[Politics] Terminus Colony Disconcerted Over Alliance Presence

Terminus Colony Disconcerted Over Alliance Presence

Richard Seong, Attican Outlook

At a glance, there’s nothing remarkable about the colony of Inspiration, a quiet planet on the lip of the Traverse. Cold nights and colder winters are hallmarks of its’ long year, and the harvest seasons are just as unforgiving. But for its’ colonists, a little over one thousand miners surrounding the community of Tenacity, it’s home. And for the Alliance, it’s the site of an uncovered Prothean ruin that could span for kilometers under its surface.

“We’ve only had the opportunity for some basic survey, but if what our instruments are suggesting is true, we could be in these caves for years,” said Dr. Rainn Oliver, head of the team of Alliance scientists sent to explore the ruins. “The potential of this find is extraordinary.”

There’s only one problem: the colonists don’t want them there.

Inspiration has its’ roots in bands of wildcat miners who’d settled it in hopes of exploiting the rich, easily accessible iridium deposits. Most of them were unwilling to share with the Alliance, whom they saw as untrustworthy and disinterested in their livelihoods; this attitude would be shared by a majority of the colony as the community around the mines grew. Still, this didn’t keep them from gladly accepting Alliance aid when the Reapers arrived.

Elation quickly turned to resentment when they realized that the Alliance military presence wasn’t getting ready to pack up. The fighting would uncover subterranean Prothean ruins, left untouched since the species was wiped out by the Reapers fifty thousand years ago.

“They’re wrong to fear the Alliance,” said local garrison commander Colonel Ahmed Khan in a short interview with Outlook. “I don’t think [the colonists] understand the complexity of this situation, or how big a favour we’re doing for them. The moment we pull out, every pirate, raider, and Terminus state this side of the Traverse are going to be scrambling to get their hands on these ruins. They’ll be eviscerated.”

Despite this, it’s clear that many of the colonists see that as little more than empty words. “It’s not protection, it’s occupation,” declared a local dock worker, who asked to remain anonymous. “We built this colony because we didn’t want to live under the Alliance. And now they’re marching in here with their guns and their earthmovers and they tell us it’s for our own good. It’s degrading.”

Those closer to Inspiration’s chief livelihood expressed similar concerns and more - many are worried for their livelihoods. “They keep telling us about potential this, and potential that, but I’m not sure why they expect us to care,” complained Bryson Alvarez, one of Tenacity’s head miners. “They dress it up with big talk over our future and ‘progress’, yet they’re sitting on our mines and our iridium and they won’t let us near half of it. The fact of the matter is this: we never asked the Alliance to stay here, and we ain’t an Alliance colony. They got no right be here.”

The initial Alliance survey should finish within the next three months, where a much larger excavation mission is expected to follow.

Are you deaf as well as blind, then?

Oh, of course. Inspiration was saved against its will. I bet every man and women was begging the Alliance not to intervene when they were threatened with full-scale extinction. I mean, they would have all suffered horrendous deaths, but at least their pride would be intact, right?

Look: I know your glorified crater of a planet is The Only Important Thing In The Galaxy™, but if Ur ever wants to be anything more than an extranet punchline, it needs colonists. Colonists who - just like your grandparents - come from Earth. So yes, that homeworld which you care so little about is all-important to that fetid wasteland you cherish so dearly. Without the constant stream of colonists it provided, your home literally would not even exist. So please dispense with this tedious teenage rebellion mentality.

Statistics. I would forward them to you, but y'know, blind.

Enjoy your 0.000001% growth rate, then. I am sure you will overtake Palaven in no time!

Which is what all these vainglorious, capricious colonies claim, yet it never seems to stop them from exploiting Alliance protection when it suits them. See for reference: Horizon, which conveniently dropped its proud independence long enough for the Alliance to install defence turrets that saved the colony from total destruction, before immediately resuming it the moment they were out of danger.

So it is a greater priority for you to have a roaring log fire than for millions of people to have food?

Congratulations. Your sheer sociopathy astounds even me.

So therefore...it isn't from Earth?

