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[Saede Riordan]

Utari
"Oh the security is here, its just discreet. For example, not to suggest you would actually do anything, but if you did..." Her voice trails off as Utari walks into an flat forcefield wall that instantly instantiated between them. She suppresses the urge to snicker as the field vanishes again with the demonstration made.

"Law enforcement is the Judicial Convention yeah, they also have the power to overturn laws found to be in violation of principles of governance established by the Exodus Charter, that's our primary legal document. Most of the police forces are actually robotic. Its just safer for everyone that way. A robot won't get spooked and accidentally shoot a suspect. They're around, they're just intentionally subtle."

She presses a button on the elevator. "You didn't hit that field too hard I hope?" She asks him with a chuckle. "And the Scientific Conclave is a meritocratic institution that focuses on research andtechnology improvement. They also handle the management for a lot of complex coordination problems like resource and property distribution and management. And they oversee the Sentient Equilibrium, which is a Strong AI used as an advisor to the digital council and board of coordinators, as well as the representative for nonhuman intelligences in the system."

[Aria Jenneth]

"Space exploration?" Aria slows. "Isn't quite a lot of that already being done?"

[Saede Riordan]

Aria
The man doesn't miss a beat. "Space is an awfully big place, and even with all the exploration we have done, it still only represents a fraction of the total volume. And besides that, the clouds enclosing the Origin system make visual astronomy next to useless. Did you know only one real map of Anoikis was ever successfully compiled, during Project Compass, and that CONCORD later restricted access to the data gathering technique when they performed a 'firmware patch' to the towers?"

[Aria Jenneth]

"Okay. What does that mean for us?"

[Utari Onzo]

Utari startles as he hits the forcefield, more surprised then harmed. "oh. Right." Recovering, he follows once more.

"You say the police forces are mostly robot. What's the crime rate like? Do you really trust a robot? I mean, robots are quite advanced but sometimes human judgement can come up with solutions a machine can't. No matter how close you get it, they just don't think like us.

As for the AI, do you worry at all about it going rogue?"

[Streya]

Streya had been tracking Saede and Utari and waits on their destination floor, ready to ambush her fellow Coordinator with two datapads' worth of information. Her demeanor seems as crisp as her gold-trimmed black uniform.

[Saede Riordan]

Utari
Saede gestures Utari into the elevator. "Do I trust the robots? Its not really a matter of trust. In most cases, you don't want a human getting involved until the very end. The defense and police drones are controlled from another building though, and if needed, the drone can send a command back to base that it needs help and an operator can take direct control of it."

She hits the button on the elevator and the car zooms upwards. "The crime rate is about 20 per 1000 people, and here's the fun part. Having a functional UBI and making sure everyone could support themselves did push the crime rates through the floor compared to impoverished areas, and legalizing all drugs and dismantling the black markets for them put another dent in crime rates. The odd but perhaps unsurprising thing is that the crimes remaining after you take out crimes of need and desperation tend to be much...worse. Serial killers, serial rapists, sociopaths, pyromaniacs... You can stop the people who are criminals of necessity by making their lives better. You can't stop someone who is just legitimately fucked in the head and thinks murdering random women is a great pastime that way. And obviously drones don't always make the best detectives so we do still have human police forces. But for something like a domestic dispute, you can at least get a drone there quickly and field the conflicting parties apart from each other while you wait for an officer to come and sort the situation out."

"And I maintain that there is a possibility that the SE could go rogue, or at least have its values drift enough that it becomes dangerous, which is why it's isolated from the networks and only acts as an advisor and advocate."

The elevator doors open to reveal Streya.

Aria
"It means that we're stuck trying to see the stars through the clouds, and we're not sure what our local stellar neighborhood even looks like. That's why we're out here today. I'm out here representing the Origin Astronomical Union, and we're raising public funds to build the gravity wave telescope in Anoikis. For a contribution of as little as 20 ISK a month, you can help push the envelope on astronomy and exploration."

[Utari Onzo]

"I see, so, exactly what proportions of that 20 in 1000 is made up of these violent crimes? What punishments do you apply to such offenders?

As for legalising drugs, that comes with a lot of its own issues. Sure, it's not a crime, but how much resources are you dedicated to addicts, overdose issues, and other effects of the sort? As a former addict myself, I can tell you it's a serious drain of resources just for one person."

Utari greets the newcomer with a bow of the head. "Salve."

[Saede Riordan]

"About half of that 20 out of 1000 are violent crimes. We do have a bit of white collar crime as well. Embezzling money, misuse of government or corporate resources, that sort of thing. With the white collar crimes we have a rehabilitation cycle we can put people through to get them back on their feet and following the rules. As for the violent criminals, we have a prison at one of our towers. Its actually a bit of an issue since they do act as a resource drain. We're still working out what to do with them in the long term." She shrugs.

"As for addiction treatments and such, we do have to spend money on treating addicts, but it ends up being less then we'd have to spend on law enforcement that wouldn't actually stop drug use and just create a dangerous black market. I was addicted to drop for quite a while, so I know too, trust me."

[Streya]

Streya clears her throat when she finds an opportune time to interrupt Saede. She speaks plainly and directly.

"Coordinator,  as you know there are external political affairs to handle. Namely our reaction to the Upwell Consortium and their bleeding edge product line. Not to mention Arataka Research and the Drifters. Pilots are going stir-crazy up there and we need to give them an action plan for the upcoming months."

She bows her head in greeting to Utari. "Salve, pardon my manners. How has your visit been so far?"

Sent from my LGMS345 using Tapatalk

[Saede Riordan]

Utari
Saede raises an eyebrow. "Yes," she gestures to the Vherokior woman, "Operations Coordinator Streya Jormagdnir, I'm well aware." She steps out of the elevator and crosses her arms. "But aren't you the one always ranting about Opsec Streya?" Her eyes go to Utari for a moment. "Is this a good time, or can we just go public with our plans now? Should we even be having this conversation right now?"

[Streya]

Streya keeps a lower tone; "Probably not, but you've been beating around the bush for long enough. We have a standing force to maintain and you need to put your foot down. I can sense when the people seek your thoughts."

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[Aria Jenneth]

"A gravity-wave telescope.."

She considers.

"So, I'm sure you have some kind of documentation authenticating this project?"

[Utari Onzo]

Utari watches the exchange between the two quietly, passively. In truth, he isn't even listening at all as he focuses instead on quietly reaching out with his AR feed. He'll look to pull up any and all public information on the five branches, published budgets, census data and the like, sorting and filing away for later review.

He'll also start actively hunting for any public information on the AI he can get his hands on over the course of Saede's tour around the Nexus building.

[Saede Riordan]

Utari
Saede sighs and rubs the bridge of her nose. "Yeah I know." she glances at Utari. "I guess its not super high security anyway. Its going to all be public before too much longer."

She turns back to Utari, "So you wanna see my office? I need to go write a long and probably drama inducing mail to Gunner and Nash. Unless I can delegate that off onto you Streya?" Saede says in a hopeful tone.

Aria
The man smiles. "My name is Allan, I'm a volunteer with the organisation, I can show you my membership card, and my tablet can provide you with full details on the project and its goals. Here, take a look?" He hands the device to Aria. It's preloaded onto secure page run by the Origin Astronomical Union with detailed technical specifications on the project. They plan to place 40,000 small satellites with laser links between them into a grid above the ecliptic that spans the width of the system. Its an ambitious project, but the low cost of the individual units might make it viable.