The Durandal Hypothesis

Note : It had been a while since I hadn't done one of those. Well, at least one that wasn't so utterly packed with spoilers as to be effectively impossible to distribute here. And yes, before you ask, this hypothesis is going to be quoted by Alexandra at some point. Enjoy !

Also, look out for chapter 149, incoming in 15 minutes ^^

The Durandal Hypothesis

The Durandal Hypothesis, or the Colonial Exploitation Hypothesis, is a theory created by the AI Durandal, assigned to EFSN colony ship Marathon (it was a naval ship and it was armed, as a refurbished interplanetary wars battleship), bound for the Trappist system, published and distributed to all other colonial vessels and Earth itself mere hours before launch.

It is a theory extrapolated on the European Federation's policies at the time, it's economics and, very importantly, the onboard databanks, fabricators and technology base given to the colony vessels of the first wave.

The Durandal Hypothesis theorizes that the technology base and industry given to the colonies was precisely calibrated to allow a significant population in any environment likely to be encountered (including a system with no terraformable worlds and only asteroids or minors planets to leech raw materials out of), without allowing for an extreme on the level of Earth, Mars, Luna or even Ceres. Any colony would stabilize at around a hundred million humans and stagnate there without technological or industrial assistance from Sol, especially given the programs inbuilt to the colonial assistance directorate. In it is a provision for the brighest and most innovatives of engineers, artists and scientists to be brought to Earth at great expense, to 'expand their opportunities'.

Taking all this into account, Durandal concludes that the ships and their technology as well as industry were studied precisely to create submissive colonial holdings, capable of sustaining themselves with little assistance, but unable to generate a military capable of threatening secession or Sol, nor able to generate a population or technology high enough to overcome its limitations, while still having the capacity to generate significant amounts of processed metamaterials, precious minerals and brilliant scientists and engineers to be harvested for the benefice of the Federation on Earth.

The publication of this model lead to great protests on Earth, with people seeing this as proof that the Federation's promise to have interstellar colonies be 'equals' to holdings in Sol as nothing but lies. While the controversy spawned several initiatives, it should be noted that fully reading Durandal's analysis and paper is rarely done, and usually comes to a shock to those that do so.

Because Durandal agrees with the plan, and calls it the best way to create a wide ranging interstellar empire without the need for overwhelming military force or constant internal conflict or strife (which would inevitably lead to a mutually assured destruction situation), at least with current technologies, and that while it would limit the growth and potential of interstellar colonies, it would also prevent any large scale and extremely lethal conflict with their homeworld or other colonies, once central authority collapsed and it became a free for all. For this reason, resolution 2123-06 of the Federation Council, aimed at countering that hypothesis by giving the colonies a more thorough database, was struck down by the Colonial Council, and has remained unacted on since.