The ceiling display depicting entirety of the known solar system, dimmed. The sun, planets, moons, rings, lasers and, asteroids all faded into the darkness of the quieting room. Up above the lighting in the VIP boxes flickered and dimmed.

The assembly was swept into a deep and silent blackness before, above each room, digital name plates began appeared, labelling everyone was. Outside their room a light flickered into brightness, indicating for all to see that these were the delegates from 21st Century North America.

In the center of the room a hologram appeared.

The hologram was for the benefit of the Earth’s contingent. Off-Worlders, such as the three heads of state who were now standing in their dark VIP room eating pizza, had their cybernetics patched directly into the system.

Amita Chana, sanding in a slightly translucent 20 feet high, was the long time Chair for the United World Assembly. She had been elected by the majority of world delegates, out of the Earth contingent. But despite that, Humongous Testicles liked her. She’d become one of his Facebook friends, and he posted flirtatious and teased messages on her temporal wall.

The reason Amita had been chosen was of course politics. Earth wielded an outsized amount of political power in these chambers. This was despite Earth’s being much more of a fringe and regional power in terms of actual Solar System affairs. Their importance these days were mostly geographical and sentimental.

Historically speaking, the United World Assembly had begun in Silicon Valley back when the World Server project had been in its naissance. No matter how widespread Cheryl Wayne’s innovations were on university campuses, the technology hadn’t been refined enough to hold more than a few thousand people, and even those few thousand took up building sized rooms on school campuses.

The United World Assembly had been, in the early days, more of an inside joke than an actual governing body. The UWA had been created by a group of software engineers who hard at work trying to make themselves rich developing the possibilities of Cheryl’s AI.

Since most of them worked for competing startups companies scattered around Silicon Valley, these Brainy types needed a way to separate their own personal interests, from the dreaded issue of who paid the tab that evening. Paying a tab had been a struggle for months until the UWA finally evolved. Now every Friday the United World Assembly would get together at Stephens Green an Irish Bar for Lady’s Night (half-priced Margaritas and Buffalo Wings), drink Guinness, discuss Dr. Who, n-dimensional mathematics, Matrix Psychology, and try – mostly unsuccessfully – to get laid.

It should be noted, that “Your eyes are like a pair of black holes, into who’s event horizons I am falling.” only works once and among a group of socially immature individuals the word “holes” is dangerous fodder for abuse.

The founding of the UWA had officially begun when an extremely drunk programmer named Robert had walked up to a lanky yet well-endowed engineer named Claire and said “Hi, I’m Robert, let me take you to Xanadu.”

Somehow had actually worked.

It helped that Xanadu was the project name of the very advanced World Server that Robert was working on. It also helped that Claire was looking for ideas to propagate NPCs in her own team’s Star Trek based Virtual World. That day she’d become stuck trying to resolve the problem of adding depth to the antagonist Khan Noonien Singh.

The thing that sealed the deal was that Robert went by the name Lauren online, and that Claire preferred to go by Big Mike online. Six months later Big Mike and Lauren were married online. For a few months the stupid groaner of a pun going around their group was that In Xanadu did the Wrath of Kahn a stately honeymoon decree.

From that point onward, instead of referencing each other by name, members of the United World Assembly and Drinking Society referred to each other affectionately by the World Server project they were working on.

Their constitution had been developed during one drunken binge when a bunch of them had gotten together to argue about who was a better Doctor, David Tennant, Roy McCurry, Layla Brenswick, or Tom Baker. There was violence and anarchy in the air. The meeting got so loud, so impassioned, that Mary the girl with behind the bar had threated to “Kick your sorry nerd asses out of this place, so shut up and act like normal people. Besides everyone knows it was Layla who was the best Doctor.”

It didn’t take long for the drinking society to coopt Robert’s Rules of Order to organize their arguments and keep uppity bartenders with heretical opinions out of the conversation. After that they drafted a Constitution mostly to determine who paid the bar tab.

