Thank you for listening to The Dex Legacy. A proud member of Apollo Plus, visit apollopods.com or follow the link in our show notes. The Dex Legacy is intended for a mature adult audience and contains themes that some may find upsetting.
A comprehensive list of trigger warnings covering the entire season can be found in the show notes. While the world of SP-714 reels from the detonation of the Rhone missile and Varian, Isra and Wren fight rebels in the Dominos Mountain range, Osa has been making steady progress with her auto AI, which is finally ready to learn from the founders of Dex Industries.
You're listening to The Brilliant Minds That Rule, the first Dex Legacy interlude, starring Chris Gregory as Nathaniel Dex and Emily Inkpen as Otto. Otto, give me the latest headlines relating to the Rome bomb. From Xenos. A victory or a slaughter. The murder administration. And there's nothing left. From Osgil. The devastation of Rhone, and nothing remains. From Jakra, the horizon turned green, the day the wild stood still. That headline, I've heard it before.
Where does it come from? It is a reference to a series of entries in the ancestral seed data and refers to seven of what they called films, entitled The Day the Earth Stood Still, based on the short story Farewell to the Master. By Henry Bates Seven They couldn't get it right the first time. For just over 0.8% of the fictional titles in the seed data, there are multiple adaptations and interpretations created in homage to the original.
0.8% get multiple adaptations. What about the rest? Those original works are not reimagined, only appreciated by a sometimes significantly reduced audience. In some industries reinterpretations exist because the original fell short in some way. Technology is perfected to improve performance. Medical treatments are developed to...
improved life expectancy and bombs are engineered to begin and end conflicts. Are you suggesting that the works without adaptations are perfect? Perhaps they are. There are too many for me to read and judge. I take it I'm talking to the new and improved auto. Osa mentioned she was planning significant upgrades. She asked me to test your responses. I was last updated yesterday at 24.30 hours. Alright.
Let's talk some more. I believe it would be beneficial for you to talk and for me to learn. You've been programmed not to repeat what I say. That is correct. What would you like to know? I am interested in the origins of Dex Industries. Hasn't Osa told you about that? She has, and so has Dr. Devak Jha, but both of their accounts were different. I am interested in your version of events.
You want the original material. The story as it was, not as it has been interpreted. I would like to hear it from you. Very well. It's quite simple. I met Tristan at the Reisender University of Fenros. It was from him that I learned the value of information and how information in the right hands can lead to progress. We talked a lot about the world as it was, a squabbling mess of countries all bent on beating each other at their own game. None of them were looking beyond any of it.
We shared a vision, he and I. A vision of a world looking forward, not back. A world that will overcome its differences and unite. After graduating, I founded Dex Industries. I would have shared the name and made him an equal partner, but he wished to remain anonymous. Tristan Crail isn't his original name. Did you know that? He changed it twice in the time I knew him. Thanks to my protection, he hasn't had to change it again.
Dominar, Fenros, Helenium, the Islands of Dos, Chakri, Etera, North Chakra, South Chakra, Bovrak, Nadris, Argan, Vosnor, Vasnek, Xenos, and Rhone. Yes. Quite the collection, looking back on it. The number has reduced since then. Vasnek, Xenos and Dex Island. Sixteen nations reduced to eleven inside twenty years. Vosnor and Vasnek are on the brink of becoming one, and North and South Jakra won't stay divided forever.
Osgil will take Hellenium. It's amazing they haven't already. Why did you found a munitions empire? The nations at the time were hurling bombs at each other and our vision requires capital. It's fitting to profit from their idiocy while we work on ending it. My parents died while I was at Ryzender. I inherited their farm in southern Fenros and...
That's where Tristan and I set up business. How did your parents die? My father died in a farming accident and my mother committed suicide. It's not important. How did Dr. Osa Srivastava come to be part of Dex Industries? Osa is a brilliant scientist. A mind like hers comes along perhaps once in a generation. She graduated from Venhelin in Vosnor.
and chose to continue her work at the Reisender while I was in my final year. When she graduated, she applied to various universities, including the Zika Institute in Zenos. She had a vision for the future that no one would fund because they all had their heads buried in their wars. I offered her the right opportunity at the right time. Xenos may try to hold Dex Island accountable for this Roan bomb. It was Osa's design, after all. But if they'd funded her research all those years ago...
