Re: NAC - American style [LONG]

Donald said:
> It occures to me that it may be more difficult to come up with
something
> really creative, because of all of the scifi	that has been around.
> When someone says Empire lots of people tend to think of Starwars,
or
> Traveller.  "Federation" brings up Star Trek, etc.
> With Jon's Timeline, most of the work has been done for you.

Well, if you'd said "In science fiction, what does 'the Empire' refer
to?", I'd have said "The human government in Pournelle's future
history.  Or the bad guys in Star Wars.  Or Asimov's Foundation books.
Or maybe Poul Anderson's Flandry series. Or possibly the British
Empire in Space 1899."	All quite different.

True, in the GZGverse, much of the work has been done for you.	There
is room to be creative, either filling in the details of a concept in
canon (Noam's work on the New Israelis, mine on the Islamic Fed) or
coming up with an entirely new concept for a minor power (Beth's IAS,
or my Alarishi Empire, for instance).

I *would* like to see an alternate universe/history developed and
generally agreed to by the List, for use by those who get enough of
the Earth and its nations in Real Life and don't need to be reminded
of it on the tabletop. Could be analogous to, oh, the exploration of
Africa, or the opening of India, or the various privateers operating
against the Spanish in the New World ... but using invented ethnic
groups and nations.  "The Empire of Them controls the markets of the
developing There worlds, but the privateers, smugglers, and corporate
adventurers of This, That and Th'other are busy trying to establish
merchant trading stations with There and raiding Them merchant
shipping--and occasionally fighting each other too."