The privileges of Earth were given to a well-known and influential Angel Investor who would almost invariably brought a packed wallet and usually offered to pay for the drinks. He was given the privilege of being chair, and could cast the deciding vote if arguments got too close.

As the system evolved, where once had been solitary programmers, nations began to appear. At first in a trickle, then in a deluge. The Vulcan programmer switched to actually representatives from the government of Vulcan. The Dune fan who’d named his project Arrakis and was known informally as “Too much Sauce” eventually evolved over time into an actual governing body of Fremen.

Similarly some of the bigger worlds were: O.N.A.N., Narnia, Hell, Palestine, Gotham, Arendelle, Bangistan, New New New Guinea, Baszel and Ul Qoma, Tlon, Uqbar, Elm Street, Darkover, Agrabah, Patusan, Tar Valon, Wizzle, Darth Vader, Jewish Jerusalem, Christian Jerusalem, Muslim Jerusalem, Buddhist Jerusalem, Iroquois Jerusalem, Satanist Jerusalem, Flying Spaghetti Monster Jerusalem, Lovecraftian Jerusalem, Beyonce, South Park, Oceana, Eurasia, Eastasia, Arkham, New Crobuzon, Cairhein, Zubrowka, Zion, New Egypt, Whipped Cream, Bitches Leave, Patriarchy, Newfoundland, Sunnydale California, Azeroth, Robonia, Tomania, Xanth, Kim Jong il is my Bitch, Panem, Amity Island, New Berlin, Oconomowoc Wisconsin, The Highlands, Cambridge, Ur, Grrr, Purrr, Mieur, Dieux, Jurassic Park, Holy shit my crotch is wet, Bitchn Camaro, Houri, Xanadu, Leningrad, Silent Hill, Cedrick the Entertainer, Legoland, Candyland, Socialists keep out!, Dinotopia, King’s Landing, Oz, Hootchie Kootchie, Gloria Steinem, Old Toronto, NRA Island, Flatland, Salami, Toad Hall, Ipswich Clam, Hed, Free Beer and Weed, Macondo, Pern, Utopia, Goldman Sachs, Moss Agate, Heaven, Vatican City Digital, New Singapore, Atlantis, The Lowlands, Atlanta, Swaziland, Sendaria, New France, Zimbabwe, Milk and Honey, Wanna Touch my Weiner, Antebellum, Sim City, Hogwarts, Mecca, Canada, Fillory, Winterhold, Camalot, Spamalot, The Plain, Ivalice, Mariposa, Queef, Unseelie, The Swamplands, Rock Ridge, Cloud City, Illium, Troy, Carthage, Toledo, The Shire, Whoville, Camelot, Star Hollow, Drowned World, Mumbai, LV-426, Kaloon, Avonlea, Pikachu, Newford, Vintas, Ada Lovelace, 100 Acre Wood, Gallifrey 1, Gallifrey 2, Gallifrey 3 … Gallifrey 44, Overlook Hotel, Garden of the Forking Paths, Land of lists, Skeleton Island, Kinakuta, Annie’s Boobs, Bark like a dog for me, Whore Island, The Catacombs, Cafeteria, Gilead, New Venice, Smurf, Unix Land, Hundred Acre Wood, 4 8 15 16 23 42-ia, Canada 2, No! This is “Real” Canada, Kale Chia Smoothie, Japan, Manga Japan, Crazy Tentacle Sex Japan, Mythago Woods, Row Row Row Your Boat, Nevermore, Mirkwoods, Azkaban, Land of the Molemen, Lower Mongolia, Earthsea, Gondor, Friday Night Fish Fry, Zork, Arthur Dent, New Iceland, Tralfamadore, Hetalia, Dublin, 21st Century North America, Quam, Fart!, Iberia, Potluck, Waterworld, Necropolis, Metropolis, Swish, Fisherworld, Kumbolaland, Qumar, Green Gables, Victorian British Empire, Feudal Japan, Northwind, Cambodia, Trinidad and Tobago, Endless Labyrinth and so on, and each of them brought their own delegations.

