Brigade XO wrote:The SL did provide a number of things that were both useful and needed by it's members though some of that was twisted by the bureaucracy.
Most visible is SLN which did serve useful and beneficial roles- 1st being the stick that enforced member systems from not getting involved in military actions against one another. That internal peacekeeping showed up as a serious issue since it had been mentioned in the books that some systems had to be restrained by at least the threat of intervention from military action against neighbors (not, however against systems that were outside the League or under the "protection" of OFS. The SLN also did provide commerce protection against pirates though that is another iffy bit since OFS and their various clients were using Frontier Fleet as enforcers. FF
The League did maintain standardized trade and customs regulation (and enforcement) within the League. Based on the reading, a lot of the navigational and Astro Control regulations were also maintained at the League Level though operated by local systems.
The Gendarmerie is basically a national (in this case League wide) military organization operating as police force and working both at internal League security and enforcing League as well as various local laws in systems. (and back to the same corruption potential)
The League Assembly and other bodies provided a means and method of settling disagreements between members. The League also provided an overreaching diplomatic system both internally and with systems and Star Nations - consistency in operations is helpful. They also were providing (or were supposed to) regulation of things like Trans Stellar Corporations which are otherwise functioning as governments.
Abso-friggin-lutely! The gist of your post is something which fuels many of my notions. Regardless of what you think of the SLN, they were a peacekeeping force. Well.
They kept centuries old grievances which never really got resolved at bay. They kept some systems from exploiting other systems simply because of location. Now that that calming influence is gone it is going to get a lot worse before it settles down and gets better. I imagine new alliances are going to naturally form.
I tried to point out before that Cellular automata predicts the alliances. And the successions.