> Some days back, John Atkinson wrote:
> Or another non.Canon nation: Exiles from Lebanon (Druze, Christian or
You don't need very many people at all to establish a wide-spanning and
effective commercial network... and once you're rich, you hire mercenaries
from all over the place to keep your neighbours in their place just like
the original Carthaginians did :-) Of course it helps if your neighbours
are low-population, raw-resource colonies without a well-developed
industrial base, too...
...now that I think of it, there are already at least two or three
different non-canon (and officially non-state) powers which are
described in very similar terms <g> IIRC none of them has Lebanese origins
though, so
there's obviously room for at least one more trade-based, militaristic
megacorp founded by Lebanese emigrants ;-)
Later,
OO said:
> ...now that I think of it, there are already at least two or three
ITTT is one...who else?
> --- Oerjan Ohlson <oerjan.ohlson@telia.com> wrote:
> You don't need very many people at all to establish
Also the Dutch, and IIRC the Portugese empires were along those lines.
> OO said:
Laserlight said:
> ITTT is one...who else?
The 'affiliation' of L-7 Interstellar and the Actuarial Nightmares is a
similar relationship, though smaller in scale than what Oerjan
describes. The former a legitimate shipping/trade business, the latter
a privateer/pirate organization (depending on the current state of
war). L-7's not a megacorp, and the AN are the only militaristic group
they relate to (in blood as well as business).
Noam replied to Laserlight:
> ...now that I think of it, there are already at least two or three
> similar relationship, though smaller in scale than what Oerjan
No, I wasn't thinking about L-7 Interstellar <g>
The ones I was thinking of (apart from ITTT, that is) were the
Dutch-based
VRC (Verenigde Randwaartse Compagnie, ie. "United Rimward Company") and,
more questionably, the Texaco Free Trade Zone.
Later,
***
more questionably, the Texaco Free Trade Zone.
***
Questionably because I've not given much detail; TFTZ continues to be very
much a work-in-progress that keeps wanting to run off in unexpected
directions. An experience my author girlfriend has described to me entirely
TOO often. ;->=
However, a few things tend to be consistent: the zone itself exists beyond a
frontier in a deep space survey area, assume away from K and S
incursions, its activities and other-power interactions shadowy and
furtive.
It's size waxes and wanes greatly; it has strangely shifting agendas. On the
military side, it has been known to trade both services and equipment, but
it's fleet is made up completely of former Texaco employees and decendents, a
wacky group who figure the company will 'rise again.'
Everyone is welcome to play with these folks, whether as simple uninvited
guest in a local dispute, up to a shadow, interstellar presense similar to
SFB's Orions, though that's a bit beyond my own vision.
Still, I don't think it fits the thread as I understand.
Oh, yeah, I'm back. ;->=
The_Beast
Most of DaBeast (welcome back!) said:
> However, a few things tend to be consistent: the zone itself exists
Is it related to Free CalTex? If so, it's fairly close to Alarishi Empire and
Islamic Fed according to Nyrath, and unfortunately that's not as far away from
a KV axis as we'd like.
> Its size waxes and wanes greatly; it has strangely shifting agendas.
Different departments, and the left hand knoweth not what the right hand
doeth? I can tell you that Thyssen operated that way when I worked for them,
and the Honorable Company in India also worked that way.