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The owners of the TempleBar, having discovered that their advertising robots had new pro-rabbit rights graffiti painted on them, has elected to sue those responsible. Upon discovering that Mars has no legal system in place, and thus no venues for lawsuits, Trebuchet took the bold move of hiring several bar customers as his lawyers, gave them blunt weaponry, and sent them to beat the money out of the Rabbit Rights movement, who soon raised their own 'legal defense team'.
After successful settlement of their grievances, where the Rabbit Rights people agreed to place their message on their own robots, several other parties pursued lawsuits by similar means. A new courthouse was built to provide a venue for settling disputes, and CourtVue is currently the highest rated TV show on Mars, as the lawyers battle each other for supremacy in the ring.
I picked #5. 100,000 years ago we just emerged in the world with sharpened rocks, in another 100,000 years there's likely to be a whole mess of different human-derived species fighting each other. Self-destruction is an appealing but implausible event - the broom would never sweep clean enough, especially over the length of time we're talking about.
And with my Demron underoos, I am now ready to conquer all possible worlds - except Venus.
Trebuchet's Log
The militia seems to be calling for a constitutional convention here, which should bring in more business. I've got a hand in putting up the underground gallery planned for the convention; probably the first convention center with an armored roof. I'm paying for it in return for use of the place after the convention. I'm thinking about turning it into a casino and luxury hotel, once the politicians get done. I have already reccomended that the quaint custom of the ancient Persians to discuss matters once sober and once drunk be reinstituted, because if the resulting political decisions are incoherent, at least we have an excuse for it this time. Also, Cobra's call for a great journey to the south has also stirred things up in town, because the big march to the south is organizing here. Cobra got a bit more of a response than he figured, I think. This will probably be the largest motorcade in Martian history for quite some time when it leaves, if it leaves.
Radio Free Cobra is up and running. Cobra broadcasts his viewpoints endlessly, except when he's asleep, and then we broadcast the output from the karaoke mike, which is uniformly bad and awful, but it's not like we have anything else to broadcast. I advertise the place freely whenever Cobra takes a break or a drink, it seems to be bringing in more people, and I've arranged a deal to export some of the liquors on Mars. My business partner, of course, reserves all rights to trading the rum.
I wonder how the other original colonists are doing? Those that are still here, I mean...
Your own private tree garden dome out behind your home. It shows you have money to burn and looks exotic (on Mars). The really rich or snobby people can compete for bigger/more different trees.
Trebuchet's Log
We had a fatality today when two drunk as hell Martians accused each other of cheating at cards and challenged each other to a duel outside, forgetting due to inebriation that the outside is deadly without a spacesuit. We managed to drag Stinky back in the bar, but the other guy died. He'll be missed, he owed everyone money. The upside of this is that a rumor going around says people who cheat at cards get thrown out the airlock and cheating incidents have been down.
Someone attempted to deface the monument by writing "Revenge is mine!" but it only made it look like Cobra was gloating about his victory over the Yu Knights.
Some wandering prospectors brought back a most interesting and hitherto unknown liquor from another hab. The prospectors swear that when they drank it, the skies lit on fire and they were attacked by giant glowing cockroaches. I'm guessing it's some sort of hallucinogenic alcohol. I plan on offering free samples of it at the bar to see how it affects people before I try to duplicate it.
The idea, dear Rxke, is that it isn't reassuring. It's terrifying. Which is kind of the point. Someone wants to play with fire, they might very well get burned. And a toasted corpse would be more than all the resolutions in the world in dissuading anyone from following the example of the toasted party.
More seriously than my last post, were I President and possessed of a supermajority in Congress so that I could pass whatever laws I wanted, I'd crumple up the UN and throw it out of New York because it's turned into the Dictators' Club. I'd go through the tax code with a chainsaw and ram through a simple no-deductions flat tax, because the current tax code is an abomination of needless complexity and perversity. I would push for "B-767" bombers and large ground-effect transports for the military because, let's face it, we have air superiority everywhere we fight, bulking up the ability to move more stuff and drop lots more ordnance. I'd also mothball a bunch of overseas bases (what the hell are we doing in Germany, preventing the Soviet Army from invading? Sheesh.) and maybe authorize the MOBS concept if we have the funding (MOBS is basically a monstrously huge modular military base at sea, and if you built one or two the need for lots of the bases scattered around the globe becomes much less, as you can move the base where it's needed).
