Galactic Empire in New World

Part 1 : The Engineer

Chapter 1

Iskandar Zulkarnaen is an unmarried 35-year old engineer from Indonesia. He lives in Jakarta, Indonesia. He works for a national heavy equipment company owned by the brother of the former vice president of Indonesia. The company is known for its innovation and heavy equipment products, although they do not have an official R&D unit. Iskandar is one of the experts working to develop various heavy equipment marketed by the company. Every day, he struggles with designs purchased or obtained from various countries (particularly China) and develops them so that they do not closely resemble his original designs and do not violate their patents. This is often referred to as reverse engineering. As a result, Iskandar became very skilled at designing heavy equipment products, and he had the pleasure of collecting various designs of equipment, including military equipment. This is used to hone his ability to design new equipment from existing designs. Because there are not many engineers, Iskandar is involved in various projects at once, many of which are unrelated.

Although he is extremely busy at work, he continues to follow her habit of reading Japanese, Korean, and Chinese novels and comics. This is despite the fact that he is a single person. One of his favorite genres is the Isekai form. In addition, Iskandar has had a passion for science fiction books ever since he was a child. As a result, he eventually developed an interest in the domains of science and engineering. His aspirations and education prompted him to pursue a career as an engineer, and he even went so far as to pursue graduate-level schooling in two subfields of engineering: mechanical engineering and electrical engineering. Iskandar is also a fan of a great number of important scientific figures. Michio Kaku, a theoretical physicist who attempts to bridge theoretically between the world of science fiction and the world of theoretical physics, is one of the world personalities that he admires and follows in his way of thinking.

As a result of his fascination with the realm of science fiction, Iskandar became a member of a number of science fiction groups in Indonesia, as well as the Star Trek community and the Star Wars community. Indo Star Trek is the name of the Star Trek community in Indonesia, while Order 66 S.I.T.H. Indonesia is the name of the people who are interested in Star Wars. He frequently engages in discussions or gives lectures that are more scientific in character with regard to the realm of science fiction when he has some spare time on his hands. There are a great number of events like these that are hosted by both science fiction communities, particularly Indo-Star Trek.

In addition, he spends a significant amount of his spare time, for instance, while he is unwinding at home, imagining the technological side of things, particularly from the science fiction series Star Trek and Star Wars specifically. As a consequence of this, he consistently visits websites that provide information about technological topics, such as the technical specifications of starships or in-depth debates about technology. As an additional point of interest, he, like Michio Kaku, endeavors to see or blend science fiction with actual science. Many of his scribbles or idle calculations attempt to see the world of science fiction when viewed from the real world. However, due to the fact that his expertise is not as good as that of Michio Kaku, the calculations are merely elementary.

Because of his fascination with the world of science and science fiction, Iskandar is less able to get along with people of the opposite sex. In fact, so far, Iskandar has only ever been in close contact with or dating with one person, and it only lasted for a few months. Even that relationship was enough to terrify him because there were many quarrels between the two because of Iskandar's hobby. As a result, until now, Iskandar has been very afraid to approach women outside of professional and casual relationships. Many times, Iskandar was set up by both his officemates and his family, but it never worked out.

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One time, Iskandar was given the task of participating in a short 2-week training on foresight conducted in Tokyo, Japan at NISTEP (National Institute of Science and Technology Policy) of Japan. Foresight is needed to determine what products or technologies will develop or trend in the future, so that companies can anticipate them with new products that have already been developed. This, of course, will increase the competitiveness of the company. The training is one of the annual NISTEP programs given to developing countries, usually given to R&D actors. Of course, Iskandar was very happy to get the opportunity, because he had never been to Japan. Iskandar also ask additional days to stay in Japan. His boss gave him an additional 3 days, and Iskandar asked for leave to extend it up to 1 week. In total, he will be in Japan for 28 calendar days. Fortunately, his superiors agreed because, at that time, the company had not received any projects that required engineering. In addition, during his time working for the company, Iskandar had never taken a leave of absence, with the exception of when he was sick. Iskandar has 15 days to explore Japan. He did not forget to book lodging to explore Japan. Since hotels in Japan are quite expensive, Iskandar chose to rent a room through Airbnb.