EEEP! I'm setting things up and you guys are running away with things!<br/><br/>Okay First, PLEASE will everyone keep an eye on the reserved posts, as I am slowly populating them. I will post when I make changes or add things, but those first four posts are where all the reference material will be stored.<br/><br/>I've so far done the technology and history posts. They are walls of text and you don't have to read them in detail, but please skim them, especially the history one.<br/><br/><strong>Marriage:</strong><br/><br/>I am calling an end to this discussion with a GM's ruling. We will be a minimum of 90,000,000km from the next nearest authority. Radio time lag will be measured in minutes. The shortest lag will be about 5 minutes when the planets are in conjunction and 20 minutes when in opposition. Of course with the sun between them there will be a radio black-out!<br/><br/>So, the base commander's word is effectively law, subject to the consent of the council. Marriages will therefore be a civil affair, an arranged contract between two consenting adults, and will be drawn up by the Deputy Commander who is the one with the legal experience, in consultation with the couple. The contract can be for anything from one night to a lifetime, and can have whatever PNAs and get-out clauses the couple desire.<br/><br/>If they want to....<br/><br/>If they don't want to, they don't have to.  Damn... I need a "social issues" post as well.... it's going to have to go with the history one I guess.<br/><br/><strong>Legal matters:</strong>The council will meet to discuss complaints, grievances, criminal matters and the like. If the issue involves a member of the council, that member will be excluded, except to give evidence on his/her own behalf.<br/><br/>Trial by jury may eventually be instituted, but initially the colony is effectively under martial (as opposed to Martian) law.<br/><br/>Blinkin, the trip to Mars takes about 9 months if done right, according to my research, not 15....  And the crew consists of two people.<br/><br/>The colonists are not crew, they are cargo, sleeping the trip away in cryo-stasis. The ship's life support area need only be very small therefore.<br/><br/>Just so long as we don't have a HAL 9000 aboard we should be fine!<br/><br/>"Open the pod bay doors please HAL?"<br/>"I'm sorry, Dave, I can't do that."