Yes, the Mirondians kept secrets, but for five years the distaste caused by the secret keeping was overshadowed by the spectacular benefits of the trading. But tension was growing in the Solar System community, and as the Fifth Anniversary of the Mirondian Arrival approached in 2479, it was high.
Tension was high and growing because the things that Mirondians traded to the Solar System community were not as trivial as chests of gold or bags of diamonds. They were much more earthshaking. If a man comes to a town with a chest of gold and starts spending it like a young sailor on shore-leave, he is happy and the town's merchants are happy, but there is little change to the daily life of the community. The gold is trivial to the town's well-being -- it makes the town better, but it doesn't change the day-to-day life of the town. If a man comes to town that previously has had only people and horses for transportation, and builds a big bicycle factory that sells cheap bicycles, then he deeply alters the town's day-to-day living patterns. He provides new kinds of jobs, a new style of transportation, city growth, city pollution... lots of changes... some good, some bad, many that are both. In short, he changes how the town lives. It was the bicycle factory kind of change that accompanied almost everything that Mirondians sold to the Solar System community. The changes they were making to Solar System day-to-day living were huge.
Many people liked those changes -- many, but by no means everyone. Some people got confused by the changes. Some people got left behind. Some people got scared. As change piled upon change, more and more people got confused and scared.
One example is the transportation revolution. Before the Mirondians came, mankind was moving around the Solar System using boost-and-coast rocket technology. This was the same technology that got man to the Moon in the 1960's. Mankind was moving around, but the process of moving people and goods from one planet to another, or from a planet to an asteroid or moon, took weeks-to-years, and it was expensive. As a result the off-Earth colonies were small, growing slowly, and only imported the most important things they needed. The Solar System was Earth-centric. The Moon had the biggest off-Earth colonies because it was quick to get to from Earth, and Mars had the next biggest for the same reason.
The Mirondians traded to Earth a constant acceleration propulsion system that could sustain .5G acceleration to anywhere in the Solar System. Using their "Blip!" construction techniques, a factory making these ships at the rate of one a month was available six months after trading started, and it was expanded to two a month at the end of the first year when it was clear that demand for these ships was huge. A year after that, the human propulsion people made a breakthrough, and 1G propulsion systems became practical for luxury ships.
On these new ships a trip from Earth to Mars took a few days to three weeks depending on their orbital relation. Even more important, ships could launch at any time -- 1G acceleration was so powerful that orbital niceties such as optimal intercept times could be ignored. And, with constant 1G acceleration, the bad health effects of low-G travel were avoided. Traveling around the Solar System became nearly as comfortable and convenient as traveling around Earth.
As a result of this new ease and cheapness, millions of more "Earthlings" were willing to travel to the colonies. This would have caused a huge housing crisis on the colonies, but "Blip!" construction techniques were reducing housing construction times by five times. The colonies were able to sustain this huge growth. Roughly a million Earthlings became colonists in Year Four, which roughly doubled the off-Earth population of the Solar System. They emigrated because they were curious, and because there were hundreds of new off-Earth mining, manufacturing and construction projects being initiated thanks to new Mirondian products and new Mirondian technology. A million moved, but a million did not stay. Most went for a while, then came back to Earth, then went out again. But many stayed, then brought their families. Mixed in with the million or so Earthling colonists moving back and forth were a few hundred MSE's from the Mirondian mother ship.
The physical facilities were able to sustain this population surge, but the social facilities were overwhelmed. Before The Growth of Year Four, the colonies were neighborly places. The colonial governments were informal, and everyone in a colony knew everyone else. There was a lot of hazard outside the colony walls, so cooperation was high and crime was low. Mirondian technology cheapened everything in a colony. Housing, food, life support, entertainment... social values... everything got cheaper. Many pre-Mirondian residents of the colonies got deeply upset at the cheapening social values; many did not because they loved the new people and because they could now import "frivolous" things, such as flowers. Those who were made billionaires by the changes tended to say the problems were deplorable, but bearable.
This transportation revolution, and the colonial social revolution it brought about, is one example of the hundreds of changes that came with Mirondian trading, and it is an example of how each change raised the tension in the various Solar System communities. The tensions were high, but the wonderousness was high, too.
The Solar System community was probably not alone in feeling the tension. The Mirondians were trading because they were getting wealthy, too. We don't know much about their community, but it's hard to imagine that their community did not undergo some wealth stress as well. What is known is that the Mirondian community seemed to fall in love with Earth. The Mirondians came as tourists to visit Earth, and then kept coming back. They loved seeing lush life. They loved coral reefs, temperate and tropical rainforests, cities and zoos. Mountain ranges left them cold. Interesting rock formations caused by erosion held their interest briefly, but life... thick life... was a magnet to them -- they couldn't stay away. The rest of the Solar System communities got somewhat envious of this, but there wasn't much they could do about it. What made this even more ironic was that the Mirondians had to experience Earth from inside environment suits -- their native conditions were not Earth-like. So when they visited somewhere such as Yosemite Park, they stood out. They were the ones in the "space suits", surrounded by the flows of casually-clothed humanity.
