On May 2, 2014, at 12:34 PM, Phil Pugliese (via tml list) <nobody@simplelists.com> wrote:

>
> I recall reading one of Asimov's 'later' books about his Galactic Empire (it was the one where he describes the capital, Trantor.
>
> It was set in the time where Hari Seldon first came to Trantor & the planet seemed to me to be highly 'balkanized'.
>
> Since then I've always leaned towards the idea that hi-pop worlds in the TU were effectively 'balkanized' w/ various federative, autonomous, etc, regions, similar to the way a lot of nations here on earth have 'reservations', 'preserves' or other areas where one could easily feel as if he were in a different country altogether.

Why? The fundamental issue here is why do worlds have one government? There’s a vast difference between ‘reservations’ and ‘preserves’ on the one hand, and actual sovereign states on the other.

Part of it is the ‘humans in rubber faces aliens' kind of syndrome that pervades SF. It’s a convenient, lazy shorthand to view each world as some monolithic stereotype instead of entire worlds with as varied ecosystems as Earth. ‘A desert world’, ‘Agricultural world’, etc.

Each of these worlds are places where billions and billions of people have lived out their lives as fully as anyone on Earth ever has, for thousands of generations. There have been other worlds settled by the Vilani for as long as humans have had agriculture; they have their own Venice’s and Pryamids of Giza, etc.

To bring it back to Carlos’ question, perhaps ‘Balkanized’ merely refers to the major powers, or the fact that there are Imperial Starports in four or five major countries, each with different Gov/Law/TL’s…and ALL planets are an amagamation of a bunch of different political entities.

--
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs