NationStates Jolt Archive

--Opening Secure Databurst
--Tightbeam; Encrypt=****
--TO: Whom it may concern, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The First Distributed Kingdom of Weyr
--FROM: John Archer, Minister of Foreign Affairs, The Galactic Inferno of No Endorse
--SUBJECT: Acquisition
--BODY: No Endorse would like to acquire some territory in the Sol system, most specifically in the area of Mars. However, as there does not appear to be much left on the suface to claim that would be of significant worth, we were wondering if you could help us out here. Would it be possible to contract you to pull an asteroid some fifty to one-hundred kilometers in diameter to Martian Orbit? We plan to make this facility a colony/trade station, military outpost, and possible final keep in case the homeland is taken.

We eagarly await response and cost estimate.
Signed,
John Archer, Minister of Foreign Affairs, The Galactic Inferno of No Endorse
--End Secure Databurst

Archer hit the return key with a bit of satisfaction. This would be an interesting branch for No Endorse, who knew what might come of it?

Relay: {BackTrace}
Dst: John Archer, Minister of Foreign Affairs, The Galactic Inferno of No Endorse
Src: Josiah Willard Gibbs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the First Distributed Kingdom of Weyr
SubjLin: Re: Acquisition
Attached: Martian Geopolitical Analysis; Project Details; Treaty Archetype

According to the Ministry of the Economy, Trade, and Industry, it will cost $_Sum to move a body between fifty and one hundred kilometers in diameter into stable Mars orbit. Most of the expenses will come from the labor hours expended due to limits in safe acceleration that can be imparted onto an object of this mass without causing it to fragment.

The First Distributed Kingdom of Weyr is most interested in working with the Galactic Inferno of No Endorse on such a project. As part of our alignment policy we would like to offer a bilateral mutual defense pact, restricted in coverage to the area around the planet Mars, in lieu of payment for all costs associated with moving the object you select.

Sincerely,
Josiah Willard Gibbs
Consul-General of Weyr

A very quick vote in the Council of Protectors determined that this was not only acceptable, but almost a steal. A reply was immediatly sent.

--Opening Secure Databurst
--Tightbeam; Encrypt=****
--TO: Josiah Willard Gibbs, Consul-General of Weyr
--FROM: John Archer, Minister of Foreign Affairs, The Galactic Inferno of No Endorse
--SUBJECT: RE: RE: Acquisition
--BODY: This is perfectly acceptable, and indeed quite a surprise. Please contact us as soon as you have found an appropriate object so that we may begin construction in transit. We thank you for such an offer of friendship, we will need a friend around Mars. We shall support you as far as the Sol system is concerned.

Signed,
John Archer, Minister of Foreign Affairs, The Galactic Inferno of No Endorse
--End Secure Databurst

OOC: Apologies for the late reply.

The bulk carrier's pseudo-intelligence surveys the iceball with a bit of distaste. It considers life on a cramped ball of silicates and frozen di-hydrogen oxide, computing the wastefuless of operating against gravity, and the hazards of being a giant target. The interest is passing; its designers programmed a bit of work ethic, and just enough curiocity to allow the intelligence unit to pick up new methods and information relevant to its work.

A secondary slave program adjusts pressure in the hose pumping hydrogen gas from the bulk carrier into the main fusion drive's enormous fuel tanks. The brilliant just over the horizon of the fusion torch adds a tenth of a meter to the iceball's velocity. Modified combat screens keep the acceleration evenly distributed across the planetoid.

Finding its hydrogen stores empty, the bulk carrier's psuedo-intelligence hooks its hose into the waste storage of the fusion drive. Helium gas rushes to fill the near-vacuum of the bulk carrier's tanks. In the next three hours, the pseudo-intelligence runs routine checks on the equipment propelling the iceball out of the Oort on an intercept course with Mars. Noting one of the three transponder beacons has failed -- the cause of destruction, unrecorded, was a small meteor impact -- it sends a priority message to Higher Up requesting servicing.

The message is recieved by the Weyrean government bureocracy. Specialists go over the information provided. With nothing out of the ordinary thus far, a message is sent to No Endorse, providing additional data on the iceball not collected by the initial survey and giving the go-ahead for them to begin construction of whatever they will, with the usual precautions about the fusion drive and the danger it poses to anything unshielded nearby.