Just for interest's sake, I'm quoting a couple of replies by EV Override designer Peter Cartwright to a past topic which raised similar questions about the nature of UE government. Not all of it is directly relevant to the discussion here, but rather interestingly shows the amount of thought which went into EV Override, and it would have been nice of more of this level of detail could have made it into the game.

I've placed my own emphasis on several points which seem particularly relevant to this discussion.

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It's strange - when I saw this topic title, I thought someone had made a shrewd observation about the Strand war (which really does have a cynical Cold War influence - pointless, long, mainly low-level conflict, pursued by sides with (when viewed from a certain level) only nonsensical, superficial cultural differences, for no clear reason.)

As for the points made here - the 'each of these aliens, etc. is X in the real world' analogy seems terribly strained, especially when you get on to 'the Strands are the Middle East' (interestingly though, the Strands actually do fight one another for centuries old reasons that no one understands - whereas in the Middle East, Balkans, any other part of the world which is slightly complicated, this is just the perception of uninformed outside observers (backed up, of course, by the media, to save them from having to actually explain anything or educate anyone).

If UE seems like Western Europe, I would suggests that this is mostly because it contrasts strongly with well-known future United Earth/humanity examples like ST and B5 which (because they are produced by and primarily broadcast to) Americans, feel like America-in-space. ( I often notice things like this in plug-ins or stories: references to the UE President, for instance. While United Earth does have a President, his role is mostly formal and just as a technical head of state (for a state which isn't entirely sure it is a state) - and it's a rotating position, and few people would know who it was at any given time (bit like Switzerland). So to see a US-style President portrayed (especially if he acts somewhat like Harrison Ford in Air Force One) amuses somewhat. )

The Voinians are socialist? I think even the most distorted and confused post-Soviet socialist would have trouble reconciling outright slavery with even the most concise edition of the complete Marx. They are simply highly bureaucratic, impersonal and inflexible - the way any large empire (whatever its ideology or whatever it tries to call itself) is bound to become.

While I don't doubt that what OctoberFost calls 'the Western European view' of the Cold War in which 'Western Europe ... (was) the USSR's main enemy' - I'd say it is far from universal. I'd say a more general Western European view was that we were stuck in the middle while a pair of moderately belligerent and ever so self-righteous arriviste superpowers threatened each other with weapons of mass destruction over our heads. Perhaps some Europeans see Western Europe as having been USSR's main enemy - my part of England however, was (and still is, for no reason I can claim to understand) covered with US Air bases - and on the news when I was small it was always mainly the US (and possibly allies) arsenal and military being compared against that of the USSR. I'm not under any illusions here.

What the UE is based on is what might have happened to the Great Powers of the 19th century (who, yes, you will note were European) if a) they'd been colonising space, not the rest of Earth, and🆒 just around the time when the first world war would have been due, some unpleasant aliens arrived, forcing them to cooperate to survive - a cooperation which then continues once the crisis is over because the people of Earth begin to realise that they have more in common with each other than everything out there (so, in fact, a very European influence and reference, just not the one you thought it was).

A few other things: Planet names are fairly evenly distributed between the peoples and nations most likely to be first out there if (in the mid-21st century) interstellar drive did suddenly appear. If there's a slight bias towards European names - well just be glad I limited truly regional influence to one shuttle which might be called the U.E.S. Ipswich - rather than naming every last bit of space dust after small villages in Suffolk.

There are three UE Flagships (the Incontrovertible, the London and the Earth) - the London is a conceit on my part of course: no one would ever have been able to get that named passed for a Flagship. Trying to find a good name (ie. acceptable to all parties) for such a flagship would be difficult: it couldn't refer to any place or city, person or myth, anything at all in fact, which corresponded too closely with any particular country. Impersonal things like Victory or Defiance might sound okay - except that 'the Victory', at least, was of course the flagship of a rather famous British Admiral. Not to mention that the name would have to translate well into half a dozen other languages at least. I don't think there has ever been a warship called the Incontrovertible - and it's probably a good example of the sort of silly name the think tank involved would eventually come up with.

The 'capital' of the United Earth (or more correctly, the current seat of the United Earth Parliament) was at Lyons at one stage, however it rotates (in another mission it's in Lima) - how could people on Earth ever agree to have one fixed capital? There is no city 'international' enough to be acceptable. Everyone speaks British English because I speak (and write) British English - and didn't want to attempt corny American accents for any of the characters.

To our resident Russian (I hope 'Prikasaisia k ekranu chtoby vybrat' drugii iazyk' was a reasonable translation, I meant to get a friend to check it but never got round to it - I always worried it might sound something like 'Press yourself (rather than your finger) to the screen to choose a different language'. I'm fairly confident about 'Informatsionnaia programa coedinnogo mira', though.) the Voinians are certainly not meant to be Russians - and although I'll concede the point about the name, you'll note that Miranu contains the word 'mir' (meaning peace/world - Mir space station, anyone?) - does this constitute a subtle Tolstoi reference? Loads of distorted Russian words are used for system names (most notably Zachit - or more correctly Zashchit, meaning defence/protection), which works well as a quick way of coming up with a lot of alien-sounding names for an audience you don't expect to know the language. For a Slav, however, it would seem somewhat transparent - I can reassure you though that no comment on Russians or Slavs in general was intended by this usage (if I studied Japanese, I'd have used that).

