The Unionist meets the Gaian's eyes. Flora said "we", and Gunda noticed. For all her rebuttal, she was one of her people.
"You're likely right; I mean, I'm not a biologist. I'm just a messenger. Besides, conservation is your people's war. We Unionists are just playing tourist."
"But, Flora, I was born into a Rheinland where the idea of the Monarchy returning seemed laughable. Now some self-aggrandizing Bretonian-born socialite is wearing a platinum crown carved into oak leaves."
"We've lived through times when the idea of a sixth house of the Alliance, far beyond the Barrier, was ridiculous. As improbable as it might've once seemed, your people still had to go and kick the Gallic bastards clean off of Gaia."
"We've lived through times when prospect of ships crossing stars without a jump gate or a jump hole broke the laws of physics. Now, we've got spatial anomalies swallowing ships wholesale, before spitting them out again in pocket dimensions, and jump drives turning inter-system travel into blink-and-you-miss-it transits."
"We've lived through times when the idea of alien body snatchers would've been thought of as psychotic - and they're everywhere now."
"Compared to all of that... This is a basic engineering problem. Look, we run projects all the time that turn into ash or dust or wasted effort. But we do wanna' try. For all we know, we might live to see a day when repopulating Nuremberg is not only possible, but viable. Crazier <expletive> happens all the time. Even if that time never comes, we'll have saved a bundle of species -and- created a viable asteroid habitat."
"And, hey. Even if we're fools; you're going to come away from this conversation with an operable Bulwark."
THE SYNDIC LEAGUES
(A co-operative of Rheinland's outlawed trade unions, determined to take the underworld for themselves.)
Flora let out another sigh when Gunda finished speaking.
- Fine. But we will first need an ironclad agreement on the scale of this project. We'll have to make sure feasible to build and maintain, and which species can even be reintroduced to it. We'd rather avoid commiting any specimens to the project unless we are certain it's viable long-term.
![[Image: XTF1d6x.png]](https://i.imgur.com/XTF1d6x.png)
