A month or so after the students went on a kayaking adventure, jumped from a water tower, and camped out on the beach, Deandra received a letter from the interplanetary council stating that her dad was now officially ready to challenge her in the interplanetary court to settle their strife about Deandra's refusal to be the next CEO for the Milton family's mining company. The letter also stated that Deandra would be allowed to bring people who could support her position as long as they would also be able to present empirical evidences along with their speeches.

The day of the trial, the young woman brought Ayumi, the students, and Lee with her to the location of the meeting, which was in Brown Aspen City, the capital of Red Sycamore, approximately an hour away from the Golden Valley village. In the room, there were four judges from three different planets of the Indigo Inferno solar system: one was a representative of Red Sycamore, one was a representative of Black Elm, one was a representative of the Red Sycamore-owned side of Silver Pine, and the last was a representative of the Black Elm-owned side of Silver Pine. All of them had sworn to take neutral position in Deandra's case.

Moira had volunteered to become the first speaker to present her support of Deandra and her opposition of Mr. Milton's anthropocentric philosophy. Nervous but firm in her believe that Deandra was on the right side and thus deserved to be helped, Moira gave the following speech despite feeling that her heart was about to be ripped out of her chest the entire time:

"Your Honors, I stand here as an ecocentrist and a xenobiology major with a minor in biochemistry. My education thus far has made me an informed citizen, a critically thinking scholar, and above all a human who knows her role in preserving the environment. I strongly oppose speciesism and human chauvinism. Non-human animals are not supposed to only be a means to human ends! Why are we focusing on ourselves to the detriment of other beings? Why do we always regard humankind as the central and most important element of existence? I demand interspecies justice! What Mr. Milton and his company are doing will no doubt bring about the extinction of the Gaburs and the birdwing butterflies, both native to Golden Valley, a village to which Mr. Milton plans to have his mining company relocate. I can't just sit back and watch this unfolds. We have moral obligation to save the Gaburs and the birdwings."

The judges whispered among themselves before allowing Mr. Milton to debate Moira.

"Naïve child, are you a misantrophe? Do you hate humans that much to oppose something that will be financially good to Golden Valley? We do need to mine Pronas and Quenax, otherwise how else are we going to fuel our space crafts? Also, stop using those tiny winged elephants as an excuse to stop me from relocating my company. The Gaburs shouldn't even exist in the first place, they're hybrid species made by scientists who played God. Since they wouldn't exist without the intervention of those foolish scientists, why should we protect them?" Mr. Milton retorted, laughing boisterously in his certainty that he had Moira cornered and scared.

"I never hate humans, sir!" Moira yelled. "I am a human myself! All I said was that your human interests come at the exclusion and the expense of the Gaburs. Your interest in Pronas and Quenax is valid, but is that really the only way to fuel our space crafts? Are there no alternatives? We need an altruistic win-win solution. I believe in the integration of the triple bottom line: people, planet, and prosperity. None of those three basic building blocks of economy should be regarded as more important than the other." Moira finished her argument.

The freshmen cheered while Mr. Milton was seething and the judges called for order. Up next was Ayumi, she had volunteered to speak about her people's beliefs and stance about mining.

"Honored judges, the Little Trees tribe of the Golden Valley village has always revered the nature and we appreciate it by believing that everything has a soul. We also believe that if we ever let our greed hurt another being, be it animal or human, we will be forever stuck in a circle of suffering, an endless cycle of death and rebirth, and be barred from going to nirvana. We are all interconnected, all entities are sacred, and the universe hangs in a fragile balance. Humans should not try to conquer nature. What Mr. Milton and his company have planned will turn my homeland into a waste land and I don't want that! No Little Trees in their right mind want that." Ayumi bowed to the judges and was ready to leave the podium but one of the judges had a question, so she was called back to the podium for further questioning.

"Are you saying that your entire tribe is practicing animism and paganism, Prof. Sakamoto?"

"Not necessarily, Your Honor, we practiced a syncretized version of Buddhism and Hinduism with our own celestial gods and goddesses, but what's important is that my people don't see nature only for its instrumental value. I acknowledge that our common ancestors, the inhabitants of Old Earth, didn't all share the same understanding. However, my people disagree with the views of the Old Earth inhabitants. My people believe that at the end of 21st century, Gaia, our name for Old Earth, rebelled and took revenge against our common ancestors who had displeased her. If we are not careful, Red Sycamore can curse us in the same way Gaia cursed our ancestors before us. This is why I want to hold Mr. Milton and his company ethically accountable! Is nature truly just a means to feed our insatiable desire for power and money? Doesn't the environment have an intrinsic value? I have said enough and don't say I ddidn't warn you if one day Red Sycamore releases Her wrath upon all of us." Ayumi spoke with such confidence that silenced the room.

"I see. That's from the perspective of your people. I wonder if other major religions feel the same way about life in Red Sycamore or if it was just Little Trees and their idiosyncratic beliefs." One of the judges finally broke the silence. Ayumi was ready to have a go at it again, but Nardho stood up and said he would volunteer to explain things from his religious background. The judges discussed this among themselves and finally let the boy had the podium.

