He's only got one roll to succeed at, he's not going to share his monopoly, he has a vested interest in keeping the world on oil. If he can patent fusion power, he can keep everyone else from using it, and I'm pretty sure that's his actual plan. Allowing us to have and use fusion power is directly against his needs. Conversely, should we develop any alterative form of power supply, we'll be his enemy. That simple.
Firstly, a patent on one method of achieving fusion power may not secure his position in the long run.
Secondly, It may have occurred to him that other sources of power
exist, that oil is a limited resource, and that if he wants to position himself for the future as well as the present he might want to simply be able to
sell futuristic, more advanced forms of power.
The "patent troll" solution is not the only conceivable thing he could be planning to do, and he may even have flexible situational plans. For instance, he may be
anticipating that someone else will try to unroll flubber power and then that he can counter with 'safer' fusion power.
Also...
I wouldn't be too surprised if he was looking at monopolizing another energy source to use it. While his company's reach is probably global, if he's mainly based out of/operates in the US his sources of oil are actually pretty limited. The main oil source is in Texas, which TBF Shego is cool with him owning and selling stuff in her territory since that's businesses baby, but the other main source of US oil is in the Dakotas/Midwest, places Flugel and Auto have taken over and are functionally black holes for a business' sake.
This- though I should point out that US-based oil companies own a LOT of foreign oil fields. It's entirely possible that Shere Khan owns wells and refineries in the Middle East, Indonesia, and other oil-producing regions around the world, just like major companies such as Shell, BP, Chevron, and Exxon do in real life.
Shere Khan wants to keep the world on his gas and oil piplines and shipping. If we make Flubber power or campaign for Flubber, we're his enemy and he'll try to sink it with PR. Even if we tried sharing the cut with him 50/50, that's still taking 50% of the energy market from him.
Olivebirdy, I think you tend to make very oversimplifying assumptions about what other people want, and about what
we want. That's not to say you're always wrong, but you tend to do this thing where you assume you know what is desired or true about someone, and then build out an inferential chain based on the assumption. When the initial assumption is shaky or an oversimplification, that can be a risky move.
Shere Khan may, for example, NOT want to patent-troll fusion power, and may intend to use it. If so, he may want to reduce the risk of embarrassing, costly failures by having a collaborator working on the project with him. Then again, he may not. It costs us little to discuss the matter with him, and if he IS willing to share profits it costs us little to simply work with him.
Most of the thread is not especially interested in trying to stomp on all the other Kings in hopes of defeating them all, and would be just as happy to take the path of least resistance to a
collaborative future that eliminates powerful threats to the world while letting various "Alliance of the Sane" Kings get along in relative peace.