Again, must I explain the sheer, mind-blowing retardedness of this statement? The Systems Alliance was founded on Earth; its constituents were the nations of; its employees are all human. It is not, by any measure or any description, a foreign regime.

That's basically government.

I wasn't born on Earth either, and guess what? We don't have a very large percentage in the censuses. (I also, apparently, give more fucks than you, but that's irrelevant. I expect that argument comes later.)

Forty years ago, every single human being alive was born on Earth. Including most of those miners, your parents and anyone you know who happens to be over the age of thirty-five or so. I'm surprised you don't give a fuck, because that probably accounts for 99% of everyone you know.

What impresses me more is how selfish some people are - resources go to help people living in squalor you can't even comprehend, and all the vocal people do about it is complain over their 'crappy bandwidth'. And while it may not apply to you entirely, it's becoming a spirits-damned stereotype of a 'typical' colonist, which pisses me off even more.

What constant stream of colonists? Our population was forty thousand before the war, two thousand now. I see no stream of colonists.So no Earth is not all important to my fetid wasteland home.
Or you're a liar. Hm random politician on the extranet lying. Who would've thunk it.
Was help accepted? Yes. Was it invited? No. The Alliance was not invited to this colony. They do not have any legal right to be there. End of story. You can whine and bitch all day that the Alliance ought to have the right, that does not make it so.
No. It is of greater priority for me that my friends and neighbors are neither freezing to death nor removing chunks of their body as they freeze the fuck off. You fucking cunt. The same goes for the slaver who thinks he can moralize.
What? What the bloody fuck does this shitty bandwidth crap have to do with this argument? I don't give two shits about fucking bandwidth. Neither does anyone else living on this iceball. We care about our shattered habdome. We care about the fact that we are literally living in fucking ruins. Don't tell me I can't comprehend the squalor people are living in until you've come to see how we are living.

and now you know why we eat politicians.

Oh gee, maybe because Earth just lost almost a quarter of its population in less than three months? Which is why they need all those resources for reconstruction and recovery? You know, those resources you are bitching about being sent to a planet which apparently does not aid you, even though it is integral to the continued survival of your utopian slab of rock?

I swear to God, if we could harness your circular arguments as a power source, we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

Who the fuck do you think colonises in the Terminus? Elderly couples looking for a retirement home?

These are worlds on the very periphery of civilised space that can barely be called habitable. Their sources of income are mainly agrarian or heavy industrial. And they are encircled by states that actively harbour or abet piracy. So yes, migration is predominantly young, male and transitory. They are the demographic in demand for the local economy, and also the most likely to weather piracy and poverty in order to scratch a living for themselves. Some may already be married, and looking to earn enough money to import their families; others may get married and settled down. But if you think that human colonies in the Terminus are full of smiling families and community care centres, then you are even more retarded than the 8-plus pages of our collective correspondence already attest to.

If Independence (and what a gauche name that is) did not want the Alliance interfering in its business, then it should not have accepted Alliance aid. End-of. You can either be a staunchly self-reliant colony, or you can be under Alliance protection. You cannot have the benefits of both.

I notice that the conditions in your colony tend to deteriorate proportionally to how badly you are currently faring in an argument. So that over the course of two threads, your world has gone from being a cold crater with no central heating and ruined housing to a hoarfrost hellscape of Stygian magnitudes littered with frostbitten bodies.

And yet, strangely, you still manage to have enough power to spare for your omni-tool. If conditions were so bad, it is amazing that you have not burned that thing as a fossil fuel yet. It would only provide a few minutes of fire for your fellow colonists, of course, but a lifetime of relief for this forum.

You have repeatedly expressed your apathy to the homeworld and the immense suffering of its inhabitants. You have prioritised your single, insignificant colony above the collective welfare of the human race. You have displayed a startlingly narcissistic worldview - even by my standards - where everything is valued only to the extent that it immediately benefits yourself. You cannot even profess a symbolic attachment to Earth, the ancestral home of your species and your own fucking grandparents.

Since you have expressed zero empathy for any one but yourself, I do not see why any one should have to care about your suffering.

So what makes the alliance any different than any other terminus warlord who uses the old "We saved your lives. Now you belong to us." racket then?

