[CaesarCalad]

Thought this might be some nice food for thought. With such a huge empire to govern (It does include about 25 STAR SYSTEMS. And you thought leaders now have a rough time) How might the people of the freespace universe be governed or govern themselves. Each planet has a "governor" or is communication good enough between systems for there to be just one ruling party? Where is the actual capital of the GTVA (or GTA if we are just talking about humans)? Which systems are considered Vasudan? Which systems are considered Terran?
I would really like to know what everyone thinks and...
I am making a campaign and I just want to see some ideas for the kind of governing system the terrans use.

[General Battuta]

There's a lot of room for creativity. Most canonical information comes out of the formation of the GTVA from regional blocs and the NTF rebellion.

[CaesarCalad]

Yes... and I said in my earlier post that when thinking about their possible governance you definitely have to take into account BETAC stuff and various vanilla elements. I want to try and pull together information given in the campaign and try to form a kind of history maybe first. Like how did the GTVA and the GTA become what they are now? and then move on and create my own spin on future events based on that past. History is simply a string of connections as I have learned and i want to play on that.

[CaesarCalad]

And this is thinking pre Great War as well as post Capella. How did humanity become this united before the Shivans and Vasudans. It just seems to impossible without some form of explanation.

[An4ximandros]

Given territorial divisions of today, and how many types of government there are. I'd expect something that covers as much space as the GTA - GTVA to be composed of thousands if not even millions of micro and lesser states with a few (100 to 1000-ish) major blocks/alliances that hold all the major developments and use the lesser & mining colonies states as resource periphery.

[Lepanto]

The FS1 tech description of the GTA implies that the unification of Terran systems was a peaceful and fairly straightforward process, whether or not that's realistic. Some people have made campaigns where the GTA's unification involved some kind of war, though, and that would also be an acceptable route to take.

If you haven't already, check out this wiki entry on the basic structure of the GTVA federal government. We don't know how much authority the GTVA federal government has over its constituent systems. But given that the GTVA is designed to organize a unified defense against the Shivans, I think we can reasonably presume that it has considerable central authority, at least in anything related to defense. Each system probably has its own democratic or pseudo-democratic government, I'd presume, though individual system governments might vary considerably in structure, policies, and level of authority.. Beta Aquilae is the capital of the GTVA. According to this list, only Alpha Centauri, Altair, Vasuda Prime, Aldebaran, and Deneb are Vasudan systems.

[Luis Dias]

Well I think it's fair to say they actually have a weak authority given the NTF rebellion used up several fleets worth of military might from the GTVA itself.

Somewhat akin to the authority Washington had over the southern states before or during the civil war.

[General Battuta]

The tack BP went with was that the GTVA had a lot of pull as space NATO but fell down pretty hard on the soft power front. The FS2 intro and the existence of the NTF itself imply a serious ideological crisis.

[CaesarCalad]

And given the great span of the GTVA I would think that nationalities would arise. There is just too much social and political difference.
I like the reference to the modern UN it kind of helps, but the GTVA or GTA is more a completely united people than a coalition of countries. And those countries of todays UN are not really militarily speaking allied.

What I am more interested in is what led the human race, which I assume is based in this same universe only in the future, to join together. As the Vasudans and Terrans, two races that hated eachother, joined together against the Shivans, why did all the people of the Earth and perhaps other colonies as well become united? This doesn't have to follow cannon... cannon just doesn't provide enough information. I was thinking about maybe making a pre campaign or even just a mission that explains this, and then get into the post capella crisis?
I don't honestly know just a brainstorm...

I agree that the GTVA is quite spread out actually. Their power is just not expressed. Sure they have huge ships and lots of them but the NTF as mentioned before sapped up a ton of resources. What if this happened again? The GTVA would crumble. This is the kind of stuff I want to get into with a campaign.

