FOSTER:

First, I want to say welcome to our guests and everyone here; and thanks for coming!

We are having one big and well deserved party today!

Allow me to indulge a bit in history, for the record on this day, something we can all look back to as a true milestone in this planet's history.

This might be a kind of a 'state of the union' speech so please indulge me.

what a view here! - I still try to wrap my mind around how we have grown so large!

20 years!

It's a little hard to grasp but I can honestly say this has been the best 20 years of my life.

[ Chuckling ] - Well, 25 years but we don't need to go into that. (Referring to his ouster from Prime)

And I want to just take a sec to pause and express thanks to all of you here and to our benefactors, the Zi, for all of the good things this adventure has brought us in so many ways over the past 20 years, as well as the past 25 years of human history, now spread out across the universe!

We are now 25 years into being a truly an intergalactic race now! And 20 years here on Mayorga has been nothing short of amazing.

Some of us were more than ready for this adventure!

And yet a good many were not - but once they could see this was real, it took little for most of us to say goodbye to a dying planet.

I only want to take a moment to show a little perspective on where we've come in these 20 years.

The toxicity of our old world sometimes made it impossible to see much good in anything.

We had become cynical as a race, giving up on what we needed to do, thinking we could just kick the can down the road, or dump it in the ocean where our little brains imagined it would all just go away and we'd live on, and somehow climate change, endless wars, and eventual planetary death was all just abstract and we'd somehow escape our own self annihilation.

We were like frogs in a pot, slowly being boiled to death as we deluded ourselves thinking it was all just a warm bath.

We had to give up our notions of dominating and owning Earth.

While we may have thought Earth was a forever birthright, it was never ours to begin with.

We had to learn a new idea, that Earth may be where we started, but it will not be where we end!

That maybe there is indeed - "good out there"!

(Glancing around)

But now we live on this beautiful planet!

Mayorga is my home and my love. I have a beautiful family, and I can't even count my great grandkids anymore.

We have all created a beautiful world here on Mayorga.

Allow me to take just a minute to sing the praises of our people here.

For the historical record, let me highlight a few wonderful facts about what we have accomplished here on Mayorga.

Our craft guilds have created some of the network's most downloaded items in the history of The Exit.

I know we had a bit of a rough start, shedding a lot of baggage from our Earth experience.

We had to do some learning, we had to go to school. We needed time to decompress from Earth. I think I'm still decompressing even after 25 years.

But check this out! We've done a lot here and I can't be more proud of this colony and its people!

Our top ten crafts in wood, metal, art, music, medicine are now some of the most sought after downloads in network. (You've all seen the stats on GTube.)

Our symphony orchestra has won numerous interplanetary competitions. Some of the network's most amazing and influential musicians come from Mayorga.

Our cannabis and mushroom crafts are in the top 100 and have also won numerous competitions for quality and consistency.

Our boutique farms have fed millions of people throughout not just the Zi Planets Network but through our newfound trading agreements with several independent star nations in numerous galaxies.

We love our replicators like everyone, but there is a HUGE trading network that has been growing over the past 10 years in trading physical goods, non-replicated food and dry goods. We have 220 colonies now importing non-replicated goods.

What started out as individual projects doing small exports has grown into one of our most profitable in trade - with our trading partners.

Colony Imhotep's open markets are the envy of the colonies, and that's thanks to all of you here on Mayorga for making that happen. We've got some super smart people running things and that's what it takes to succeed.

Our boutique wineries, breweries and distilleries now ship actual product en masse to non-replicator colonies!

The intergalactic beer run is on! We know there's folks who like our beer and want it the old fashioned way. It's true we use replicated bottles but the hops, the brewing - it's all naturally grown and brewed right here on Mayorga. We've actually got some beer tourism going with all of our breweries.

We are running routine cattle, grain and non-replicated fresh fruit and vegetables to several colonies. Our cattle export agreements are conditional, such that you cannot import our cattle to slaughtered.

This includes several new Amish colonies who voted to refuse to eat replicated food, but who do not have sufficient grain stores until they are set up, or adverse weather, damaged food stores, etc. on their planets. Our people love these kinds of missions as we do our best to put forth the best representation of humanity we can.

We even have one vendor running a small fleet of baked goods ships and have Mayorga as their base.

Our colony has also produced several hundred top scientists into the network scientific community, and our students in all levels are exceeding goals.

What a difference it has been seeing a world unencumbered by backward thinking nonsense that very nearly killed us as a species.

Mankind has become a race of craftsmen, engineers, artists and explorers, colonists and nomads, exploring the universe!

I have nothing more that I can really add to all of this - really!

Humanity is now living its best life, and to that I just want to shout a huge AMEN!

Let's get the party started - which from what I see is well underway!