Age of Cosmic Exploration

Chapter 67: Arrival and the House of Representatives

Translator: Lonelytree Editor: - -

With the Hope’s departure from the meteorite cluster, much of the forging and mining had stopped. This meant that quite a large amount of people lost their jobs.

Initially, there were voices of complaints, but those were quickly replaced by another more interesting topic.

The third day after the mass mining was closed down, the Hope’s government released a statement saying that they were going to construct a House of Representatives, aiding the people towards self-government. Two hundred representatives were going to be selected from the general public, and there was not going to be any selection requirements…

Even though the details were still unclear, each of the representatives were going to receive a certain degree of benefits, but more importantly, this held weight because it was the first time the Hope allowed its citizens a part in its administration. Everyone on board raved about this and people wandered the streets asking about the selection process. Was it going to be a voting system or were there going to be exams?

A nervous excitement lingered for almost a month before people got tired of waiting and prompted the government to issue the selection process and rules.

To be fair, it was not Yao Yuan’s intention to drag the month out, but there were simply too many things to discuss before the admission for the House of Representatives could be rolled out. Yao Yuan wanted representation of the house to align with the racial and national make-up of the Hope’s citizens, but that idea was quickly shot down by experts.

Yao Yuan’s rationale was simple: if the Hope had mostly Chinese citizens, wouldn’t it be logical that the house had a majority Chinese representation? Of course, this meant limiting the number of representatives from non-Chinese countries. Therefore, about 50 to 70 seats of the house would be filled by Chinese, and the remaining would be delegated amongst others…

Or at least, that was the plan.

However, that plan was completed dismissed by the experts.

The experts’ argument was that since they were now no longer on Earth but the last human escapees, it was foolish to still insist on segregation between nationality and race. The Hope’s government should aim to unite its people, not separate it.

Emotions were high during these exchanges, and at one point, Yao Yuan even pondered, weren’t these people afraid that he was going to shoot them and be done with it?

Nevertheless, in the end, the team of experts won out. His discussion with the experts and interviews with other Black Star Unit members as well as the general public had swayed Yao Yuan to the experts’ perspective. He was brought to see that it was the government’s duty to introduce assimilation between its people, not segregation.

Nomination for House of Representatives was going the classical way in the sense that voting would be held within each residential tenement to select its own representative…

According to the size of the tenement, each area would have one to three representatives. The residents would vote for the candidates to represent them in the house. There would be no discrimination for candidacy, so people of all ages, sexes, races, and nationalities could enter.

The voting period would begin on the second month after the Hope left the meteorite cluster.

At the same time, the government released the representatives’ job scope and benefits.

Even though its power was still limited, the House would be involved in the administration’s general direction, and if necessary, question its actions and decisions.

However, the main role of the House was to be a go-between for the Hope and its people. The House would discuss and debate the public’s requests and complaints regarding matters like living and working environment. After that, the House would approach the government with the results of their debate, and the government would respond to them within seven to fifteen days.

Lastly, the House had the right to amend and reject statutes pertaining to the civil laws.

That was the House’s role within the Hope. The public was given rights to self-govern, but those rights wouldn’t encroach completely on the Hope’s administrative policy. For example, the House had no jurisdiction over issues like survival of the Hope and of humanity.

Since most of the representatives would still keep their day job, their allowance would see no significant increase, hovering at about 150 H-coins per month. However, for positions like Speaker and Assistant Speaker of the House, their allowance would be about 500 H-coins per month because they had to deal with the daily ins and outs of the House. These roles would be rotated every three years and no one could hold these positions for more than three terms.

Just like that, the two months the Hope spent sailing to the terrestrial planet was suffused with election fervor. There were speeches and rallies happening all over the ship. Benefits aside, the fame of being a representative was incentive enough for most to be wrapped up in this fervor…

The Hope’s central mainframe recorded that all of its 120000 citizens had participated in its first democratic process, or at least that was what a future generation found after they unearthed the mainframe several centuries later.

And here was the complete record: Eight months after leaving Earth, the Hope’s government held its first election for its House of Representatives. Most felt it to be a success and thus had kept it as a tradition, but it was undeniable that there were still parcels of the public that felt they were too oppressed. The freedom that they were granted were mere morsels because the government still held power over most of the administration. It was only after the Hope came into contact with other alien civilizations and had gone through several space wars that man realized how democratic and free they were…

The conclusion was simple: democracy was indeed a human creation!

After the election for the House was set up, Yao Yuan shifted his attention to other matters. That was, after all, the purpose of the House, to let the people govern for themselves and for him to be relieved of those responsibilities.

Therefore, by then, he only had his eyes on the Hope’s upcoming big upgrade.

This was not only going to be the Hope’s first big upgrade, it was going to be mankind’s first redesign of a spaceship in space! Furthermore, this was going to be done with 120000 people on board with no planet to land nearby.

It was not an exaggeration to say that the fate of humanity’s last hope hinged on the result of this upgrade. This upgrade was going to decide whether they were going to flourish or perish in space.

Once more, the Academy did not disappoint. Within the two months, they had recalibrated and reassessed their analysis to ensure the upgrade was a success. From the creation of a temporary space base to the transference of the life support system, they had calculated and predicted every problem there was.

Building of the underground base would take about three months to complete. After that, one month would be dedicated to the upgrade. In other words, if there was no change in plans; the whole process would take about four months.

While all this was underway, on a screen in a diagnostics room somewhere, the line that kept track of the solar system’s new sun’s radioactive and magnetic fields fluctuated. The line twitched for only a second before it returned to normal, so none of the people in the room managed to notice it…