What would be the skills to obtain sovereignty?

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by Michele

Well, very, very hard to achieve nowadays, but historically it has happened, and spectacularly, for instance with the India Company.

I don't recall either the Engish or Dutch India companies ever becoming states.
Even if I were wrong, they both predate modern international law, so the comparison would be imperfect.

Originally Posted by Purple Snit

It seems to me that you have simply posted a "question" that you have already answered in your own mind. You want this megacorporation for your game. You want it to take over and have sovereignty in your game. You already have the entire process laid out on paper from start to finish, and I really don't understand why you keep starting these threads in the first place. Once again, you aren't asking for ideas, or input, or criticism - you already have your mind made up what you are going to do, and nothing said here is going to make any difference. This isn't an exchange - it's just you saying "Here's what I'm going to do, isn't it cool?" The corporation takes over, builds a space station, overthrows world governments by bribery/assassination/coercion, or what have you, and ends up in charge one way or the other; skills and rolling are irrelevant if you are simply going to create Perks that give +5 to skills, ignore penalties, disregard history, laws and logic, and just do what you want to anyway.
I'm not coming to your table to say you can't do whatever makes you happy in your games - I just fail to understand one thing: why do you ask for input you fully intend to ignore anyway?

Alonsua purports to be the leading GM for a setting and related campaigns, but the feeling these threads give me is of someone engaged in rules-lawyering on a grand scale.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

I don't recall either the Engish or Dutch India companies ever becoming states.
Even if I were wrong, they both predate modern international law, so the comparison would be inperfect.

They were around during the Westphalian system, so they are at least part of what people call the "Modern" system of states.



In 1773 parliament passed the "Regulating Act", meant to bring the East India Company under control. Robert Clive had started the company on its first real conquest in 1956, 17 years earlier. In the act it was stated:

acquisition of sovereignty by the subjects of the Crown is on behalf of the Crown and not in its own right

So various acquisitions by British companies (notably DeBeers run by Cecil Rhodes were on) were on behalf of the crown. Of course, most of the time the crown made you governor, let you keep the private army, and was in a poor position to interfere.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

I don't recall either the Engish or Dutch India companies ever becoming states.
Even if I were wrong, they both predate modern international law, so the comparison would be inperfect.

Neither the English or the Dutch East India Company became a state because their leaders had kin-ties, loyalties, and stockholders in the old country. There was no reason they could not have made themselves such had they had a mind. For a while they were indistinguishable from states in most manners and were more like a vassal then anything else.

As for modern international law, it has never been strong enough to overcome, "We got all these guns, see" if someone really wanted to press a point. It's main use is to standardize relations between nations who aren't really at that stage. And when it IS used in a crises it is used to clip off red herrings that get in the way of serious negotiation. It is foolish to actually rely on it as your main negotiating point. Leslie Slote in Winds of War never actually TOLD the SS man who wanted to search his party for Jews, "The US has a big bad navy, you are not authorized to do anything that would cause it to appear and it will be your neck if you do". That kind of thing is for people who are outside the system: that is what the navy tells cannibals who want to eat missionaries, but everyone knows every Great Power can blow people up because of course you become a Great Power by blowing people up. He told them he had diplomatic immunity, which means the same thing but is more polite. International law could not stop World War II but was of limited use getting US nationals who happen to have the embassy's favor out.

Thus if such a corporate government was insistent and willing to back it up with force, and possessed of enough force to do so, it is not clear why anyone would bother. It is someone else's problem. In any event rebellion including rebellion with the goal of secession is always illegal by definition so it is not clear where international law fits. The reason there was no international law forbidding the John Company becoming sovereign was that that was Britain's business. The John Company trying to become independent by force would have been illegal under British law-just as America becoming independent by force was. The only thing international law had to say about it was that rebels did not have to be given the benefits of the customs of war and in practice they often are at least if they fight a conventional war in other respects, simply for the sake of reciprocity.

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by Þorkell

Does the corp have the following?
(a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states.

Originally Posted by Þorkell

Name a sovereign state that fails on those requirements.

a) Permanent Population:
I don't think a corporation can't have employees, so this isn't really a bar to entry. Consider that the Sovereign Military Order of Malta has only 2 citizens and that Vatican City citizenship comes only with appointment to a position. A corporation could emulate that as their requirement.

b) Territory
Sealand is a defined territory, but not geographic. I don't see a difference with a space station. And the SMOM, again, only has ambassadorial territory granted it by host countries.

c) dunno

d) I'm not sure what this means in practice. If North Korea ceased diplomatic relations with every other country in the world, would it cease to be a sovereign state itself?

