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From: wollman@hergotha.csail.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: (ReacTor) Five SFF Works About Unlikely Global Superpowers
Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2025 15:37:47 -0000 (UTC)
Organization: MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Lab
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In article <vu891v$5u3$1@panix2.panix.com>,
James Nicoll <jdnicoll@panix.com> wrote:
>Five SFF Works About Unlikely Global Superpowers
>
>Improbable, but not impossible, ascents to the world stage...
>
>https://reactormag.com/five-sff-works-about-unlikely-global-superpowers/

Have to bring up Julian May again, although "global" and "superpower"
aren't quite the right words here.  It's ... well, right around now,
story time.  The Intervention took place in 2013, and the newly
admitted Human Polity of the Galactic Milieu is expanding to the
farthest stars.[1]  The new species government must establish a capital
somewhere, so where should it be?  Washington?  New York?  Paris?
Almaty?  Beijing?  Buenos Aires?  None of these are acceptable to a
majority.  So where do they set up the capital of all humanity?
Concord, New Hampshire!  (Technically, "New Concord", which must be in
Bow or Hooksett or one of the other neighboring towns -- "Old Concord"
is left as a historic tourist attraction.)  This is particularly
convenient to the Remillard Family, who dominate the politics of
fledgling polity, as they are all Dartmouth alumni and grew up 100 km
away in Hanover.  Paul Remillard becomes known as "The Man Who Sold
New Hampshire".

-GAWollman

[1] Farthest accessible within the limits of their pain tolerance,
anyway.  The Milieu's "upsilon field" transport technology induces
pain in the sentients so transported, proportional to the apparent
velocity, so transport range is limited by pain tolerance.
-- 
Garrett A. Wollman    | "Act to avoid constraining the future; if you can,
wollman@bimajority.org| act to remove constraint from the future.  This is
Opinions not shared by| a thing you can do, are able to do, to do together."
my employers.         | - Graydon Saunders, _A Succession of Bad Days_ (2015)