The Treaty Of Moscow

(see: Interspex, by Clark Nida)

"If there are mature colonies on the Moon and Mars, how come nobody seems to know about it?"

Do you know where Port Stanley is? Durham City? Nix City? Lunaborg? ...Or Timbuktu? Can you find them on the map? Do you even know which countries they are in? ...Which continents?

Does it occur to you you’ll only ever know if there’s a war there? And your country sends out journalists? ...Who speak the language?

The story offers us the following explanation for our ignorance...

Treaty of Moscow: Treaty governing the rights and duties of inter-world travellers, signed in 1872 by the Four Worlds: Gaia, Selene, Mars and Oberon.

Subsequently Gaia’s status as a properly constituted mir was withdrawn until such a time as it could furnish a plenipotentiary representative to the Council of the Inner Planets.

Meanwhile any terrestrial government wishing to benefit from its terms are bound by the treaty to conceal the existence of extra-terrestrial colonies from its populace and prevent anyone but certified government officials from leaving Planet Gaia for another world.

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