Re: [GZG] India in the GZG-Verse

>Ok, I'm not sure if this has been discussed before, but where does 
>India fit into the Tuffley-verse? I've seen where it is listed as 
>part of the ESU, but that doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense 
>to me. First of all, the advantage in population alone when you 
>think of a union between Russia, China, and then India is enormous, 
>and may allow them to steamroll any of the other powers pretty 
>handily.

I see India being a fairly independent part of the ESU.
Between the Himalayas and Afghanistan, it's hard for
either the Chinese or Russian sections of the ESU to do
any serious power projection into India. My most likely
scenario for India being taken over is an extended
period of communal violence and disruption in India,
with eventually the ESU being invited or inviting itself
to restore order.

Once India settles down again, it has enough population
and economic power to secede if desired, but memories
of the previous disturbances and political/military
pressure from the ESU discourages them. The compromise
is that India agrees to loyally follow the dictates of
the ESU government, and the ESU agrees not to dictate
very often or very strongly.

A particularly useful aspect of India for the ESU is
the long standing relationship with Britain and other
Commonwealth countries such as many in the Oceanic Union.
A lot of external ESU trade goes through India.

>Secondly, we haven't seen any Indian names in the ESU fleet. Any 
>thoughts on this?

I suggest that the ESU has one very strong policy towards
India, namely that they can't build up their military
power. The ESU provides Russian/Chinese military to keep
the peace and defend from external enemies.

However...now we have the Xeno War. The NAC, ESU, NSL,
FSE, PAU, etc have all agreed to contribute ships to the
UNSC fleet for the defence of the home planet and the
benefit of all humanity. Right after they've taken care
of their own commitments, of course, so the UNSC gets
the dregs left over.

So, urgent need to build up the UNSC fleet. And India
happens to have a large well-educated population, a
reasonably strong tradition of science and education,
and no existing arms industry already tied up with war
production. Ideal place to design and build new ships.
And then you've got a large population with a long
and reasonably successful military tradition as well,
so why not use them for crews? The ESU won't like it,
but after all the future of Earth is at stake so they
can't object too loudly.

I'd expect Indian names in the UNSC fleet, not the
ESU. The names shown on the web page are translations
into English for the benefit of us foreigners.

	cheers,
	Hugh

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