It took 22 congressional hearings, 9 interplanetary summits, and 20 billion angry citizens for the powers that be to decide on the question that needed to be answered.
My name is William Isherwood and I have been tasked by the Galactic Congress on this year, 127 CL, to explore with my team any and all documents of this event. I will bring order, give structure, and find the truth within the various, and copious, data so that the Galactic Congress may make an informed decision as to how repercussions and accolades should be doled out.
In other words, the GC has asked me to answer the question, “What the fuck just happened?”
In the files below I hope to do just that.
DOCUMENTS: VOYAGER PERMITS It seems safe to say this all started when the GC started selling lunar lots to the highest bidder. The people got what they were promised on earth, prosperity by all accounts boomed, but I don’t think anyone really knew what opening the heavens to private individuals would actually mean. The universe was so massive, how could a handful of interests find conflict in such a massive chasm? Attached are the permits. All in all they’re pretty simple. -Name of sponsor organization -name of leader -proposed settlement location -proposed purpose in space -proposed long term vision -Information about initial fleet Nothing too fancy, and maybe not even entirely honest, but at least it’s a starting point.
MINERVA GROUP VOYAGER PERMITS Sponsor: Minerva Group Voyage Leader: Captain Ander Hawkes Proposed Settlement: No planned settlement Proposed Purpose in Space: Collection of historical artifacts, and Cartography Proposed Long Term Vision: Extensive collection of mapping data, and artifact retrieval. All other directives are unspecified or property of the Minerva Group. Initial Fleet: Three ships: The Gungir, The Amarok, and The Aurelia.
FORUM: PUBLIC INQUIRY Since this is a public investigation, I've been asked by the Galactic Council to "engage the public." Members of the public are encouraged to ask questions here, and they will be addressed by myself or a member of my team. We reserve the right to ignore any question that might compromise this ongoing investigation, and I reserve the right to flat out invalidate any of the erroneous information one of my compatriots might provide.
META I'm trying a long form writing prompt. This thread will hold the entirety of the long form, and my top level responses will be the new prompts. I'm going to use what's submitted to build out a story to use as the basis of the next prompt and so on. Feel free to join any prompt at any time, and we'll try to slot you in. If you have any meta questions, ask here.
Q: Are we essentially filling that form out and posting it to that response as a starter? A: Yep. Don't spill your beans in the lobby, that's a public facing document, but I'm looking to get an idea of who your "player" is. A player could be one single rich individual with a skeleton crew, a large conglomerate of independent interests whose venn diagram overlaps with "space", or anything inbetween. Essentially, the earth is ready to explore to the edges of the heliosphere and our technology finally permits it. You're buying space in the first harbor and preparing so that you can launch your ships and achieve some goal.
DOCUMENTS: PUBLIC NOTES The question is, how could the soil of opportunity be so fertile that such massive weeds would grow? I guess it's because, like any good garden, there was a solid foundation of bullshit mixed in. After the War of Ideas the then called "Terran Council" needed a moonshot idea that would cement the new found unity of the survivors. Not being very creative, they decided their moonshot would be to go back to the moon. The establishment of the also uncreatively named moon base "Unity" served as a testament to what a cooperative human race could accomplish. It also served as a harbor to the universe. The moon was far enough out of the earth's gravity well that launching large ship expeditions to mine asteroids was relatively inexpensive. What we learned about robotics during the War of Ideas also helped to make it safe and autonomous enough that no one really had any qualms with us going up there. So for 100 years the earth got cheap materials and the pride of knowing war, once again, failed to break us. What leave me scratching my head is why the now overzealously named "Galactic Council" would start selling off lots to private individuals. I've read the lines about the "democracy of capital" and "the Great Investment", and maybe I'm just a cynic, but good will has never been the only reason that the powerful decide to share their power. But it was those permits, the lotting off of the Voyager Program, that planted the seeds of what would grow over the next 20 years. Who knows, maybe the GC really did think that everything that sprung up would be roses.