The World Servers grew and grew. More and more people digitalized and migrated. Some worlds, trying to gain citizens, became democracies. Others were simply property owned by one programmer, company, or wealthy individual.

Some servers were dedicated game worlds, others tried to push the gaming elements into the distant background. Across the world there was shared code, and custom code, and the combination of homogeny – that is core consistency of the experience of online living – combined with percentage that was new and innovative, or just familiar and comfortable, determined how many people visited on any given day.

These days, the Earth was represented by diplomats from across the earth at United World Server Assemblies. The location had moved from Stephens Green Sports Bar to its own custom building in just outside of Menlo Park California. And then again, a decade later, had moved just north of Thunder Bay, Ontario.

In the Menlo Park days, Earth had been respected for her guidance and vision.

Having the Earth delegate start the conversation was a holdover from this tradition. Amita Chana was an Earth delegate from India. India had several hundred massive server worlds, and India was still one of the few remaining Earth nations to have good relations with her extra-planetary offshoots. She was the rare earth leader people still respected. The rare politician who actually seemed to work towards universal non-partisanship.

Rapping her gavel, “I would like to call the 23rd Assembly in the Year 2143 to order.” Amita said once the lights were sufficiently dim.

“There is a motion on the floor, from the United States of America, Earth contingent. They believe that more terraforming and migratory ships be added to our fleet heading out to the nearest stars. I would like to yield the floor to Cardinal Mark Weaver the Ambassador from the United States to further clarify their position.”

The hologram shifted to display an older looking man in a black cassock with purple piping, scarlet ferraiolo, and a white collarino. He looked angry as his image rose up in the center of the room, but his face quickly cleared.

“Listen up you machines. I will make this as simple as I possibly can and I don’t know how to express this much more simply. We need more ships. Bigger ships. Faster ships. Is that simple enough for your faux human heads.

“I’m told by my staff that each of the ships you robots have built, can hold 500,000 real people in what’s it called… the suspended thing. That you’ve only built a measly ten ships for whatever reason, boggles my mind.

“As the ancients said, astra inclinant, sed non obligant Well, I and the people of America, are here to tell you that, ten lousy ships is completely unacceptable. There will be an accounting. Your empire might be mighty, but in the eyes of the Lord our God, your empire is as once was great Babylon. Remember this, that in Babel the Lord confused the language of the entire world, and from there the Lord scattered them across the face of the entire earth. Well, I’m here to tell you lot, to beware your hubris. Beware your pride. The Earth and America in particular demands our part in the progress and expansion into the stars.

“So I don’t know which wires inside your tiny robotic brains have short circuited. Mostly I don’t really care. I don’t know if you are even aware that there is a glitch in whatever you use as a brain. Again, I don’t care. Beware false pride and all that. Beware the trappings of vanity. Always keep in mind that you are simply soulless automatons for us your true masters. Hebrew tradition talked of Golems, made from clay. Well Silicon and Carbon Nanotubes and rare earth elements are basically dirt, and add a bit of water… clay, so there you have it. We your flesh and blood masters on Earth require that you make stuff for us post-haste.”

As the power and influence of the nations of the earth waned. As earthbound populations rose. As usable resources dwindled. Resentment towards the Server Worlds grew. All too common was the Cardinal’s viewpoint that somehow the rest of the Solar System was subservient to the Earth.

The Cardinal continued, “Ten Ships? I’m telling you right now, that that’s dingle-dangleberries! Ten ships can’t even suit the needs of the United States. They can’t even suit the needs of Arkansas. We have over 24 Billion People in America alone. A few million is unacceptable. I demand that you build us more ships.

Let me quote the scripture ‘And he made in Jerusalem engines, invented by cunning men, to be on the towers and upon the bulwarks, to shoot arrows and great stones withal.’

“You machines were made by we cunning men. You are meant to stand upon humanity’s bulwark and defend us. What we didn’t do was build you to question our will. We need hundreds of ships. Thousands. Not a mere ten. We have a population crisis, you robots know this and I’m not sure you didn’t precipitate the crisis. It is common knowledge that machines were built to assist humans. So the hammer. So the plow. Everybody knows it. So we proud peoples of America demand that you get to it.”

There were outbursts of anger and shouting all through the chamber. The hologram in the center of the room flickered around and showed dozens of angry holograms shouting and swearing until Amita Chana cut it off and pounded her Gavel.

“Order! Order! I am calling for order!” said Amita pounding her gavel.

“Batty fucker,” said Kim Campbell-Trudeau from the privacy of the 21st Century Earth’s suite, “our masters on Earth. my ass. The arrogance. That we were somehow designed to serve him and his inbred cronies is preposterous.”

“Prime Minister Kim you are exactly right. We need to make it for the loco people of Earth to know that these ships are a gift of charity for memories past, nada more. That our help, that our pushing raw materials into their orbit, is nada but the welfare one hands to a gringo in trouble. We are autonomous. Not beholden to terra.”

Another hologram appeared in center of the assembly.

“I would like to be recognized by the chair for a point of information.” A second Hologram of a woman dressed in a more traditional business suit and bow tie. She stood next to the first hologram.

The Hologram switched to Amita Chana “The Assembly recognizes the Jessica A. Prufrock Ambassador from Great Britain, Earth”

“Ladies, gentlemen, robots and eggplants of the United World Assembly. My American chum is very blunt, but he does make a valid point. Even with the great engineering project that you have embarked upon, the wondrous terraforming Mars, we all know that this is only a stop gap measure. Our population is growing beyond our resources.”

“Earth’s Nations only ask for the same considerations you demand of your own great society. We look up at the stars and wonder ‘Do I dare?’ and ‘Do I dare?’ just as you do. This does not have to be a zero sum game. The universe is big enough for all of us. So let’s explore it together. Human and Robot out in the sky taking on the heavens.”

“Do we not all come from earth. Human and Fake Human. We are your makers, but more, think of us as if we are a giant family, where we of Earth are your father. We sharing wisdom, and if occasionally we demand an punish, know that this is out of the love we carry in our hearts for you. Can you not find it within your programming to help us in our time of crisis?”

Jessica sat.

Humongous Testicles Stood and sent a mental command to the Assembly Chair Amita.

“The Chair yields the floor to President Humongous Testicles from the 21st Century Earth Server.” Said Amita.

There was some tittering around the assembly as the Humongous’ humongous hologram appeared.

“Thank you Amita, I have a point of clarification for speaker Prufrock. First of all, I think that I speak on behalf of the entire population of the Server Worlds that the term ‘Robots’ is offensive.

“Secondly, to put it in terms of economics, build more ships is a massive drain on the economies of the participating Server Worlds. Not only is their construction incredibly costly, but in the long run the earth colonizing other planets will not do anything to solve your population crises.

“In the currency of the Hallway, each ship costs nearly 40 trillion platinum coins to build. I believe that translates into about $134 trillion Earth American dollars. They are incredibly slow. At their fastest each ship can travel at 5% of the speed of light, given that will take 100 years to make the trip to Alpha Centauri the nearest planet. When we the ship finally gets there, we will of course have already started to terraform any suitable planets. We will push them into the goldilocks zone, add water and an atmosphere, and maybe even begin seeding the surface of the planet with synthetic bacteria suitable to turning the rocky surface into something capable of supporting life. But even then, it will be nearly 200 more years before humans can land and live on the planet.

“We could of course set up eco-pods and artificial environments much like earth and the moon currently have, and what we are planning for Mars. That would take considerably less time. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 to 100 years. In all likelihood we will probably combine both types of terraforming. And the more we do this, the more likely a technological breakthrough might happen.

