Colonies and Territories

 Hi All,

In the 2120s, Earthers are exploring and colonising, but there are various types of territories and rules imposed by 'the interstellar community'. The cardinal rule is that no-one is allowed to colonise a planet or territory which is already inhabited, but trade and cultural contact is permitted. The second rule is that each territory must at first be under the rule of  and or registered to a sovereign state. 

There are 4 types of colonies :

1. State or Crown ; Put simply these are colonies that are funded and under the direct administration of a state. For example Harris Territory (USA territory, waiting to be split up into new US States) , Nouvelle Normandie (a French interstellar department) and Neues Hannover ( a Lander of Germany).

2. Covenant : These are colonies wherein the foundation is adherence to a particular religion or ethno -religion. Examples include Kolob (Church of Latter Day Saints), The Vatican Interstellar Territories (Roman Catholic) , Real Jerusalem (Southern Baptists), New Samaria (Samaritans), The United Planets of Orthodox Churches (Orthodox Christianity), Shangri La (Eastern)  and The Four worlds of Tzimtzum (Judaism) .

3. Proprietary:  Hereditary  or territories owned by rich individuals which are passed down the family or now held in Trust and run by a board of Trustees . Examples include Gate's Moon, Bezos Planet, The Duchy of Sussex Inc t/a Harry and Megan, Buffet's Hedge  and Trumpsylvania. 

4. Corporate or Joint Stock : The most common of all colonies are those owned and run by shareholding Corporations, like the Dutch VOC or the British East India Company of the past, these companies are mega Corporations. There's only about 5 or 6 of them listed on the major stock exchanges of Earth. They came to importance simply because governments, especially democracies, found it increasingly difficult to spend money colonising and terraforming planets, where their local constituencies could see no immediate benefit (as any colonising takes a generation for real investment returns to come back). As noted above colonies have to be registered to a sovereign state and avoiding a large tax bill is always important to big companies, so their colonies are often registered to tax havens. Therefore on paper the following countries officially have the largest empires the Earth has even known: 

1. Ireland (having reduced its corporate tax to 5%)

2. Isle of Man

3. Jersey and Guernsey

4. Cuba (after the overthrown of communism it settled down to become the 'Monaco of the Caribbean')

5. Monaco 

6.  The Virgin Islands

7. The Island of St George and Dragon