Jack of Harts

We expanded into the galaxy slowly at first. It took years to plan each colony, years to travel between the stars, and decades before those new worlds became productive. But we spent the time and money to do it. Some have asked why we did so. It was so expensive to do this that no one could make a profit. The early colonies would have bankrupted anything short of the Great Powers, and a careful study of their economies shows how much they poured into the process. Protests against the wasteful spending were common in the Western Alliance. Not so common in China and Russia where protesters had a tendency to end of dead. But even there, the strain on the economies is easy to see. So why did we go? That is a very good question.