2300 questions

[Arkathan]

Have we asked all of the 2300 worth of questions yet, or are we going to argue some more?

I'm still waiting on a definitive answer as to whether aeroshells are an option, requiring an underlying hull material, or if they are a hull material for purposes of the construction rules. Same with inflatable modules. Should they be considered a hull material for construction of modules?

 

[Bryn the 2300AD guy]

France did expand into Africa. France is both the centre of the European Community (essentially the pre-Maastricht EEC) and of the French Commercial Union. Large parts of Africa came under French domination and eventually each African territory became a department.

However, a department is a relatively small body, equivalent to a county. In the old African colonies, departments were created for French citizens living in the African colonies. Hence these departments had massively more people than metropolitan departments, but only the fraction of the population who were citizens could vote. Colonial subjects could become citizens by assimilation. Thus the French African colonies had two legal classes; citizens (both settlers and assimilated natives) and associates (i.e. non-citizen natives).

FWIW, on reading the Aurore SB (pg 87), this is exactly the case in France, although the English word used is "subjects." There are citizens and there are subjects. To quote:

"Metropolitan units are troops belonging to the regular French Imperial Army. The Metropolitan units are recruited from among French citizens (rather than subjects) throughout the Empire and so include a mix of people from France, Burkina Faso, Provence Nouveau, the Waloon areas of northeastern France, and even Flemish troops who chose to remain in the Imperial Army after Flanders’ independence. (Several old Belgian units continue to remain intact within the structure of the Imperial Army, despite the loss of Flanders and the absorption of the rest of Belgium into the Empire.)"