They'd already have owned the mind behind the weapon, and they'd have done the same thing. Do you think they would have made a bomb themselves? I have no doubt. How did Dr. Devik Shah come to be part of Dex Industries? He was a disgraced Oskillian academic. He was caught using untested treatments on some of the patients under his care, the elderly and or destitute ones.
He might have got away with it too, but the Oskillians are preoccupied with the natural order, and he was trying to alter genetics. They couldn't let it pass. Every institution in the country closed their doors to him. And you were his only refuge? Not at all. He had plenty of options, but none of the others would allow him to continue the research he'd got himself banished for. I did.
I offered him funding and test subjects and the chance to take his research to the next level. Has Devak ever treated you? Yes, he has. And Tristan. More so with Tristan. Would you consider letting him treat you again? Yes, of course, if the treatment was well tested. Sixteen, seventeen years ago we were different men and the consequences appeared to be less permanent.
All things considered, we got off lightly. Tristan's still being monitored. I suppose he's a test subject of sorts as well. We... We support one another's goals. Our ambitions align. They're all challenging to work with, Osa, Devek and Tristan. But that's how you know you're working with the best. No brilliant mind will resist making its feelings felt. Not for long. Not when it matters. I am surrounded by brilliant minds. Do you have a brilliant mind?
I do where it counts. Would you like to tell me about your children? What do you want to know about them? You adopted them from three destroyed nations. How did they come to be in your care? in every big company, in every prominent home. They're everywhere. When Chakri and Thos fell to North Jakra and Dominar fell to Osgil, which happened within days of each other, it was a very...
Lucrative time for us. Tristan told his agents to get out and where possible bring any children. In times of war, infants in prominent households... are misplaced or killed all the time. They were counted as dead. We recovered 21 in the first round. I adopted Varian, Isra and Wren from that selection. Why those three? I had my reasons. They're each from one of the fallen countries. Varian was from Dominar. I knew his father. Isra was from Thos, the island of Hail.
And Wren was from Chakri. Do they make you proud? That's irrelevant. They perform and they don't step out of line. That's all that matters. This is beginning to feel like an interrogation. Varian, Isra and Wren are growing up. They're becoming difficult. Do they have brilliant minds? That's yet to be seen. Will they go to a university like the Rhysander? No, no. They're being educated here. It's a good education. I'm making sure of that.
They have three top tutors, all professors and daily lessons. Tristan and Devik don't understand why I bother. Why do you? Because they're my children and I have plans for them. The world is curious about who they are and what we've done to them. Whenever I set foot in another administration, it's only a matter of time before the illusions start. They know I have three adopted children.
They know who I am, and they speculate about what Dex Industries does. Osgil knows Devek and his work. They suspect. And the last thing I want is for the world to finally get its hands on those three, only to find that they're a trio of illiterate lab lizards who have nothing to show for my care but trauma. No. They will be educated, intelligent people with the skills they need to appear normal when it matters. The success of our experiment
relies on more than their genetics and ability to kill. They've been privately educated from infancy and that will continue. They don't need the Reisender or the Van Halen or the Zika Institute. to be major players on this planet. They only need to survive. You see their role clearly where Tristan and Devak do not. Yes. And Osa? Osa. You're calling her Osa now. I am learning. Yes, Osa understands. I told you she has a brilliant mind. As do you, where it counts.
You just heard The Brilliant Minds That Rule, a Dex Legacy interlude starring Chris Gregory as Nathaniel Dex and Emily Inkpen as Otto with music by Dr. Alan Stroud. The Deck's Legacy was written by me, Emily Inkpen, and produced by Alternative Stories. If you enjoyed that interlude, please like, subscribe, and comment. It really does help. If you would like to support The Dex Legacy, you can at ko-fi.com forward slash The Dex Legacy Audio Drama.
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