[Jürgen Hubert]

Originally Posted by thtraveller

Seriously I would consider that "because" rather than "and". It's also hard to see what will stop the SAIs, the Eloi and the upgrades from becoming the de-facto leaders, if not actually in name.

The SAIs in the USA and China are very likely programmed to be loyal to their leaders. The SAIs in the European Union already wield quite a lot of behind-the-scenes influence.

Originally Posted by Kitsune

For a the sake of plausibility it should be kept in mind that things are usually not quite that easy. Politicians may not be stupid and they will have AI advisors, true, but they may be more occupied with winning the next election or handling an inner political crisis than implementing any long-term strategy. The result is that the strategy of the country or power they are ruling can be completely stupid, or even that no recognizable strategy exists in the first place. Single, smart persons may actually notice this, develop a sensible strategy for their nation or power, write a book about what should be done and then have to watch helplessly and in horror how their ideas are completely ignored and everything is going down the drains. Common sense seems to dictate that this should hardly be possible, considering the ressources and experts the rulers of state have access to, but that is how things usually have been in the past. In 2100 it is quite possible that this is one of the things that has not changed.

I see this mostly as a problem of the USA (and India, to a lesser degree). China has likely a gerontocracy, with the same old faces running the country for decades - which will encourage long-term political planning. And the EU has that whole cyberdemocracy thing going on - and the SAIs who act as the advisers of these part-time politicians will likely steer them in the direction of long-term plans as well.

I do not quite agree with this assessment. If the Europeans are not interested in colonies, why are they then interested in influencing them or having them even join the European Union?

Ultimately, it's a war for memetic supremacy. The European Union is quite interested in making sure that other nations share their own values - and they likely have figured out that instead of creating their own colonial ventures out of whole cloth, it is far easier to influence the memetic makeup of other colonies by sending their own folks up there.

If they were to create their own official colonies on Mars or anywhere else in the outer solar system, both China and the USA would stop seeing them as partners and start seeing them as rivals - and that's a race that the EU cannot win. But this way they have their own people in key positions in both colonies, and they will be able to influence how the eventual independence plays out. After all, a true independent Mars will only work if both colonies are able to work together. And which group is in position to mediate between the two halves? The Europeans...

EU membership for off-world nations is obviously a very long-term goal - it won't happen until Martian independence is truly well-established and grudgingly accepted by both China and the USA. And even then, it might not happen after all - but at the very least, it might be more sympathetic to Europe than to either of its "mother countries". If those plans work out, that is.