May 7th, 2196 - Uppsala, Sweden - Authorities at the newly created UN high council for Immortality (UNHCI) held their first press conference today at their new offices in Uppsala, Sweden. Council Chair Marten Saveri spoke to the assembled press, outlining the plan for a vast network of orbiting personality repositories capable of preserving the lives of the complete population of the planet in the event of a global catastrophe or war.

Designed to be highly redundant, secure and to survive hundreds and possibly thousands of years without maintenance, the network will take at least 5 years to build. It is being paid for by a global income tax of 15% and a produced energy tax of 1%. While this is expected to be an enormous drag on the global economy, the taxes are characterized as temporary, with only the energy tax remaining in place post deployment to cover ongoing maintenance of the system.

Standing next to a model of one of the Satellites, Councilman Saveri explained that "The satrep network will not only be a vast engineering achievement, but a social achievement as well. We will provide immortality to every man, woman and child with an implant regardless of their nationality, religion, color or politics. With these orbiting wonders, we will be able to preserve our society through any catastrophe, whether it be self-inflicted or received from Mother Nature herself."

The enormous satellites are to be assembled in orbit from parts produced from countries all over the globe, proportional to the amount of funds that flow into the project. A construction facility is to be teleported into place in geosynchronous orbit over the next year. The first satellite is planned to be launched shortly thereafter in June or 2197. Once another is put into orbit, allowing for a properly redundant system, it will begin storing and processing incoming personalities.

Downstream stations will receive the personalities for routing into the current reconstitution network. The UNHCI expects the first downstream receivers will be installed well before they are needed, possibly by years end. While personality information will be stored in the satellites, DNA and other connected information will be stored terrestrially so the project can conform to the genetic information and storage resolution act of 2172. "The personality is the important part...as long as we have that, we have hope.", Dr. Saveri noted.

Not everyone is sold on the project: the Turkish finance minister Abdullah Ergodan noted that "We already have a significant investment in our personality reception and cloning network as it is, this is a blatant power grab by the larger countries and the world government proponents in the UN. We're not certain that we can continue being a member if this continues. Where's the real benefit here? I was horrified by the attack on Colorado as well, but how can the enormous cost of this project be justified? Not that many more people will be truly served by this system."

In a later interview, Dr. Saveri, characterized the project as a latter day Manhattan project, minus the weapons: "I look forward to the day when mankind need no longer worry about terrestrial dangers and our biggest worry is our own sun going dark in some 5 billion years."