Chapter 38 Chapter 38 General Congress

According to the history books -- though no one really believes it -- the old United Nations at one time had 172 member states.United Planets currently has only seven members; sometimes that's bad enough.Arranged in order of distance from the sun, they are: Mercury, Earth, Moon, Mars, Ganymede, and. Critics continue to point out that the members of the joint planets are not all planets, and that the four largest planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, are not included, which is ridiculous. But those gas giants are impossible to live in.Another significant absence is Venus.Even the most ardent planetary engineers agree that it will take centuries to tame Venus; the Mercurians have their eyes firmly on it, and no doubt have long-term plans in place.

There has also been controversy over separate representations of the Earth and the Moon.Other representatives argued that power was too concentrated in this corner of the solar system.But the moon is more populated than other worlds except the earth, and it is also the location of the U.P (United Planets) assembly.Besides, the earth and the moon are hardly in agreement on any point, so it seems unlikely that they will form any dangerous alliance. Mars is in charge of asteroids, only the Icarein group is supervised by Mercury, and a small number of asteroids whose perihelion is outside Saturn belong to the giant star group.Perhaps one day, large asteroids such as Ceres, Juno, etc. will be so important that they send their own ambassadors, increasing U.P's membership to double digits.

Ganymede represents not only Jupiter—thus giving it more mass than the rest of the solar system put together—but also the remaining fifty or so moons of Jupiter.The same giant star is also in charge of Saturn, even its rings and more than 30 other satellites. The situation with Mermaid is more complicated.This large moon of Neptune, the largest permanently inhabited body in the solar system, has several titles for its ambassador.He represented not only Neptune and its three other moons, but also Uranus and its eight moons (all unoccupied), as well as Pluto, and if there were planets beyond Pluto he would also be in charge.As if that wasn't enough, the ambassador of outer darkness (as he was called) once asked, "Who cares about comets?" A question that was generally thought to be left for the future.

Yet now, in a sense, the future has already arrived.By some definition, Rama is a comet.They are another unique kind of visitor from the depths of the stars, and some of them fly in hyperbolic orbits, even closer to the sun than Rama. Any space lawyer would make a good case based on this, of course. The Mercury ambassador is the most expert. "We all know His Excellency Ambassador Mercury." The chairman introduced. Because the round table conference arranges seats in order of distance from the sun, the Mercury man sits on the chairman's right hand.Until the last minute, he was busy with his computer.Now he takes off his sync glasses, which prevents anyone from seeing the messages on his monitor.He put away the record and stood up neatly.

"Mr Chairman, distinguished colleagues, I would like to briefly summarize the situation we face. "The gigantic spaceship or man-made asteroid named Rama was observed as early as a year ago, while still beyond Jupiter. It was initially recognized as a natural object, orbiting the sun in a hyperbolic orbit Then fly back to the stars. "When its nature was discovered, the solar mapping spacecraft Endeavor was ordered to rendezvous with it. I am sure we all wish to congratulate Lieutenant Colonel Newton and his crew on this extraordinary mission. "First, Rama was thought to be dead, frozen for hundreds of thousands of years, with no possibility of resurrection. From a rigorous biological point of view, this may still be true. Researchers on the subject have roughly It is agreed that no living organic assembly can survive for centuries by hibernating. Even at absolute zero, the remaining quantum effects are enough to wipe out too much cellular information, making it impossible to revive. Therefore, it seems that , although Rama has great archaeological value, it will not become the main problem of interstellar politics.

"These are now obviously naive ideas, and it was already pointed out at the beginning that Rama pointed so precisely at the sun that it could not have been a pure accident. "Even so, it may be argued, and indeed has been argued, that this is a failed experiment. Rama achieved what it intended, but the intelligent beings controlling it no longer exist. This view It also shows simple minds, it does underestimate the opponents we deal with. "Our miscalculation consisted in ignoring the possibility of non-living things. If we accept Dr. Perilla's brilliant theory, it must in many respects be true to the fact that the species found inside Rama were only for a short period of time. Their patterns are stored in some central repository of information, and when the time is right, they are manufactured from readily available raw materials—organometallics, conceivably, of a sea of ​​cylinders. Thus The feat is still beyond our ability, but there is no theoretical problem. We know that solid-state circuits, which, unlike living matter, can store information without loss for an infinite period of time.

"Thus, Rama is now in a state of complete readiness to carry out the orders of its builders - whoever they may be. In our view, whether the Rama themselves have been dead for a million years , or will at any time be recreated likewise, and rendezvous with their servants, it does not matter. Even without their presence, their will will be done, and continue to be done. "Rama has now demonstrated that its propulsion system is still working. In a few days, it will reach perihelion, the most logical place to change orbit. So we will soon have a new planet, under the jurisdiction of our government Of course, it is also possible for it to change its altitude again to obtain the final orbit at any distance from the sun. It even has the ability to become a major planet in the solar system, such as a satellite of the earth.

"So, on behalf of our colleagues, we are confronted with a range of possibilities, some of which are quite serious. It would be foolish to console ourselves with the idea that these species must be benign and not interfere with us in any way. They Since it has come to our solar system, there must be something in demand. "Our current opponents are hundreds of years, maybe thousands of years ahead of us in terms of technology. We have studied the biological man of Lamari from the video rebroadcasted by Lieutenant Colonel Newton, and have come to some conclusions. Here I would like to inform you .

"It may be a misfortune on Mercury that we don't have native life to observe. But in our complete record of Earth's animals, we find a startling resemblance to Rama. "It is a colony of termites. Like Rama, it is a world with a controlled environment. Like Rama, it has a whole set of specialized biological machines with functional divisions: to work, to build and plow, to fight .While we don't yet know if Rama has a queen, I think New York serves the same function. "Obviously, it would be tiresome to go on with the comparison, and there would be a lot of things that wouldn't match up. But I just offer you this reason: What degree of mutual coordination and understanding is possible between humans and termites? When the two When there is no conflict of interest between the parties, they can still tolerate each other. But once the territory and resources of the other party are needed, they will not give in to each other.

"Thanks to our technology and our intelligence, we always win when we are determined enough. But sometimes it is not easy because there are those who think that the termites will win in the end. "With this in mind, consider the possible - and I'm not sure - dire threat to human civilization in Rama. What can we do when the worst happens? Nothing. .We just talked, watched, and maybe wrote some learned articles. "Well, on behalf of my colleagues, Mercury does a little more than that. Under Article 34 of the Space Treaty of 2057, we have the right to take any action necessary to preserve the integrity of our solar system, and we have submitted to Rama A high-energy nuclear device was launched. We'd be happy if we didn't have to use it. But now at least we're not powerless -- as in the previous period.

"There may be controversy over our unilateral action without discussion. We take responsibility for that. But who in this room could imagine--with all due respect, Mr. Chairman--that we could ever have such unanimity Time? We think that our actions are not only for ourselves, but for all mankind. Future generations, one day, will thank us for our foresight. "We recognize that it would be a tragedy, even a crime, to destroy an artifact as wondrous as Rama. If there were any way out of the tragedy that could be avoided without putting humanity at risk, we would be glad to learn. We cannot find Such a way out, and time is racing. "In the next few days, before Rama reaches perihelion, a choice must be made. Of course we will give Endeavor sufficient warning, but we will advise Lieutenant Colonel Newton to be ready at all times so that he can fly away after an hour's notice .It is hard to imagine that there will not be more dramatic changes in Rama at any time. "That's it, Mr. Chairman, on behalf of our colleagues. I thank you all for listening. I look forward to your cooperation." ----------------------------- Notes: