Plenty of things the people will want and need for earth and I just figured that the military (With civilian help) would be most effective at finding things of value for trading with earth.
Plus, I could choose which earth politicians and private citizens to negotiate with.
So its YOUR military, not a colonial force?
I had dozens of stories in various stages of being written or abandoned before my HDD crapped out. I can recreate some of them because I had posted some on a forum-site. Which is totally abandoned now.
One of those stories was about a colony being invaded by a tyrannical Earth.
http://libertyfic.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=storyboard&action=display&thread=34