The Fringe Wars

4.2

How War is Made

Parliament, Myr

Corps General Barrett Anders stood behind the podium facing the emergency Parliament session on Myr. He could've addressed the members with the formality they were used to, but instead decided to go with the straightforward approach. "By now, you should've read the terms of the cease-fire agreement. As part of those terms, I request Parliament to declare the fringe planets as independent worlds of the Collective, with guaranteed open trade through all four fringe stations, to be detailed via individual trade negotiations."

The senators raised an uproar. Voices stepped on one another as politicians declared their dissent.

Anders let them carry on for a minute before speaking loudly into the microphone. "Tell me why each planet within the Collective shouldn't be treated equally."

"Because they're colonies, not citizen-states," someone yelled. "Those colonies wouldn't exist without our resources and support."

Anders held back a shrug. "Myr and Alluvia were Earth's colonies as well, yet Earth never once dictated control after the colony ships left Earth's system."

"The fringe worlds don't have the infrastructure to manage themselves. They need us," another called out.

"Do they?" Anders looked across the faces until he found who he sought. "What do you have to say about that, Senator Finnegan? As the sole representative of the colonies to Parliament, do you believe they are capable of managing themselves?"

The senator, a plump, elderly man, took his time to turn on the microphone at his table. "I do believe the colonies are capable of managing themselves," he drawled out.

"You have to say that for your constituents or else you won't get voted in next term," a senator shouted.

Finnegan held up a hand. "However, each fringe world was settled by colonists with Collective backing. It was the Collective—namely, Myr and Alluvia—that provided the funds and resources to establish each new planet's first colonies, which became what we know as the fringe stations. As such, I believe two things must be made true for the Collective to thrive. First, I believe the fringe worlds should remain in the Collective as independent citizen-states. After all, it's natural evolution for colonies to mature. We all know the Collective would collapse if four of its six worlds broke free. We learned a hard lesson when the blight was released at Sol Base, which cut us off from over half of the Collective's food supplies for several months. That brings me to my second belief. I have long been a proponent for allowing multiple fringe stations on each planet as redundancies, with each world managing its own docks, just as Myr and Alluvia do today. I believe today is the day we lift the ban on the fringe worlds and allow them to build and manage their own space docks."

Anders suspected the fringe was already building space docks under the Collective's nose. He'd dispatched drones to orbit all four fringe worlds to detect any such construction, but space docks only needed silo openings for ships to be launched. Finding holes with diameters of less than one hundred fifty meters wide equated to finding the proverbial needle in the haystack.

"Then the fringe would control the docks," a senator called out.

"If they control the docks, they can dictate trade terms and tax us for landing," another said.

"True enough," Finnegan said. "However, capitalism creates competition, which will ensure equitable rates for everyone. The CUF has controlled the docks for too long. Don't you agree, Corps General?"

"Absolutely," Anders replied quickly, thankful to get the floor back from the famously long-winded senator. "If the Forces were freed up from maintaining the status quo within the Collective, then we could focus on the future, such as exploring for habitable systems for expansion. That, I believe, would be a boon to everyone."