We weren't getting any bloody immigration even before the war you fucking dimwit.
You were in charge of some district of London before the war. Now by your own admission your job is to fetch the coffee for everyone more important than you. In other words, everyone. And you have the arrogance to think that you know more about the demographics of colonies than someone who grew up on a colony? If you'd like to see the retard taking part in this conversation look in the fucking mirror you spoiled brat.
If Independence (and what a gauche name that is) did not want the Alliance interfering in its business, then it should not have accepted Alliance aid. End-of. You can either be a staunchly self-reliant colony, or you can be under Alliance protection. You cannot have the benefits of both.


You probably have noticed this because you enjoy looking for ways to twist everything to suit your own purposes. i.e. proving that somehow you are not an utter waste of flesh and oxygen. You're not doing too well.
This is far from the first time I've mentioned frostbite or people dead from exposure. Which you might have noticed had you been blessed with intellect or maturity more impressive than a four year old's.

It's made of metal and microchips you fuckwit. Omnitools don't burn.
The homeworld the homeworld. I don't live there. It's not my home. As for the prioritization of my own welfare? Before you try to wax self righteous (I know it's a reflex for you but still) you might try living here for a year. See how easy it is to care about people you've never seen and never will when you have your own life threatening problems to deal with. But you won't do that. Because you've had everything given to you on a silver platter. You never had to do a real day's work in your life. Even now you don't. You serve people fucking coffee. You're perfectly comfortable to sit back there in your comfortable clean apartment and insult people whose situations you've never been in, never seen, and never will see.

You're a parasite. You contribute nothing to anyone. All you do is sit there in your snug office, serve coffee, and then whine for all to hear about how horribly ungrateful all those dirty uncivilized colonists are. You are a spoiled elitist brat throwing shit at anything that dares to disagree with you. Guess what brat? You're not always right. Grow up. But I'm not going to be the one to teach you. I'm done. Goodbye and have a nice life away from all the colonial ingrates.

Let me save everyone some time by saying how the conversation will go 5 back and forth from now :

And you think this situation would be improved if Earth was removed from the equation?

I know that in your self-absorbed mindset, every woe and concern can somehow be blamed on the Alliance, but did you perhaps consider that people are not eager to settle down on a world whose two dominant traits appear to be "cold" and "craterous"? What do you want the Alliance to do - deport people?

Amongst that volley of ad hominems, I do not see a single refutation of my logic or a counter-point, so I am just going to go ahead and claim vindication on that. But hey, I am sure your lifetime of experience living on a slab of rock so unattractive it would make a batarian living under the Hegemony think twice before moving has made you an expert in colonial growth and settlement, unlike a mere politician who has had years of specialist advice in that regards.

See above.

Come on, Helen Keller - you aren't even playing any more! Usually you have the odd counter-point dotted amongst the personal attacks and obscenities; now, it is just a raging sea of rage-quit. Don't be disheartened; you can still do this! I mean, you really burned me with that coffee bon mot. You've gotta me on the ropes here!

I will just let this post stand without comment, since even a crack-addled vorcha could observe the hypocrisy.

Ask a political scientist.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuucked.

Right. Now that I've calmed down. I apologize to everyone for that... display. I did not actually join this site for the sole purpose of debating my political views. For that reason I'm putting Proctor on ignore because otherwise I will likely do nothing else. So I'll still be around, hopefully you'll have to hear much less of my opinions however. Again, apologies for losing my temper.

You missed the point entirely.

There are people on Earth who have nothing. No clothes, no heat, no roofs over their head, no omnitools, no family or friends left. They live in sewage, sleep under emergency blankets, stand in line for hours for a couple cans of food, and try to explain to their children why they can't go back to what life was like before the Reapers came.

Spirits, there are colonists who live like this.

And you? You apparently have enough time and energy to spend to bitch around on an omnitool, which makes me wonder a) how old you are that you don't have to be working your ass off for all the iridium you complain about, and b) how bad it actually is for you. You still obviously have enough that you can afford to keep the omnitool on your wrist, otherwise, you'd have sold it by now.