Peter C.

PS. The common currency thing is a Euro reference - but more to the fact that it is always being talked about, just around the corner and coming soon without ever seeming to happen. The Euro is hardly the only common currency idea around though (ISTR some suggestions were made within NAFTA at some point) - really this is just saying that Earth still has no common currency in 21XX, let alone one exchangeable with that of the colonies (which is why interstellar pilots have to carry around small quantities of extremely valuable goods from world to world so that they can trade everywhere - if there was a single currency implemented (and improved interstellar communications) pirates wouldn't be able to steal credits any more.) And to Gavin: not a disagreement but simply factual correction - where you get the idea that Britain is the richest country in Europe and has the strongest currency I'm not sure - unless perhaps you're confusing us with Germany?

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Ja sam ovde samo zbog piva

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So I was wrong about the strength of the currency, it seems - I was making general assumptions from my experiences in Russia and elsewhere (where the order of preference for foreign currency is one of dollars or more marks (depending on which country in particular) then the other of the two, and then other currencies maybe). I'm not that surprised if the worldwide situation is different.

I'm going to get bored of defending/explaining myself soon (either that or remember from basic literary theory that authorial intention is irrelevant ).
But for the moment:

The gulag-Voinian slave analogy is fundamentally flawed - most of the people in the gulags were Russian, whereas the Voinians are not noted for meting out such unpleasant treatment to their own people. With occasional expections (the Chechens, for instance) the Soviet regime was fairly even-handed (in racial terms, that is - no one group suffering especially worse than others). Comparing the various slave races to satellite states won't wash either - sure when it came to it they were kept in line by Soviet tanks, but the standards of living in (most of (we're excepting Albania here, of course)) Eastern Europe at least were much higher than those of Russia itself - visiting Berlin was almost as much of a system shock as going to the West for the first time, according to one acquaintance of mine.

Slav: I didn't say 'the Western community' was the model for United Earth - my analogy was 19th century Great Powers, mostly European, yes, but Imperial Russia was unquestionably one of them (at most points 2nd or maybe 3rd most powerful of them in fact). Conceptually, Russia is an integral part of the UE (they are on Earth after all). As for comparisons in national/racial character; for one thing few Russians I've met lately seem particularly arrogant about being Russian - they're all (sometimes painfully) aware of how ****ed up their country is these days, and how much better things are run in the West. Aside from some confrontations with police, and one incident that might be called a mugging (and might happen in any city), the worst thing I've ever worried about from Russians is that they'll force me to drink more vodka than I want to - the average Voinian would like nothing better than to lay waste to your entire planet, something they've done on more than one occasion.

Voinians are perhaps best described like the Vogons from the Hitchhiker's Guide: not actually evil (maybe) but unpleasant, officious, bureaucratic, etc. The fact that humans, and certain human political entities from history in particular, is beside the point. The USSR is just the most recent and well-known example of one. You might as easily be comparing them to Imperial Germany, China (at various times), the Roman Empire, the Assyrians, or whoever you care to name.

If the Voinians seem more hidebound and bureaucratic than United Earth in particular, this is more a side-effect of communications: the Voinians have ftl (ie. instantaneous) communications, while all UE fleet messages are carried by ship, so messages and orders can take a week or more to go to and from command at Luna. This, of course, is an advantage for the Voinians, somewhat counteracted by the freedom it gives to regional UE commanders (eg. d'Erlon). The entire Voinian fleet is being directed by some fragmented committee on Borb station, while the UE navy acts with a little more intelligence.

Yes, the Soviet Union had an exagerrated amount of hero worship for Volodya and Jo, which, now that the full force of the regime is no longer behind it, is beginning to die off (although I have seen the queues for Lenin's tomb, and, indeed, seen (the half wax-work remains of) the man himself - and I have seen the Stalin bloc of the Communists in action as part of a parade by the various Communist parties on the main square of a provincial Russian town). I could as easily make the comparison to Mao's red books, not to mention Hitler's cult of personality. Borb is actually better compared (and I make this comparison for reasons of familiarity to all and scale of achievement and nothing more) to George Washington (or Lincoln - even I can quote fragments of Lincoln's speeches purely by diffusion) - he really was the driving force between an impressive historical event, and his continuing popularity generations after his death is due to genuinely being an awesome figure, not just the mascot of the regime.

Peter C.

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Ja sam ovde samo zbog piva

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David Arthur
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(This message has been edited by David Arthur (edited 07-02-2003).)

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