Re: The World of 2185

 ---- noah wrote: 

> close relations is because if a link between the monarchies by
marriage? 

there is, somewhere in the GZG canon, a reference to someone with the
surname Smythe-Takashiki or something close; the reporter in the
interview at the start of DS2? and admiral in FT2? this seems to
indicate anglo-japanese intermarriage, and at the level of the nobility.
this might be a widespread phenomenon.

>  Bizarre, but really interesting.  Would this have to be a marriage of
the 

perhaps not so bizzarre. there are some strong (superficial)
resemblances between England and Japan:
- constitutional monarchy with parliament
- served/serving as a base for the US in ww2 and cold war
- drink a lot of tea
- traditionally place a premium on honour, politeness etc ("I say, Naka,
what the devil do you think you're playing at, speaking to a lady like
that? you, sir, are a cad.")
- major centres for financial industry

my uncle (highly anglicised Welshman) married a Japanese woman. i think
it will take another 50ish years of culttural (more acceptance if
internethnic marriage), political (cloer UK-Japan ties) and technolgical
(cheap UK-Japan travel) development before this sort of thing becomes
common.

> monarchs themselves, or of close relations (kids, siblings, etc)?  If
we 

for the royal line to wear the Japanese and English and Scottish)
crowns, they would have to be the issue of the monarchs. if harry (or is
it william? i'm not much of a daily mail reader) has a daughter, it
could happen.

and, of course, one of my posts wouldn't be complete without a useless
URL!
this is a list of Japanese names which sound like western names; useful
for bicultural families:

http://student-www.uchicago.edu/users/smhawkin/names/japanbicult.html

> šs for sources of terrorism/revolution circa 2185, look at each bloc's

> ŸSE: ? Dunno.

current euro-terrorism:
there are Corsican seperatists who kill French officials from time to
time.
there are Basque seperatists who kill Spanish people of all types from
time to time.
there are northern Italian seperatists who have not yet (AFAIK) killed
anyone

if i remember the timeline correctly, Spain has Gibraltar (in fact, this
is why the UK left the EU), so:
there will be English seperatists who kill any european in sight from
time to time
if Ireland gets Ulster:
there will by protestant terrorists who kill any catholic in sight

> ¨U: ? Dunno

kiwis will not like rule by an aussie-dominated parliament.
(note to americans and other aliens: aussies = australians, kiwis = new
zealanders)
also, there is the possibility of aborigine or maori seperatists,
although it seems that only european seperatists turn into terrorists.

> ¢ also have to agree with an earlier observation:  These super-states
are 
> really giant, closely-knit power blocs.

if we can have the free dutch, why not the free norwegians? the free
bulgarians? whilst such nations might be loosely allied/aligned with
major powers, they would not be part of them, and would have their own
navy, foreign policy, etc. there's still plenty of room for those who
want their own state!

i understand (from a semi-norwegian friend) that the norwegian and
swedish populations would rather eat rocks than reunite. and the finns
are a different ethnic group altogether (finnish is not even an
indo-european language; it is finno-ugric, along with hungarian). i
think a scandinavian union would be impractical.
turkey is currently doing its best (despite greek efforts) to join the
EU. might they still be in the FSE? or might they go with the NSL to
spite the greeks? or even vice versa?

Tom