Re: UN etc (was: good guys and bad guys)

[snip]
>
>To bring this back OT, a question for Jon or the list. Do we suspect
>that the UN has enough power to curtail most attrocities in the
>future? Or are the terrible wars of the future the horrors one would
>imagine, given a small and far stretched UN? Can they police the far
>colonies well enough to stop ethnic cleansings and the like? Or is
>the UN just a watchdog for the Sol system and pretty much whatever
>awful strife goes on in the colonies is what it is with no
>interference from the outside world?

I see the UN's peacekeeping mandate limited to the Core systems (Sol,
Centaurus and Barnard's), and even there they do not automatically get
involved in every conflict - they try mainly to keep things from getting
out of hand on a global scale, especially preventing any orbital
bombardment or similar. As today, they'll probably only intervene in
"brushfire wars" when they are asked to, or when they see a threat of
large
scale escalation.

Human nature being what it is, I am sure there will be colony
settlements
that decide to try and ethnically cleanse their neighbours, at least
until
the said neighbours hire a good Merc regiment.....  (see many of the
Slammers stories for good examples).

 This makes a difference to the
>types and levels of restrictiveness that would be placed as ROE on
>the forces of the various nations. And do some people limit their
>folk because of fear of the UN or principle whereas others due to
>power or disagreement with UN authority ignore conventions or do not
>limit their forces ROE? And what about the Megacorps? Do they (being
>econo powerhouses) ignore UN ROE? (Reasoning they can buy off or just
>ignore any implications because they are so big?)

The UN, the individual Nations and the Megacorps are all pieces of a big
jigsaw, and tend to hold each other in some sort of equilibrium until
something breaks. Expect some fundamental shifts in the power structure
when (if?) humanity survives the Xeno War.....	<evil grin>

Jon (GZG)
>
>What say thou, list members? What say thou on the UN, Jon T?
>/************************************************
>Thomas Barclay
>Software Specialist
>Police Communications Systems
>Software Kinetics Ltd.
>66 Iber Road, Stittsville
>Ontario, Canada, K2S 1E7
>Reception: (613) 831-0888
>PBX: (613) 831-2018
>My Extension: 4009
>Fax: (613) 831-8255
>Software Kinetics' Web Page:
>     http://www.sofkin.ca
>SKL Daemons Softball Web Page:
>     http://fox.nstn.ca/~kaladorn/softhp.htm
>**************************************************/