The birth cries of the new age were the voices of dozens of women and men, talking until they were hoarse, late into the night and early in the morning, arguing, cajoling, persuading, taking impassioned positions and then abandoning them to take others, wearing each other down, screaming, almost coming to blows, stopping to eat at the round table, relaxing with arms around the shoulders of what minutes before might have seemed sworn enemies, staring in stone-faced silence as views were voted down, smiling and clenching hands in victory, sitting in stymied exhaustion… for days and weeks.
Delegates constantly briefed the members of their BMs about progress, sometimes soliciting input on crucial questions. Ti Sandra sent me to Argyre and Hellas to chair public meetings and answer questions about the assembly. And from all across Mars, suggestions and papers and vid reports poured in, some from individuals, others from ad hoc committees. Mars, once politically moribund, was hardly recognizable.
Above it all, providing a constant sense of urgency, Earth. We knew there were people within the assembly reporting to Earth, even beholden to Earth. We had no illusions that we lay beyond Earth’s power. If the assembly were scuttled, Earth would not be served; but no government that weakened Mars would be accepted, either.
We hoped for the best.
For two days, delegates examined constitutional models, as analyzed by human scholars and thinkers during the 2050s. The Earth Society of Social and Political Patterns had developed a language called Legal Logic, with three thousand base concepts derived from international and interplanetary laws. This language was specially designed for fixed analysis; interpretation became less an art, and more a science.
Using Legal Logic, the delegates spent a week examining the broad flow of the history of nations, studying three-dimensional slices through five- and six-dimensional charts, searching for the most flexible and enduring governmental structure. The slices resembled body scans, but reflected histories, not anatomy. Not surprisingly, the two systems that fared best were democratic, parliamentary — as with the United Kingdom, now part of Eurocon — and federal, as with Canada, Australia, the United States, and Switzerland. We traced the legal histories of these countries, studying extreme deviations from stated principles — expressed as compound statements in Legal Logic — the ensuing crises, and how the systems changed thereafter.
The broad outlines of the proposed Martian constitution were decided next. The most flexible and enduring of our examples was the constitution of the United States of America , but most delegates agreed that major modifications would be necessary to fit Mars’s peculiar circumstances.
For six days, the assembly roughed out the branches of the central Martian government. There would be four branches: the executive, the legislative, the judicial, and the extraplanetary. The latter two would be subsidiary to the legislative, as would the executive in most cases. The role of the executive would be greatly reduced from eighteenth-century models, with the executive largely serving as an advocate for major issues; that is, a debater and persuader. The President would be backed up by a Vice President, who would serve as Speaker to the House of the People.
The legislature or congress would be bicameral, the House of the People and the House of Governors. The House of the People would take representatives from districts based on population; the governors, two for each district, would convene separately. Acting in tandem, they would decide the laws of Mars.
The extraplanetary branch would represent Mars in dealings with the Triple, and would answer directly to the executive, but would be appointed by the legislature. (This later proved unworkable, and was revised severely — but that’s outside the scope of my story…)
The judiciary would be divided into the Administrative Court, overseeing court activities as a whole; Civil Health Court, with its jurisdiction over individual and social behavior; Economic Court, which handled civil contracts, business law, and matters of money; and the Court of Government, which convened only to decide cases of a political nature.
Planetary defense would be designed, instituted, and coordinated by the executive and legislative branches. There was debate over whether Mars could afford, or even needed, standing defense force. That question was put off until ratification. Also delayed was the question of intelligence and internal security — protection for the jurists, legislators, and executives.
The federal government and districts would be empowered to levy taxes on citizens and corporate entities. Districts would be responsible for building, upgrading, and maintaining cities and other infrastructure, but could only apply to the federal government for loans.
All economic transactions from the Triple would pass through a central planetary bank, which would be controlled by the legislature and empowered to regulate the flow of Martian money. All Martian currency would be standardized; BMs would no longer maintain their own credit systems. Financial BMs could apply to convert to branches of the Federal Planetary Bank, but most conform to charters and regulations approved by the legislature.
No district could pass laws contradictory to those of the federal government, nor could any district that ratified the constitution withdraw from the federal union thereafter, for any reason. (I remember Richmond and the statues of dead generals that littered their public places…) Non-ratifying districts and BMs would be left with the old laws and arrangements. The federal government could mandate that districts accept as citizens those who wished to dissociate from the dissident BMs.
A Bill of Rights guaranteed that freedom of expression by humans and thinkers would not be hindered or abridged by any body within the government. There was much debate here, but Ti Sandra guided the assembly through these nettles with a steady hand.
It was assumed that all laws, and the constitution itself, would be recorded in Legal Logic, which would be interpreted by specially designed civic thinkers. Each branch would have its own thinkers, one for the executive, two for the legislature, one for the extraplanetary, and three for the judiciary. The opinions of the thinkers would be taken into account by all branches and made publicly available.
For the time being, however, there were no first-class thinkers being made on Mars — though a number of BMs were rushing to change that. Until Martian thinkers of sufficient power and purity could be grown and installed, no thinkers could be entrusted to make crucial decisions, without oversight. Suspicions still existed that they might be Earth-tainted.
Until the constitution was ratified by the delegates and by the people of Mars, an interim government would take office, consisting of a President and Vice President, selected by the delegates; the district governors, and one representative from each BM acting as a legislature; and the present judiciary. This government would exist for a maximum of twenty-three months.
If no constitution had been popularly ratified by then, a new assembly would convene, and the process would begin all over.
In the last week of the assembly, candidates for the interim offices were nominated. Ti Sandra Erzul received the strongest support of the nominees and was voted in by the delegates. She chose me to be her Vice President.
Among the last issues decided was what the new planetary union would be called. “United Mars” was proposed, but many who had fought the Statists objected. No phrases using “union” or “united” could be found that were acceptable to a majority. Finally, the assembly agreed to the Federal Republic of Mars.