vilizations: robust, sophisticated
and divergent, nevertheless, instinctively taking
nourishment from a common fealty to humankind's
ultimate destiny among the stars. Humankind
would be far stronger and effective together,
they argued, than it would be, divided within a
common species.

The debate raged across the System. The separatists
won.

Earth's General Assembly acceded to the demands
for self-determination. The new status of the outer
and inner regions was confirmed in The Treaties on
the Separation of Jurisdictions for the Planets and
Satellites of the Inner Region and the Independent
Nations of the Outer Region.

The outer periphery of the Asteroid Belt became the
boundary. The United Planetary System was dissolved
and reconstituted as the United Inner Planetary
System (UIPS). The natural and artificial colonies
that orbited the planets and satellites of the
Outer Region, or the central sun, retained their
original identities (Ganymede, Titan, Callisto,
etc.), and Pluto added "Planet" to its name to
distinguish itself from planetary satellites. The
former colonies beyond the Belt formed a loose
federation: Independent Nations of the Outer Region
(INOR).

The United Inner Planetary System insisted that
Planet Pluto and its contiguous space remain within
the UIPS Slingshot Special Zone of Operations until
the Extractor and the Collector were both safely
away from Pluto's jurisdiction, as judged by the
UIPS. The Plutonian government refused. The other
INOR nations, immersed in their own problems,
were indifferent. The issue was left to the UIPS
and Planet Pluto to resolve.

The UIPS continued, without prior consultation with
INOR and Planet Pluto, to construct and operate
Slingshot logistics sites and facilities on Pluto's
surface, in contiguous space, and within and along
the Planet Pluto orbit. The UIPS, interpreting
traditions and treaties that had evolved from
Earth's ancient Laws of the Seas and Space,
exercised and defended free and unencumbered
travel and passage by its citizens and vessels in
deep space and throughout the INOR jurisdictions.

The UIPS took steps to ensure the security of
Slingshot construction and logistics support sites
and space-ways.

##

The Slingshot Advance Cadre arrived in the
Neptune-Pluto orbit-crossing sectors toward the end
of the Interplanetary Era, before the breakup of the
old United Planetary System. Colonizing Pluto and
constructing space kits that