There seems to be this expectation that by the time humanity begins colonizing other
planets and encountering alien races, it will have unified under the authority of a worldwide government.
You can find plenty of examples from across alternate worlds.
The United Nations Space Command, Terran Confederation, Terran Federation, United Earth, Systems Alliance,
Terran Republic, the list goes on.
But why is planetary unification treated as a prerequisite for an interstellar society?
In my opinion it’s much more interesting when humanity doesn’t solve all its problems
and differences, but instead brings them to the stars.
I think part of the reason I find world governments to be so boring is the way they’re typically portrayed.
While exceptions definitely exist, more often than not they are American style republics
with an economic system, culture, rights and freedoms more or less identical to the modern
western world.
While you can argue that this might be realistic or believable, it’s not exactly compelling.
I find the societal and cultural aspects of this style of world government to be particularly
problematic because in most cases 99% of humanity is ignored in favor of presenting the same
narrow American style sliver again and again.
If Asian, Eastern European, Middle Eastern, African, Oceanic or South American elements
are present, they are typically inconsequential and play no key role in the nation as a whole.
Take for example the Systems Alliance and United Nations Space Command.
Both feature democratic governments, a capitalist economic system, use English
as their primary language, and their society and culture is immediately recognizable and familiar.
While both refer to constituent nation states that still possess some degree of autonomy
in an attempt to at least nod to the diversity of the human race, a special emphasis is placed
on the successor to the United States with the rest of the world largely ignored.
The United Republic of North America exists as a part of the UNSC while the United North
American States exist within the Systems Alliance, but good luck trying to figure out what happened
to the rest of the world.
My main point here is that neither the UNSC or Systems Alliance seems to be representative of
all humanity and the differences between the two are just largely cosmetic.
So while I think this lack of representation is the main problem with portraying a world
government, there are still ways to make it more interesting.
The Union of Allied Planets for example is a nation founded on the merging of Western
and Asian culture.
And it’s not one sided either. Characters of western ancestry have adopted as much from
the east and as those from Asia have taken from the west.
While major cultural groups are still ignored, at the very least, the Union of Allied Planets
presents a more complete view of humanity than the typical world government.
You would never confuse it with the Systems Alliance.
Dividing the world between two separate and typically opposite groups seems to be the
second most popular way to depict future human civilization, but why not go even further.
In my ideal representation of a future humanity, Earth’s has not been completely unified
and dozens, perhaps hundreds of separate nations now exist across our region of the galaxy.
Some might be countries we’d recognize today, others their successors, while still more
are completely new, the result of separate peoples and cultures coming together
to create something unique.
I’ve seen dozens of variations of a Democratic Earth forced to contend with a hostile alien
dictatorship, but I’ve never seen the Russian Federation and the Republic of India compete
with one another to colonize a strategic group of star systems.
Or the Alpha Centauri Republic declare its independence from the United States of America.
I would love to see an alternate world in which the old powers of Earth are forced to
deal with new nations established across the Orion Arm, or a reimagining of World War Two
or the Cold War set across our region of the galaxy.
I’m tired of seeing the same typical space empires.
What would an interstellar African or Central Asian society look like?
This same idea can just as easily be applied to alien cultures as our own, why is there only
one Romulan nation?
Why is every Turian more or less the same?
There is such a wealth of diversity here on Earth and there’s no reason why an alien
civilization wouldn’t exist in the same manner.
But let’s take one last look at United Nations Space Command.
If in its place there existed a few dozen independent human nations, to me, the entire
scenario immediately becomes more complex and more interesting.
If the Covenant first began attacking colonies belonging to United States, would the Russian
Federation or China immediately become involved?
Or would they maybe wait until their own interests were threatened?
Could other countries maybe submit to the Covenant voluntarily and become its newest members?
Would every nation, culture or society react or resist in the exact same way?
Political machinations, ideological struggles and tangled webs of international alliances
have led to some of the most captivating and engaging eras in human history.
While a united world government that solves all these issues might be preferable, it would
get kind of boring.
But that of course is just my opinion and even though it happens to be correct, I’d
like to hear your thoughts.
Do you never get tired of seeing a variation of the United States in Space?
Does the idea of China and India fighting a war over the Vega System sound stupid?
Do you not care at all?
Let me know in the comments, and until next time, this has been Incoming.
The Templin Institute investigates alternate worlds and realities.
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