Madison Nightmare (Geopolitics in Jon's Universe)

> >the Free People's Republic of Madison, Wisconsi.

But would they paint all Conservatives with such a broad brush?

What ever happened to India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, etc.? And is The PAU a
large number of independent countries with a mutual defense pact, or is it
supposed to be a single, huge, and minerally rich political entity?

> On Thu, 4 Sep 1997, Alfredo Lorente wrote:

> What ever happened to India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, etc.? And is The
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> Alfredo Lorente "End This." -- Delenn
India (and presumably Pakistan etc) were overrun by the ESU in the 21st Cent.
I don't know the exact date, not having the FT rulebook in front of me.

I guess the PAU could be either of the alternates you mentioned. (which is
a cop-out answer...)

Someone in this thread (the geopolitics thread, not the Madison one) mentioned
the Scandanavian countries, and their fate. How about a Scandanavian
Commonwealth or similar composed of Norway, Sweden, Denmark
&
Finland? I don't know that they've got enough in common with the NSL to join
them, the ESU was prohibited by the old EU from coming further west, and
geographically the FSE makes little sense. So the Scandanavian countries could
well be a seperate unit of their own...Vikings in space,
anyone?? :)

> From Brian

<snip>

> Someone in this thread (the geopolitics thread, not the Madison one)

Ohh baby.. now that gives me some ideas, maybe they took to the stars and
'reclaimed' their heritage. Ohh, the fun that could be had with that, 'Viking'
marauders in 'longboats' plundering up and down the border of the more
'civilised' (in their opinion) empires. I can hear a beer and pretzels session
coming on...... maybe I can get some horns for my ships.:)

Or you could do an 'alternate timeline' thing, out of interest, do many people
use alternate histories? You know, the Egyptian's, facing off against the
Roman Empire or something. About the only history I remember comes from
Asterix and Obelix, been a long time since I did history.

> At 11:14 AM 9/5/97 +1100, Loki wrote:

> Ohh baby.. now that gives me some ideas, maybe they took to the
 :)
> [quoted text omitted]

It has already been done. Its called H. Beam Piper's Space Viking series....

> On Thu, 4 Sep 1997, Brian Burger wrote:

> Someone in this thread (the geopolitics thread, not the Madison one)

Can't speak for Norway (not a member of the EU, nor likely to become one),
Iceland (roughly the same) or Finland (know too little about
their trading relations - Mikko'll have to fill in on this), but
Sweden and Denmark are very likely to end up as NSL members. We have
quite a lot in common with Germany - the biggest part of the NSL,
that is - a bit less with the UK, and not much at all with France.

Sorry to disappoint you, but I strongly doubt if the Scandinavian
countries could afford going into space even if all five unite -
there are simply too few of us, and with current birth rates we won't be that
many more in the future.

Later,

> On Fri, 5 Sep 1997, Oerjan Ohlson wrote:

> one), Iceland (roughly the same) or Finland (know too little about

If the choice is between NAC, NSL, FSE and ESU, barring major changes in

political climate, Finland would be in league with NSL. It's a close call,
really, but I think geography would be the most important factor, and of the
viable candidates, ESU is ruled out immediately.

> Sorry to disappoint you, but I strongly doubt if the Scandinavian

And some obscure third world countries do? C'mon, this is science fantasy
anyway.

> On Fri, 5 Sep 1997, Mikko Kurki-Suonio wrote:

> On Fri, 5 Sep 1997, Oerjan Ohlson wrote:

[snip]

> > Sorry to disappoint you, but I strongly doubt if the Scandinavian

Obscure? An Indonesia which has conquered most of the Tigers, or the
combination of Argentina and Brazil... OK, the Islamics and the
Pan-Africans would probably be hard pressed; but they still have a _lot_
more natural resources as well as a population base more than twenty times
ours. Somehow I find it more likely that the ESU and NAC sponsor
third world countries than us, too :-/

But sure, it is all fantasy :-)

> Mikko Kurki-Suonio wrote:

> On Mon, 8 Sep 1997, John D. Hamill wrote:

> Mikko Kurki-Suonio wrote:
Have to agree with the above -- industrialization matters more, really,
than population base - and no-one can seriously argue that the
Scandanavian countries are technologically backward - far from it, esp.
a
unified or partly-unified Scandanavian Commonwealth or similar.

The colonial effort would be slowed by lack of excess population, but for many
applications, what is needed isn't lots of warm bodies but few, highly
educated people to run machinery. I could see the Scandanavians being a major
supplier of specialized machinery, and electronics, in the future. And the
Scandanavian mercs mentioned elsewhere could be one of the
high-tech 'Dorsai'-type units, not just a 'warm-body' unit...

> On Mon, 8 Sep 1997, John D. Hamill wrote:

> The reason the Israelis are a space power is that they invented FTL,

They did?

I guess that shows how nuch I care for the "Official(tm)" background...

> Brian Burger writes:

@:) Have to agree with the above -- industrialization matters more,
@:) really, than population base - and no-one can seriously argue that
@:) the Scandanavian countries are technologically backward

I Agree.

@:) The colonial effort would be slowed by lack of excess population, @:) but
for many applications, what is needed isn't lots of warm @:) bodies but few,
highly educated people to run machinery. I could @:) see the Scandanavians
being a major supplier of specialized @:) machinery, and electronics, in the
future. And the Scandanavian
@:) mercs mentioned elsewhere could be one of the high-tech
@:) 'Dorsai'-type units, not just a 'warm-body' unit...

Maybe. It definitely is hard to imagine them doing a lot of colonization since
they just don't need it. What I can imagine is Scandinavian natural resource
companies going into space. If we assume plant life on other worlds, do you
know how much oil there must be in space? Not to mention various metals and
other fairly valuable material. Of course if you're out in the middle of
nowhere harvesting in highly expensive rocks, you're going to get jumped
eventually. So you'll need a small but highly effective defense force.

> On Tue, 9 Sep 1997, Joachim Heck - SunSoft wrote:

> Brian Burger writes:
This is exactly what I meant - but obviously didn't get around to
saying...Scandanavian asteriod miners and interstellar oil magnates, that sort
of thing. Same for the claim jumping and it's effect on a group's
defence force and attitude -- that sort of group would have a 'we don't
start fights but we do finish them' sort of attitude. Bad news for jumpers of
any sort. Thanks for finishing my thoughts for me...:)