From: pksuk@mothra.syr.EDU (Peter K. Suk)
Subject: Re: Territorial Disputes
Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.science,rec.arts.sf.misc,rec.arts.startrek.tech
Organization: Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 92 23:20:34 EST

In article <1090@dgaust.dg.oz> young@spinifex.dg.oz (Philip Young) writes:

>pksuk@mothra.syr.EDU (Peter K. Suk) writes:
>
>|> I don't have the time to write the thing right now.  However, I have
>|> been doing gedankenexperiments, imagining this.  No, it's not a likely
>|> occurence.  However, the complications involved im making sure that
>|> everyone has the same room for expansion get EXTREMELY complex, even
>|> when you reduce the thing to such an idealized model.
>
>Abandon the complications!  What makes you think everyone would have the
>same room for expansion?  Some would be hemmed in, some may be squeezed
>to extinction (New Yorkers for neighbours), some would have heaps of room.
>It's just like life on Earth, n'est-ce pas?

I guess didn't make this clear enough in my first post.  It is precisely
for this reason that groups would choose to abandon the territorial
paradigm.  The alternatives are 1) get squeezed 2) make war.  Neither
are attractive.  (Oversimplifying here, yes.  The point is the general
principle.)

>|> [stuff about gypsies]
>
>So they're cosmic vagrants.  Their territory then becomes their ship(s).
>plus a possible defensive perimeter.  They *still* have territory.  

On the scale of things we're talking about, you're splitting cillia.

>How
>would they acquire their tradable knowledge?  Who, do you suppose, would
>just give these romantic vagabonds their technology, or anything
>commercially or militarily useful?  

Anybody not as advanced or approximately as advanced.  In the former case,
benefits are obvious.  In the latter case, it seems unlikely that any
one group would have been able to come up with all of the 'tricks' 
themselves.  There would be ample opportunity to trade information in
mathematics alone.  

Also, anybody who was the least bit curious about xenology would just
love these folks.  They would buy xenopological information (or the
chance to gather it) from less advanced folks in exchange for bits and
pieces of technology.  They could then trade this information for raw
materials.  (They'd have all the processing ability anyone would ever
need.)  There's also detailed maps of star-systems, and diplomatic
intelligence about other advanced races.  They'd be asked to broadcast
queries about open problems in all sorts of fields.  Everyone with 
enough smarts would welcome these folks with open arms.  

>They *might* sell goods and services,

Only to less advanced folks, and definitely.  More advanced folks would
only be interested in information.

>I imagine they'd also get a pretty hard time if they came within spying
>distance of a system-based culture. 

The only folks who would be capable of giving them a hard time would have
absolutely no interest in doing so.  What in the world would they get out
of it?  (Unless they were pathological xenophobes, but again, these folks
would be at a severe disadvantage.)

>Freelance traders at best, with a
>culture as likely to produce pirates as heavenly harmony.

And just WHAT would these folks get out of piracy?  The harm to their
reputations would far outweigh any benefits.  (Which are miniscule when
you think about it.)

	--Peter Kwangjun Suk