iating the Task imposes
inescapable hardships on the Solar Community.

Accordingly, when justified as essential to the
Objective, solar governments divert work forces,
systems, and material resources from throughout
their jurisdiction to the Task. The consequences
of these diversions are expected to significantly
curtail construction, activities, lifestyles
of Earth and space colony populations, the
distribution of the solar system's residual
resources and, possibly, the independence of
governments, organizations, and individuals
throughout the solar realm.

Critical to the program's success is timing the
Extractor's launch. Piggy-backed to Pluto during
construction, the Extractor exploits the planet's
orbital momentum for launch. The window is
precise and short-lived along Pluto's outbound orbit;
there will be only one launch opportunity for the
Extractor. Disengaged from Pluto, the Extractor
fleet will accelerate along its course to optimum
velocity through integrated thrust of multiple
thermonuclear burst-propulsion systems or other,
more advanced propulsion systems, that are or
become available for the Task.

##

The Interplanetary Era's second millennium was
tumultuous. The harsh austerity imposed by the
increased deficits in metals, minerals and other
industrial materials and their substitutes created
one set of problems; human cloning augmented with
genetic engineering and their societal and cultural
effects, especially beyond the Asteroids, created
others. Human survival in scores of widely
scattered and unaffiliated space colonies,
loosely called "tank towns," encouraged scientific
and social experiments that altered traditional
cultures as well as human physiological and
psychological characteristics.

Cumulative genetic and accelerated evolutionary
alterations to the human body along with the
effects of unique, often hostile, environments
plus sheer distance from the familiar transformed
humans-in-space into something else. The unifying
forces that had survived the Great Migration
withered. In time, the once shared interests of
peoples, and allegiances to a home planet, sundered.

Varied and increased rates of change opened
doors to pretenders among a colony's populace.
Opportunists promoted a multitude of causes,
usually self-serving. Anticipating advantages to
themselves, they combined forces and became
influential advocates for disengagement from
political, cultural and judicial domi