124 lines
5.9 KiB
Plaintext
124 lines
5.9 KiB
Plaintext
From: Sal Balade
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To: Our Adoring Fans
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Date: 0065-W10-5 18:32
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Subject: FanMail (Sal): Re: The Dung Heap We Left
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This ship, the Liberty Eagle, was commissioned and fully paid for by a
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little backward government on a planet we used to call home. I really
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hope the <REDACTED> government on <REDACTED> has been overthrown by now.
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To be very clear, we're a forced immigration vessel fully composed of
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the poor and indigent. The government cut their water rations and only
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gave them access to specially produced foodstuffs that utilized the
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simple sugar in the tardigrade. This meant that humans could be dried
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out and kept in dry storage.
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Need a place to house the homeless? The <REDACTED> government used
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warehouses without temperature control. They were also always without
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power during peak power usage periods. You can't do that with cold
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storage. It means our settler population to energy consuption rate is
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radically different to a lot of ships out here.
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Well, I guess they're potential settlers right now. The public was sold
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a 60% survval rate for those who dried on the streets. According to our
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gear-to-settler cargo, though, I'm guessing someone was thinking closer
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to a 30% survival rate.
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Our ship is equipped with the medbay nanobots, and the research
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indicates they help. The security precautions on them cause them to
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self-distruct pretty easily, though, so we'll see if any survive to the
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planet. I can't comment on whether they've helped reduce the mortality
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of the crew so far. That's a different matter, though.
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We are not the only vessel of this type. We were most definitely not the
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first.
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They've been storing folks for decades. The legal system is complex,
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and if you are targetted by the police, they can find a crime you've
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committed. They don't have to make the charges up, because the laws are
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written so that most people have already committed the crimes. It's just
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a matter of making it official.
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Most crimes are considered "minor" and this allows the voting population
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to feel safe by how few major crimes occur. All minor crimes result a
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"slap on the wrist," a 0.3% fine, and you're back out the door, only
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needing to inform your boss and landlord of your crime.
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Of course, most jobs and leases have clauses allowing termination for
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criminal behavior. This also means there are a lot of little check-boxes
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asking if you've been convicted of any crime. Nobody is legally required
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to give a criminal either housing or a job, and generally nobody does
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either one. After all, the government makes sure that everyone has
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access to plenty of food, so there's no need to take pity those that
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choose to be criminals.
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This results in people drying out in the streets, then being swept up
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and stored in warehouses. This worked well, until 40 years before launch
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when activists started asking for people to be revived.
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Those that dried on the streets had no right to be revived, but we used
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to actually have jails and low security prisons. Those were cleared out
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when Chlorizo was still in office. She dried them all out and moved them
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to storage facilities. There was a huge tax refund that year due to the
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savings and her popularity was at a peak, though it was later that year
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that her administration fell apart.
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We had been told that dry-storage jail time mapped to live-storage jail
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time at a 90% penalty due to the lack of aging. A person with a one-year
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sentance in live-jail would be gone 10 years in dry-jail, but reappear
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having not aged a day. This was supposed to prevent recidivism as it
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separates them from any bad-influence by years.
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The idea was easily sold to the public. The problem was the government
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never revived anyone. It didn't take long before folks were saying the
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technology was flawed and that the rate of revival for those drying
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in the streets was a lot less than they advertised. We knew it mostly
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worked in controlled environments.
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My sister and I wanted data to expose the issue. We'd each suffered our
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own tragedies and only really had each other. The cause helped keep us
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focused and prevented us from dwelling on our past. Once we were inside
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and found out what was going on, we knew the only way to be safe from
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the <REDACTED> administration was to let folks know from out here.
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What neither my sister nor I fully appreciated at the time was that
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from the <REDACTED> administration's perspective, it never mattered
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if we reached our destination. They didn't want to colonize other
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planets, they just wanted folks to die somewhere else.
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We will be lucky if any of the ships from <REDACTED> ever successfully
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complete their mission. We were just one of the five shift missions,
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quick compared to some, and within the first two shifts our ship was
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almost lost.
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I've been working my butt off to try to share this with folks. I know
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Molly couldn't get it done during her shift. That's a whole other mess,
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though. The message is out now. I hope you see this on the surface,
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sis. I miss you.
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So there you go, <REDACTED>. President <REDACTED> and his party was
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in power when we left. President <REDACTED> and their party were in
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power when they started designing the ships, and the discredited
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President Chlorizo and her party were in power when they started the
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Homeless Storage Sugar program. It isn't a one-party issue. It isn't
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a one President issue, as all three parties have had multiple terms
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in office since Chlorizo started things up 60 years before launch.
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Maybe if things were caught during President Chlorizo's term charges
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could have been filed. Every one of the <REDACTED> major political
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parties are implicated. At this point the government just needs
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overthrown. Not "brought up on charges." They've already fixed the
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laws and nothing they did was "illegal." The entire government needs
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overthrown.
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Preferably executed.
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--
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Your pal,
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Sal
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-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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If the QEC audience has any other questions for Sal or another
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member of the crew, please let us know!
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