[Oops, stepped right in the trauma there, Arthur! Her eyes narrow.] As a doctor you'll know medical ethics. Including my right to say no to whatever I please. I won't be under anyone's care. I'm fine. If I'm injured, I'll consult you, and you can be my doctor then, but as it is, I'm quite whole. Perfectly able to do my duty, yes?
[It's true - she could be bleeding to death and if she refused treatment there'd be nothing a doctor from her sector could do about it, not legally. Even beyond the value of self-determination, though, she won't accept that she's in any way unfit to be on the Tradelines.]
Your mother sounds like a remarkable woman, but she really shouldn't have put up with all that. Where I'm from, contracts are time-limited. Nobody should be tied forever to someone who causes them trouble or treats them badly. If anyone did ask you to sign a lifetime contract, that in itself would be a reason to say no! I suppose she hadn't much choice, if she couldn't work or do business. Were there charities who might have helped? We have plenty of those on the Company worlds, to help people who don't have a fair chance, or have been unfortunate.
I don't think it ever really helps to have destructive people. It's always an absolute tragedy when innocent civilians die because of other people's objectives. Each individual life is valuable. It's something we can never get back. None of them should be thrown away for politics or ambition or a desire for change. People choosing to risk their lives is something else, but when an entire war happens planetside, it isn't only the soldiers and the criminals who die for it.
[Tayrey laughs when he compliments her.] Well, my father would be very pleased to hear you say that! It's true, I did work hard. I also thought I had the perfect excuse to be terrible at politics and planetside niceties - poor Tayrey, went spacer so young, no wonder she doesn't know these things! But it seems a Company education isn't so easily lost.
[She's fascinated by his explanations of the history of trade and politics in his sector, and although she keeps walking, she's slowed her pace now. She's definitely paying more attention to Arthur than to what's going on in town. Maybe two isn't always better for patrol!]
I can't say it's like either the Tradelines or our Companies, then! Not beyond superficial comparisons. How anyone can think slavery is acceptable I'll never understand. Then there's taking backing from a government - a monarchy, no less! - and supporting taxation, of all things. That's one of the reasons we fought Breakaway.
[And she might as well tell him about that, since he's sharing so much.]
Imagine it, well over a hundred standard years back. Tirva was a planet in isolation, like your Earth is. The first colonists had gone out, in the slow ships - they might take decades to reach their destinations, or longer. They slept through the journeys. Technology improved, ships got quicker, new planets were settled while the slow ships drifted on. Still, space travel lost you time, one way or another. But still people went out. They went out because of the dream of a new life, of true freedom. Scientists and dreamers, in those early days.
Meanwhile, Tirva slid further and further into tyranny, but it did it gently. No fires and bombs and mass executions. No. Monitoring. Centralisation. Tirva united all its countries under one government, with the promise that it would bring fairness and equality. Instead, it dragged the richer countries down to the level of the poorer ones. And then that government began to watch everything that people did, and everything they said, using technologies. Rebellion would get you executed or thrown in prison, but even minor crimes - in an instant they could cut you off from all your money. Make it so that the doors of businesses literally wouldn't open to you. They'd scan your face and the door would stay closed. How did they do this? They convinced people that without all this, they wouldn't be safe. That it was right to give up all their freedom, or otherwise they'd be at terrible risk of harm. And they made every child on the planet attend one of their schools to be taught this.
The older generations knew different. Some of them. Enter Stanley Lorentzen, a true genius, who developed the Lorentzen equations. He lived on one of the early colonies, close to Tirva. He and his colleagues developed an engine better than anything ever seen, one to revolutionise space travel. The Matsukata drive. The L-space engine. The colonies weren't under Tirvan oppression, but they were unwilling supporters, having to pay heavy taxes back to Tirva. If Tirva could have put them under the same control, it would have, but it couldn't reach so far. Tirva hounded Lorentzen. Demanded he give up all his work to their government, so that they alone would control interstellar travel.
He wouldn't have it! He broadcast a message across Tirva - come out, come out, any who are still free! And the people and the Companies of the rebel enclaves on Tirva all went out. Took passage to the nearest colonies by any way they could. Some built their own ships. Some died trying to flee Tirva.
Tirva hounded Lorentzen. At one point they intercepted a ship he was on, and held him prisoner on Tirva itself, but no matter what they did, he wouldn't give up his secrets. He was released, as part of a trade, but he was never the same again. Stanley Lorentzen died, in the end, because of Tirvan tyranny. And then the colonies declared war. No more taxes. No tribute back to Tirva, no inspections, no communications at all. The Tradelines did not exist then. Most of the colonies were very young. Pioneers scraping an existence. Refugees. Fledgling Companies. But they fought fiercely! Every trader whose ship carried defensive weapons. Planetary militia who learnt to fly. Passenger ships who traded luxury cabins for laser arrays. All different, all individual, but coming together in common cause.
I make it sound easy. But the war took seven years. My great-grandmother was a child when it began, and an accomplished veteran by the end, even though she was still young. We lost so many... but in the end, we were free. Tirva could not hold out against us. We've held a border ever since, no ship crosses over, either way. No communication. But Tirva has sent out no ships, not in a century.
