Cowboys And Aliens Ch 43

43. Asteroids

Sunday

morning, Mark woke up and went up to his office, where he grabbed his coffee and started going through the daily reports and then his messages.

When going through his messages, Mark had received many messages from governments around the world, castigating him about his statement of alternatives to current governments. They claimed his statement was inciting civil unrest, fuelling separatist movements, and encouraging revolution!

Mark and Cricket did some searching and found that many countries, states and provinces around the world already had political parties with a goal of secession from the countries or region they were in, but since his statement, their goal was still to secede, but instead of creating an autonomous state or region, they now wanted to join the Federation.

For most of the messages, Mark simply wanted to answer, 'If you were doing a good job for your citizens, then why do they want you out?', but thought he should talk it over with his advisors before sending that message.

Some governments came straight out and said that there had always been a small separatist movement, but they had never gained a lot of support, since there were so many variables regarding how to govern and police the new autonomous region, but with the Federation, people knew exactly how things would be since there were many documented cases of regions and planets that had joined the Federation. Taking away all the uncertainty was causing the movements to grow in popularity and support.

Mark didn't realize how many separatist movements already existed just in North and Central America! Most of them had been around long enough with enough supporters that they were already official political parties. As expected, the western separatist movement in Canada was one of the larger and most organized political parties with rapidly growing membership and support in several provinces and on the federal level.

After replying to the messages, he thought they should probably make an official press release about the movements. He just wasn't sure what he should say, so he took his coffee and went downstairs to make breakfast.

There was a certain calm and satisfaction in preparing meals for others.

Once the smell of bacon started permeating through the house, everyone was soon up and grabbing some pancakes, bacon, toast and their preferred morning beverage before finding a seat on the patio.

The breakfast discussion was mostly about the accusations that Mark was fuelling separatism and encouraging revolution, he quoted them some messages he had received and told them what he wanted to say in response, but asked their opinion about what he should say or do about it.

Liyana said they should do some sort of formal announcement and they all agreed with his proposed response, but they were all in a quandary about how to say it nicely.

While everyone was thinking about how to say it, Mark received a message from the federal leader of the western separatist party in Canada saying that he and party representatives from each of the provinces wanted to sit down and meet with him, or someone from the Federation, and that they would fly to Atlantis as soon as possible, if they agreed to meet.

Mark simply replied, 'Come on out!', and then informed the group that the Western Canadian separatists were coming out to talk sometime this week.

Annabelle laughed, "Why am I not surprised?"

Ra'ki, Luna and Astra weren't familiar with the situation, but caught on that Annabelle's statement was sarcastic, as Ra'ki asked, "What's going on in Western Canada?"

For the benefit of those that didn't already know, Mark explained, "Annabelle and I grew up in Alberta in Western Canada and that the left leaning federal government in Canada is totally incompetent. The federal government, although called a democracy, is not very democratic as they base it on an outdated system; heavily biased toward the originally inhabited areas of the country, which are in the east. So, by simply campaigning in and winning a few key areas, disregarding everyone else in the country, they elected the government.

Then, in the late 1940s, they discovered fossil fuels in the western provinces. The prairie provinces developed rapidly and soon became the economic powerhouse of the entire country. They made more money than anywhere else in the country, so the federal government just took a large percentage of it and gave it to the other provinces to shore up their poor economic and social policies via what they call 'equalization payments'.

Even long before we left Alberta, there had been talks for years of separating and either forming our own country or becoming part of the United States, but it had never gained a lot of traction as there wasn't a guarantee that the United States would take us and there were a lot of uncertainties about being a landlocked country. Unless there is a radical reform of the government in Canada, the West will never get a fair deal."

Ra'ki simply said, "I now understand, and yes, I agree with your response. If they can't take care of their citizens, their citizens deserve the right to elect someone who will!"

Not long after they had finished up with breakfast and were sitting around with their second cups, Mark received a response saying that they would fly to Atlantis on Monday and that they would appreciate meeting this week.

Mark replied, 'See you Tuesday at 10:00 at the palace in Acropolis.'

Cricket also took the liberty to book one of the big conference rooms at the palace for the meeting and let Mark know.

Deciding not to respond to any of the emails, since it was a Sunday, they just relaxed and played in the water for the rest of the day.

***

Monday

after reading his daily reports and fixing breakfast, Mark had received many more messages now saying that his ignoring their previous messages was an admission that he was purposely fuelling unrest and encouraging revolution. So they sat around at breakfast and decided how to respond to all these accusations.

Mark and Liyana setup the camera and did the announcement from his office.

'Over the past few days, many governments have contacted me with accusations of promoting separatist movements, fuelling civil unrest and encouraging revolution.

These events should be peaceful, because the Federation does not condone violence. All I can say in response to these accusations is this... If governments are doing a good job of taking care of your citizens, why would they vote for change?