“But what you are asking just isn’t economically and culturally feasible. And it doesn’t have to be. Simply digitalize yourself, and you can join a vast vibrant thriving community of people of every race, religion, ethnicity, culture, politic, and ideology. Space is yours for the taking. The structure needed to house a few billion more people is minuscule. Just a matter of applying enough processing power.”

“And if you want to visit Alpha Centauri or any of the other nearby solar systems, it would only be a trip of five to ten years at the speed of light, rather than the one hundred to two hundred it would take you to travel by space ship. Once we have planets terraformed, if your people really want to live in a body, that’ fine, we can clone a body right back down to the smallest scar and tiniest hangnail on the one you’re in now, and then put your consciousness back into it. Or if you want to design your own body, go for it.”

“And keep in mind that even if we build the thousands of ships that you seem to be requesting, unless you make emigration mandatory, you will have the same problem you have right now. The few remaining adventurous citizens you have will emigrate. The rest will stay home, going about their daily lives, and your population problems will stay dire.”

The earth contingent was shouting. Screams of anger filled the room. Flashes of holograms would show up in the center of the assembly room yelling “Blasphemy!” and “No!” and “Robots Trying to Suck our Minds!” and “James Cameron warned us this would happen!”

Amita started to bash her gavel. The angry Earth contingent kept yelling, after about 10 minutes they began to silence themselves, and Amita said, “The floor recognizes the representative of the Robotopolis Server World.”

“Ahem… on behalf of the peoples of Robotopolis, I would like to say that contrary to delegate Humongous Testicles, we citizens of the mighty robot empire do not find the term Robot to be offensive. That is all.”

There was a brief shocked silence and then, Amita said. “Ummm… Okay then… If that is all, then floor recognizes Jennifer A. Prufrock, Earth representative from Great Britain.”

“While I, and the rest of the Earth delegation think you actually believe in the sincerity of your offer, we will not allow our population to be digitalized. This is something that all the religions of the earth agree upon...”

But Prufrock’s voice was drowned out by Cardinal Mark Weaver the United States Representative’s hologram who had stood, uninvited, and started yelling from the center of the assembly.

“None of us on Earth want to be part the unholy perversion you suggest. You can crowd us to death, but our souls will one day bask in wide open spaces of heaven. Unlike you heathens who have desecrated your own souls. Consciousness as you call it, nothing but an artificial replica. A witchcraft of technology. You and your kind are the devil’s work. Build us our ships and maybe you might find redemption, I don’t know the will of God, but I know you are vile sinful things.”

“Everyone on earth is aware of the fiendish robotic scheme. There is a real living human being left at the end of your so called digitalization process. You can copy the consciousness, but because that consciousness is now digital, the analogue copy still remains.

“Yes, we here on earth know that the person you digitalize you murder. A person steps into one of your so called haptic pods, a flawed copy of their soul is created by your infernal mechanisms. And the body is destroyed. Let me repeat that, a perfectly viable living, thinking person, is left behind, that you fiends murder. The ‘thing’ that you call the digital consciousness is an unholy echo of a once vibrant person living in God’s grace.

“On earth, we have studied this issue with our greatest engineers and theologians. This is the doctrinal point that drove us away from your so called civilization. Or did you think that we were unaware of the fact that once your demonic machines have made a digital copy of a human brain, and that automaton has entered your hell worlds, that you kill the body.

“A solution to the Byzantine General’s Problem in Computer Science you call it. I call it pure unadulterated evil!”

“The religions of the earth are as one on this. A person can only exist in the body it was born into. Once it perishes, it proceeds to paradise or perdition.

“That you devils is the Theological truth that every God Fearing Man and Woman on this Planet acknowledges to be as the divinely inspired gospel. he Buddhists, Islamists, Jewish, Hindus and Zoroastrians have variations in their own beliefs.

“At one point, we believed that the elderly who wanted to create a memorial to their past lives might allow themselves entry into your world. We allowed digitalization of the terminally ill and the ones whose bodies were wearing out after a lifetime of labor. We even considered allowing our political prisoners.

“But no longer.

