esd wrote:esd wrote:Who's to say the United Space Navy is the only space fleet in existance? For all we know, the Terrans we met were the West.
Just to correct you there, esd, it could well be the East... afterall, it was the East who launched out into the X-Universe. Just look at all the Asian symbology and text (I believe it's Japanese?) plastered over Argon ships.
The universal trade language in the X-Universe is also Japanese.
It appears Japan may be Earth's superpower, or maybe just one of them.
Quite the opposite, actually. I read the timeline a while ago, and what happened was, Japan had a serious economic crash and most of the Japanese fled the country to go work elsewhere. Because of the permeation of Japanese scientists around the world that followed, Japanese ended up becoming 'the language of science'.
Yeah, it didn't make sense to me either, but it's what Egosoft decided would happen, so it's lore until they retcon it.
As for the unified government or national government thing, there are two facts I think warrant consideration.
First, they call themselves 'Earthfleet'. That suggests that they're the only fleet Earth has got. At least whoever organized them views them as the official fleet of Earth, which you wouldn't really do unless you were claiming dominion over the whole world. It's possible that only, say, NATO was able to actually field a space fleet, and thus calls themselves Earthfleet, but if you're so technologically superior that you're fielding the most powerful ships in the universe, you'd be a real jerk to leave other nations without even the ability to make a station in orbit. Really you're doing people a favor by just conquering them at that point so they can share in your advanced technology.
Two: The big ring around Earth. Either there's just one government, or all the nations are REALLY buddy-buddy to have allowed a project that covered the ENTIRE EARTH to succeed like that.