That is the history of my people. Where we came from, and why we value our freedom so highly. [Ari Tayrey blushes a little. She's never told the story like that before, not in that detail. It's one they all know.] My captain could tell you better! But that is the heart of it.
no subject
[It's true - she could be bleeding to death and if she refused treatment there'd be nothing a doctor from her sector could do about it, not legally. Even beyond the value of self-determination, though, she won't accept that she's in any way unfit to be on the Tradelines.]
Your mother sounds like a remarkable woman, but she really shouldn't have put up with all that. Where I'm from, contracts are time-limited. Nobody should be tied forever to someone who causes them trouble or treats them badly. If anyone did ask you to sign a lifetime contract, that in itself would be a reason to say no! I suppose she hadn't much choice, if she couldn't work or do business. Were there charities who might have helped? We have plenty of those on the Company worlds, to help people who don't have a fair chance, or have been unfortunate.
I don't think it ever really helps to have destructive people. It's always an absolute tragedy when innocent civilians die because of other people's objectives. Each individual life is valuable. It's something we can never get back. None of them should be thrown away for politics or ambition or a desire for change. People choosing to risk their lives is something else, but when an entire war happens planetside, it isn't only the soldiers and the criminals who die for it.
[Tayrey laughs when he compliments her.] Well, my father would be very pleased to hear you say that! It's true, I did work hard. I also thought I had the perfect excuse to be terrible at politics and planetside niceties - poor Tayrey, went spacer so young, no wonder she doesn't know these things! But it seems a Company education isn't so easily lost.
[She's fascinated by his explanations of the history of trade and politics in his sector, and although she keeps walking, she's slowed her pace now. She's definitely paying more attention to Arthur than to what's going on in town. Maybe two isn't always better for patrol!]
I can't say it's like either the Tradelines or our Companies, then! Not beyond superficial comparisons. How anyone can think slavery is acceptable I'll never understand. Then there's taking backing from a government - a monarchy, no less! - and supporting taxation, of all things. That's one of the reasons we fought Breakaway.
[And she might as well tell him about that, since he's sharing so much.]
Imagine it, well over a hundred standard years back. Tirva was a planet in isolation, like your Earth is. The first colonists had gone out, in the slow ships - they might take decades to reach their destinations, or longer. They slept through the journeys. Technology improved, ships got quicker, new planets were settled while the slow ships drifted on. Still, space travel lost you time, one way or another. But still people went out. They went out because of the dream of a new life, of true freedom. Scientists and dreamers, in those early days.
Meanwhile, Tirva slid further and further into tyranny, but it did it gently. No fires and bombs and mass executions. No. Monitoring. Centralisation. Tirva united all its countries under one government, with the promise that it would bring fairness and equality. Instead, it dragged the richer countries down to the level of the poorer ones. And then that government began to watch everything that people did, and everything they said, using technologies. Rebellion would get you executed or thrown in prison, but even minor crimes - in an instant they could cut you off from all your money. Make it so that the doors of businesses literally wouldn't open to you. They'd scan your face and the door would stay closed. How did they do this? They convinced people that without all this, they wouldn't be safe. That it was right to give up all their freedom, or otherwise they'd be at terrible risk of harm. And they made every child on the planet attend one of their schools to be taught this.
The older generations knew different. Some of them. Enter Stanley Lorentzen, a true genius, who developed the Lorentzen equations. He lived on one of the early colonies, close to Tirva. He and his colleagues developed an engine better than anything ever seen, one to revolutionise space travel. The Matsukata drive. The L-space engine. The colonies weren't under Tirvan oppression, but they were unwilling supporters, having to pay heavy taxes back to Tirva. If Tirva could have put them under the same control, it would have, but it couldn't reach so far. Tirva hounded Lorentzen. Demanded he give up all his work to their government, so that they alone would control interstellar travel.
He wouldn't have it! He broadcast a message across Tirva - come out, come out, any who are still free! And the people and the Companies of the rebel enclaves on Tirva all went out. Took passage to the nearest colonies by any way they could. Some built their own ships. Some died trying to flee Tirva.
Tirva hounded Lorentzen. At one point they intercepted a ship he was on, and held him prisoner on Tirva itself, but no matter what they did, he wouldn't give up his secrets. He was released, as part of a trade, but he was never the same again. Stanley Lorentzen died, in the end, because of Tirvan tyranny. And then the colonies declared war. No more taxes. No tribute back to Tirva, no inspections, no communications at all. The Tradelines did not exist then. Most of the colonies were very young. Pioneers scraping an existence. Refugees. Fledgling Companies. But they fought fiercely! Every trader whose ship carried defensive weapons. Planetary militia who learnt to fly. Passenger ships who traded luxury cabins for laser arrays. All different, all individual, but coming together in common cause.
I make it sound easy. But the war took seven years. My great-grandmother was a child when it began, and an accomplished veteran by the end, even though she was still young. We lost so many... but in the end, we were free. Tirva could not hold out against us. We've held a border ever since, no ship crosses over, either way. No communication. But Tirva has sent out no ships, not in a century.
That is the history of my people. Where we came from, and why we value our freedom so highly. [Ari Tayrey blushes a little. She's never told the story like that before, not in that detail. It's one they all know.] My captain could tell you better! But that is the heart of it.