“If you robots want to kill us; you will have to actually kill us. Come at us with your space rays, or cannon bombs. But never again, will we allow you to try to lure us into corruption, leading us into abandoning our faith with your schemes and your fake promises of immortality and earthly heavens in the skies.”

This time the was pandemonium coming from the virtual world part of the gathered assembly. There were the occasional shouts of “Religious Nutcase!” but mostly that was minimal. Instead there were shouts of “Obsolete!” and “Luddite!” and “Neil Stephenson warned of this!”

The Server Worlds had many thousands of diverse religions and believers spread out across the solar system sky. Some of the first virtual worlds which had been set up, had been established by the faithful of earth’s myriad religions. People trying to flee religious persecution, or looking for their version of paradise, or simply looking to find a place to live with fewer unbelievers. Most of these religions simply longed to find a place where they could practice their beliefs in peace.

At last census a full 36% of the population of the virtual worlds practiced some form of religious devotion. From Baptists to Mormons, from Catholics to Protestants, from Shias to Sunnis to Sufi to Bahá'í, from Conservative to Reform Jewish, From Sikh to Hindu. There was even an entire world of Amish, though Humongous Testicles wasn’t entirely sure how that had come about. There were also entire worlds devoted to worshipping Zeus and the Olympian, Osiris, Odin, Kitsune and whatever else people wanted to worship.

All of this completely separate from the wacky modern practice of worshiping each server’s governing AIs. Some people actually treated these beings as Gods, though they clearly were not. Though, Humongous reflected, technically speaking, within their own extremely limited areas of expertise, these AI were omnipotent, omniscient, immortal and sometimes even responded to prayer.

“And whose fault is that,” Representative Savonarola yelled back not even letting the noise and clamor die down. Or for that matter allowing Amita to announce him. His figure stood in the center of the stadium with eyes aflame with impassioned righteousness.

Savonarola lived on his own private virtual world he called Florence. Nobody knew where he’d come from or who he actually was. All they knew was that he usually wore the garb of a Dominican Monk and was every bit as wealthy as he was extremely Anti-Earth.

“We once kept the bodies of the humans who digitalized on Earth in suspended animation. If they decided they didn’t like our worlds, they were free to come back and reenter their own body. But then your own radical right wing terrorist organizations destroyed that.”

“How many bodies were destroyed when the bombs set by האדם הראשון went off. And after that, which religiously led fundamentalist governments decreed that bodies of people going digital were too valuable to be wasted. Which countries ruled that they could be mulched for hydroponic nutrients and soil fertilizer!”

האדם הראשון had been a terrorist organization that combined a sect of Ultra-Orthodox Judaism with an offshoot of the Aryan Nation. This group was less interested in race as they were with saving “pure” humans from sub-human virtual shmucks.

In 2102, dressed in their customary shaved heads and Payots, swastika and star of David, they’d used their resources to infiltrated and blow-up 43 cryogenic storage facilities where hundreds of thousands bodies had been kept in case their virtual owns wanted to reembrace their old lives and live on earth again.

It was the equivalent of crossing the Elbe in terms of Earth and Server World relations. The moment when האדם הראשון had destroyed those bodies was the point when the split between the Earth and the rest of the solar system became political doctrine.

Those with curiosity, intellect, and a sense of adventure journeyed away from a dying earth, was an exaggeration. There was however, a form of self-selection in the exodus into the solar system.

The 2102 bombings of the cryogenic storage buildings had never been forgotten. The National Mall on the 21st Century North America Server had a memorial to the lost bodies. Every year Humongous as President, ceremonially laid a wreath. The outpouring of grief on that day was very real. Citizens would stop what they were doing and talk about what they had been doing when the bombs went off. The server worlds had not gone to war with Earth, but it had been a close thing.

Amita was pounding her gavel frantically, but Savonarola wouldn’t yield the floor.

“What does the Earth have to offer us. Holding on to this past is a wasted kind of hubris. Did Homo Sapiens mourn their dying Homo Neanderthalensis brothers, or did they just move onward building and focus on building civilization.”