I'd essentially ignore the whole petroleum mess, because the market will sort that out eventually and I have bigger fish to fry.
I would make efforts to insure that Mexico's economy is booming, because the better off Mexico is, the less illegal immigration will be an issue.
I would make noises about legalizing drugs but dither endlessly on the issue until my term was up. (I'm honest)
I'd push for stem cell research and looser controls on genetic engineering, the former out of the belief that the embryos in question have already been condemned by the parents involved and thus are much like organ donors in that sense. Like Bush I think that destroying said embryos for harvesting stem cells is wrong, but let's face it, the parents are the ones to blame here. I'd make it illegal to create embryos for the sole purpose of harvesting stem cells, of course. My support for genetic engineering would be based on the fact that I believe it to be of great benefit to mankind... and that it will really really annoy the hell out of Europe, which is a plus. I'd push for 'freedom of genome' too - if someone wants to mess around with germline engineering, that's his problem, not the government's.
I'd actually not make a serious push for space. Heresy! But while I view Mars as critically important in the long run, I view setting a strong foundation on Earth even more important. Mars would be a 'term 2' thing.
Oh. I'd quietly take the ME nations aside and describe in great detail the terrible fate awaiting any country that dared hand terrorists a WMD, and not so quietly flatten any WMD projects in countries that I deem irresponsible (Iran's nuke project). If someone actually dares to hand off a WMD to some third party, hoping to escape retribution, the US response would be epic in scope (hopefully deterring future idiocy) even if the US wasn't the nation attacked with them, hell, even if Syria did something like nuke Pyongyang off the face of the earth (not that they would attack NK, of course) I'd rain nukes on Syria until it glowed in the dark bright enough to be seen by passing aliens.
I dislike terrorists.
Trebuchet's Log
Many former colonists have left, bound outward for other worlds. They think they leave the madness behind, but really, they will carry the madness with them, to new worlds, because settling new worlds is a task for the mad.
The bar and brewery has been expanded. Our production and distillation of alcoholic beverages has expanded greatly, and in my spare time I've been helping set up the chemical industries here. With luck and a little time, we'll be cranking out the plastic for new domes right and left, and generating enough high-oxygen partial pressure atmosphere to fill them. The population will be fruitful and multiply... damn it, I've been spending too much time with Cobra and the chanting horde at the bar. Production of all kinds is up right now, as the lure of drinks - and Cobra randomly buying 'one for the house' - has attracted anybody with spare time. Worker productivity and hours are up (so are alcohol-related mishaps, but that's business for you).
My latest project involves the nearby cliff. I plan to have robots carve out my likeness, in a mars-suit, on the cliff, holding a bottle of liquor. Cobra has since asked for himself to be added to my little project, which will sadly dilute my advertising project. I've been toying with different possible poses for Cobra's carving...
Greetings, my fellow Americans. Perhaps you are wondering why I'm giving my inaugural address from Air Force One, and you would be correct to be confused, because actually I'm on the other Presidential plane, the National Emergency Airborne Command Post. The nukes are in the air and everything will be destroyed.
And on that note, allow me to present my plans for a post-apocalyptic America and our future foreign relations with mutant biker gangs...
Over sleeping shorelines I did gaze
Seeing blue oceans cover red sands
And the surf of long forgotten seas
Echoing ghostly in my own mind
Seemed to me a vision of times past
On blue planets that I once had known
So long ago and so far away
Perhaps some long summer night shall pass
In another year, another time
When dust storms are forever stilled
By the warm summertime sea breezes.
Make alcohol, yes, but is it *good* alcohol?
True. Personally I produce enough oranges for every conceivable use for oranges I can think of, and still have plenty left over. I also get a few bananas, but they grow kinda marginally, unlike the two orange trees (which are fairly large and monstrous in size, respectively...)
