Asteroid Belt Political Roundup – Special Election Coverage
Transcribed by Zax’Noor, Chief Political Correspondent
They gather like vultures around the carcass of power, these candidates with their gleaming teeth and impossible promises. Some teeth more literal than others, of course. I’m sitting in the press gallery of Ceres Central Dome, nursing what passes for whiskey in this gravity-forsaken place—a concoction that tastes like distilled regret with notes of industrial lubricant. Perfect for election season.
Today’s circus features five candidates vying for Administrator of the Belt Consortium. Five souls (or reasonable facsimiles thereof) who believe they can wrangle the ungovernable sprawl of rock-hoppers, miners, smugglers, and corporate vultures into something resembling civilization.
Let me tell you something about the Belt: it’s no place for the weak. It’s where humanity scraped away the veneer of civilization and discovered something primitive lurking beneath, then decided to invite a few alien species to the party just to see what happened. The result? This magnificent clusterfuck of competing interests we call democracy.
First up is Hank “Twitch” McCullen, former pit boss at Ganymede Mining, sporting a face like an old baseball glove and augmented lungs that wheeze and click when he talks. Human, mostly. His platform centers on “asteroid rights” and decentralized governance, which translates roughly to “let corporate interests do whatever the hell they want.” He steps to the podium with the confidence of someone who’s survived three explosive decompressions.
“The Inner Planets have bled us dry for too long,” he rasps, his voice like gravel in a blender. “I promise you economic sovereignty through targeted tariffs and strategic resource allocation.” The crowd mumbles. They’ve heard it all before. McCullen nervously adjusts his collar, revealing the edge of a neural port—retrofitted, black market. His fingers twitch erratically when he thinks nobody’s looking.
Next comes Sh’Kalak, a Proximan with skin like wet obsidian and eyes that refract light in ways that make my hangover worse. Their campaign slogan: “Unified Prosperity Through Biological Integration.” Nobody knows exactly what this means, but the rumors of their hive-mind experiments on Vesta Station have cost them points in the polls.
“We see inefficiency,” they click through their translator. “We see wasteful individuality. We offer synchronicity.” Their voice resonates in my molars. Three spectators leave clutching their heads. “Biological integration allows information flow optimization. Democracy evolves.”
The Proximans in the audience wave their sensory appendages in approval. Everyone else looks like they’ve just found something unpleasant in their food.
Following this delightful interlude, Dr. Anastasia Kurov takes the stage. Human by birth, though her body is now 78% cybernetic after that unfortunate incident with the mass driver on Pallas. She walks with the fluid grace of someone whose joints never tire. Her platform: technological salvation through mandatory augmentation.
“Evolution is too slow,” she announces, her voice perfectly modulated. “We must accelerate. The Belt demands superhuman adaptability.” Her left eye—the original, organic one—blinks independently of her cybernetic right. “Free neural enhancers for all citizens. Free metabolic upgrades. Free skeletal reinforcement.” She pauses, smiling. “Together, we transcend human limitations.”
The crowd shifts uncomfortably. Nobody likes being told they’re obsolete, especially by someone who looks like she hasn’t slept in a decade because she literally doesn’t need to.
Just when I think it can’t get more surreal, they wheel out Oort, a Jovian Gas Dweller inside a containment suit that looks like a demented refrigerator crossed with a disco ball. How a being that evolved in Jupiter’s atmosphere got political ambitions is beyond me, but here we are.
“BELT CITIZENS REQUIRE PRESSURE EQUILIBRIUM,” Oort booms through speakers, its amorphous form swirling inside the containment suit. “MY PLATFORM SIMPLE: DISTRIBUTE RESOURCES UNTIL PRESSURE EQUAL. NO HIGH PRESSURE ZONES. NO LOW PRESSURE ZONES. HARMONY.”
The economic metaphor isn’t subtle, but it’s effective. The miners from Saturn’s rings erupt in applause. They know what it means to be squeezed.
Finally, we have Dexter “Deebee” Blackwood, who bills himself as “100% Pure Original Human Stock,” which is about as believable as me claiming to be a teetotaler. He’s got that look about him—too perfect, too symmetrical. Word is he spent six months in a Titan gene clinic getting “de-evolved” from whatever he was before. His platform is “Human Belt for Human Hands,” which plays well with the xenophobic crowd that thinks aliens are stealing their jobs rather than doing the work humans can’t or won’t do in these godforsaken rocks.
“Look at what we’ve become,” he says, gesturing to the others. “Machines. Monsters. Metamorphs. Where’s the humanity?” He pounds the podium with a fist that sounds suspiciously hollow. “I promise a return to traditional human values. Natural selection, not artificial enhancement!”
The irony of his statement would be delicious if it weren’t so terrifying. Half the audience cheers while the other half checks their exit routes.
Between speeches, I corner Lana Vetrov, local political analyst and bookmaker. She’s running the odds on this shitshow.
“McCullen’s at 3:1,” she tells me, her eyes never leaving her data tablet. “Corporate backing, veteran support. Sh’Kalak’s at 8:1—too many rumors about those mind-meld experiments. Kurov’s hovering at 4:1, but that’s mainly fear voting. Oort’s the dark horse at 5:1—surprising support from the labor unions. Blackwood’s at 6:1, but those numbers are climbing with the recent Proximan riots on Juno.”
I ask her who she’s betting on.
“None of them,” she snorts. “I’m betting on a hung election and emergency powers extension. The current Administrator’s puppet masters haven’t found their perfect candidate yet.”
I nod. Politics in the Belt isn’t about governance—it’s about control of the resources that feed the hungry maws of Earth, Mars, and the Outer Colonies. The candidates are just the public faces of powers too distant or too alien to show themselves.
As the debate rages on, I watch the crowd. Humans with patch-job augmentations sitting next to Europan water-breathers in hydro-suits. Martian colonists with their stretched frames and rusty complexions. Proximans with their faceted eyes reflecting the stage lights. Jovian Gas Dwellers bobbing in their containment units. Venusian Spore Collectives clustering in the humid sections.
All of them sharing this fragile pocket of atmosphere amid the cold vacuum, all of them believing their vote might make a difference in this cosmic joke of a political system. It’s almost beautiful, in a grotesque way—like watching larvae writhe in the corpse of a dream.
When the speeches end, I slip out before the Q&A begins. I’ve heard enough promises to last until the next orbital cycle. Outside, the dome arches overhead, giving a magnificent view of the starfield and the distant, indifferent Earth. A mining ship docks at the adjacent port, disgorging weary workers with hollow eyes and radiation burns.
They trudge past campaign posters featuring the smiling faces of candidates promising them better lives. None of them even glance up.
That’s the real story of Belt politics: not the candidates with their grand schemes and evolutionary advantages, but the people trudging by, too exhausted to hope anymore, yet somehow still showing up to mark their ballots when the time comes.
Because what else is there to do in the void but vote and drink and wait for something to change?
This reporting was made possible by a grant from the Asteroid Belt Free Press Syndicate. The opinions expressed are those of the author and in no way reflect the views of our corporate overlords at Consolidated Mineral Extraction, Biotech Integration Solutions, or the Proximan Collective Intelligence.
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