From the Parliamentary Record of Albion Space, Educational Broadcast, House of Resources 

[The following is an excerpt from the public educational archives maintained by the House of Resources, recorded for general distribution across Albion Space and for Terra-side audiences. Transcript lightly edited for readability.] 

There are moments in the life of any civilisation when it becomes necessary to return to first principles. The Commonwealth of Albion was founded by people who understood that the circumstances which make a place habitable are not permanent, and that the capacity to move, when moving becomes necessary, is not a failure of commitment but an expression of it. 

This briefing concerns the Copernicus expedition: a proposal, now formally before both chambers of Parliament, to revive and implement the original colony mission for which the marcher-ships of Albion Space were built. 

What the Copernicus System Is 

The star designated Copernicus, known to Terran astronomers as 55 Cancri A, lies approximately forty-one light-years from Terra. It is a sun-like star of the type that astronomers have long considered promising for human settlement, orbited by a system of planets that has been observed and catalogued over many decades of long-range study. 

Of particular interest is Heriot, a gas giant orbiting Copernicus within what scientists term the habitable zone. Heriot has a moon: Flamsteed. It is Flamsteed that has been the focus of the Copernicus expedition’s planning since the project was first conceived, and for good reason. Long-range observation has established that Flamsteed is an earthlike body, broadly terrestrial in character, with a measurable atmosphere, evidence of liquid water, and conditions that our best models suggest are compatible with the biological heritage carried in the marcher-ships’ greenspaces. 

Flamsteed is not Terra. No reasonable person has claimed otherwise. What it is, by the best available evidence, is viable. 

There was, for many years, one question that long-range observation could not answer: whether Flamsteed was already home to life, and if so, of what kind. The Commonwealth of Albion, in common with Terra’s broader policy on interstellar colonization, was unwilling to proceed with a settlement mission until that question was resolved. Terra dispatched slower-than-light probes to the Copernicus system for exactly this purpose, a journey that took generations to complete. The results of those probes were received in Albion Space approximately one generation ago. 

Flamsteed is uninhabited. The expedition may proceed without risk of harm to any exospecies. That determination has been on the Parliamentary record for a generation. The question of what to do with it has not, until now, been treated with the urgency it deserves. 

Why the Ships Were Built 

It is worth restating, for the benefit of those unfamiliar with the history, that the marcher-ships were not originally designed for their current role. They were purpose-built for the Copernicus mission: large enough to carry a sustainable population and the biological heritage of Terra across interstellar distance, equipped with teleportation drives capable of making the journey in a series of rapid jumps, and fitted with the ordnance necessary to clear hazards in an unknown system. 

The greenspaces at the heart of every marcher-ship are not amenities. They are seed banks: living archives of Terran flora and fauna, maintained across generations against the day when they would be needed to seed a new world. The trees that have never known a natural sky, the birds that have lived their entire lives under artificial light, are not there for the comfort of the crew, though they provide it. They are cargo. They have always been cargo. 

The generations that settled into Hector-Sabrina, that carved their homes into the rock and built their Parliament and established their operations, were not wrong to do so. A civilization was built here, and it was worth building.  

Albion was always intended as a waystation: a place to gather strength, to wait for word from the probes, and to build the capacity needed for the next stage of the journey. The word has been received. The capacity exists. The waystation has served its purpose. 

The Proposal 

The Copernicus Expedition, as presented to Parliament by its primary advocates, William Darcy, Marcher of the Last Repose, and Elizabeth Bennet, Member of the House of Resources for Longbourn, proposes the following: 

That the twelve marcher-ships of Albion Space, together with certain associated asteroid settlements, totaling approximately seventy bodies and a combined population of three hundred thousand people, undertake a coordinated migration to the Copernicus system. 

That the journey be completed in a series of teleportation jumps over an estimated twenty-five years of fleet time, with the marcher-ships shepherding the asteroid settlements as they go. 

That the Commonwealth of Albion be reconstituted upon arrival in the Copernicus system, carrying its institutions, its culture, its Parliamentary traditions, and its people to Flamsteed. 

The proposal addresses the practicalities of such a journey in considerable detail. Questions of fleet coordination, resource management across twenty-five years of transit, the maintenance of the biological heritage in the greenspaces, and the governance structures that would apply during the journey have all been examined by the relevant Parliamentary committees. Their findings are available in the full record. 

What Is Being Asked 

The Commonwealth of Albion has spent nearly a century building something worth keeping. The Copernicus Expedition does not ask its people to abandon what they have built. It asks them to carry it with them. 

The marcher-ships were designed for exactly this. The greenspaces have been maintained for exactly this. The teleportation drives, which have protected Albion’s settlements for generations, were always intended to take us further than the boundaries of this asteroid family. 

The question before Parliament, and before the people of Albion Space, is not whether the journey is possible. The committees have determined that it is. The question is whether Albion is ready to remember what it was always meant to become. 

Both chambers will continue deliberations. Public submissions are open for a period of ninety days from the date of this broadcast. 

The House of Resources encourages all residents of Albion Space to engage with this process. The decision that follows will be made by everyone, or it will not be made well. 

Pride & Planetoids is a space opera retelling of Pride and Prejudice, set among the asteroid families of the outer solar system. The Copernicus Expedition forms a central part of the story’s resolution, and will be important to the sequels.