Construct a space station to specification above
Coldfield and designate it 'Slingshot Logistics
Depot'. Arrange for the depot to serve for central
receiving, warehousing and shipping center for
materiel committed to the Slingshot Terminals,
and for processing materiel through all active
Planet Pluto surface and sub-surface technical
and servicing facilities;
Provide the Depot with facilities and train its
personnel for emergency backup in manufacturing
and servicing capabilities redundant to those on
the planet;
Create a highest level technical capability to
synthesize materials, and manufacture, fabricate,
test and calibrate those precision parts, tools and
accessories which are best made in the micro-gravity
and pollution-free conditions of deep space and/or
safely distant from Pluto's and Charon's surfaces
and their gravitational influences;
Augment the Depot's security with a gated force
field that fully encapsulates and protects the
Depot and all vessels engaged in loading and
off-loading personnel and materiel; patrols
contiguous space and keeps the Logistics Depot
and UIPS citizens and property self-sufficient and
safe from disease, harassment and harm;
Install on the Logistics Depot and at the Terminals
Construction Sites independent communications,
cargo, living organism teleport centers, each
capable of receiving and dispatching authorized
cargoes, passengers, dispatches and communications
via conventional, spunnel, and specified
non-conventional channels.
##
The Terminals Construction Site is the focal point
of UIPS operations. The Construction Site's mission
is to research, design, fabricate, test, assemble
and, ultimately, launch, position at destinations
and operate, monitor and maintain the Slingshot
Extractor and Collector terminals en route and
at their destinations.
##
The planning did not anticipate the dissolution
of the United Planetary System, the creation of
independent and estranged Regions in their place,
and a hostile government on Pluto.
Military forces had been non-existent for more than
fifteen hundred years when the colonies of the Outer
Region seceded from the United Planetary System.
Weapons of mass destruction had had no purpose
since the birth of the first World Federation in
the fourth century of the Interplanetary Era.
In place of an organized military, the succeeding
World Federation had created an Interplanetary
Constabulary to protect lives and property,
investigate crimes, control traffic, and maintain
general order. Their charter extended to all
planets, satellites, colonies, outposts, stations,
and all places throughout the void into which
humankind had ventured.
The mission of the Constabulary remained unchanged
during political reorganizations within the first
World Federation and its successors. Its agents
ranged the Solar System, and performed their duties
quietly and efficiently. Few dared challenge their
authority. When challenges did occur, they were
not for long.
War, and the effects of war on people and things
were forgotten.
It was inconceivable, in those times, that the
region beyond the Asteroids would become
politically and culturally alienated from the
unified community that humankind had created to
guide them into the future. History, the citizens
of the world concluded, had demonstrated the
impotence of the ancient, long-discarded array
of adversarial nation-states and come-by-chance
leaders to govern an intellectually advanced
species.
No one expected a return to the old, long-discarded
ways.
When separation of the Inner and Outer Regions
became inevitable, scholars in both Regions
explored the possible and the probable
relationships that might develop under the new
order. The studies predicted that politically
independent nation-states would create multilateral
alignments and conflicting societies, lifestyles and
philosophies.
They took into account evolving technological
and industrial capabilities, prevailing energy and
declining reserves of industrial metals, minerals,
and other usable substances and related them to the
Solar System's demographic trends and resources
predictions. When the United Planetary System
dissolved, the successor UIPS felt it had no choice
but to continue the Slingshot program.
The conclusions of humankind's most distinguished
scientists and philosophers suggested that two
independent orders in space would bring with them
a heightened likelihood of social and technological
dislocations and disruptions. There would be
interregional and, within INOR, international
competition that would increase the rate of
depletion in resources. There would be a multitude
of disputes, often intentionally misinterpreted,
to resolve territorial and jurisdictional differences
that were already caught up in and molded by the
dynamics of orbiting planets, and their satellites
and connecting space-ways.
The effects on Slingshot could be catastrophic.
Its security was paramount. Immediately following
separation of the two Regions the President of
the new UIPS directed the creation of a powerful
Military Space Force.
The UIPS searched the ancient archives of Earth's
military history and designed weapons of defense
and offense. Ships of war and their supporting
systems were brought back into being, and spunnel
gateways expanded to accommodate them. A militant
phoenix rose from its ancient ashes.
The Military Space Force was charged
with patrolling the space-ways beyond the
Asteroids to protect UIPS vital interests. Their
responsibilities included protecting the lives of
UIPS citizens and private and government property
throughout INOR wherever they happened to be, in
space or on the surfaces of planets and satellites.
The role and intent of the UIPS military was
explained to all INOR governments. "The Military
Space Force," proclaimed the President of the UIPS,
"would remain until INOR's member Nations were
sufficiently stabilized to participate in ensuring
peaceful coexistence and passage along space-ways
and at moorings throughout the Outer Region, and
separately and collectively agree to participate in
and support the Slingshot Program."
INOR, as a Federation, interpreted the formation of
the UIPS Military Space Force and the President's
proclamation on its role as contemptuous of their
social and political maturity. The outcome was
predictable.
Local INOR Defense Forces were hastily organized
and equipped. Dozens of ships of war were built and
many space transports were converted into armed
vessels. Each INOR government, using self-defense
as justification, established controlled corridors
extending hundreds of thousands of kilometers
into its contiguous space, often far beyond their
legitimate jurisdictions. Passengers and crews of
foreign space transports, passenger liners, and
utility and pleasure craft, whatever their points
of foreign origin or destination, required visas,
local pilots, and armed escorts upon arrivals and
departures. Suspicions festered on all sides.
It was an era of international and interregional
political tensions and harassment, and military,
technological and industrial sabotage and
espionage. The history of Earth's ancients had
returned to haunt the solar community.
The rate of depletion in the Solar Community's
reserves of vital but nonrenewable substances
rose rapidly.