After Contact, our exploration and colonization programs alike expanded exponentially. Small nations and companies started major colonies, mostly in the Core Worlds, while the Alliance, Russians, Chinese, Indians, and Persians claimed the new Colonial Region. We sent explorers beyond The Wall, and founded colonies on the path to the Pleiades. We needed that stream of colonies to improve contact with the Peloran.
There were twelve of us originally. Cowboys. Ten of us were Ageless, new to War every one of us. Our commander and his second were veterans, and real good ones at that. They taught us what we needed to know to survive. Only five of us still live today. Seven men and women died to secure the freedom we all enjoy now. And twelve Cybers chose to become our partners, knowing what it would cost them when we died. Never forget their sacrifice.
People matter. Every person that has ever lived or will live. We all make a difference in the universe, whether small or large. Anyone can grow up to be a president, or a hero. It all depends on what you choose to do with the life you are given. Never let anyone make you think that you are too insignificant to matter. They are trying to take your freedom to choose your life from you.
Charles has a compulsion to make plans for any possibility he can think of. And he can think of very many things. He was very bookish as a young man, very brooding. People did not make sense to him, even his own family. I was the only one who considered choosing him. He really was not ready for a partnership. But we had all run out of time, and he had chosen to act, whatever the cost to himself. So I chose to help him. It was a good choice.
It took time to begin building our own versions of the Peloran technologies, but hyperspace speeds doubled in a mere five years, cutting an entire year off the transit to our distant colonies. And building an entirely new generation of starships for those journeys left us able to sell the obsolete Pre-Contact ships to the highest bidder. Companies and smaller nations bought them and followed us to the stars on their own terms. That changed space for all of us.
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