I eat and juice the oranges, give them away, have animals steal half, donate piles of them to charity, and still have leftover oranges. Yeesh. I used to grow a lot more food as sort of a hobby, because there's a sort of coolness factor to growing your own food. Same sort of thing that makes me occasionally want to go fishing. I don't get 'sport' fishing, nor flower gardening, if the end product isn't edible, it seems a waste of time.
BTW, were you to do a little genetic engineering with corn, it would be the ideal Martian grain; it yields far more than 'normal' grains, and hybridizing to increase the yields even more should be doable if you train the settlers on earth. Florida is as different from Nebraska as you can get without mountains (hot, swampy, etc) but corn grew just fine. I'm just not sure if you can brew 'corn beer' but if so, that would be good, too; unfiltered beers, like they drank in the Middle Ages, were actually fairly rich in vitamins. The various industrial processes we put beer through removes the vitamins and some of the taste, as well...
Trebuchet's Log, some day or other
Buisness is booming more than ever before, and Cobra has come in from the cold and declared the back half of the bar his temple. Whatever. The lines of people coming in here has to be seen to be believed, and they are all boozing it up hardcore. The first batch of whisky has come out, it's a little rough. No barrels for us to scorch, after all, so it's kind of moonshinish.
I've approached Cobra with a plan to build giant microwave emitters which will cook incoming spacecraft. There is that automated factory turning out killbots, I mean advertising robots/Cobra's Conquistadors, which might be modified for the purpose. Thousands of them, all nuking targets in unison...
This whiskey's better than I thought.
Trebuchet's Journal, Day Whatever
The most bizzare thing I've ever seen since, well, earlier today just happened. A robot drove by shooting at rabbits - not unusual ever since Cobra went off the deep end - proclaiming the coming salvation and with a bizzare pseudo-biblical message etched on its chestplate. This seems an ideal method of advertising, so I've been stunning all the robots I see and putting my own message on the back. I've gotten several of them so far on my way to the colony. I plan to set up a new dome for the bar and get the agreement of the rum-maker.
If he doesn't agree I'll see if I can get Cobra to declare drinking rum un-Martian or something.
Trebuchet's Journal, Date +11
Someone is manufacturing rum in a nearby settlement. I now have a competitor. I've begun building another still so that I can convert some of my grain into whisky. Or should I spell it whiskey? I will be setting a liquor precedent that will last for all time, after all, must consider things carefully.
I have a new plan to bring peace. I will find the rum-making fiend and offer alliance, build the first bar on Mars and make a mint selling booze to militiamen, insane colonists, and sane but thirsty colonists. Everyone will be drunk but happy and concentrate on the things that bind us all together, like opposing mutant bunnies and Yu Knights.
Perhaps this bar will need bulletproofing.
The helium isotope in question is deposited in the lunar dirt by the solar wind in tiny quanitites, so you would need to dig up many tons of dirt, seperate out the helium then seperate the helium-3 from vastly more common helium-4, then send it to the Earth. Those steps presuppose a lot of machinery from Earth, so (considering the cost of shipping said machinery from Earth, and supporting the base to run all that stuff) you would need to be exporting a lot of He-3.
It's probably cheaper just to irradiate the lithium and wait for radioactive decay to produce your helium-3. Certainly if you're not consuming large amounts of the stuff.
Yes. However, it's still cheaper than importing stuff from the frickin' moon.
Trebuchet's Log, Continued From Earlier
Saw rover full of beef butchered and being sent north, along with armed convoy. Approached peacefully, traded vodka for beef. Declined offer to join military action, but donated two sacks of potatos and a pistol I swiped from the base to the Cause.
Trebuchet's Journal, Date Unknown, again
Hearing mysterious messages on radio. Something about it being safe and the UN gone. If the UN is gone, hopefully they didn't take Flint with them. Also hopefully, the old colonists have survived. Will maintain lookout from hilltop to see if they return when not doing anything else.
I always hear we need to go to the moon for the helium-3, but what the hell's the point? When you think about it, the process of manufacturing it is far simpler than moving it around the solar system.
Helium-3 is the decay product of tritium, which has a half-life of about 12 years. Tritium can be manufactured by irradiating lithium in nuclear reactors. So why not just generate tritium, like we already do, combine it with oxygen to form super-heavy water, stick in in a tank, stick the tank in a cellar as if it were a cask of wine, and drain off the helium-3 as it's produced?
