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

Jon T spake thusly upon matters weighty: 

> "Officially", yes, this is the intention in the GZG background.
> Human-occupied space is basically split into three (loosely)
concentric
> zones - the Core Worlds, the Inner Colonies and the Outworlds.
> The Core consists of Sol (Terra or course, plus most nations have at
least
> a foothold on many other planets in the system),

There is some fertile ground - which groups have outposts/colonies on 
which bodies in Sol system? Mars is probably colonized. Terraformed 
yet? What about Mercury, or moons of the Jovians? Luna? 

Where is UN HQ now? Still Geneva for the political wing I'd imagine 
(or did I miss something in the history that describes this?) but I 
imagine UN military HQ might be someplace like Luna or L-5 or 
somewhere....

 Centaurus (which is
> colonised via a series of very large orbital stations, rather than
> planetary settlement) and Barnard (Barnard's Star) - all these have
> multinational colonisation with most if not all powers/nations having
a
> settlement of some kind in each system, hence the need for the UNSC to
stop
> the major antagonists nuking each other or throwing rocks....
> The Inner Colonies are also multinational, with several separate
> "countries" on each habitable world, and thus lots of potential for
> disputes and minor wars (or even major ones) without having to assault
from
> space all the time. Some inner worlds will be dominated by certain
powers
> (the superpower capital worlds, eg: Albion, are Inner Colony planets
> largely "owned" by a single power, but even these will probably have a
few
> other small settlements belonging to allied or neutral nations or
> commercial concerns). Don't forget that a single planet is a very big
place
> (hey, we ALL live on just this one at the moment).

How many of these planets or population groups are independent? It 
strikes me if I lived on New Moscow or New Israel or Albion (or 
insert name), I'd be questioning paying taxes to Earth based 
governments. I assume that a lot of these groups may have declared 
independence. Have you thought of such things as the kind of dirty 
little insurrection that leads to SG2 and DS2 scenarios? Or FT 
scenarios in patrolled and populated space (whee!)? 

I ask this in part because I'm wondering if some of these should not 
be recognized as independent by the UN. It would be interesting to 
try to catalog those nations recognized by the UN in 2185 (self 
interest since I am working on a web page). Would the UN recognize 
break away colonies? An interesting question. I'm not sure how the 
voting to recognize these break away russian and yugoslav republics 
goes (whether it is a full assembly vote, a beauracratic procedure, 
or a Security Council matter), so I'm not sure how this would work in 
2185. Does the NAC prevent the Security Council from voting unpopular 
break-away colonies official recognition? Or is this a flare point 
between the UN and its bigger more colonial members?

> Then, you have the Outworlds. Some of these will be multinational,
some
> will be colonised by a single power, some will be "commercially"
owned, but
> all will be pretty sparsely settled - many will be little more than
> research or mining stations, or tiny colonies founded by minority
and/or
> dissident groups and struggling to survive. There will probably be
quite a
> lot of Outworlds, as the human sphere expands rapidly, but many will
be of
> marginal habitability and low importance to anyone except their own
> inhabitants.

It's interesting in that Rick Shelley? Shelly? sp? in the Officer 
Cadet and Lieutenant books he has written recently has an Earth that 
has expanded and so may offshoot planets have grown up that no one 
really knows how many little worlds man is on (so many small 
backwaters). It also postulates an Earthgov that only has powers in 
the Sol system, and a few larger coalitions that have power outside, 
but where mercenaries can easily operate on all the backwater worlds. 
It looks like the GZG universe in another 100 years....assuming the 
Xenowar does not change that. 

/************************************************
Thomas Barclay		     
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Fax: (613) 831-8255

 "C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot.  C++ makes
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