Trope-a-Day: One Nation Under Copyright

One Nation Under Copyright: There are various forms of corporate-style governments found in the Associated Worlds – at least three distinct ones in the Empire alone.

The first of these is the governing corporation – a government which organizes itself along corporate lines. (A distinct feature of this type of corporate government is that the corporation exists solely to be a government, rather than being a corporation focused on something else that happens to govern.) The Empire contains quite a few of these, and indeed, is itself the largest – albeit an impure, the joint-stock corporation itself being in its infancy when it was founded – example of the type, hence the term citizen-shareholder, and the presence in the Imperial Couple’s style of Chief Executive Officers of the Imperium Incorporate.  Another unusual constituent-nation example is the First Distributed Exclavine Republic, a confederation of Imperial exclaves run by a central Board.

(For the libertarians in the audience, one reason for this is that many of these, the Old Empires included, evolved out of PPLs or mutual-PPLs, themselves founded after the fall of the korásan and the Drowning of the People.)

The second of these is the corporate conlegial model, which exists to cover the large number of company-owned (or other privately-owned) but still Imperially-sovereign habitats or other enclaves, in which the responsibility to provide law/contract enforcement and other sovereign services on the Charter model is formally devolved upon the owning corporation’s Infrastructure and Security departments, thus saving a great deal of trouble  where all the thousands of habitat-based office parks and research parks are concerned.   The largest examples, of course, are the jointly-held corporate research planet Wynérias, the privately owned storage depository system Argyran, and the interlocking-collectives-of-Mad-Scientists-owned system Resplendent Exponential Vector.

The third is the corporate colonial model, in which those Imperially-chartered ecopoesis, colonization and development corporations that own entire planets under development are responsible for providing said sovereign services under Charter law on those planets until such time as they’re turned over to their actual final owners.

Variations on these three – essentially benign – models also exist elsewhere in the Worlds, as do some other less benign examples; in the Magen Corporate, for example, non-shareholding citizens are considered corporate assets in the literal sense, and the Chelzan Syndicracy is always fighting corruption in its mutual-conlegial model, but on average, corporate government tends to produce results no worse than any of the other kinds people try and use.

Coming Soon, To an Orbit Near You

The First Distributed Exclavine Republic is seeking to open new franchise-nations in the Expansion Regions, in or adjacent to the Cordai Gap constellation, and is therefore looking for comment, business opportunities, and investment partners among all existing polities, private organizations, and consortia within this region.

Consider the advantages of bringing an FDER drift-habitat to your star system.  FDER takes pride in providing a favorable taxation, banking and contractual regime and fully open markets (qualifying under Alpha Concord Free Economic Zone standard 23.1), access to the highest levels of galactic technology, excellent data and logistics connectivity, easily-obtained residency, and an unconstrained environment for the pursuit of scientific inquiry and technological development (qualifying under Alpha Concord Free Research Zone standard 23.2).

All these things are provided by the Associated Worlds’ leading national franchisor, with an unequalled history of legislative stability (rated 142/144 on the Legal Consistency Index), fiscal stability, and continuous growth, with the full backing of our parent polity.  Since we began operations, we have opened over 1,500 franchises in various regions of the Associated Worlds, virtually all of which have proven outstanding successes both for us, and for our local partners, investors, and clients.

FDER welcomes your inquiries and tenders, which should be directed to:

00-0-00001-88A13-9B5
Eliéra (Imperial Core)
Calmiríë
Avenue of Incarnadine Pillars
First Distributed Exclavine Republic
f.a.o. VP of Franchise Extension

Contact us today!

Use Them or Lose Them

Written in honor of a news story I read today regarding the as-yet-not-fully-relevant Moon Treaty and the existing Outer Space Treaty.

”While this Court admires the ambition, chutzpah, and indeed hubris of the World Assembly of the ettreo of Sarine in asserting the right to control the entire circumcelestial sphere, even merely to deny the legitimacy of all volumetric claims sovereign or propertarian, the Assembly can hardly expect us to take such assertions from a civilization which, far from enjoying such a galactic span of control, remains itself worldbound and possesses no off-homeworld territorial claims, seriously.”

”For this reason, and under the principle that domestic law bears no weight in interstellar matters save where provided for by treaty or Accord law, the Celestial Resources Decree of the World Assembly of Sarine is dismissed from this Court’s consideration insofar as it applies to external entities.”

”While it is customary to refrain from asserting territorial claims in the systems of pre-space species, or in the systems of non-worldbound species engaged in active system development, neither the World Assembly of Sarine nor any other organizations of the Sarine system have attempted to colonize or otherwise utilize the secondary or tertiary bodies of their system in the 104 years since their contact with the Accord.”

”Under the Common Volumetric Accord, the principle is well-established that the secondary and tertiary bodies of the Sarine system would be open for colonization, resource extraction, or other use by any civilization capable of actively homesteading them in 40 further years.”

”However, in the light of the intent to specifically and explicitly renounce any and all sovereign claims of the Celestial Resources Decree, which the defendants argue is applicable as a matter of Sarine domestic law, this waiting period arguably is voided by intent.”

”This Court finds for the DEFENDANTS, whose sovereign claims in the Sarine system are UPHELD. The plaintiff’s request for injunctive relief and compensation is DENIED.”

 – World Assembly of Sarine v. Galactic Volumetric Registry, Calcic-Photonic Condominion and First Distributed Exclavine Republic, Central Conclave Court