Simpler than flying to the moon for sure...
The issue is one of politics, not resources; the world has more than enough food for the starving masses in various places, but stupid bureacratic pissing matches and local warlords using food as a weapon prevent that food from reaching its intended recipients.
Basically food shortages can be divided into two kinds:
a) Deliberately induced famine by local warlords, who run farmers off their land and then prevent or hamstring efforts to distribute relief. The general goal is slow motion genocide of disliked groups or 'food blackmail' of the starving people. My preferred solution to this is to shoot the warlords in question. Basically, there would be no famine in these cases save for the actions of evil bastards, and with the removal of said bastards, local food production will return to normal and relief food can be sent to who needs it in the interim.
b) Local catastrophes that disrupt food supplies in conjunction with third-party interference in supplying relief. Usually when an area is affected by some disaster (drought, hurricane, volcano, whatever) nations send aid fairly fast, you see it all the time and might have donated food for such efforts. The problems arise when third party concerns interfere with the distribution of the food relief for this disaster. A recent case was where the US was sending grain to Africa, but the EU started some trouble because the grain came from genetically modified sources. The end result was malnutrition while the US and EU 'resolved' (read: screamed at each other until they lost interest) the issue and distributed the food.
With current agricultural techniques I don't fear feeding people on Mars or otherwise in space, the yields are very robust. In fact, my chief worry isn't about the crops but about water. As long as the colonists (on Mars or anywhere else) have water they'll have plenty of food.
BTW, here on Earth it's more helpful probably to donate money to microlending institutions and the like in developing nations, ecrasez. Those generally give local farmers the funds necessary to make improvements in their farms which will make famine of the second kind less likely, and it will also make food cheaper in those areas too, meaning that people are more likely to get all the vitamins and minerals they need (because they can buy more than just staples_
That isn't a choice, that's a false dichtotomy.
Another journal entry, date +9
Meeting frustration with secure communications. Have fired primitive pressure-fed LOX-Alcohol rocket from crater base that I assembled from several robots roaming around nearby. Some had hopper rocket engines which I have modified. The rest of the robots I have disassembled for later use.
Fired rocket over Olympus. It is carrying a transponder, several potatos, and a bottle of potato moonshine in a padded container with a parachute. Hopefully someone will notice, investigate, and associate me with potatos from among the old colonists.
Preamble
We, proud colonists of Mars, do declare ourselves a sovereign state not subject to the laws, regulations, or treaties of any Earthly body or nation, and commit ourselves to the formation of a more free and responsive state
Article I
Provisional Authority
The government of the Republic of Mars, while the population is restricted to a number of less than 1000 citizens of 18 Earth years or older, shall consist of all citizens age 18 ey and above. These citizens shall vote directly in assembly or teleassembly on all issues, and all powers will be reserved to them. They may delegate such powers as they deem fit to lesser bodies and councils. The provisional authority will be dissolved one year after the colony exceeds 1000 citizens of age 18 e.y.
Article II
Executive Powers
Executive powers will be vested in a President. The President will be selected by the citizenry from among the outgoing members of the Tribunate, except for the first President, who may be any citizen. In the case that no candidate for President receives a simple majority, the names of those citizens receiving votes shall be listed. The names shall be listed in order of the number of votes received, and they shall be halved, those with fewer votes being removed. In the event that the number of candidates in consideration is an odd number, the list shall be treated as if it were the next highest even number. The Tribunate will then vote upon this shortened list. If no candidate is chosen by simple majority again, the list shall be shortened again, the process repeating until a President is selected.
The President shall serve until the selection of the next Triumvirate. The citizenry shall elect the next President on Selection Day.
To be eligible for the Presidency, a citizen must have served in the Tribunate, with the exception of the selection of the first President. No Person may serve more than one term as President.
The President shall have the following powers:
The power to raise such military forces as deemed necessary to defend the Republic.
The power to negotiate treaties with other sovereign states.
The power to introduce legislation into the Tribunate for consideration.
The power to appoint judges to lesser courts.
The power to form bodies necessary to the enforcement of the laws of the colony.
The power to veto any act of the Tribunate.
