materials construction will be provided by Hephaestus Heavy Industries. They're already the ones responsible for all the construction taking place in Eden, including the ports, airport, and rail network. They've already proven themselves reliable and trustworthy, both to us at Connect and to Eden at large," Felix said. It was the first time Hephaestus Heavy Industries (HHI) had been mentioned and introduced to the world.
"Next question... you, in the red shirt." He pointed at a reporter in the audience wearing an ostentatious red shirt.
"Is it true that you bribed the president to choose your company under the guise of domestic business support? After all, you have no experience at all." The reporter seemed to have come to the press conference specifically to ask what he thought was a "gotcha" question. To him, it didn't matter whether it was answered or not, as everything coming from Felix's mouth would be considered a scoop.
"Instead of answering, let me ask you a very basic question," Felix began.
"Before we started providing electricity to the entire country, which we did at the end of last month, did we ever have any connection to the energy industry?" He waited for the reporter to answer.
"No," he answered. He suddenly felt like he was falling into a pit he had dug for Felix.
"How about utilities like water and sewage?" Felix continued.
"No," he answered.
"How about the internet?"
"Not to my knowledge." He finally realized where he was being led.
"And how's the service from all of those industries we've entered been?" Felix concluded with a smile.
"Better and cheaper than it used to be," the reporter answered. He couldn't lie, as his credibility would tank and nobody would trust his reporting anymore.
"Then with those precedents being set by us, what should the people's expectations be now that we're entering a new venture?"
"That you'll be doing it in a better and cheaper way than it's usually done?" He answered, but wasn't confident in his answer.
"That's exactly what we're aiming to accomplish, and it's already in the works," Felix said, then chose another reporter to ask their question.
The reporter in the red shirt sat there in a daze, wondering how his immaculately planned question had been turned into highlighting his own incompetence. He had been stripped of any semblance of professionalism and dignity.
Felix continued answering questions for a while before declaring the conference concluded and directing any further inquiries to Helios' media liaison.
