[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

I imagine that 2150 Singapore would be much more exotic than communities in the Main Belt. Frontiers communities are likely going to be quite similar, as surviving against the threats of the Void is the first concern, making money is the second concern, and being creative is a distant third concern. Anyway, as a stateless society, Duncanities would have a real hard time of surviving, so it is unlikely that they would be doing anything interesting.

One of the things that bothered me about the Duncanites is that they are technically stateless people, so they would not have the right to register their copyrights or patents in any national patent office. Corporations in China, the EU, the USA, etc. could easily ignore their copyrights or patents, as the statist courts would likely not side with stateless individuals except when it came to basic human rights. In fact, Duncanite corporations would have no legal standing in any court, as they would be stateless corporations and have no legal right to operate, so their owners would have no liability protection and any nation could see their assets because they would be a legal nonentity (without even the basic protections granted to a stateless person).

Lively and interesting points. But you seem to think it's strictly one or the other. PDFs should cover a range of topics. Singapore would easily justify a 250+ page PDF. But it wouldn't mean that an eighty-page PDf on the Belters would be evil or bad for the setting.