Chapter 507 (1/2)

Nakteti used one thumb to scroll down the display, looking at the changes that had been applied to New Tnvaru over the last six months since the majority of the refugees from Lost Tnvaru had arrived on the new planet.

Nanoforges and creation engines, something that permeated Terran Confederate worlds, had been restricted to government oversight and only preferred manufacturers. Nutriforges had been restricted following a declaration of a board of inquiry to determine if it was safe for the Tnvaru to eat what the nutriforge produces.

Despite the fact that every single member species of the Confederacy used nutriforges tailored to their biology and tastes.

There had been some private ownership of vehicles, usually run off from one of the massive industrial creation engines. However, four months ago, private ownership was banned, citing 'safety concerns' and 'public responsibility', with mass-transit being mandated for everyone.

Nakteti had envisioned New Tnvaru as a sprawled out world, hundreds, thousands of small communities tied together by high speed maglev rail, private vehicle highways, and digital communications. She had set aside vast swaths of property for automated farms to provide luxury food for those who preferred to eat 'real' food rather than food from a nutriforge.

She had done her best to outline a society fueled and sustained by automation, with plenty of luxuries, relaxation activities, education, and private ownership.

It had all been wiped away.

She opened another window and scrolled backwards in the timeline.

Nakteti had envisioned elections for the planetary leader, once every ten years, with every five leader for the area representatives, with education eventually providing judges to assist the Confederate digital sentiences and Terran lawyers currently handling legal issues.

But the Confederacy's mantra of ”Do whatever you want on your planet as long as you follow some basic rules” had looped back around to bite Nakteti's on her backside and ruin her plans.

There had been no election. The heads of five trading consortiums, all of them now defunct as they were no longer trading in Lanaktallan space and had been ejected from Council Space, had taken over the government and elected one of their own number to the position of Planetary Director, with Consortium and Corporate boardroom rules for electing the Planetary Director.

The first thing they had done was restrict and then eliminate access to the creation engines and nanoforges by the public.

The second they had done was had construction systems build cities and ordered people to relocate to the cities.

With the loss of Tnvaru Prime, the people had been in shock. They had been grateful for leadership, for someone to make decisions in a dark time. When the refugee Tnvaru had left Terra and arrived at New Tnvaru with stories of seeing Tnvaru Prime burn, the people had been despondent. No Tnvaru had been lost, they had all been rescued, as had tens of thousands of other species, but the planet itself was gone.

She looked over the decisions by the Planetary Director and the Planetary Board of Directors, and had to admit what they had done had been clever.

Artificial shortages of materials, resources, and goods, including food. Limited entertainment, constant reminders of the loss of Tnvaru Prime and the colony. Trading away rights for safety.

The Tnvaru making up the Planetary Board of Directors had been very careful not to break any of the Confederacy's laws.

Nakteti had seen how it was legal to run a horrible despotism full of grinding poverty and terrible conditions, as long as the majority consented.

They had come close to breaking a rule. At one point they had tried to mandate that the only people who could vote were those who owned a certain amount of property and had tried to establish a Tnvaru System Currency.

The Terran lawyers had landed on that with both feet.

One being. One vote.

No secondary currencies or multi-layered economic shells. Confederate credits or barter, that was it.

The Planetary Board of Directors had tried to claim that the people were not used to voting, so they needed time to get used to even the idea of voting.

The Terran lawyers had warned that Confederate forces would occupy the planet, depose the government, and establish a direct representative military republic if the Planetary Board of Directors attempted to strip voting rights away.

They had then attempted to place a fee on voting.

The Terran lawyers had tapped the 'one being one vote' part and cleared their throat.

The Planetary Board of Directors had attempted to point at Dystopia Worlds and LARP worlds where corrupt politicians did whatever they wanted to despite the population's wishes.

The Terran lawyers had tapped ”one being one vote” again and just stared.

With the cold black emotionless eyes of a lawyer.

They had cancelled the mandatory schooling, something which made Nakteti clench her teeth. She had modeled the school system after what was being done on Leebaw, which many were calling the Leebaw Education Model, which meant ensuring that people not only gained knowledge, but skills.

She noted that the first classes canceled were those related to the creation engines and nanoforges.

Nakteti stopped and looked at another section, her eyes narrowing.

The Planetary Board of Directors had attempted to censor vast swaths of StellarNet and SolNet. Attempting to put up a massive firewall between the public and those digital information networks that would have prevented the Tnvaru from accessing any information the Planetary Board of Directors wanted to restrict.

Creation Engine, nano-forge, and nutriforge templates and how to design them were the first priority.

She noted, with some surprise, that her SolNet Site where she sold Tnvaru plushies and models of Tnvaru ships and vehicles, was a high priority exclusion that a Tnvaru could be fined or punished for viewing.

Scrolling quickly she saw that her epic Tri-Vee drama documentary of the It Tastes Sweet and the destruction of the colony and the discovery of the Confederacy had only been shown twice before the Planetary Board of Directors had placed the eight hour long Tri-Vee mini-series on the restricted list.

The more she saw, the angrier she became.

She had envisioned as close to paradise as she could make it. Not for the rich, not for the powerful, not for the uber-wealthy to whom rich would be abject poverty, not for government workers.

But for the youngest child to the most elderly.

She had envisioned parks, recreational areas, luxury, and leisure, all backed by the automation of the Confederacy. She had purchased Mantid automation systems, the best in the Confederacy. He had hired Digital Sentiences from the DASS to oversee things that her people had not been trained to handle, had hired them to teach her people to be self-sufficient. Nakteti had talked with experts, examined educational systems, and settled on the Leebaw Educational Model.

All of it had been wiped away to pack the Tnvaru people into a dozen cities. The towns and hamlets had been wiped away, factories surrounded the cities, and the highways and maglev were used only to transport goods from farms and factories.

Nakteti opened another window, using her personal code to gain access to the data.

93% of the Tnvaru people existed on the Basic Subsistence Allowance. 5% had 'management' positions and lower government positions. 1.5% had 'upper management' and 'mid-level government' positions. The last .499% were rich, with a final 0.001% being wealthy.

She cross referenced the names with those who had owned vast economic consortiums prior to the evacuation and loss of Tnvaru Prime.

The names matched across the board, with the exception of her own family, which was down to herself, her mother Sangbre, and a single cousin. The others had all been absorbed by other families or had been killed when the colony had been destroyed, although there was a bare handful that might still be alive further in Lanaktallan Space.

She shut the windows and moved over to a chair, sitting down.

Fury licked at her soul as she considered what she had seen in the last month since she had been home.

Her people jammed back into housing blocks, with sleeping cubes, nutripaste with only basic flavors, factories where Tnvaru worked that could have been nearly fully automated, and the majority of the schools let go.

As if they had never left Council Space.

You can't take the Burger out of the Burgerlander, she thought. You can't make the Treana'ad stop smoking, take the glass from the Great Glass Sea, and you can't make the Mantid engineer give up emojis.

”You are vexed,” one of her escorts, a daughter of the Duchess, said softly, running a whetstone along the edge of her engraved and inlaid nanite-infused blade, aligning the atoms of the nearly monomolecular edge.