The President may be removed if two-thirds of the Tribunate votes for a referendum of removal and the citizenry votes for such removal by majority vote.
Article III
The Legislative
The Legislative branch shall consist of a Tribunate of 151 persons. All citizens shall, upon their 18th birthday, be required to register with the Draft, for possible public service, whether in juries, military conscription, disaster relief, or public office. The Tribunate shall consist of citizens selected by lot, who shall serve for two Martian years as Tribunes of the Republic. Citizens refusing to serve in the Tribunate will be imprisoned for the length of the term they would have served and a replacement shall be chosen by lot. The Tribunate will further select one of their number as Speaker of the Tribunate upon convening for the first time.
No person may serve as a Tribune more than one term.
The Tribunate will convene thirty days following their selection, and at any of the following times:
When requested by the President
When requested by the Speaker
When a case is being heard by the Supreme Court
Every 120 days after their first meeting.
Upon Selection Day, 30 days prior to the end of their terms.
The Triumvirate will have the following powers:
They shall act as jury in any case appearing before the Supreme Court.
They may pass laws subject to the limits of this constitution
They may override a Presidential veto by three-quarters vote.
The power to declare war.
The power to set taxes upon the sale of goods, upon inheritances, and upon imports.
The power to declare a state of emergency and conscript persons for disaster relief, not to exceed 90 days in duration, with a three-quarters vote.
The power to disburse funds to any programs the Tribunate deems fit.
The power to approve or reject ambassadors, treaties, and nominations to the Supreme Court.
The power to create, as necessary, lesser regional legislative bodies.
The power to change compensation to the Tribunate, which shall not go into effect until the next Tribunate is selected.
The power to regulate trade, both inside and outside the Republic, and create such projects as deemed necessary to the promotion of trade.
The power to permit, without further review, any act of terraformation deemed necessary or good for the citizens of the Republic.
Article IV
The Judiciary
The Supreme Court shall consist of five judges. These judges will serve until recalled by three-quarters vote of the Tribunate. They shall be nominated by the President and affirmed by the Tribunate, and shall officiate all cases reaching this level. The Tribunate shall be seated as jury in these cases, and the justices of the Supreme Court will render their legal opinion based upon the findings of this jury.
Lesser judicial bodies shall be created by the Presidency at need, and may be dissolved by the President or by an act of the Tribunate. Justices of lesser courts shall be appointed by the President and may be recalled by the President or an act of the Tribunate.
Article V
The Rights of Citizens
No law shall be passed abridging the freedom of speech, peaceable assembly, or practice of religion. All citizens have the right to air their opinions and beliefs peaceably and shall not be hindered in such peaceable expression by any law, act, or finding of a court of law.
No law shall provide funds to any religious body.
The right to self-defense by any responsible means shall not be denied to any citizen save convicted felons.
No citizen shall be saved from themselves, and the passage of any law prohibiting the ingestion or use of intoxicants, depressents, stimulants, or other substances is itself prohibited.
Citizens shall be secure in their persons, homes and personal effects. Searches shall only be carried out by duly constituted authorities presenting a warrant specifically describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized. A warrant must be approved in writing by a judicial tribunal with constitutional jurisdiction. Assets seized from a Citizen must be returned if the Citizen is not convicted of the crime in question, or the Citizen's immediate family if convicted. No government agency may make use of seized assets. (Stealing this one from Cobra as I like this perfectly)
No citizen shall be compelled to give testimony at any time.
No law shall be passed limiting the rights of persons to their own genetic materials or amendment thereof.
Article VI
The Nonrights of Citizens (another excellent Cobra concept)
No citizen has the right to have anyone take them seriously.
No citizen has the right to expect government to save them from themselves.
No citizen has the right to expect others to provide them the necessities of life without compensation.
No citizen has the right to enjoy their rights without making themselves available for the Draft for any purpose of said Draft.
Article VII
The Process of Amendment
Any Amendment can be proposed by majority vote of the Tribunate, or by a petition signed by no less than 10% of the citizens of the Republic. Proposed Amendments will be voted on by the citizenry upon the next Selection Day and must be ratified by a three-quarters majority of the citizenry. Such Amendments will go into effect 30 days from passage.