On Fri, May 2, 2014 at 10:18 PM, Bruce Johnson <johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu> wrote:

To bring it back to Carlos’ question, perhaps ‘Balkanized’ merely refers to the major powers, or the fact that there are Imperial Starports in four or five major countries, each with different Gov/Law/TL’s…and ALL planets are an amagamation of a bunch of different political entities.

That's actually a very good point. Suppose for a moment that there is a clear definition of what a "major" state is. Then a Gov code of 7 indicates that there are at least 2 of those, while every other Gov code says that there is just one of them, whose government is as specified in the Planetary Gov code, *but* there might be a bunch of minor ones.

Bruce, you hit referee gold there. I like that. A minimal departure from canon which allows you to have small countries with any government you like in any planet the PCs happen to be. I feel a home rule coming.

Carlos Alos-Ferrer

Professor of Economics, University of Cologne
http://www.decisions.uni-koeln.de