Cobalt Greywalker Wrote:RE: 'Danelaw govs in space. I did posit, back in this story, that the the UK were trying to launch a station in 2014, but sabotage scuppered those plans for a while. I'd guess they'd have finished all the security sweeps by about 2016 and have HMS Avalon up and in position around 2018.OK, that sounds reasonable.
I think I'm going to claim that:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaction_Engines_Limited
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_In ... ry_Society
get so annoyed by the lack of progress in the UK that they move to Mars, and establish "Spacefleet HQ" next to "Guestton", named after the "Dan Dare" UK space organisation, and "Hubert Guest", first man (in Dan Dare) to land on Mars. Quite a lot of British Fen at least want to visit, and some moved there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Dare
After some careful advertising many families of redundant British shipyard, and aerospace, workers moved to Guestton, and while some work locally, some seek employment at Utopia Planitia. Infrastructure and light industry quickly arrived, and by mid 2010 it is a place most people would be willing to live. Ex-British Steel workers and miners were also welcome. Schools and a college were quickly established, as was the (free) Martian Health Service (MHS).
When asked, one new Martian said, "It was either here or Australia, and Mars doesn't have *bleep* stupid immigration rules", as she patted her wife, who appeared to be a dog-girl. Rumours of a "biomod a bureaucrat on sight" policy are vigorously denied. [grin]
Note that the BIS announced that they were now the "British Interstellar Society" in Spring 2008. "Interplanetary" was solved, the next target was the stars.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind