The difference between, for example, terraforming complexes and terraforming components, to which I assume you are referring to isn't only what they are and where they are listed in accounting, its that complexes require workers and components require nothing but a few crew and some ship space those are workers that could be better used to produce installations. In the area of Automated mines, however, I am willing to compromise. Commerce will get to put them wherever it likes, but it will be Infrastructure that decides where the minerals that are produced are sent, and what they will be used for.
Infrastructure does need something. It needs the security provided by the Military, the minerals discovered by Survey, and the Transport capability of Commerce. The first two are obvious, but Commerce, I believe, is slightly more complex. When all the minerals on Earth are expended, where will we go for minerals? Wherever Survey finds minerals, but how will we get the mines necessary and perhaps the colonists there? Freighters. Freighters that are either directly controlled by Commerce or civilian controlled but can be contracted to work for Commerce. For an Infrastructure Minister to not build ships is to deliberately damage the Federation.
I do sense some concern over the uselessness of the Ministry of Commerce, but that concern is simply not to be, well, concerning. the power to designate new colonies for human colonization is something over which I have no sway. While the responsibility to build infrastructure is of the Ministry of Infrastructure, it has and will have no say on where infrastructure should go if I remain in Minister. Therefore, new colonies will be directly under the control of he who moves people and infrastructure, Commerce. Additionally, anything that is built on a ship, such as a Sorium Harvester or Asteroid Miner, is under the power of Commerce and anything produced in that case is the responsibility and privilege of Commerce to utilize.
George Payne
Infrastructure Minister
[ooc]When I say "infrastructure" without a capital "I" I mean infrastructure used to support colonists on hostile planets, not factories, mines, labs, etc.[/ooc]