In a democracy, if a group engenders the support of a majority of the people, that is therefore the prerogative of the people. Anyone too apathetic to vote, forfeits the right to complain about the outcome!

It is your right to vote... USE IT!'

Liyana and Mark laughed afterwards, as that was about as eloquently as they could say what they wanted to say, but at least they said that they did not support any violence, although they knew that some areas of the world, where human rights were so controlled by the government, that violence would eventually be the only option.

After putting the press release on the Atlantis website, they of course received threats of a variety of sorts, but none of them really had any traction since Atlantis was self sufficient and although they sold products and services in many countries around the world, they controlled everything from Atlantis and using the Federation network, not from the country it was operating in. Any local employees were more or less organizational, sales and management, not operations.

Late Monday afternoon, Mark received a message from the separatist party leader saying that they had arrived in Atlantis and were staying at the palace. They had at least one representative from each of the provinces and territories, even the provinces that didn't have an officially recognized political party.

The group spent the rest of the evening relaxing on the patio in the ambience of the glowing fires.

Before retiring for the night, they had decided it was just going to be Liyana and Mark who was going to attend the meeting. They had considered bringing Rayven, since her planet had gone through the transition into the Federation, and Annabelle had thought about going until they said it would not be so much a meeting, but a more educational course on the Federation transition process.

***

Tuesday

morning was just like any other morning, but after breakfast the two of them took a lift into the city, after convincing Gyges that he didn't need security to go with them for this long boring meeting, besides Cricket had them covered.

During the quick flight, Liyana asked if they had changed the palace?

Mark assured her they had done a bit of restructuring. The only genuine change was that they converted the former playroom into a few offices with desks and a small meeting room, so Liyana, Annabelle, or whoever could work there if they wanted to.

They exited the transit stop at 5 minutes to 10:00 and started walking towards the palace. Just as they arrived at the concierge desk, a group of about two dozen men and women approached them and, the man Mark had been emailing with, introduced himself.

Mark suggested rather than doing the introductions here, maybe they should get settled into the conference room first.

The girl at the concierge desk directed them to the conference room on level 2, so they walked up the stairs and made their way inside.

It was a basic conference room, windows on both the inside and outside, complete with privacy sliders.

Within a couple of minutes, they were all settling around the large conference table, shaped like an oblong diamond that was open in the middle, 6 people could sit along each long edge and 3 people could sit along the short edge, the other short edge was open for someone to walk into the middle or it could also project holographic images and maps.

After introducing himself and Liyana, they went around the table and everybody introduced themselves and the province or territory they represented. There was at least one representative from each of the 10 provinces and 3 territories, a couple of representatives of the federal party, and the more politically organized provinces, such as Alberta and Saskatchewan, had multiple representatives.

With introductions completed, there was an awkward silence in the room, so Mark said, "You all wanted the meeting, we're just here to answer questions."

The leader then dropped a bombshell by saying, "I hope you don't mind, but before coming to this meeting I looked at our online polls and petitions and a Mark Phoenix from Calgary had signed most of them. I'm guessing that was you?"

Mark immediately rebuffed that statement, "I am not the same person I was when I lived in Alberta. I doubt they even consider me Canadian anymore, I'm Atlantean now."

"But you supported the movement?"

"Before my life changed, I was curious about the movement. I saw that the West would never get a fair deal without massive government reform, which would upset the two populous provinces, and I was supportive of joining the United States, as we knew what we would be getting. I wasn't as supportive of creating a new autonomous region and having to figure out governing ourselves. That just had way too many unanswered questions for me.

As for being supportive now, hey I'd love to get every country on this poorly managed planet to join the Federation, but not by use of any violence. I realize in some countries, where there are no human rights and the government controls everything, we may have to consider other options, but Canada is NOT one of those countries!"

"Now that you are in charge, the Federation is a way better alternative than even the United States, and the Federation has thousands of years of track records compared to anyone else... you've proven that you can deliver what you promise. We know exactly what we'll be getting!"

Mark inquired, "Western separation is nothing new, it's been building for years, I take it you have a checklist to secede from Canada?"

"Yes, we do have a list, but the Federal party is actually campaigning for all of Canada to join the Federation. Should we win, then the secession checklists are moot points, but any province that wins, we will all help however we can to make that happen."

The rest of the day was a point-by-point discussion about every item on the checklist and how the Federation could help them accomplish each of those items.

The biggest discussion point was how to deal with people's pensions, since the federal government managed the pension plan. Mostly, if they could not withdraw and transfer their pension funds. Mark said they would consider them retired abroad and would still get their pensions and any investment dividends, but they would get Dominic to look into other alternatives.

