shadowstriker86 said:
Let's play a hypothetical game here guys:
Suppose the private sector really advances quickly (let's say 2 1/2 years) and not only manages to fly ships back and forth from the earth to the moon/mars but also manages to find a way to quickly colonize and create permanent stable cities. Now suppose someone asks you to create a government of sorts for these new colonies. What do you go with, a Federation or Galactic Empire? (as if i really have to explain where these are from)
Well, there really isn't a practical difference here at the stage your talking about. "The Federation" is what it is because it's an alliance between different races which had long standing histories and pre-existing governments to begin with. What your describing is pretty much a period of colonization taking place once a rapid period of time, nothing has existed long enough to really develop it's own government and culture and the colonies are probably going to be very closely tied to earth and it's tech base.
I'd probably set up something closer to your "empire" suggestion because that would make something akin to the federation practical later. The issue of colonial independence isn't likely to come up until a LONG time down the road if you start seeing some of those settlements individually becoming as central and capable of earth and running into dispute with the central government. What's more trying to get anything done with dozens or hundreds of micro colonies all entirely self governing is going to be impossible, making any kind of "federation" type alliance with any other races I meet being difficult if relations ever became that friendly... I mean if nobody can actually speak for the unified humanity, then humanity can't really enter into alliances. What's more if we're not coordinated we're all going to probably wind up being conquered or weeded out due to various disasters anyway.
That said I'm not too keen on the idea of "Emperors", and a single hereditary leader with absolute authority. That kind of system DOES solve a lot of problems simply by having one particular guy everyone knows is in charge, and a clear order of succession within the government (which counts for a lot more than people give it credit for), but it comes with a lot of problems by also giving enemies a clear target to decapitate the government, and of course there is no guarantee that even the most well groomed family line is going to be able to consistently provide quality leadership.
Given that no system is perfect and all of them could go wildly wrong, I'd probably try and establish a government based on American principles, but not the exact American government (Representitive Republic) as it stands now. I'd probably want to establish leadership by a series of elected councils, with high standards being present to hold positions within the government. Before even allowing someone to be considered for a position of substantial government power I'd require so much time present in public service either in the police, military, or intelligence communities, and probably also require at least one scientific degree. I'd pretty much put the different aspects of the government under different councils in order to achieve something similar to the US's systems of checks and balances. I would also probably have the military operating far more under it's own aegis, with provisions for leadership to fall under the highest ranking military personell under a time of crisis or warfare. Whether this leads to something like "Star Fleet" or an inevitable military coup is one for the history books, but at the end of the day as nice as councils are for leadership during peacetime, when the chips are down you need someone capable of making large scale decisions rapidly and without interference from politics.... balancing regular and crisis management is always the hardest part of government and ultimately seems to lead to the downfall of those civilizations that do fall.
That said all my comments about the need to unify humanity in other threads aside, I feel no real pressing urge to try and pursue an era of space travel from the position of a conqueror. Ideally I'd hope any dealings with other species and civilizations would lead to something as relatively idealistic as Trek's "Federation". As entertaining as stories about things like the "Warhammer 40k Imperium" are, no sane person would likely want to intentionally build something like that, never mind live in it, especially when you consider the odds of you ever being anything "cool" at the top of the pile are minimal compared to say being some piece of human reactor shielding that gets to die a slow death slaving in the bowels of a hive city.... no thanks.
