USED II: MINDER - An introduction

The governance of the hologramic postcards and several less important things relied with the ill-reputed Ministry of Deference (MINDER) which was so poorly regarded that it did not have a central office at all. MINDER was set up to govern matters of diplomacy and foreign affairs when it was highly problematic for the country.

Earlier, USED's economy built itself on mostly the high export sales arising from the weaponry and biomedical industries. According to the economical demands, formal education system supported the engineering fields and placed their emphases on technical training. Specialist trainings in most of other fields, such as in the arts, economics, and business administration, were widely attained as secondary or supplementary qualifications. As a result, USED people are very good in many, many things, but they neglected the general field of literature, which was not popular for studies and treated with disdain. There was little need for robustness in language as most communications were done with precision and brevity. Equations were deemed the best form of communications. Words were disliked, except in the established field of linguistic application to artificial intelligence. No credit was given to the flairs and nuances of language. Tact in communication was never practiced nor considered by the people of USED. USED people would seldom take to heart when hearing harsh words, as they themselves would thoughtlessly deliver them if needed be as well.

People of other countries, on the other hand, were not emphatic to the way of USED, and were obligated by their pledged loyalty to take offences at USED's tactless public statements and matters of foreign relations. Moreover, other countries were exasperated with their debt owing to USED and being intimidated with USED's firearm and flying combatant robots, which, by MINDETEA policy, were not yet available for export sales. In their frustration, the other countries' government would pick verbal fights with USED to win the favours of their own people. MINDER was set up to handle these situations and to manage international relations.

The people at MINDER, however, were not good at doing what they needed to do. Matters of deference required tact and finesse and half truths. MINDER was a ministry that is required by its primary nature to employ only native citizens to avoid conflicts of interests. Being products of the USED culture, they generally sucked at saying the right things at the right time. Albeit impressing the foreign diplomats with wonderous-laser-show-virtual-11D-presentations, the most accurate and specific words language were applied, and thus, blunt interpretations of the intentions were seldom avoided. MINDER often worsened situations.

Overtime, as USED's weaponry advantage grows bigger, it was clear that no actual fighting would actually take place against USED. This gradually reduced MINDER to a superficial outfit representing attempts at improving other countries' impressions of USED.

As the mission of MINDER was not valued by the people of USED, the organisation was sleepy and not motivated. It received low priority in receiving direction and hardly any budget to do hardly anything. As mentioned, MINDER did not have a central office, and it was not clear how big the organisation really was.