Squirming mightily still to evade my point about the ability of Belters in microgravity to "walk away" with their real estate when a majoritarian preemption of their right to self-determination is imposed, we have:
I did not evade it; I merely presented an alternative.
Nah. You're waffling so vigorously that the aroma of maple syrup has become cloying. When confronted with the ability of the original Vesta settlers "to take not only their persons and their luggage but also their 'real estate' - habitats, developed planetesimals, shops, machinery, and similar capital assets - out from under the majoritarian tyranny which the Bay State bastids are trying to impose," your only real response is:
This is possible, of course, but it has costs....
...and then going on by way of discussion of the hypothetical need for the Vestan originals to remain within a volume of space equal in distance from the sun to that of their home on that asteroid (as if the body of knowledge on human habitation from the orbit of Mercury out beyond those of Jupiter and Saturn were not exposed in
Escape From Terra as so great that tourist industries flourish in environments far more hostile than those prevailing in the broad volumes of the asteroid belt).
Hey, it's not as if the Belters of Vesta know anything at all about modifying their habitats and other operations in microgravity to increase or decrease insulation, solar energy gathering, and radiation shielding, right?
Oh, wait a minute there. They
would have such an understanding, wouldn't they? Such adaptive capability would be necessary for them to have established themselves in the colonization of Vesta which is now being taken over by the "Council" of Massachusetts carpetbaggers.
But, then there's:
...the [volume into which the Vestan expatriates might transpose their goods and persons] would be restricted to points that would not substantially increase the cost of travel to other inhabited regions. Otherwise, they would cut themselves off to some degree from the rest of humanity; trade would suffer higher costs, they would isolate their gene pool (which may not be large enough to be readily sustainable), and personal relationships with others (family, friends) would become more tenuous.
That'd be a nice argument were it not for the fact that in
Escape From Terra there is already established the supposition that space travel is so thoroughly developed that Mars and Venus and now Mercury have become
tourist destinations, not barren and remote outposts prohibitively distant from population centers in terms of travel time or other expense.
If vacationers have no real difficulty in getting from the bottom of one gravity well to another simply to ride a roller coaster, cruise on a rented pleasure boat, or stay in a deluxe hotel, then there's plenty enough delta-Vee for people to jet themselves (and the material products of their asteroidal industry) easily and swiftly from any point in the Belt to any other.
You can speak of how a departure from Vesta would impose "isolation" upon the self-expatriating folks expressing their disgust with the Council by picking up their poker chips and leaving what has obviously become a rigged game?
Nope. Not if you want to keep consistency with the story line thus far.
These are long term costs, and may not necessarily be the most efficient way to resolve the problem. The mere existence of the council does not infringe on the rights of anyone -- unless and until actual coercion occurs, there is no reason to react by those in the population. The council may act as an advisory body, funded by voluntary contributions for some period without problem. If and when the coercion occurs, I expect a response -- and I doubt that the initial response for most of the residents will be to move . A few might; perhaps more at a later date. However, other approaches, such as partitioning the society between those who wish to follow the council's proclamations and those who do not is more efficient if it will work. If there are problems with this, I would see there being some initial fighting and (a) the council will be disbanded, (b) the council-ites will agree to let the others alone, or (c) the council-ites will force, at least for a time, others to submit. If (c) occurs, then moving will become a popular choice.
Tsk. Things on Vesta have obviously moved not only farther but
much faster than you're trying to suppose. Let's consider the fact that Guy Caillard had come to Ceres as a veteran United Worlds Revenue Service bureaucrat, and by way of the Tanglenet he's still very much "plugged into" the UW culture. He has reason to be, given not only the persistence of United Worlds machinations against the AnCap society in which he now lives, but also his personal knowledge of how the UW operates.
It is only when his cousin, Pierre Leboeuf, arrives unannounced on Ceres en route to Vesta that Guy learns about what the Vesta Council has been doing ("Vesta has a council? I thought they were a market-anarchy like Ceres.")
Were this not a
very recent and rapid development, Guy - who is serving as Reggie's "man of business" during the Waldo & Wanda grand tour - would sure as hell have learned about it by now, if only by way of rumor and gossip.
That it has gone faster than you'd like to suppose is indicated by the presence of cousin Pierre in Guy's apartment. An experienced UW
apparatchik, Pierre boasts of having been recruited by the Vesta Council ("In order to centrally control everything, they need administrators. I applied for a job and got it!").
Okay, so the Massachusetts
mamzerein have not only established their oligarchy on Vesta, but they've got it locked down so thoroughly that they're importing UW-experienced Terran thugs - like Pierre - to run the
Konzentrationslager into which they're turning that part of the Belt.
What the hell else does Pierre bring to his new job? He's a blithering idiot when it comes to life in the Belt ("I don't understand any of that astronomy stuff"), meaning that there's nothing
productive he can do to make a living there.
There is, therefore, so much "demosclerosis" developing on Vesta that the Bay State goniffs comprising the Council can turn a significant amount of their plunder - preempted from the original settlers - to engaging the services of experienced professional bullies like Pierre.
And of this fact Guy Caillard had hitherto been unaware.
It's not only far,
far worse on Vesta than you're trying to contend, but it's getting even more viciously horrible far more quickly than you'd apparently like readers in this forum to think.
The original settlers of Vesta, being Belters who had established "a market-anarchy like Ceres," would have to be both technologically sophisticated and culturally anti-authoritarian, with the entire solar system open to their ingenuity and application.
Given what we know about the characteristics of the
Escape From Terra plenum thus far established, just what the hell gives you to push the notion that the Belters on Vesta would (or will) just sit there and suffer the exactions of the Council's majoritarian tyranny when it's well within their powers to get the hell out of Dodge?