Again, there are people living in squalor you can't even begin to understand. Everybody has it hard nowadays, you and your world aren't alone in that. Bitching about it like this isn't going to make anyone sympathetic towards you or towards Ur.

EDIT (since my post went up at the exact same time):

My original point still stands, though thanks for the apology. I'm sorry for what Ur is going through, and I really wish I could show that its worth something, that the Alliance isn't what you think it is.

Alright. I am going to assume that you have seen nothing that I have posted about myself or my colony thus far. I do not work in the iridium mines because I am blind. Instead I work in this colony's administration using a STT and TTS program on my omnitool. Which is the only reason I still have it.

No we don't live in sewage. We live in bombed out buildings, some of them barely recognizable as buildings anymore. We do in fact stand in line for food every day because this colony produces absolutely none. We do sleep under emergency blankets. And yes lady we do have to explain to our kids why things are still not back to normal. Just because you don't like me don't just assume that everyone else on this colony must have it easy.

Alright, I don't actually care all that much about this debate, and the only emotion that I would care to express over this debacle is the smug satisfaction that is schadenfreude, but I'm just gonna make a quick correction here because the article says the colony's called Inspiration.

Back to your scheduled turian human separatism.

Okay, before I wade in here and get hot water up to my nads, let me just clarify in our post-Reaper galaxy, I find it difficult to see colony politics as anything other than petty bullshit, and I don't wanna spurt my opinions (which I'm sure I don't need to convince you aren't worth much) over the extranet.

That said, can you explain something to me? Why the fuck did anyone go to this Ur planet (I've never heard of it before, sorry) in the first place? I mean, so far all you've said about it is that it's practically inhospitably cold, and you mine iridium there. I mean, can you just go out for a quick, hardsuited stroll and pick the stuff out of the fucking snow? Because I honestly can't fathom how much iridium must be there to make boots-on-ground mining worth it, let alone a full blown colony.

You wanna know where else has iridium? Eden Prime. Yeah. Not, like, a lot, but there's at least a dozen suspected meteor strikes where iridium's been found. Hell, I ran survey data from one as part of my dissertation. We have beaches here too. And woods. And pretty lakeside villas. You know where has even more iridium? Terra Nova. Those platinum mines that make that rock of a planet worth visiting? Yeah, good source of iridium too. More than Earth ever had, and it took a population of several billion over two centuries to consume most of the crust occurrences. Average surface temperature on TN? Fifty fuckin' six degrees. Warm enough for you?

I have literally no idea why, if this planet is so cold that it all you can physically do is whine about it on the extranet, do you not pack up and leave it for the robo-mining corps. Why not go work for them, or better yet a colony that might one day have both the mineral resources and arable fucking farmland to be self-sufficient?

Are you people even arguing about the colony in the news article at this point? I'm failing to understand how much of this stuff is relevant given Inspiration's circumstances versus... whatever is going on here.

It's a pretty easy logic trail actually. Y'see, both of these colonies are fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucked.

Is there a particular reason you're trying to provoke me now? Seriously the fuck did I ever do to you? If you had bothered to read anything beyond "Ur is cold," then you would be aware that we have no money. No money doesn't just mean we can't rebuild. It also means we can't leave. So no mining corps. And if you think the Alliance is going to shell out money to a mining corp when they won't even pay us for the ore then you're crazy. We used to mine via drones. But then the Reapers happened. Guess how many mining drones we have now?

Moving on. Yeah there were reasons Ur was colonized. Like extremely extensive iridium mines. Like a local gas giant just perfect for He-3 scoops. Like another terrestrial world in the same system with large platinum deposits. And one more world that had not yet been surveyed but looked promising. Not to mention before the war we had a temperature controlled hab-dome. So before the war even if you worked the mines you still came back home after work and you didn't have to worry about freezing.

And somehow it got 40,000 morons to live on it. Musta been some kind of awesome iridium to not go somewhere else.

Hey Palmer. Read. I know that must be hard but really, it's rewarding. Like for instance you would have been able to figure out that pre-war Ur wasn't such a shit place to live. And you wouldn't look like a retard. Oh wait excuse me. You would look like less of a retard.