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[Utari Onzo]

Utari blinks slightly as his eyes lose their glaze, shutting off the feed.

"Um, yes, sure. You're the host."

He smiles diplomatically to the two.

[Aria Jenneth]

"Now that's interesting. The idea is to detect gravitational interference in the grid? Well-- it's maybe worth a shot. I'm not much for time-pays, though; they add up, which is sort of the point after all. How about a one-time donation?"

[Saede Riordan]

Aria
"Yes exactly, the man says, opening a page on the tablet with a small demonstration video of how gravity waves causes small subatomic variances in the distances between the satellites in the swarm. "And of course we accept one time donations. We're asking our one time donors to contribute 200 ISK today. And by signing up with us here, you'll become a member of the OAU and be kept up to date on the latest exciting discoveries in the worlds of astronomy and astrophysics."

Utari
(( I'm just waiting for Streya to post ))

[Streya]

"Yes, delegate away. I'll try to make it sweet but to the point"

She turns to Utari, her crisp black designer uniform shining in the lights of the Nexus "Welcome to Origin, I'm sure your stay will be pleasant". She gives Saede an affirming nod before retreating to her office

Sent from my LGMS345 using Tapatalk

[Aria Jenneth]

"... um. Sure. Is this a pledge, or is there a transfer I should be going ahead and arranging?"

In her personal datasphere, she's already setting up a transfer in the sum of 1M ISK.

[Saede Riordan]

Utari
Saede nods to Streya as she wanders off, and beckons Utari down the long glass walled corridor. The walls look into open plan offices where system administrators handle the day to day process of running Origin. She leads the way around a corner and down a long curving corridor to a door marked:

Riordan
Systems Coordinator

The door opens for her and she beckons for Utari to enter. The far wall provides a commanding view of the city through faintly violet tinted glass windows. The afternoon sun hangs low over the bay to the west. In the distance, the massive circular concrete platform that will one day provide the anchor for a space elevator can be seen squatting low in the bay.

"So you were asking about the other branches?" Saede asks Utari as she slumps into her desk chair and lights another cigarette. She pulls up a chart of the branches of the government, showing various checks and balances that each group provides on each other group. The Board of Coordinators acts as the executive branch, and does the day to day running of the system. They are checked by the judicial convention, who can overturn the BoC's mandates and operations if found to be in violation of the Exodus Charter. The Digital Council creates the local and systemwide laws, establishes budgets, taxation, and public works projects. They are also checked by the Judicial Convention, who can strike down laws found to be in violation of the Exodus Charter. However, with a 95% majority vote, the Digital Council can also change the Exodus Charter. The Judicial Convention acts as the judiciary, acting as checks on the executive and legislative branches. Judges appointed to the Judicial Convention are selected by the Board of Coordinators and approved by a 75% majority vote on the Digital Council. The Scientific Conclave is a merit based position where new members are chosen by existing members based on skill. The Conclave has no maximum number of members, and 40% of the system is a member of the Conclave in some capacity. The Conclave manages all research and technological development in Origin, as well as managing public works projects alongside the Board of Coordinators and monitoring the economic and political landscape as a watchdog organisation. The Conclave can also create laws with a 90% majority vote weighted by rank and skill in the field the vote effects. Laws created by the Conclave cannot be overturned by the Judicial Convention, but can be overturned by the Sentient Equilibrium. The Sentient Equilibrium is a Strong AI acting in an advisory position to all the other various branches of government. SE can also overturn laws created by the Scientific Conclave and the Digital Council but not the Board of Coordinators.

Aria
"Its a pledge, if you just want to fill out this page real quick?" The man shows Aria a donation page on the tablet.

[Utari Onzo]

Utari takes some time reviewing the chart. He quirks up a brow at times, before turning to Saede.

"If I'm reading this correctly, you've a two tiered legistative system. The Digital Council, and the Scientific Conclave. In the case of the former it's kept in check and balance by the Judiciary, and the latter by an AI. Um... What areas exactly does the Scientific Conclave legislate for that the Digital Council doesn't? And if the AI strikes down a law, unlike with the Digital Council it seems the Conclave doesn't have room to change the field of play so they can re-introduce law, correct?"

[Aria Jenneth]

Aria scratches her head. Her personal data system starts searching the planetary net for the (nigh on inevitable) more direct way to donate.

"So-- while I'm working on this ... what happens to people who run out of money here? It must happen. Accidents, hard luck, mental illness, addiction, debts, poor personal habits.... But I don't see any sign of such people."

