We've all seen space empires based on Rome, Britain, America, and Germany. What would a Dutch space empire be like?

We've all seen space empires based on Rome, Britain, America, and Germany. What would a Dutch space empire be like?

Well the reason you've seen space empires based on those countries/real empires is because they're actually interesting.

Spaceships entirely carved out of a single piece of wood.

What would a mercantile space empire look like?

You have never read any of Poul Anderson's many "Polesotechnic League" stories and novels, have you?

they drain space and live on the planets that come to the surface once you drain away the vacuum to reveal them

...and powered by hydraulics and waterwheels?

Very, very shiny. Slightly crazy, but they'd at least offer you a shmoke and a pancake.

Irrelevance

Probably like the Dutch East India company but in space.

At the empires height it would be a trading empire above all. Not really settleling or conquering entire planets, but holding a few key locations that are valuable for trade. Their power comes from their wealth and controlling most interplanetary or intergalactic trade.

Their homeplanet would consist mainly of water and most of the populaton would life on a few small, scattered continents. These continent would be linked by huge lands that used to be ocean floor, but have been drained and are surrounded be dykes of epic proportions. This is were the space weed is grown. Most power would come from vast dams that are part of the dykes seperating the weed lands from the continents, that are actually more like huge cities.

The wealth of their homeland would attract large amounts of alien immigrants that are generally welcomed and free to maintain their religion and culture they brought with them. There's always work for skilled shipbuilders and shipcrew.

The internal politics of the dutch space republic would be dominated by two factions vying for power. One of them being the hereditary military leader (the planeethouder) and his clique, seeking to turn it into a monarchy and expand the military power of the empire. The other faction would consist off the rich merchant class. The common people support them as long as the empire flourishes. When the empire faces a serious military threat however, they will demand more power for the planeethouder.

CHOAM from Dune. Really polite guys. Very nice, very friendly. Don't fuck with them.

Lots of merchants.
And farms.

Also,

Smug as fuck, pretending to be nice and egalitarian

Their spaceships would have the highest ceilings, but would be slow as fuck. Not cause of their engines, but their pilots all graduated on a sunday.

Probably the sluttiest empire around too. Not that anyone complains about that.
All their ships are orange.
They'd have pedal driven fighter ships too.

>the planeethouder

kek

Aliens are forced to mine asteroids or get their hands chopped off

>space empires based on Rome, Britain, America, and Germany
We have? I'm blanking, give me a few.

This is a country that had companies take over smaller countries. All about trade, but also slave labor, resource theft, etc. "Everything is mine" mentality.

At the same time, the imperial core is quite nice. Even the colonies are okay if you're not poor. Of course you'll never be a Dutchman, but if you stay out of trouble, you'll live to see the technology they import.

How the fuck do you drain ocean?

>hurr durr brutal imperialism is all the Dutch are good for
Kanker op.

That would be belgium, baka user.
Step be step, little be little. The dutch have done that since the middle age.

Would that be their approach to the void of space too? Draining it, till it becomes a land?

Brittish but more boring. Less epic regality and more jewish mercantilism.

Netherlands is basically a swamp Germany.
Not much different.

Well there's the space british empire of these books.

Belgium is a non-country. Space "belgians" would be space dutch or space french.

>tep be step, little be little. The dutch have done that since the middle age.
Yeah, to swamps. Not ocean.

They drained a sea, thats pretty damn close to an occean. If you increase the scale to a planetary empire they sure as hell could drain an ocean.

Mercantile space republic with a dominant navy among larger space monarchies.

>t. William I of the Netherlands

They drained an inland saltwater lake, dude. Still nowhere near an ocean.

Only in Scale, if they have the will and the tech...

Scale is a huge factor, dumbass. The Zuiderzee was a bit of flooded land with an average depth of about 6 m. On average, our planet's oceans are around 3000 m deep.

If someone decides that land reclamation on a massive scale is a thematically appropriate element for a dutch-themed space empire to have then 'scale' is a terrible grounds on which to attack it.

From what I've read Dutch Empire was based on the absurd number of trade ships it had thanks to developing cheaper shipbuilding methods. More ships than the rest of Europe combined.

Trade ships and piracy. Same as brits but with less people and without an island to hide.

If we're already scaling up from Holland to Indonesia and Africa to interstellar distances, I don't think scale matters much at all.

Windmills... IN SPACE! Dutch are the one group of people that could pull off wind-punk.

"The tulips must flow!"

Doesn't have a planet. The quirk is it a regional power on its homeplanet.

Very interesting art scene.

Peculiar ethics, almost in contrast with its older "catholic" neighbours.

