> Talking of politics what exactly is the political outlook in the FT
Well those that live in the OU have finally got their republic. We have all
the islanders joined to the Union (no more hidden bad reports of our island
neighbours leaders I guess) and even New Zealand. (which by that stage has
fallen to their more appropriate lower nation then Australia) We have settled
the Indonesian threat and we at the least live in complete luxury defended by
some of the best forces. OU is in damn good shape with less of the internal
and external problems that the rest of those major powers have.
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> From: Jason Stephensen <J.Stephensen@fbs.gu.edu.au>
> >to live? And what about the NSL and FSE? Whats it like to be a
I'm not sure. The timeline doesn't seem to describe a substantial victory by
the OU, and the Indonesian Commonwealth is probably a very major power in
comparison with the OU.
Anyway, the point of this background is to produce situations to wargame. You
don't want a peaceful border, you want all sorts of covert actions,
starships mysteriously lost in battles no-one ever talks about, raids on
outposts, hiring of mercenaries to carry out deniable attacks and all sorts of
nastiness (the GZG timeline describes a future that is fairly unpleasant in
many ways).
> and we at the least live in complete luxury
One thing which might dominate OU foreign affairs is how the Indonesians get
on with the ESU. I'd suggest that the IC and ESU are not on the best of terms
(with the IC occupying territory part of China's tradition sphere of
influence), so the OU would lean to an enemy-of-my-enemy relationship
with the Eurasians which would damage any friendship with the NAC, otherwise a
natural ally for cultural reasons. Certainly the OU appears to take no part
in the big superpower wars and operates FSE designed hover-APCs, so they
are quite happy to pay license fees to the enemies of the NAC.
As a neutral power, the OU faces a dangerous universe with no great and
powerful friends. It does give an excuse to just buy all your favourite
models and call them OU purchases/license-builds (a lot of starships
would have become available cheap at the end of the Second Solar War).
The unknown in all this is how important the situation in space is relative to
that on Earth.
I'd also like to stake the OU's claim on large chunks of Antarctica (the
current Australian and New Zealander claims), the rest presumably going to the
PAU and NAC.