[Saede Riordan]

Utari
"Its not exactly tiered." Saede answers. "The Conclave in some ways has more power then the Digital Council. It takes a lot more to get a law passed through the Conclave in the first place, its designed to be intentionally difficult because their laws cannot be overruled by the judiciary. The idea is, the Digital Council is a political organisation, it makes laws its constituents want. The Conclave though is a scientific organisation, the laws the conclave makes are not beholden to voters. The laws the conclave passes tend to laws against things with a known, quantifiably bad outcome that would be politically untenable to pass. Things like anti-pollution measures, deciding who gets to put their satellites where so no one crashes into anyone else, approving funding for large scale science projects, things like that. The Conclave is designed to act as much as possible like a perfect rational actor, and the SE is designed with the same goal in mind from a different direction. 99% of the time, the SE just catches the Conclave if they were going to do something unsound before it ever reaches a vote. The SE has only actually used its veto powers twice."

She scratches her nose and removes a cigarette from a desk drawer. "Aumann's agreement theorem, two perfect rational actors can't actually 'agree to disagree'. If both parties are acting on the same information with the same priors, then they will eventually come to the same conclusion. The SE and the Conclave don't fight or argue with each other. They don't disagree, it would be illogical and irrational to disagree with something if presented evidence for a certain position."

Aria
There is of course an equally direct way to donate directly through the OAU website. The page the man has on his tablet is in fact just that page.

The man cocks his head slightly. "There's a UBI that applies to all citizens of Origin. And there's the housing projects if you can't find a place to stay." The man makes eye contact with Aria and holds it for a moment. His implant set sends Aria a URL that maps to the Foundation City Street map, providing directions to the location of the housing projects. "I take it from that though that you're new to Origin? Colonist or just visiting?"

[Utari Onzo]

Utari purses his lips for a moment. There's an obvious desire to speak out, likely critically by the furrowed expression on his face, but he ultimately decides to leave his concerns be. "Very well. I'll have to take your word that it works. Now, about the budget, could you give me a rough break down? Defence and policing, social programmes, civil construction, those kinds of things."

[Saede Riordan]

Utari
Saede lights her cigarette and swipes the screen to the left, sliding over into a series of pie charts showing the budgetary breakdown. The economy is in the black, with 25% of the budget going to civil projects, 40% going to social welfare programs, and 35% going to defense spending. "I can also show you sub-breakdowns by various departments. Most of our budget comes from taxes on exports. Since the majority of our economy is export based, and a large portion of our resources can't be sourced in Known Space, the corporations are willing to put up with it."

[Utari Onzo]

"Sure, I'd like to see the breakdowns."

He studies the charts carefully, using his implants to take screengrabs for future analysis.

"By exports, do you mean the salvage from Sleeper drone wrecks? I know you mentioned once that Origin is subsidied by tax on Capsuleer activities in that regard, unless I'm mistaken? What other materials are you extracting, and is there a healthy export of finished goods or are you more dependant on raw materials and manufactured componants to be finished in k-space?"

[Aria Jenneth]

Aria
There is of course an equally direct way to donate directly through the OAU website. The page the man has on his tablet is in fact just that page.

The man cocks his head slightly. "There's a UBI that applies to all citizens of Origin. And there's the housing projects if you can't find a place to stay." The man makes eye contact with Aria and holds it for a moment. His implant set sends Aria a URL that maps to the Foundation City Street map, providing directions to the location of the housing projects. "I take it from that though that you're new to Origin? Colonist or just visiting?"

"Visitor. Hence my lack of interest in making a pledge I'd be called on to fulfill later; you'd need to use fluid routers to reach me, and I gather that's a little expensive. Or put a messenger on an outbound transport. I'd really rather just complete the transaction now."

[Saede Riordan]

Utari
Saede slides her hand through different sections of the floating holographic pie chart, causing them to split into individual departments. Defense is broken up into Orbital 15%, System 65%, and City 20%. Civil Projects are broken up into hundreds of small projects ranging from building libraries to the space elevator in the bay beyond Foundation City, to science projects constructed on Eidolon or sprawling through space. The space elevator is by far the largest budget item, but even it only is getting 9% of the total funding. The social welfare spending is broken up into UBI 55%, Housing Projects 10%, and Medical Services 35%.

"Sleeper drone salvage is a major component, but also things like fullerene gasses, minerals. We have an entire solar system's worth of resources. I refuse to think of sleeper drones as a good source of long term profit. But its good for bootstrapping. In the long run, maybe we'll do moon mineral reaction chains? It'd be nice if the SCC let us mine our moons. As for what specifically we're exporting, it is mostly raw materials at this point, though our local industries are slowly taking a larger and larger percentage of the resources extracted and selling them as finished products. Most small consumer goods are by now made locally, and we grow a lot of our own food. But for instance, a car, air or ground? You'd have to import one."

Aria
The man nods, "I understand. Well if you just fill out the form here, you can make a one time contribution and be on your way." He smiles. The page on the tablet does have an 'other' box where one can input their own donation amount. There's also a localnet interface on the device, which would let Aria send the data from her implants directly to it.

[Utari Onzo]

"So essencially you're using the tax on capsuleers to suppliment Origin instead of the government taking on debt? What is your projection for the colony to become financially self sustaining without capsuleer support, and what sort of central financial institution are you going to set up?"