"Your Honors, as someone who was raised in a Catholic household, I take biblical stories and references seriously. While my professor and I have different religions, we share pretty much the same ideals about humans' relationship to nature. Now, I understand that the Creation story told in the Book of Genesis said that humans were created in the image of God and thus some of us might see that as a sign that we have been given God's permission to subdue the Earth and have dominion over all the other living creatures. However, I don't think this passage in the Bible should be read quite so literally. I refuse to think that humans are superior to nature. I refuse to think that nature was created only to benefit humankinds and that we can torture animals. I know that our solar system has finite resources and unfortunately companies like Mr. Milton's seeks to deplete these resources even further. I stand against such blatant exploitation of nature! In fact, I believe our cornucopian mindset and overreliance on technology are direct insult to God's creation. Stop mistreating non-humans!" Nardho shouted the last sentence, not caring that speaking for an extended time had exhausted him. Moira handed him a bottle of water when he returned to his seat and thanked him for his willingness to speak his mind despite his condition.

The judges now wanted to see some academic perspective and some real solutions to the problems of mining for Pronas and Quenax, therefore they called Lee to present his research.

"Honorable judges, I believe that as an alternative to the problematic Pronas and Quenax, we should start fueling our space crafts by utilizing the solar energy. Yes, harness the power of our sun! Harness the power of clean, renewable energy! We can collect and store solar energy via photovoltaic arrays and concentrating solar thermal plants. Those PVs and CSPs would have silicon in them, I don't think we will have any problem sourcing silicon, they can be extracted from sand and our solar system has many sandy beaches and a large part of those beaches, unlike the beach we have in Golden Valley, are located in remote areas, far from civilizations." Lee presented his proposal and was careful to avoid too much academic jargons and used layman terms instead. The judges nodded and took notes, then asked Lee for more details.

"Okay, Prof. Kinoya, could you please elaborate on the use of silicon for PVs, please?"

"Silicon is a metalloid with properties of both metals and non-metals, thus it is a good conductor of electricity, especially at a high temperature. Silicon is used as a layer of semi-conductors within the middle of solar cells to aid in the absorption of solar energy. The absorbed energy is sent through a circuit and would finally be captured as electrical current."

The judges seemed impressed with what Lee proposed, but one of them was still unsatisfied and pressed Lee for information about the PVs' life cycle and their recyclability once damaged.

"Depending on how they are installed and cared for, an average PV cell can last for 25 to 30 years, sometimes even 40 years, and after that they still generate electricity but their effectiveness at electricity generation will start to decline. Now, the most common way to recycle PV cells is by utilizing hydrofluoric acid. Unfortunately, hydrofluoric acid can penetrate deep into human tissues, causing severe burns and can even cause death if prolonged contact with human skin happens. As an alternative, we can use a combination of nitric acid and potassium hydroxide at different stages of recycling. How it works is that after the solar panels are heated to remove the glue that holds the silicon, we can use the nitric acid to strip silver electrode from the top surface of the panels and then we use potassium hydroxide to remove the aluminum electrode from the rear side of the silicon wafers. This is less expensive, less toxic, simple, and more scalable than using hydrofluoric acid." Lee broke down his research.

"One problem, Prof. Kinoya! Don't the manufacturing of photovoltaic cells also lead to habitat loss, massive land use, and excessive use of water? How is this going to be any different from mining for Pronas and Quenax?" one judge who seemed to know some science spoke up.

"I can answer that on his behalf." Deandra rose and inserted a hard drive to the court room's computer. A flow chart, some graphs, and a professionally created diagram instantly popped up.

"It is true that when we manufacture photovoltaic cells we run the risk of destroying some habitats and use excessive amount of water, thus further causing land degradation. The total land area required for utility-scale photovoltaic systems range from 3.5 to 10 acres per megawatt while the requirement for concentrating solar thermal plants or CSPs range from 4 to 16.5 acres per megawatt. It is also true that a lot of water is used to manufacture solar PV components, but water use depend on the plant design, plant location, and the type of cooling system. CSP plants with cooling tower use about 600 to 650 gallons of water per megawatt-hour electricity produced." Deandra explained calmly, expertly citing the numbers from her studies.

"Ohoho! In the end your little solar panels are as bad as my Pronas and Quenax, huh?" Mr. Milton's laughter echoed in the court room. Deandra remained surprisingly unaffected, however.

"Not so fast, daddy. I already thought of a solution. I proposed that the manufacturing of photovoltaic systems for the space crafts is done as far away from Golden Valley or any other Red Sycamore residential areas as possible. The unpopulated areas in the heart of Silver Pine is perfect for that purpose! That region is home to many abandoned mining sites and yet the climate is wetter compared to the dryer climate we have in Red Sycamore, thus water will not be an issue. I think if we want to explore this idea further, we can save the Gaburs and still have enough energy to fuel our space crafts, it doesn't have to be one thing or another."

The judges asked for some time to deliberate on the idea. After what seemed like an eternity to Moira, her friends, and the rest of the environmentalists, the sound of a gavel striking the block could be heard echoing throughout the court room. The judges had reached a temporary decision.

"Thank you everyone who has participated in this hearing. The hearing has concluded and in the mean time we will do two things: investigate the claim that Mr. Milton's company has caused environmental damages to the extent described by his adversaries and study the feasibility of the photovoltaic systems to support the space crafts as suggested by Professor Kinoya and Ms. Deandra Milton. We will notify everybody of our ultimate verdict four months from now. While we are processing this legal case, we politely ask by order of the interplanetary council that Mr. Milton refrain from doing any more mining activities unless he seeks written permission from this same court within two months of carrying out such activity. Failure to comply with our request to abstain from any mining activity will result in immediate prosecution and/or arrest."