Will the Humans Return?

[Human No More]

Originally Posted by Clarke

The marines are gone from Hell's Gate, yes. They can hang around in orbit pretty much as long as they like. Once they do leave, that doesn't mean that any satellites, etc, they've left behind aren't still under RDA control.

Only if they don't want to return alive. The ISV has very limited life support and somewhat limited power, not enough to support everyone for extended time.

Of course you can theoretically send cleartext data, since a transmitter is a transmitter. The problem is, the transmitter you really need is in orbit, and you can't get there because you don't have the skill, fuel, etc to run a shuttle and space-walk out of it. Therefore, you need to either use it as-is (which involves encryption if the RDA have any sense) or you need to transmit from the ground. I do not want to conceive of the infrastructure you would need to be able to do the latter with any chance of success. It'd be massively expensive, assuming you even had the skill and facilities at all. (There aren't any physicists on Pandora? Oh well.)

...There are plenty on Pandora , and, no, an in-orbit rendezvous with a satellite every time you want to transmit is just stupid; of course it's going to be done from the ground. They have all the equipment right there.