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.