Re: The GZGverse UN

John Atkinson wrote (was your post off- or on-list BTW? Ah well - FH
posts 
are on topic here):

> >>It sounds more to me that the potential damage in the
> >>Core systems would be the limiting factor, so a
> >>defacto truce would be in place policed by the UN.
> >
> >Don't think so. If it had simply been a terror balance ("if you wipe
out my
> >Core holdings I'll wipe out yours, so let's keep the fight elsewhere"
-
> >shades of the Cold War) there wouldn't have been any need for an
active
> >UNSC presence to prevent fighting in the Core, but the 2183 update
seems to
> >suggest an active UNSC.
>
>Not so. The UNSC is confidence-builder and policeman of truce in Core 
>Worlds, like their role in the Sinai.

A weak force like the UNSC you describe - appearently based on the UN of

today which you know about - can only build confidence and do policing
if 
the powers it keeps apart are also relatively weak - which is the case
in 
Sinai, Lebanon, Cyprus, etc.

However, we're not talking about lesser regional powers in the 2183 
scenario. We're talking about a UNSC prepared to go between the 2183 
equivalents of NATO and the USSR on the former intra-German border -
which 
is the biggest potential hot-spot where today's UN did *not* send any 
troops during the Cold War era.

>[snip] I see UNSC's role in the Core as being the compromise adopted by
>the Big players because they don't trust each other, but they also see
a 
>need to limit themselves to colonial warfare.

The US and the USSR did exactly that - limited themselves to colonial 
warfare - during the Cold War, with no UN interference in their core 
territories (ie., on the inter-German border). In the earlier historical

examples you cited - the Roman/Persian wars, 18th C European wars and
19th 
C colonial competitions - the total lack of a confidence-building
UN-style 
organisation is also quite glaring... yet most of these wars were also 
limited in scope.

My point is this: if, which you suggest, this same "costs more than it
is 
worth" mechanism still kept the fighting outside the Core Systems in
2183 
*there would be no need for an armed UNSC to do that very same thing*. 
Since the UNSC *does* exist in the Tuffleyverse, it seems to me that the

"costs more than it tastes to fight in the Core" mechanic has ceased to 
function.

Other indications that the Core was not considered "safe from combat"
prior 
to the formation of the UNSC is the war of the NSL secession from the
FSE 
(which featured major ground actions in Europe around the previous turn
of 
the century), and of course
that the two biggest power blocs both move their seats of government
*from* 
the "supposedly safe" Core in this period - ESU in 2127, NAC in 2135. If

the Core had been considered safer than anywhere else, moving the 
government anywhere else wouldn't be terribly smart - yet *both* the 
biggest human powers did so.

> >>I don't see Nigeria launching many satellites, and even the second
rank
> >>powers (Europe, Britain, China) were decades behind
> >>the superpowers.  Why should space colonization be any different?

There's another twist to this which I forgot in the previous post: the
main 
reason why only the two superpowers were involved in the space race of
the 
1960s was that it was essentially all about prestige: "If the Russians
can 
do it, then we must do it too and do it better". With no obvious
economic 
gains in sight, the lesser powers simply didn't bother to join in.

When the economic advantages became obvious and the technology matured, 
everyone and his granny began launching satellites - not just states,
but 
even rather minor companies did it :-/ With colonisation, there is (or
at 
least there may very well be) an economic incentive to establish
colonies 
for the smaller powers as well as for the larger ones right from the
start.

> >>You do realize there aren't many minor Earth states left, right? 
The
> >>Asians are all in the  ESU, IC, or IFed.
> >
> >Japan, Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan all appear to be independent - or
at
> >least I can't find any canon mention of them being absorbed by any of
the
> >major power blocs.
>
>Actually, Japan is specifically mentioned as being a client state of
the 
>NAC.

Where exactly is that stated? I can't find it in any of the 'canon' 
timelines :-( The RN's re-naming of its Japanese-named ship classes in
the 
2170s (documented cases are the Miyazaki-class frigates and
Hoshino-class 
light cruisers being upgraded and re-named Minerva and Huron; there are 
probably other cases as well) and the appearance of an independent
Japanese 
fleet strongly suggests that the client status was transient though :-/

>And while Iran and Afghanistan aren't mentioned, Pakistan is mentioned
as
>being in the IFed.

Another reference I can't find in the canon timelines. The closest I can

find is the 2051 note about *ESU* (not IF) invading the entire Indian 
sub-continent in which Pakistan is currently located.

>And I also don't really see Afghanistan remaining independant while 
>surrounded by two mutually hostile expansionistic powers.

Afghanistan has been surrounded by mutually hostile expansionistic
powers 
for the better part of the last four thousand years, yet they're still 
independent :-/ So far everyone who has tried conquering them has found 
that it costs far more to take than it is worth... and quite a few
powers 
have recruited them as mercenaries.

> >This leaves ScanFed, Finland (unless it is part of the former or
stayed
> >with the NSL, but I don't find either option particularly likely),
OU,
>
>I had assumed ScanFed, but you'd know better.	My thought was that
Finland 
>might be looking across the border at an expansionistic Communist
state, 
>decide that any port in a storm is better than none, and go ScanFed 
>regardless of what the average Finn might
>think about uniting with Sweden under other circumstances.

On the Finnish side, I suspect that they still remember 1939-1945 quite 
well - prior to the war there was quite a bit of Swedish talk about 
standing united with the Finns, yet all we sent was a smallish
"volunteer" 
force (not to denigrate the contribution of these volunteers to the war,
of 
course!). On the Swedish side, I fear that it'll take a long while
before 
we willingly allow anyone who might need serious support into any kind
of 
official mutual defence union with us as the senior partner :-/

> >Netherlands, and Switzerland, Turkey, those parts of
> >the Balkans which didn't join any of ESU, FSE or RH, Iran, possibly
>
>Balkans is a clusterfuck that will never amount to
>anything.  Been there, done that, got the verdammt T-shirt.

<chuckle> Except of course that it made up a major part of your beloved
and 
resurrected Rhomaioi Empire ;-)

> >Afghanistan (or at least some of its successor states providing
recruits for
> >the UNSC gropos :-/ ); and also numerous minor island states - very
small
> >in population, but with vast ocean areas containing rather impressive
> >natural resources. Maybe Japan as well, at least in the early period.
>
>None of which added together have the power to push around the Germans,

>much less the Germans, French/Italians/Spanish, the Chinese/Russians,
and 
>the Brits/'Mericans all simultaneously.

They don't have to push them all around *simultaneously*. One at a time 
would be quite enough in a limited area of operations like the Core :-/

>Now, those little guys together may have wheeled and dealed and played
the 
>big guys off each other to get what they want.  But they damn well
didn't 
>dictate terms.

They didn't dictate *all* of the terms in 2143 - if they had, the UN 
would've had a full mandate in the Outworlds as well - but they
certainly 
appear to have dictated *some* of them...

Regards,

Oerjan
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."