Re: Dolphins & the OU

From: "Laserlight" <laserlight@quixnet.net>

>  The AE is often described as "an experiment in social Darwinism".
> 
>  Of course, it's also occasionally said that "the AE has annexed the
> OU [or vice versa], but no one noticed."  There is  absolutely no
> truth to this rumor.

Getting down to nitty-gritty unpleasantness and realpolitik....

The OU is in an indefensible position, both on Earth and off-world.
Far too much territorial area/volume to even visit regularly, let
alone defend by conventional means.
So it has to walk a tightrope - much as Thailand did in the 19th
century, balancing English Burma on one side with French Indochina
on the other.
Another tactic it's gotten very good at is planned and measured
Vandalism. If XYZ S.A. (registered in New Paris) scarfs up a
promising mining colony in OU volume, then there's an upsurge
in Piracy round Sigma Darconis, causing the collapse of the Ivan Popov
Insurance Company (registered in Novaya Moskva), whose major
shareholders
are (coincidentally) the owners of XYZ. Gain a billion, lose 2 billion.
Pretty soon word gets passed around: You can take OU holdings, but you
can't profit from them.

One of the major policies of the OU is to be quite deliberately
mysterious over many quite trivial issues. "Keep 'em guessing" is
the watchword. While the opposition's intelligence analysts are
tied up trying to figure out what is the significance of Mother
Hitton's Littul Kittons, they can't be busy investigating.... 
something else. Is the OU the UN's catspaw beyond the inner worlds?
Do you want to risk it? There's evidence to show that the OU was
the last power to get into space, even after the LLAR. There's also
equally convincing evidence (e.g. a bloody huge crater near Murchison,
Australia) that they were involved with the Gilderstern Foundation
from the very start. How come survey vessels reaching an unexplored
system often find OU navigation buoys there?
Finding answers to all these questions is easy. Finding correct answers
is another matter.

Having an association with the AE is a godsend. If the AE didn't
exist, it would be neccessary to invent it. It hides the signal by
greatly increasing the noise.