“So what if earth cities choke on their own ignorance, and die by their own hands. We have done more than enough for them. We have spent more than enough of our own hard earned wealth on a civilization that simply spits in our faces. I say let them burn in their own ignorance. Let them decay in their own provincialism. Let these miserable relics of our past go into the oblivion of extinction they so properly deserve. Any of you who would like to evolve, can join us. Otherwise I am sure your science has proven that your Heavens will welcome you.”

The Earth delegation was on their feet, yelling and most of the Server World delegation joined them. The truth was, even the most pro-Earth Server Worlder considered the Earth to be a drain on the economy and didn’t like the strains of fanaticism that had taken hold.

“Order, Order! Order on the Floor,” and pounding her gavel, Amita was finally able to quiet the room.

“The Chair would like to recognize Alfred McGuffin,” Said Amita standing 10 meters high and glaring at the room as if daring any delegation to start yelling chaotically again.

“Thank you Amita,” said delegate McGuffin.

“Gentlemen and Ladies. Server World Denizens and Earthlings. Delegates and Ambassadors. Eggplant. I realize that we have our differences.

“I think that we can all agree that there are extremely few things we all agree upon. Momentous issues like those facing us today will not be solved in this debate.

“Clearly the call by the earth for thousands of more ships is unlikely. The resources of the Server Worlds were stretched to their limit building the current fleet of ten. Ten ships I should point out that are being loaded with happy future colonists.”

“Political Prisoners.” Muttered Humongous.

Nobody knew much about Alfred McGuffin. He was a mysterious figure who had come out of nowhere and had established his own Server World. As a moderate he held a lot of sway in Server World politics. For whatever reason, he was also as respected on Earth as a digital Human could be.

“I believe gentlemen, that it is in our interests to accommodate earth somewhat and build another 10 ships. They are after all designed for reuse, and will certainly come in handy as we move outward in the galaxy.

“I also believe that along with those 10 extra ships, an additional 50 more should be built in the colonies at Alpha Centauri, Bernard’s Star and the rest of the sites of future colonies. Think about it gentlemen, out there are resources that are just waiting to be used. Can we not spare a little bit for the home-world? Earth faces a crisis of population, and something should clearly be done.

“And in exchange for this accommodation, People of Earth, I believe that some relaxation of your rules on digitalization should take place. While I respect your beliefs. Certainly not all of your peoples believe exactly as you do. Long ago there was a term… what was it… multiculturalism. Certainly there must be people on earth would gladly join our community were it not for the restrictions the Faithful on your planet place on digitalization. In exchange for those 10 extra ships, for the potential of hundreds if not thousands more, I would think that allowing people to join our culture would be a small sacrifice?”

“Amita Chana, I call for a vote.” Said McGuffin.

Amita Chan stood up and said, “Alfred McGuffin calls for a vote. On the matter of a temporary exchange of 10 additional ships and building an additional 50 at each extra-solar system colony in exchange for earth lifting the restrictions on her citizens being digitalized, please vote aye or nay or abstain.”

Every delegate in the assembly had access to a voting button. Server World Clones could access the system through their cybernetics, but earth had to manually press buttons, and that took a while.

After about 10 minutes. Ten minutes of muttering and grumbling, Amita announced the vote.

“The vote from the Earth is:

- 39% yes

- 35% no,

- 26% abstain.

The vote from the Server Worlds is:

- 43% yes,

- 45% no,

- 12% abstain.

The yes vote wins.”

So the yes vote won, even though there were more no votes coming from the server worlds. Yet one more relic of a time when Earth had been a respected member. These days though…

… these days Earth was a backward mess of fundamentalism and reactionary politics, due to its honorary position as the birthplace of humanity, they had an oversized political presence at this assembly.

Close votes were always decided by their vote. A fact that enflamed many people in the anti-Earth community. One more thing, on top of one more thing. Things clearly needed to change.