"FWLS0" - читать интересную книгу автора (A Future We'd Like to See)

political dance with such incredible finesse that nothing ever
gets done at all at the United Planets building on newly-named
Terra.

A sprawl that huge is much like a brontosaurus, in that if
you kick one end, it takes a long time for the other end to say
'Ow!'. Communication, quite frankly, sucks between colonies,
ports, and planets. Police forces are practically nonexistent
unless you want to fork over money to hire out a squad from the
Space Patrol, the Heavily Armed Ambassadors of Friendship and
Fun, or the Not So Secret Agent Corporation. (In order of cheap,
ineffective service to expensive, ineffective service.) Sure,
there's the TC-managed Starfleet, but you'd need a serious
political favor if you want one of THOSE ships guarding your
rear.

Take four alien races, half a million worlds, no phone lines
(at least no reliable ones) and not enough law enforcement to
cover the area and you've got a universe of chaos being
advertised as order. This is the story, or rather, stories of
the people who strive to survive in this mess. The tales of
those who break the law, and those who enforce it (for a price).
Or just the tales of those caught up in technology, walking the
traditional tightrope of those who run the nets and systems on
the newly devised VOSnet (Virtual reality Operating System).

We'd like to see a future like this, maybe in the movies, or
in short stories. You couldn't pay me to live there.