A first-year plan maps the V’ren Trust tethered rail from Columbia to Rolla, Stockton, and Pittsburg, then west to Elkhart and north to Ogallala before looping through Ames Depot. Freight-heavy 200 kph segments give way to 800–1,550 kph high-velocity runs. Hubs and spurs seed 340 new settlements across CCA territory.
On a warm June afternoon, Matt Marmaduke and Officer T’Mari visited the University of Missouri’s Columbia campus—once a symbol of American higher education, now a crossroads of post-collapse resilience and galactic diplomacy. What followed was a trio of interviews revealing the grit behind engineering breakthroughs, the complexity of new alliances, and the media fascination with a reluctant folk hero and his alien communications officer.
Matt Marmaduke only has hours to scale Missouri’s capacity for one hundred twenty thousand V’ren refugees. In a tense holotank briefing, he and General Leonard Wood trade requests, concessions, and political jabs—balancing construction gear, medical personnel, and the delicate power game that comes with being a legally neutral Freeholder.
With wounded V’ren in need of urgent care, Matt Marmaduke turns diplomacy into action. Clinics are opened, quarantine zones established, and medical teams coordinated between species. Trust is built in real time as Missouri’s infrastructure shifts into high gear—fast enough to impress even the alien doctors.