[GZG] Hello List and some ruminations on FTL - fragmenting stellar states

Hi Laserlight,

Some comments below,

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

> Jump limits make sense, but they're not official in the Tuffleyverse.
Other
> interpretations: the smaller states could be colonies that became

Hmm, with respect I'm afraid I have to disagree with this suggestion. The
time-line doesn't seem long enough for colony worlds to become
sufficiently economically independant to tell the mother state to go away.

Historically, no state has been in favour of bits breaking off, unless there
is some major internal weakness in the state as a whole, that prevents it
reacting effectively. Seperatist movements tend to be met with the full force
of the state as we have seen in Eretria, East Timor, Biafra, etc.

Where a colony, or other subdivision, has become independant, there has
usually been a period of political upheaval in that particular area, usually
including some form of armed conflict. The only modern example of a
bloodless dissolution that I can think of is the break-up of the USSR
(which
was technically a federated body under the communist party, anyway - the
CIS, the USSR's successor, is, as it's name suggests, a confederation and more
loosely organised).

Of course, the offical time-line of the Tuffleyverse is littered with
conflicts over our next two centuries, so there may very well be internal
stresses in the stellar states we know of that are not illuminated in the
histories. If communication between systems is slow (ie limited to the speed
of courier ships), perhaps a seperatist movement will have time to sieze a
planet before the governor's report ends up on the right desk at Colony
Central and a strike fleet is sent.

It could also depend on how the colony is set up. For example, a group of
colonists might contract with a state or corporation to settle a world. They
would be effectively indentured to the state or corporation until the costs of
the settlement (plus profit) were payed off. Conflict (and game scenarios)
could arise from the colonists attempting to reneg on the loan, the state or
corporation attempting to keep the goldern goose, or the
corporation going bust and/or on-selling the colony's mortgage to
another party.

Given the current state of the Tuffleyverse, I can't see a colony world
successfully gaining independance by force of arms, even with the protagonists
in the current Solar War actively supplying arms and second hand ships to
seperatist groups.

> The Alarishi Empire, for instance, has

Can you explain more about the Alarishi Empire? How did they set themselves up
as a stellar state, and where do they live if their planets are
habitable - on stations, or in ships?

Regards