Title: “Seven Ships and One Yard: A Conversation with the Freeholder and His Chosen”
Interviewer: Samuel Darrin, Political Editor, Frontline Earth
Date: June 11, 2440
Location: Private home theater and lounge, Marmaduke Homestead, Marmaduke Freehold
DARRIN:
Let’s not waste time. You’ve got seven fully functional starships in orbit, and one gutted hulk on your backyard. You didn’t just receive refugees, Mr. Marmaduke—you inherited a navy. What happens next?
MATT:
They’re not a navy. They’re converted cargo ships—and months away from needing to be decommissioned. Most are overdue for atmospheric scrubbing. No fleet admiral would accept them as ready for conflict.
DARRIN:
That’s not what I asked. I didn’t say they were battle-ready. I said they were spaceworthy—and that means options. Strategic, diplomatic, maybe even offensive. So, again: what happens next?
MATT:
What happens next is we finish establishing stability here on the ground. Our goal is to have everyone who needs rehoming done before the first snowfall. We’re not a threat. We’re a landing site. A harbor. And until we’re capable of sustaining our population—human and V’ren alike—every ship stays parked.
DARRIN:
T’mari, help me understand your presence. You’re a systems engineer, not a politician. Yet here you sit—at his right hand, speaking for your people in rooms where most humans still think aliens are the stuff of pulp fiction. Is that diplomacy by accident, or is this something you prepared for?
T’MARI:
As Matt said on our first day working together, when he asked me to be a cultural liaison. I spoke his language, and I was available. I am a systems engineer, but my job as a junior communications officer meant I have a lot of free time on the ground. While I am not a trained diplomat, which I believe comes with courses on how to lie for fun and profit, I am a trained communications specialist with advanced degrees in linguistics and a deep love of earth culture. As one of our highborn with familial relations to some of our top leadership, I can also stand for those in power.
DARRIN:
Is that how you define leadership? Standing when no one else will?
T’MARI:
Sometimes that’s all it takes. But it helps when someone like Matt notices you’re still standing, while everyone else has collapsed from exhaustion.
DARRIN:
Let’s talk about that. There’s a lot of noise on the nets about your relationship—some say it’s cultural theatre, others say it’s realpolitik disguised as romance. What’s your answer to that?
MATT:
We didn’t ask for anyone’s approval, and we don’t need it. If anyone thinks love is incompatible with strategy, they haven’t read enough history.
T’MARI:
Or they haven’t lived through loss. You learn fast what matters when you lose everything that you thought mattered in life.
DARRIN:
Your critics argue that you’re consolidating power faster than any sovereign since the Protestant Reformation. You control food, transport, and now—some argue—narrative. Are you building a sanctuary, or a sovereign state?
MATT:
Like so many others, you don’t seem to grasp, I was already a sovereign state. The Freehold has maintained diplomatic relationships with 41 countries, and 20 of those have come into being during my time as Freeholder.
DARRIN:
Speaking of roots—why Columbia? Why central Missouri?
MATT:
Because we never left. Because while the coasts consolidated, we learned how to grow things again. Columbia’s a city that remembers what it means to get your hands dirty. When the river and rail networks disappeared, it was still a halfway point by road, going from the Port of Memphis to the Ames Depot. Even when things were bad we have always had a large export market based on a few people.
DARRIN:
T’mari, your people are not just landing—they’re integrating. Working farms, fixing roads, rebuilding schools. That doesn’t happen without coordination. What’s your goal here?
T’MARI:
Home. We lost the lottery and were told we were excess to the needs of our homeworld. We were sent out to build a new colony. We were prepared to do just that. It helps that we have partnered with quite possibly the most underrated logistics magnates on planet Earth.
DARRIN:
And you think Earth will let you do that?
MATT:
They don’t have to let us. We are building on lands given to me by their legitimate owners in trade for security guarantees and future economic activities.
DARRIN:
Last question—and I ask it because I’ve been here two days and heard it asked everywhere from rail crews to breakfast diners:
Is this the start of a new nation?
MATT:
Of course. The V’ren on Earth Trust aims to be recognized as a new sovereign corporate nation. Failing to recognize that now that Amazon, Apple, the Denver Free Zone, Evergreen, and local governments all have it would just look petty at this point.
