The double doors of the Grand Pavilion's primary banquet hall were flanked by guards in tailored black uniforms, their postures as rigid as the marble columns supporting the vaulted gold ceiling.
Inside, the room was a meticulously engineered matrix of class and leverage. Eighty circular tables, draped in heavy white damask and set with polished silver, radiated outward from the elevated dais where the Minister of Commerce and high-ranking state directors were already seated.
A team of uniform-clad protocol ushers stood near the entrance, holding digitized seating charts on glass tablets.
