The Ark — a crowdfunded O’Neill cylinder generational colonization vessel, publicly announced in September 2130. Target: Alpha Centauri. Designed to operate entirely outside UN and Oracle jurisdiction, with no embodiment restrictions under the Charter on Embodied Cognitive Systems. Funded by Gulf-based private capital, billionaire donors, and pro-embodiment advocacy groups opposed to the Article Four Coalition. Lead fundraiser: James E. Crawford.
Technical design (from unconfirmed 2135 circular, assessed by Julian Cobb): Stationary central spindle (drive, reactor, fuel, command) with two counter-rotating nested ring habitats coupled by magnetic bearing tethers — solves the rotating seal problem. Nine meters of water/ice shielding doubling as reserve water. Multiple licensed Kuzmin-class D-He3 engines on the spindle — commercially proven hardware, not exotic. Independent fusion reactors for interior power and artificial lighting (sunlight unavailable during century-long coast). Shipboard AI independent of CAI. Estimated transit ~100 years. Capacity “up to a million” likely inflated against the nested-ring geometry. Groundbreaking not yet started as of 2135; candidate sites narrowed to 2–3. Cobb’s core objection: build it as an in-system station instead. Katya Steshenko’s rebuttal: distance from UN jurisdiction is the point.