Love the flag, While I didn't support his cause, a part of me is hoping Nazarov ends up overseeing some hidden colony of refugees deep past the known reaches of the outer territories, I somehow doubt this is the last we see of his influence.

The Conclave has 24 hours to make a decision...





***




In a near-lightless bunker 500 meters below Omsk Oblast, Nazarov smiles and sees that he has captured far more votes than anyone expected, but not nearly enough to form a working government. "Ah, well" He thinks "It would have been an awful lot of work anyway."
At heart he is happy: such popular support suggests that NATO-Russo still has its hand on the reigns of power, even if its hand is older and feebler than in Kuzmin's day....more importantly, such popularity garnered large contributions from patriots who trust old dogs like Nazarov implicitly.

Nazarov and half his campaign war chest are never seen again.

Mmmmm, a tied vote.

So, what happens now? Another round of voting, or do you have preferences?

I have another question for Mr. Xie as well. Do you plan the complete dissolution of the UN Space Navy? Or would you keep at least some of them in case a hostile alien race is discovered in the near future?

Bo: "I would say to that that we learned two mistakes in the early years of this century. Under Powell we learned the lesson of not sending exploration vessels out, unarmed...but under Coronado we learned a far more important lesson: believing armed vessels can successfully deter a hostile alien intelligence. Coronado was responsible for more than a million deaths on Teegarden because he chose to harass, and attempt to destroy, an alien intelligence that posed no direct threat to earth. A compulsory, combined-arms spacefleet under the command of a single man is a liability, not a deterrent.

Having said that, of course we recognize the need for powerful space navies...we simply don't believe that an international body should be tasked to organize or control them...because as one of our panelists has astutely pointed out, such immense power ultimately corrupts. We believe the most powerful and just fighting force will emerge when each nation shoulders the burden of protecting their own territory"

My last question will be for Mr. Thompson. When you say "sacrifice a small amount of freedom" which freedom(s) are you talking about exactly? Which civil and/or poltical liberties will have to be given up for "the greater good" of society?

Scott: I'll be straightforward and a good deal more honest than most of my opponents, because I realize the gravity of what I am asking from each and every one of you (*meaningful knuckle-point to camera*): We are calling for strict limits on the number of children a single couple can produce, as well as tighter restrictions on who can legally have children and how they are educated. We will vastly expand the international academi's curriculum and make certain elements of it mandatory for all civil servants, which will of course comprise the bulk of the civilian workforce. There will be some degree of highly incentivized (though not by any means mandatory) work placement for gifted or talented individuals, though this aspect of our plan has been greatly exaggerated. There will be stricter limits on where a citizen can live

My first question is to Ms. Francis. Ms. Francis, you are best known for being Governor of Earth under Felipe Coronado and are seen as a successor of his. Toward extra solar development he took a very hands off approach even continuing that out to exploration. Instead he focused on a policy of building a grand fleet and developing Earth. As Trans-Newtonian materials run short on Earth and in the Sol system, what are you going to do to ensure a resource crisis does not happen as happened at the start of the 21st century?

*Francis's voice is familiar to all earthbound members of the audience. Her soothing, slightly motherly tones are heard daily on most central news networks. Everyone on stage watches as she speaks. Even her most bitter opponents have learned to give her a high measure of respect, she's certainly earned it*

Grace: The delegate has a long memory. Resource contractions were a perpetual problem during the later years of the Kuzmin directorship, and in fact were an excellent argument against centrally planned supply lines, which of course I don't support, a nuance that has been...well, lost in an election year, which I suppose is forgivable. Every candidate here with the possible exception of Mr. Nazarov is advocating a position that will lead to increased consumption of minerals, which in turn will require more mining infrastructure, more off-world colonists, and so on....so I would definitely say this is a question we ALL need to answer.
*Francis looks out over the assembly*
Our answer is to let nation-states continue to develop their offworld colonies, and compete economically for a greater share of the mineral resources of those planets. The UNGS under the Powell administration determined that the mineral wealth of our current colonies, within 15 light years of earth, contain sufficient mineral abundance to meet every reasonable projection of our mineral needs for the next 300 to 500 years, it's simply a matter of extraction and transportation, and THAT can be most easily met through old fashioned economic competition. Nations will invent their own mining and transit systems, and we'll pay them for the minerals they bring home. Same way we've always done, and it works. There has been no mineral contraction since the Kuzmin administration.

My second question is for Nazarov. Mr. Nazarov, you have been a mid level politician for 30 years and have plenty of experience in politics in that regard. How do you plan on translating that into leading the entire Human race? I suppose I am asking why do you feel qualified to step up to the highest office while skipping several steps along the way?

Eduard: Under the Nazarov administration there will not be a collective leader of HUMANITY per se. I am nominating myself for chairman of the joint chiefs of NATO-Russo nations, who will control the Lasting Peace infrastructure and its current products, including the entire UN space navy as it currently exists. If other nations wish to construct their own support systems, or even their own space navies, and compete with us in our expansion to the starts, we will not protest overmuch.

A single frame from a retro-themed holo-poster distributed by supporters of the Thompson campaign:






After this frame, gears continued to be added to the spiral.  The gears begin their interlocking turning in addition to turning about the clock face. The clock runs down to 12:00, as the galaxy continues to spiral in the background. Then the view  gradually zooms in to a view of human controlled space, and each system in turn, as the Narrator, in a deep and memorable voice, details Thompson's plans for the economic, industrial, and scientific improvement of humanities worlds.

Nazarov, why are you running? Clearly other candidates have more popularity, and public opinion of your policies generally surmise that you support alternative means of coming into power. How do you intend on breaking away from this idea of your platform being based on dangerous revolutionary action?