Articles of Settlement

The Articles of Settlement of Honua created the official start of settlement on the planet, settlers who landed prior to the ratification of the articles are considered part of the First Settlers and given special privileges and exemptions from the Articles. This and other sections of the Articles provides points of contention and further, given the attack on Bliss make life a lot more complicated. Bliss’ AI, one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful AI in human space forbade any construction of another AI on Honua or even the development of facilities manufacturing Q-chips. Q-chips are used in many advanced computer systems, however in large enough quantities they can result in spontaneous AI development. On Bliss this is carefully monitored by the AI to prevent such accidental awakenings. The AI demanded that no Q-chips be manufactured on Honua and monitors and restricts the export of Q-chips from Bliss. Conventional computer systems that don’t use Q-chips are unaffected by the restrictions. This greatly limits the efficacy of large complex systems, such as would be needed to run a social credit system, assuming real time communication with Bliss was possible. Port Bliss was also limited to be the only spaceport on the planet with a laser launch system. This was as much to keep the HDC in charge and return value to their shareholders as it was to help Bliss enforce trade restrictions. Port Bliss’ location on the equator makes it perfectly situated to get maximum boost from the planet’s rotation rate, but also, if First Settler data is accurate, will subject it to massive hurricanes that will greatly impact it’s ability to operate around perihelion. The First Settlers issue was another one that took some delicate work to resolve. Many believe that as they’d operated outside the authority and guidance of Bliss that they should have no rights and be treated as trespassers. Another position was that they be assumed to have agreed in toto to the HDC’s settlement agreements and would be forced into the agreements therein. This was also considered to be incorrect as several settlements did not originate from Bliss. Ultimately the decision was to treat them as autonomous regions and prohibit activity under the Articles of Settlement from impacting the sovereignty and access to natural resources used by the First Settlers. The ambiguity of the agreement would produce trouble, in time.