Re: [FT] Size of "Countries" in FT

Colin Nash wrote:

> Major powers - NAC, ESU, NSL, FSE - around 25-35
> Secondary powers - PAU, LLAR, IslamFed - around 15-25
> Third rate powers - RH, OU, FCT IndCW - around 5-15
> Others - ScandivFed, independents (Netherlands, Japan, etc) - upto 5
> 
> If you take the mid range for the above that means that there are
> around (say) 250 inhabited/claimed systems out there.  Does that sound
> reasonable for only 120 years of FTL travel?	To me it sounds a bit
> much.  Any other opinions out there?

The Empire has 10 and pieces of three more, of which we know 2 are IF. 
:)  And I intend it to be up there--better than the IF, and almost on a
part with the second-raters (NSL, FSE--I add a superpower category
wherein the ESU and NAC reside, the FSE&NSL being second-rate major
powers, and the rest as you've got them)  But yes, I do think that's a
bit much.  I'd downgrade each of those categories by 5-10.  At least for
properly settled planets.  There are of course going to be more research
stations, planets being surveyed, tiny colonies (1,000 inhabitants?)
etc.

> (Autocratic Supreme Being in his own tiny little mind)

John M. Atkinson
(Who's not a supreme being by any stretch of the imagination, but does
consider the Sole Rightful Autocrat Basil IV, Emperor of the Romans,
God's Vice Regent among the Stars, etc. to be sort of an alter-ego)