Part 3: "Fuck You Novari", by Flat Earth Games originally published by Objects in Space Website

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The third year since planetfall may have begun with the second sector-wide memorial for a lost ship including its crew since the cluster was settled, but it very quickly began to improve, at least from the perspective of the great majority of colonists. Mainly because a surprisingly large crop from Kepler was harvested, with numerous vegetables and herbs of kinds most colonists hadn't seen in a decade or more. Officials then announced that colony modules would soon be leaving for the nearby systems of Tega and Leo, chosen because they were both near to planets ideal for gas mining as well as perfect planets in terms of size, gravity and environment to make the first custom-chosen residential environments.

The colonists would be able to have homes not crammed into huge metal structures, like on Lagrange, or perpetually in fear of being damaged by wind storms, like those the agricultural workers on Kepler had to deal with. And finally, the fruits of another project hit: the In Vitro Meat (IVM) plant which had been under construction on Lagrange for years, produced its first meat - and the colonists were given a care package for their voyages to Tega and Leo which included tons of carefully grown steaks. Halsey, in charge of non-colonial decisions while Lipponen made engineering decisions, would later admit that he personally had fast-tracked the project, and even held off on sending the colonists on their way, despite knowing it would present more technical challenges for them. "Never," he said, "ask a person to work on an empty stomach."Mercifully, the landings on the planets of Garriott in the Tega system and Penitent in the Leo system went smoothly - the first time, Halsey noted, that a human colonization anywhere - had passed its initial phase without the loss of a single human life. With that feather on his cap, it came time for Lipponen to attempt something many higher ups in the mission command team had been encouraging him to do for months - to declare the initial period of martial law concluded, and declare the makeup of the new authority which would become an interim government for the young cluster.

What Lipponen didn't expect was how much more popular Halsey was: He got voted in to be the inaugural Administrator of the "Apollo-Earth Authority" by all the command-level members of the Cassandra crew. As Maria Van Der Vat would later recall:"Most of us on Meier knew better than anyone that what really mattered now was a leader who could inspire people - as so much would be asked of them in the coming years. That leader was not Niklas Lipponen."The third full year since planetfall saw yet more positives for the young colonies - firstly, three more small colonies were founded: a residential colony in the Magella system, the gas mine on Lago is finished in the Leo system and the first shipyard begins operation in orbit of the low-gravity planet of Zaragoza, and, finally, as his first as Administrator of the AEA, Halsey announces that work would now begin, in orbit of Lagrange, of Earth Gate. In the same year the shipboard University was finally re-settled on Lagrange itself as Cassandra University, before later being renamed Meier University after the colony."Humanity isn't just about survival," Halsey said at its inauguration. "Humanity is about bettering ourselves. Education and science are the finest way do this. In dedicating this University to all of us who came aboard the Cassandra we are affirming that we will never settle for anything less than a better life for ourselves and our children."In the fifth and sixth years since planetfall, the systems of Tega, Leo and Magella continued to grow. By the end of the sixth year, the AEA celebrated that all colonists were now planetside - with the exception of those working on space-platforms, freighters, docking stations and the orbital shipyards of Zaragoza. All humans had, as Halsey dramatically put it, "found a home".

These two years also marked vitally important steps in the cluster's development: the opening of two small jumpgates, connecting the Leo system to both Tega and Magella. As a result, small freighters were able to bring whatever goods were required without having to resort to the few jump-capable ships in the sector. The sixth year also marked another milestone. For the first time since planetfall, provisions were put in place to allow people to request a transfer from one colony to another. While not many people did this - family groups had always been allowed to stay together - the sense of freedom this offered many colonists did much to assuage some of the fears which had been growing that there was a hint of a dictatorship about the way Halsey and the AEA were controlling the colonies.

In the year 7a, the first major colonial dispute happened, despite Magella announcing plans at an AEA planning meeting to build a small colony in the nearby sector of Maru years earlier, the Leon mining administrators ignored this and sent the framework to construct the Angoda Giant Gasworks there in 5a."You have to understand - this wasn't an accident. It was the first instance of Apollonian people truly not co-operating. Time and resources were wasted," Dara Hanabi, a senior Magella industrial planner would later explain. "It was a potential disaster for hundreds of us working on our own Maru settlement project."For a month, discussions between the two colonies with Halsey of the AEA as adjudicator listened to the cases made by both parties. Halsey finally reached the unpopular conclusion that Maru should be split between both colonies. This made two firsts: the first time the idea of colonies controlling more than one system had occurred, and the first time the AEA had enforced a decision which affected the day to day runnings of the colonies. As a result of this, amidst further spreading of the colonies, Geraldine Mascot, the newly-returned Governor of the colony of Penitent and staunch capitalist, lead a successful campaign to insist that genuinely allowed free trade between colonies, by forming the first Apollonian Stock Exchange. Despite the problems of transit, by the end of the seventh year, over a dozen large companies were formally floated, and instead of 'food credits', the Apollonian Credit became an official currency of the sector.

Unfortunately, Mascot argues, due to lack of foresight on behalf of the AEA administration, the creation of the APSX was the unintentional weight that sunk the AEA as a genuine governing body once and for all. With arguments raging that the Maru decision was not only bad, but unlawful, and progress on the Earth Gate crawling to a halt as arguments about resources, Halsey had no choice but to act. Debate continued until finally, after both Leo and Tega refused to send any more resources for Earth Gate's construction. With no work on the structure in Sagan's Lights, the Great Earth Gate Migration occurred in 8a as new labour spread to the outer-most systems in the cluster. New colonies were formed in record time in disparate systems and the AEA was under extreme pressure to rectify the situation.

Halsey, however, bit off more than he could chew, putting in motion plans to attract the now wayward colonists back to Earth Gate and bring the central systems into line. He would use the ample military resources of the AEA to take the resources needed by force. His second term was at an end, and the central system were clamoring for open elections. His plans were enacted before his successor, the former-SS Cassandra captain Jason Novari, would take the reigns and bear the brunt of the unpopularity of the moveThe Halsey Conscription, as it became pejoratively known, was a calamitous series of policies designed to force colonists cluster-wide to provide Sagan's Lights with the resources it needed to complete the Earth Gate project, regardless of the cost. Expansion slowed to a near halt and opportunities for those trying to make a living on their own terms. The poor and the rich alike held such disdain for being held over a barrel in this way that Novari's new AEA government sank in popularity so fast, that it was all but decided by as soon as 10a that he couldn't possibly stand for re-election again when his term was up two years later. Naive in politics as he was, however, Novari would stand in 12a. It was no surprise, then, when Novari - now being admonished by the common phrase graffiti'd all over mining colonies in Tega and Leon: Fuck You Novari - failed to be elected, even just as a local representative. He represented everything that was wrong with the clueless leadership of the AEA, and his blind following of Halsey in the implementation of the Conscription would lead to its inevitable downfall and the first serious war the cluster had ever faced.
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