Status report PAST DUE - please explain 5/5

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Litvin:

Well, that was refreshingly frank. Let me be equally frank:

Your legal status as a protected colony of Earth is dependent on you remaining a part of the Star Trail Joint Stock Company. If you bail on us, you not only lose any support we provide, you also lose status as a protected colony.

Why does that matter? You've clearly put some thought into this, but you're not thinking it all the way through. Yes, we are a couple hundred years away from you. Using current drive technology. Or I should say, old drive technology like yours. Did you know that Earth can now build drives that are about 25% faster than yours? It's still another fifteen years until you hit the Zorica/Danica system. What happens if we keep making advances in the meantime?

I'll tell you what happens: we're landing warships directly behind your smug asses not two hundred years later but fifty, twenty-five, maybe even ten years later. With weapons technology that's a hundred years more advanced.

And that's the good scenario for you. The bad scenario is that some other unscrupulous group of humans sends their own warships and enslaves the lot of you. Because that's what happens to colonies that don't have the protection of the home empire: they get raped and pillaged by every other empire.

I'm a nice girl, Litvin. If you want me to call you an independent people and respect your beliefs and rub your belly when it hurts, I will absolutely do that. But don't mess with me when I ask you for something. Don't misunderstand our relationship, and don't think for a second that you don't need us.

Fifty years from now, two different people will be continuing this conversation. But for right now, I need you to wake up, smell the coffee, and start meeting me halfway.

Orav