[Michele]

Originally Posted by ericthered

So various acquisitions by British companies (notably DeBeers run by Cecil Rhodes were on) were on behalf of the crown. Of course, most of the time the crown made you governor, let you keep the private army, and was in a poor position to interfere.

Given that sovereignty, as I see it, is a matter of other players admitting you have it, or denying it, and therefore is a subjective thing, one way to look at the India Company is from the POV of the British state: it was a royally chartered company and not a sovereign entity.
Now look at it from the POV of the Indian states, and you'll see they implicitly or even explicitly recognised its sovereignty.

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

Even if I were wrong, they both predate modern international law, so the comparison would be imperfect.

The above answers this, but note I juxtaposed "nowadays" and "historically". I just wanted to make a precedent example. Most democratic public opinions, as of today, would object to a corporate state being recognised by their own country. That is also why I suggested that the the space station should be populated by a (carefully selected) group of people, who will be purported to be freely electing their own government.
Note "as of today". I forget whether this scenario is taking place today or in the immediate future, and we all remember that some SF scenarios do feature corporate states in a few decades.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Þorkell

Name a sovereign state that fails on those requirements.

Somalia. Sudan. Any other state in which the real sovereignty has devolved to factions and the official state is a courtesy. None of these have government or rather the official state is not the government. One could argue whether those are states, or good manners of course.

[Michele]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

Somalia. Sudan. Any other state in which the real sovereignty has devolved to factions and the official state is a courtesy. None of these have government or rather the official state is not the government.

For that matter, governments-in-exile have been a big thing in the last century. You had a de facto government that ruled the population and the territory, with guns on the ground - but which was not recognised by a vast majority of the other sovereign states. OTOH you also had a government that was recognised as the de iure government, but which actually did not rule over the population and territory.

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

Even if I were wrong, they both predate modern international law, so the comparison would be imperfect.

...not at the time they didn't. International law has always been sort of like Pirate Law and it's not hard to forsee things being very different twenty minutes into the future than they are now.

[Michele]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

As for modern international law, it has never been strong enough to overcome, "We got all these guns, see" if someone really wanted to press a point.

...

The John Company trying to become independent by force would have been illegal under British law-just as America becoming independent by force was. The only thing international law had to say about it was that rebels did not have to be given the benefits of the customs of war and in practice they often are at least if they fight a conventional war in other respects, simply for the sake of reciprocity.

No objection, but the issue isn't force of arms. The issue is that the OP wants his armed space base, or armed Antarctic base, and recognition of the corporation's status as a sovereign state by the rest of the world. Having force of arms is not easy, but it is a matter of resources. Getting everyone or most everyone in the UN Assembly to say yes, you have a right to own that army, that's another kettle of fish. That is the absurd demand, IMHO.

From 1949 to 1971, it was exceedingly clear who had the guns in Peking, Shangai and Chengdu and Kashgar. It had taken more than a decade of war, both against foreign enemies and a civil war, but it was a done thing.
Yet those who had the guns there did not have that seat in the UN Assembly - nor what we now take for entirely granted, that seat in the Security Council.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Michele

No objection, but the issue isn't force of arms. The issue is that the OP wants his armed space base, or armed Antarctic base, and recognition of the corporation's status as a sovereign state by the rest of the world. Having force of arms is not easy, but it is a matter of resources. Getting everyone or most everyone in the UN Assembly to say yes, you have a right to own that army, that's another kettle of fish. That is the absurd demand, IMHO.

From 1949 to 1971, it was exceedingly clear who had the guns in Peking, Shangai and Chengdu and Kashgar. It had taken more than a decade of war, both against foreign enemies and a civil war, but it was a done thing.
Yet those who had the guns there did not have that seat in the UN Assembly - nor what we now take for entirely granted, that seat in the Security Council.

True, but anyone who is willing to think about real bargaining points and not about such things has an advantage. I rather think the practice of sending states to Coventry is bad for foreign policy. What we wish is not what is. It deprives one of negotiating opportunities, makes one look like a sore loser (if it was a state that got the better of one), and frankly looks hypocritical because with the possible exception of Andorra there are really no virgins among us to put it crudely. While not everybody does crimes against humanity regularly, being in a position to judge is rather tenuous. The advantage of sending another state to Coventry is seldom what is lost from it.