[Black Wolf]

I think of the GTA as being kind of like the United States way back in the day (pre US civil-war), in that there is a strong central authority that handled foreign relations, expansion (to the west in the US's case, to other systems in the GTA's) and defence, while leaving a lot of the domestic stuff to the individual states/systems (or blocs). So the laws governing specific individual things might vary between systems/blocs, and there might be separate local police forces (though I tend to think that if there are, they're probably restricted to planetary operations, all space based policing is probably done by elements of the GTA) but they all contribute to a central defence fund. There's probably a president, there's definitely a legislature, and probably any number of intersystem organizations that perform all sorts of functions, but in my view of the GTA, there's still a lot of diffuse power.

The GTVA is probably the result of merging that institution with the Vasudans, who would presumably act much like one of the Terran systems/blocs, but with considerably more influence and autonomy than any of them.

Of course, these are all my views - I can think of situations where (for narrative reasons, mainly) the GTVA might be best thought of as more of a space UN, with very little real power, getting all of its contributions from its members (although I don't think that that is the impression given by FS2), or it could be a single, monolithic government that integrates everything at every level (although that seems enormously impractical and prone to risk). Really, use whatevcer works for your campaign (or just keep it vague enough to let the player fill in his own blanks )

[yuezhi]

My two cents:
Music in FS1 was largely military anthems for science fiction. Those reminded me of Starship troopers, up to the point music track 8 kicked in. It's kind of morale boosting considering Terrans and Vasudans have been at war for over a decade.

Spoiler:

By comparison, Wing Commander had a war for 32 years.
I didn't read or watch any so I don't know the timeline, but Starship Troopers is still at war afaik.
Even then, the main characters managed to keep their sanity somehow.

FS2's GTVA seems to me as UN gone wrong and out of control. In detail, it looks like a unity, but whereas the only opinions that matter are the ones at the top; everything else is for show.

[CaesarCalad]

I see no way that the Terrans have anything BUT a system of smaller blocs or provinces. Its just too big. I think it is similar to the United States with that respect so maybe a president should be introduced? Another point one could bring up is how do the Vasudans tie into this. I mean if unifying humanity is hard enough... wouldn't their be some form of tension between the Vasudans and Terrans... they did fight a war... and the only thing keeping them from fighting was the Shivans themselves. That threat is gone... so wouldn't that resentment continue at least somewhere?

[yuezhi]

In places away from BETAQ.

[Lt. Spanks]

I like the comparison to the United States. No president or political figure is ever mentioned for the Terrans, but there is a very high probability that the Terran government is a democracy, as I don't think that BETAC or the three branches of government would ever form under an empire. But one could also easily argue that they are more of an autocracy which, if following cannon, also makes sense. There just isn't enough inside information given in the campaign. That's one thing I love about this game... the possibilities!

[qwadtep]

I think of the GTA as being kind of like the United States way back in the day (pre US civil-war), in that there is a strong central authority that handled foreign relations, expansion (to the west in the US's case, to other systems in the GTA's) and defence, while leaving a lot of the domestic stuff to the individual states/systems (or blocs).

This is kind of my impression too. The big powerful central GTVA government is mostly concerned about space affairs, and leaves planetary affairs to the elected GTA governments of each planet. A big umbrella that you don't step out from under because it's raining dragons.

e: i of typing gud

[MatthTheGeek]

I don't think size is any concern, when you obviously have FTL travel and communications. You could probably travel from one end of the GTA to the other end in not much more time it takes nowadays to go from New York to Sydney.

[Hellzed]

Having a treaty (the BETAC), instead of a constitution, as a base for a unified government looks a lot like the EU.
Imagine that instead of merging economic resources, the EU had to begin with merging military assets because of  an immediate threat and you get the GTVA.
It would have a lot of consequences : instead of economic advisers everywhere, you have military advisers. Even though the Vasudan Empire and the GTA are made of a lot of independent entities, everything is made so that the military structures can hold. It shapes the law, the economy, the society, the culture...
It is still mostly a big democracy, but some really important matters are in the hands of technocrats.

[Lt. Spanks]

I don't think size is any concern, when you obviously have FTL travel and communications.

Oh but I think it is... I mean consider how many different nodes you have to pass through to get from say Delta Serpentis all the way to Vega or Capella.
Could take a while.
Plus "size" may not entirely mean the physical size of the GTVA but how many people you are governing in such a large area and all the resources and logistics required to maintain that.