I should start thinking about getting back to the actual story.
Who Goes Where, and Why?
Technically, it’s the job of S/CI to determine where transportees are sent. In reality, the NGO defaults to sending the transportee wherever the Great Power says to send them. S/CI reserves the right to ignore the packing label, and the Great Powers ignore a certain amount of rerouting. As long as it doesn’t happen too often.
- The African Protective Trade Pact uses the transportee system least of all the Great Powers. The APTP has more tolerance than the other Powers for annoying and antisocial behavior, and there’s usually a group somewhere where a square peg can find a square hole. When they do send someone, it’s usually to Bolivar, and it’s often not really involuntary (voluntary colonization isn’t subsidized; involuntary colonization is). The flip side of this is that the APTP usually has spare slots for transportees, and its officials are notoriously amenable to offers to have those slots filled for them. Sometimes you want somebody transported under a different name. Sometimes that somebody is you.
- Europe de l’Oeust surprisingly doesn’t transport all that many people. At least, not to Bolivar, or the official colony worlds. It sends a great many transportees to grey colonies, secret archeological digs, dangerous archeological digs, secret and dangerous archeological digs, and so forth. The West Europeans are always happy to assist NGOs and even megacorporations in their interstellar activities, particularly if it involves providing a steady supply of manpower. Not raw manpower, and certainly not cannon fodder — but there is no reward without risk, yes?
- Grande Brasil has some of the most restive populations of any Great Power, particularly since it insists on Portuguese remaining the only official language. Anyone who dislikes it gets to go to Zheng He, where there are already many people who speak that particular language. Grande Brasil also has a larger prison system than the other Great Powers. Getting to go to Zheng He is a reward offered to the best-behaved people in the work camps. Being sent to Abubakri is reserved for the least-behaved ones.
- Most of the ongoing sectarian squabbles on Zheng He and Abubraki are because of the New Empire’s habit of simply transporting annoying tribes, cultures, and regions en masse. The Great Power is also distressingly ready to believe the worst of a criminal, simply because his ancestors came from Belfast, Gaza, or Kabul. Quiet enjoyment might keep people safe, but in the New Empire some people have to be quieter than others.
- The Pakt Euroazjatycki thinks of Bolivar more as a place where wild young men can go, and work enough of the wildness out of them to become fit for human society. Many get sent out there after one brawl too many, and just as many eventually come back. Half of the Pakt’s extrasolar presence is made up of transportees that served a term, then were recruited for work back in the solar system. If the Pakt doesn’t want you back, the official will ask you, Sucho czy mokro? If you reply ‘Dry,’ you go to Abubakri. If you say ‘Wet,’ it’ll be Zheng He. Either way, that’ll be the last interaction the Pakt will want to have with you.
- The South East Defensive Association was second only to the USNA when it came to transporting dissidents to Jefferson, and is even more proactive than its Great Power ally about enticing the descendants of those citizens back. SEDA’s own imperial period saw the wholesale exile of mystics, believers, and occultists (as well as the usual reformers and political dissidents). The Great Power still routinely transports lawbreakers with that kind of background, and is not particularly apologetic for doing it.
- The USNA considers Jefferson ‘theirs,’ even if the Jeffersonians can effectively claim otherwise. Its odd position as first among equals in the Process’s eyes lets it get away with providing the lion’s share of transportees to that colony world. The NewSA has the lightest hand these days when it comes to involuntary transportation, but during its imperial period it was constantly exiling dissidents. Good dissidents (peaceful, democratic or republican) got to go to Jefferson, along with their families. Annoying dissidents (more radical) ended up on Bolivar, particularly if they were going by themselves. The USNA claims the really bad types (including the Canadian insurgents) got sent to the other two colony worlds, but… it’s kind of hard to tell? There’s paperwork, but who knows who might slip through the cracks?
