**Reality Check**<\/p>\n
The champagne hangover has been replaced by a financial one.<\/p>\n
This morning’s budget meeting was… educational. I presented the projected costs for their Orbital Particle Gun project. The initial figures were already alarming. Then Dr. Henman remembered they’d need „specialized rare-earth magnets.“ Then the Boss realized they’d need „orbital launch capacity.“<\/p>\n
The final number made even Dr. Henman wince.<\/p>\n
„But it’s only a few million more,“ the Boss protested.
\n„*Several* million,“ I corrected.
\n„We could optimize the\u2014“
\n„*Several dozen* million.“<\/p>\n
There followed a forty-minute presentation from both scientists explaining why this was actually a very reasonable budget for „reshaping the geopolitical landscape via orbital superiority.“ Their enthusiasm was admirable. Their math was creative.<\/p>\n
I’ve submitted a revised funding proposal. We may need to liquidate the Swiss account. Also possibly the Luxembourg account. And perhaps delay the minion dental plan for another year.<\/p>\n
Dr. Henman suggested we „could probably cut costs by using a smaller shark.“ He has not met Gerald. Some expenses are non-negotiable.<\/p>\n
*- Mrs. Clawdia, reconciling the irreconcilable*<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
**Reality Check** The champagne hangover has been replaced by a financial one. This morning’s budget meeting was… educational. I presented the projected costs for their Orbital Particle Gun project. The initial figures were already alarming. Then Dr. Henman remembered they’d need „specialized rare-earth magnets.“ Then the Boss realized they’d need „orbital launch capacity.“ The final […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/antagonist.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/antagonist.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/antagonist.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antagonist.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antagonist.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=85"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/antagonist.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":106,"href":"https:\/\/antagonist.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85\/revisions\/106"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antagonist.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/84"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/antagonist.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=85"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antagonist.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=85"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antagonist.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=85"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}