Cetaceans are people too! and some other odds n ends

Note, the OUDF is NOT the only power recognizing Dolphins as citizens. 

I believe the Sovereignty of New Los Angeles does, as does the Turing
Republic (another AE Sov). (For different reasons I suspect). In fact,
the Turing Republic has gone so far as recognizing the rights of all
sentient beings (regardless of their format - carbon or silicon based,
or other).

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Also, on another note: Mr. Atkinson, I will not be signing for any
packages weighing in at 50 lbs.... ;) 

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SFB : FT/FB
Shone in ship vs. ship : FT is distinctly poor in this role
Bogged in fleet battles: Does okay to very good in this role
Gave many tactial options at all levels: Gives more fleet tactic options
than individual ship tactical options
Lots of overhead: Lesser overhead
Requires an L.L.B. to play: Requires a pulse to play
Errata!: A few fix-its, but pretty clean (as of FB)
Slow to play: Fast to play (for a given # of ships)

And for those who say FT has tactical complexity relating to manouvering
ships (deciding what range they should be at, what arc, etc) and by
selecting tactics to deal with enemy weapons, SG has all of that PLUS
dealing with terrain restrictions to movement and firing, plus off-board
weaponry, smoke, transfer of command, etc. The SG metaphor is a more
rich one with more options. Hence more tactics can come into play. 

I never said FT was a bad game or you couldn't play a tactically complex
scenario in it. But it is easier to create tactical problems in SG that
have many solutions viable than it is in FT. 

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Brian,

As far as doing a Scots offshoot ... go for it! 

Two points: 

The list does not "restrict" anyone's potential. It just offers comment
on what has been done before. Since you don't necessarily have to
integrate any of the other offerings, your GZGverse may well not have
the done-to-death Celtic states.

Also, consider the population base you may well have to work with (I
have a theory that says with cheap stardrive and interstellar colony
space available, that fecundity rates especially in the colonies will go
up again, a change from current worldwide trends which may lead to
population stabilization or die-back). It is quite feasible for the NAC
with an estimated 2000 population of say 700 million to easily have a
population of 2 billion by 2183. If you're pessimistic, say a billion
and a half. Out of that, one could easily spare several hundred million
for splinter states. So if you limit yourself to 5-20 million (avg 10),
we can easily accommodate 30 NAC splinter states on that scale. This
assumes all the population comes from the NAC. And that still leaves the
NAC well over a billion taxpayers. This doesn't even really require a
fecundity jump. If that jump was to happen and there were no crunches
that prevented growth, you could conceivably see the NAC with a
population of 10 billion. I don't think it will be that high (me and
Beth have kicked this one around) but since it _could be_, then maybe
this excess population is siphoning off to make break away states that
encourage new colony members. If that's the case, then we can have
_racks_ of colonies without affecting the NACs scale terribly much. 

So, at worst, we can support more offshoots than we have. At best, we
can support many many more offshoots than we have. And since they don't
necessarily coexist, the problem is even less significant. 

Do what you enjoy and don't let the "seen it before" attitude some
people have colour your thinking. It is quite feasible that you could do
a job better than any done before. You could totally reinvent the idea.
So do what makes _you_ happy, which is the REAL spirit of the GZG game
universe. 

Tomb.