Saturday September 27, 2014
Book 15: Delegates and Delegation — Part II: Conflict

Note: After the Kessler Cascade of the late 21st, centralized traffic management of Earth's orbits became critically necessary. In the late 31st century things are quite tidy, though they may be confusing. Stations like High Atlantis, Alta de Janeiro, and Zenithstantinople do not orbit geosynchronously above Dom Atlantis, Rio de Janeiro, and Istanbul respectively. They orbit the Earth along with everything else at those altitudes, and are named for the cities whose launch windows they manage.

If you're going to Dom Atlantis, but you docked at, say, Upper Jo, you have a "you can't get there from here" problem. You either need to launch outward, and circle back to High Atlantis, or transit down to Johannesburg and then commute roughly 8,000 kilometers to your destination. This will seem especially inconvenient since during a portion of its orbital path Upper Jo is just a few hundred kilometers from Dom Atlantis, but if you attempt to launch then you'll get a very expensive ticket, or a fatal collision, or perhaps both.

Addendum to Note: The Kessler Cascade made such a disastrous mess of low- and near-Earth orbits that a sweeping project was required. Participating vessels called their sweeping passes "Kessler Runs," and while no aspect of those passes was measured in parsecs, one such vessel was called The Aluminum Falcon. 

Transcript

KATHRYN: Neosynchronicity, I'm pursuing Sorlie.  Can you provide overwatch?

ENNESBY: *on comm* We can't hack cameras again without upsetting the police department.

KATHRYN: You're in the sky.  How about you look down?

ENNESBY: High Atlantis is on the wrong side of the planet for the next twelve minutes.

KATHRYN: *on comm* So... what good are you?

ELF: It's a fair question.