Colonial Model


The construction of an IPC (Interplanetary / Lunar colony) is not as near as some would think.

A colony is defined as “a territory under the immediate complete political control and occupied by settlers of a state, distinct from the home territory of the sovereign.”

Historical references indicate that “For colonies in antiquity, city-states would often found their own colonies. Some colonies were historically countries, while others were territories without definite statehood from their inception.

The metropolitan state is the state that rules the colony. In Ancient Greece, the city that founded a colony was known as the metropolis. "Mother country" is a reference to the metropolitan state from the point of view of citizens who live in its colony.

Unlike a puppet state or satellite state, a colony has no independent international representation, and its top-level administration is under direct control of the metropolitan state. The term informal colony is used by some historians to refer to a country under the de facto control of another state, although this term is often contentious.”[1]

If this colonial description is to be accepted then a Lander, or an off world research or exploratory outpost is not a colony.

 If this description is to be accepted then IPC efforts would require that sovereign states on Earth send people to the new territories specifically with the intent of extending their countries influence by claiming and defending new territories. This would be expansionism and imperialism as it was before, and the IPCs would be under the control of Earth based governments or business entities.

Due to the hostile (Deadly) environments to be found on the other celestial bodies in our solar system, exploration must be the first form of colonial effort. The extreme costs of research and funding such efforts (due to the distances and environments encountered) requires joint cooperation between governments and companies and the return on investment for companies (ROI - Capitalism) will not be realized in the immediate future as such colonial efforts would by necessity be scientific research stations. Not colonies.

With this form of cooperative efforts being required it is unlikely that any government would be able to exert imperialistic or expansionist control and defense over any portion of an IPC in the foreseeable future. It is quite possible that a country or state or government on Earth may try to claim territory, or sit in negotiations with other countries to carve up what they could not possibly hold. Such arbitrary negotiations would invariably lead to future conflicts on the colony world and on Earth.

The consequences to both societies could be devastating unless there is a non-partisan entity recognized by all interested parties as being the best solution to avoid conflict while reaping a healthy ROI. Such a concept model has previously been recommended in this blog.[2]

This then leads to the issue of what type of society would an IPC develop. If we are to try and carry our current Earth cultural norms or societal demands to an IPC the result would be an epic failure as the required infrastructures and institutions would not yet exist.

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