I tell you all this because at the beginning of Year Five the Mirondians made an announcement that was a "shot heard round the world." There was a celebration held commemorating four years of trading, and at the close of that ceremony they dropped this bombshell. They said, "We are very pleased with how our trading and relations with this Solar System are progressing. We are delighted at how generous and responsive you people of the Solar System have been. Thanks to your wholehearted cooperation, we have both prospered mightily.
"We are so encouraged that we have decided to start what for us is a most precious project: the building of a new star ship. This is not a project we take on lightly. And we do it only because we think Earth and the Solar System can add so much value to this endeavor.
"Congratulations to you people of the Solar System. You have proved to be wonderful trading partners."
In Mirondian eyes, this announcement was supposed to have been one of great joy for both Mirondians and Solar System people. For them it was like when a young bride gets dewy-eyed, cuddles up to her new husband, and whispers in his ear, "Darling, I have something special to tell you." and he smiles back, hugs her, kisses her, and knows that their practice at baby-making has been successful.
In the Solar System community eyes, this was like when a dad's sixteen year-old daughter tells him she has just cuddled up to her high school boy friend and said the same thing.... The dad says, "Whoa! Lets talk about this!"
In fact, the announcement started a firestorm of discussion about the Mirondian - Solar System relation. Many Solar System communities started seriously reviewing the question, "Just who is getting what from this relation?" Those who were unhappy, passed by, or just looking for some anger to exploit started talking about all those things that had gone wrong since the Mirondians had come. Since there had been a lot of changes, a whole lot, there where plenty of sour stories to tell. (There were plenty of good stories, too, but the people who were part of the good stories were usually too busy doing better to make good story tellers.) I will give two examples:
The first example is a fairly simple one. First, there were chronic headlines of "[Community Name] unsettled by Crime Wave. Are new settlers to blame?" The article would then go into a discussion of various high profile crimes of the community, who was moving in, what good they brought, but that there were a few bad apples in the mix. It would end with some local politician or NGO leader (Non Government Organization) campaigning for better screening of immigrants. As people got angrier, these balanced stories evolved into sensational stories about lurid crimes and immigrant gangs running amok.
The second example is more complex. One of the benefits to come from the Mirondian - Solar System exchange was the technology to make Miracoxin. Miracoxin! In the early days it was often called "Miracle", for short. That's the drug that suppresses the cold symptoms that a person suffers when they are having "flu-like symptoms" from any source -- flu, cold, drug reaction, whatever. It's a cold tablet on steroids, and as safe as aspirin. So far, so good, and soon a whole lot of Miracoxin was being sold around the Solar System. Then one day, "those bad apples" of the human recreational drug community pointed out that if you soak Miracoxin in an acid solution, it developed euphoric properties as well -- it made you feel good as well as relieving cold symptoms. Hmm... Not long after that got out, the media was reporting that orange juice and vinegar makers were reporting rising sales and profits. At this point Miracle came to refer to the acidified form of Miracoxin.
Not long after that, the anti-drug groups were spreading stories that Miracle/Miracoxin was not as safe as was originally reported, and the whole anti-drug abuse establishment had a new target. They loved it! Memberships in anti-drug crusades tripled. The problem was, Miracle was safe -- no reasonably neutral study would confirm the accusations of the anti-drug movement. The result of this mix -- an attractive drug and deep worry about its attractiveness -- was a new battlefield in the War on Drugs. And the battlefield was blamed on the Mirondians. "If the Mirondians hadn't shown up, we wouldn't have Miracle to worry about." argued those anti-druggers who were frustrated that they couldn't win on this battlefield, either.
These are just a couple examples of the controversies that grew out of the huge social changes that Mirondian - Solar System contact brought to the Solar System. The Solar System was fast getting to be a better place for humans, but those benefits were hard to digest, and they caused many people a lot of worry and stress.
To those humans who wanted to voice discontent, the new starship announcement became a lightning rod. The Mirondians were tightlipped on the starship issue, which made controversy easier. For six months after the announcement, the Mirondians had little further to say on it, other than, "We are doing the planning now. Please have patience." People were not patient, they bellyached a lot and there were protests building. In fact, there was a lot of serious violence throughout the solar system, but that didn't seem to make much difference to the Mirondians.
When the plan came out, there was shock throughout the human community. The starship was huge! Physically, it was the size of a comet, and it would hold a medium-size city's worth of people! This was going to take a lot of resource, even for a solar system which had an Earth-style planet in it. And... according to the Mirondians, it would be finished in five years!
"Yes, it will be a grand ship." said the Mirondians, "Five times bigger than our current ship."
Solar System jaws dropped, then several things fell out of this plan revealing.
Those who were enthusiastic supporters of Mirondians pointed out to the Mirondians that there were far too few MSE's to get this project completed as scheduled. This meant that Mirondians were going to have to teach "Blip!" construction and management techniques to a lot of Solar System people... and they wanted to be first in line.
Those who were not quite so enthusiastic wanted to know who was going to crew this new ship? And, who is going to pay for it?
"We will issue contracts, as we always have." said the Mirondians, "You, people of the Solar System, will help us man the ship. It will be an honor for many of you. Your chance to see the wonders of other star systems, and spread your seed to other worlds."