The one discussion point that the representatives thought would be a big point ended up not being that major. They asked about provincial debt as some provinces had quite a deficit. Mark simply answered, you still need to pay your debt, just don't expect the Federation to do it for you. Typically, because debt does not really exist in the Federation, that region would have an additional tax called a 'transition tax' collected, with 100% of it paying off the debt in less than 25 years, then the tax would disappear.

They did break for lunch, when staff delivered the catered lunch to the conference room. After grabbing some sandwiches and drinks, they continued through the list.

Another point brought up was, if they did separate from Canada and became a Federated territory, how would the transition work? People from Canada and the US would still need to drive through a Federated region on the way to another province or state.

Mark simply stated, "Yes, they would need to do that. Just because the Federation uses technologies that make many of your current technologies obsolete, you still need to maintain the old ways. Think about the Port of Atlantis, we don't do any drilling or anything, but we still provide fossil fuels for planes and ships. There are certain concessions made to accommodate archaic technology while it's still in use, eventually the technology will fade away. I see the lift system becoming quite popular, which should free up the road network for commercial traffic, but you're still going to need gas stations, roads, tow trucks, mechanics, and so on."

Once they covered every item on the checklist, they started asking about what they could say when they began their political campaign.

More or less they could promise that the Federation would take over all security, but that all local law enforcement could go through Federation training to become part of the security force.

There would also be at least one outreach hub or centre setup in every town and city, providing public transportation, medical services, clothing, washrooms, library, information services and communal meals. So for a city like Calgary, since that is the one I know best, there would be an outreach hub in the downtown and maybe one in each quadrant, then each community would then have an outreach centre. There would be public transportation from any outreach centre to any other outreach centre in the same city, but if you were going to any other city or town in the province, you would need to go to an outreach hub and then transfer lifts.

Then we would rebuild all public facilities such as schools, prisons, universities, sports and event facilities, transit, water plants, power generation and sanitation with Federation versions. Then finally we could rebuild hospitals using Federation technology, understanding that they would soon be unnecessary, but at least the facilities wouldn't cost anything to maintain and operate.

"But what if after 5 years, since that's what the Federation recommends, a rival political party leaves the Federation and rejoin Canada?"

"The province would go backwards! All Federation technology given to you during the previous 5 years would go away, no more outreach centres, buildings would be reset to whatever state they were in 5 years prior, etc. In all our history, only one region tried to leave the Federation and it was only because of apathy. People got complacent and didn't vote, then the ones that did, voted to leave and won. They had been in the Federation for nearly 20 years, so we didn't just suddenly knock them back 20 years. We had rebuilt all their buildings using Federation technology, so they were no longer auto-maintained. Security, lifts, synths, medical, computers, communications... all gone.

It took less than a week until the people revolted and, without security or medical, many people died needlessly. However, the revolution was successful, and they were soon back in the Federation. That is why, for the first 5 years, our construction technology will not be available for residential housing or commercial office buildings, it's only used for public venues and facilities, solely to reduce their budgets and pay off debt."

One rep said, "Even by your own statement, if the government is doing their job and looking after the people, why would they vote to separate from the Federation?"

Liyana spoke up, "You can never please 100% of the people, 100% of the time! Some people might not agree with their King, their governors or their senators, and think they can do a better job. What they don't fully realize is how much the Federation actually provides them for free! It's true, Federation life may not be for every person out there, but it's well suited to everyone that wants a safe, peaceful existence where people don't have to work for most their life, only to enjoy a few years of retirement when they're old.

Unlike current governments and countries though, just because they don't like things they complain enough and the governments eventually capitulate and award them a few concessions to appease them. The Federation doesn't work that way, our laws are pretty black and white, if you don't like it, either suck it up or you are free to move elsewhere."

Mark said, "You can promise everything the governments always promise but never deliver on. Take care of the seniors, veterans and indigenous communities, although they will no longer get any free money! Then build up education and schools. In fact, I'd probably recommend building more schools! Then tackle healthcare and eliminating wait times simply by telling people they can go to their community outreach centre for even the most serious medical issues.

As for those on social assistance and welfare programs... those don't exist in the Federation, they might have to move into a low-income home which we will build using Federation technology so they are self-sufficient, but they can start volunteering at communal meals or at several other volunteer jobs to make credits, and if they say it's because they are disabled, they just need to go into a medibed and they'll soon be healthy members of society, if they don't take responsibility and go into a medibed, then I hope they have friends or family that can care for them."

After letting them absorb what he said, he added, "If it's not something that's documented, run it by us before you go promising it, although most of your questions are probably in our library. We'll setup an email address for you to contact... I just ask that you keep your questions short and concise and only one question per email. That way we'll have a conversation chain for each question and we can put the response into our library for anyone to reference."

With all their questions answered, the meeting concluded.

When Mark and the group emerged from the conference room and went down to the courtyard level of the palace, Mark and the separatist leader brought up the rear and could see the reporters waiting outside the palace for them to emerge.