Re: Homework assignment (UNSC)

>On Fri, Oct 21, 2011 at 12:51 PM, Tom B <kaladorn@gmail.com> wrote:
>1) The UN Blues are far (and I mean *FAR*) too effective.  Nowhere in
>the fluff does it explain how the Blues actually found a pair of brass
>ones.	I'd fix that by reducing their ability to do much other than
>wag a nagging finger and point to published "resolutions."

Silly response: this is the UNSC from the Halo universe
via one of those all-to-common dimensional gateways. No?

My serious suggestion (which I've made before) is that
the UNSC is for the most part Indian. AFAIK, India only
gets mentioned in the timeline a couple of time, being
invaded by the ESU around 2050. Here's my take on what
happens:

India goes through a decade or so of extended communal
violence and disruption. Eventually the ESU is invited,
or invites itself, to restore order.

Once India settles down again, it has enough population
and economic power to secede if desired - it helps to
have the Himalayas and Afghanistan in between India and
China/Russia - but memories of the previous disturbances
and political pressure from the ESU discourages them. The
compromise is that India agrees to loyally follow the
dictates of the ESU government, and the ESU agrees not
to dictate very often or very strongly. Foreign policy,
though, is handled by the ESU, including space defence.

(A particularly useful aspect of India for the ESU is
the long standing relationship with Britain and other
Commonwealth countries such as many in the Oceanic Union.
A lot of external ESU trade goes through India.)

However...now we have the Xeno War. The NAC, ESU, NSL,
FSE, PAU, etc have all agreed to contribute ships to the
UNSC fleet for the defence of the home planet and the
benefit of all humanity. Right after they've taken care
of their own commitments, of course, so the UNSC gets
the dregs left over.

So, urgent need to build up the UNSC fleet. And India
happens to have a large well-educated population, a
reasonably strong tradition of science and education,
and no existing arms industry already tied up with war
production. Ideal place to design and build new ships.
And then you've got a large population with a long
and reasonably successful military tradition as well,
so why not use them for crews? The ESU won't like it,
but after all the future of Earth is at stake so they
can't object too loudly.

I'd expect Indian names in the UNSC fleet, not the
ESU. The names shown on the web page are translations
into English for the benefit of us foreigners.

	cheers,
	Hugh