97 - The Lord of Mars 👑🚀
Hey there, !
Finally had my birthday party after many trials and tribulations - what a time:
A happy boy with his happy cake :D 📷: Dave Nguyen
Anyway...a story based on Brainstorming IV -> "Sell lord and lady-ships of other planets (like Mars), like they do with Scotland."
LORD OF MARS RECLAIMS LAND
6th September, 21XX
The Tharsis Valley property deeds awarded to an ancestor of controversial public figure Ted Rouge (52) - the self-proclaimed "Lord of Mars" - have finally been presented to the Martian Court, after weeks of speculation about whether they would be successfully transported to Mars in time from Earth.
"I, Lord Ted Rouge of Mars, will finally have my day in court," Rouge declared in front of the Martian Court. "Tharsis Valley has been in my family for generations, and we hope to see full possession returned to its rightful owners."
Expert authentication has yet to be conducted, but general consensus in the legal community believe the deeds are genuine based on the recent EASA hack that exposed the existences of these deeds.
For many weeks, Star City mayor Jordan Seek (40) has attacked Rouge in the media, ridiculing his claims of ownership over a vast stretch of terraformed land in the Tharsis Valley which currently serves as the agricultural breadbasket for Martian colonies, due to its nutrient-rich soil and favourable sun cycles.
"Handing over Tharsis Valley would be an extremely disrespectful act to the brave colonists and terraformers who have spent their lives building the vital infrastructure required for the success of Mars," Seek said in an interview on Wednesday. "Rouge hasn't done a lick of work in his life and wants to get rich exploiting the land and labour of our noble citizens, just like he destroyed the value in his own enterprises on Earth. Go back to where you came from, Rouge!"
The Tharsis Valley terraforming project has been underway for more than 50 years, transforming inhospitable Mars atmosphere and soil into arable land for colonists. The result now provides more than 40% of the food required for the 8 colonies currently situated on Mars.
Early last year, after arriving in flamboyant fashion on the Amazon shuttle, Ted Rouge announced his intention to make a claim on an area of Mars which includes Tharsis Valley, based on a number of property deeds won from NASA (the precursor to EASA) by his great-great-great-grandfather in an apparent publicity event. (On Earth, Rouge had pursued a number of failed enterprises including SoylentFood, EveryWager and PGFashion which have all since gone bankrupt. EveryWager is still in the midst of a number of legal challenges regarding underage betting.)
"These deeds, provided by NASA, will prove that I have the full property rights over the Tharsis Valley," Rouge said in his appearance on StarNews when he first arrived. "I am willing to work with the Star City leadership to lease out my land, and keep people in the jobs that have helped keep Mars alive."
This claim of ownership was initially thrown out of City Court due to prima facie lack of evidence - Star City property rights are transferred based on registration at City Council. However, old NASA files were unearthed in a recent hack by an Earth-based hacktivist group Anonymous, which led to a successful leave to appeal granted by the Martian Supreme Court.
This ruling was based on the Martian Supreme Court precedent from 3 years ago, EASA v. Suent, where an engineer (Suent) had tried to register the original EASA landing pad as his property at City Council - the court stating that EASA terra nullius rights would supersede any local property registration laws.
The deed was, according to local reports, smuggled on to Governor Wong's (33) specially chartered shuttle, Albatross, which docked at Star Port 1 at 0423 hours with its precious cargo onboard. Sources close to Rouge have told StarNews that the deeds had been modified in a non-harmful way to resemble a series of maps, hidden within the governor's personal cartography collection. This was then transported from the orbiting MarsOne space station in the governor's personal effects (thus not subject to customs investigation).
The deeds were ultimately delivered to Rouge through a number of intermediaries. Investigations are underway to identify the source of the breach.
The court case re-commences on Thursday.
Chat soon :)
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✔️ Real Life Recommendations
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SSAM Korean BBQ - right on King St, there's this all you can eat KBBQ place that's real nice - limit 1.5 hours, but it's about $40 each and, surprisingly, has some great fried chicken (?!). As always at these places there's a great selection of meats you cook on a grill, and most of the time they'll leave you alone (which...well, if you haven't done KBBQ before you gon burn some stuff). Obviously you'll never make your money back at these places, but KBBQ is delicious so you should defs try it out :D There's another place in Nunawading I've been at (Mipung) which is also quite nice!
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iCake Melbourne - big shoutout to iCake for the Mahjong cake at my birthday - saw them ages ago on Instagram and finally got it! Extremely happy with the result - the inside was a 'rainbow' cake which I thought was just a description of the colours but it had a wide variety of actual FLAVOURS as well! Which is super fun :D
🚌 Adventures on the Information Super-Highway
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Mars Sucks - why do we keep trying to go there? Can we fix Earth first?
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AI bot trolls politicians with how much time they're looking at their phones - come on, can ya just pay attention a bit? Sure, you might be doin' something useful, but then also what is Parliament for?
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The Price of Happiness - per country, working out how much it costs not to be unhappy - covering your basics, having enough to be happy etc. A bunch of really nice graphics, summaries and illustrations for this data viz. Topline: It's $135k for Australia, #2 in the world to be 'happy'! Man I need a higher salary...