They drain bits of space to make their planet bigger

If space travel is even possible, draining a ocean is something easy as fuck

Just like this

the foundation when it was trade based? A dutch empire I imagine would emphasize their trading companies and their monopoly on resources. Could be interesting.

The Dutch actually made wind-powered robots, no joke. I could imagine a not!Dutch Empire using solar membranes in the same way to make space sailships and solar wind-powered robots. Every settlement has a windmill and massive mast-mounted windmills power their starcraft alongside solar sails.

Interplanetary is not only possible, it is already within our reach. Interstellar trade doesn't make sense.

There are two ways to look at this:

First, you can create an empire in the mold of the old Dutch West India Company (Geoctroyeerde Westindische Compagnie) and the Dutch East India Company (Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie). You might also look for at the British Honourable East India Company for inspiration.

The point in this scenario is that a large corporation, but with significant government backing runs a portion of the overseas empire. The shareholders back home make a fortune through the companies policies, which are morally dubious. At least some of that money does trickle down to the rest of the home country's society after some time. In the case of the Dutch that likelyinvolves a good amount of pillarization, which is the Dutch concept where each religious community looks after its own people. So rich Calvanist shareholders are involved in helping out the Calvanist community, Catholic shareholders do likewise for their co-religious, etc. If things get really out of hand overseas the regular army might send over troops, but for the most part the companies manage the overseas colonies and do so with their own private bureacracy and private militaries.


The second option is to say that the overseas empire is run more like the modern Netherlands would run things. In that case... everything is much more laid back, you might see the sepoys & soldiers unionized with the right to strike, and prostitution and some drugs will be legal. Very generous social benefits mean povery, at least as it's known in North America ., doesn't exist. Everyone has The economy of the colonies, and presumably the homecountry is supported in large part by some fortunately located, but extremely valuable natural resource (e.g. Dutch North Sea Oil).

Cheesy

The VOC was basically a pre-industrial megacorporation.
It didn't answer to the dutch government and had great control over the colonies. Still the Netherlands benefited greatly from its wealth, with some plausable deniability on its extortion practices.

Think of a a collection of trade empires, sharing the same flag and having to play nice above the table, even if sordid stuff goes on between them beneath it. They carve up territory equally between them and have full power to work their conquered population like slaves. If you bring one down the others will just take over for them. You can't win.

Okay, so you have a home planet with, let's say, five factions.
These factions don't need to be based on the exact same religions and ideologies of old Dutch pillars. What matters is that each is concerned with looking after their own and not the others. They could be based on the five original nations of the planet that united to form their current empire.

Every company is bound to its shareholders and most belong predominantly to one of the five pillars. What pillar they belong to decides their company culture and practices.

All pillars have their good parts and bad parts, one might believe in the inherent superiority of the imperial species but also have some moral tenants about basic empathy for all living things, while another other might be more egalitarian but also more brutal and spartan.

The pillars are not at war with each other. They are simply demographics in the same nation. However, the companies that do their bidding can get into violent conflict. That is simply the cost of doing business and two majority shareholders that are leading a decades long bloody war against each other over some asteroid belt, causing the deaths of thousands, don't pay each other a second glance when they walk past each other in the market.

The space equivalent of draining the ocean is terreforming is it not?
So they make their moon habitable but it's just some more farm land and the housing market never really takes off. Leaving the whole project as barely more than a demonstration of technology and wealth.

Titanian Commonwealth from Eclipse Phase

Yeah, well, we're not talking about actual Netherlands, are we? We're talking about a fantastical space Netherlands.

Which, by the way, provides your answer: They drained the oceans into space, perhaps to provide water for a planet in their system that they were terraforming, or to one of their moon colonies, or something.

>dykes of epic proportions
Damn those fucking giantess space lesbians and their trade routes.

>Britain
>interesting

Mercantile and spice laden.

"Jan, ve should phrobably not colonize de vater covered planet"

"Nonsense. Piet, ve vill build Dykes in a bunch of places and carve out ze land for ourselves, then ve vill grow nutmeg for trade"

Just as horrible and oppressive as space Romans but no one seems to notice they are evil thanks to good PR.

>Think of a a collection of trade empires
Isn't VOC just one big company? You're talking about Hanseatic League if it's a collection of trade empires.

RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEECOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLAAAAAAAA

The Ferengi.

All merchants are armed

Rise of Nations wouldn't have lied to me

>implying britain wasn't aesthetic

The VOC was formed out of all the Dutch companies that did trade with the Indies. This happened because the Dutch government saw that these companies were working against one another, which was to a detrement to the country.

Then the government decided to give the monopoly of trade with the Indies to the VOC, and to continue trading with the Indies, all other companies had to join the VOC or stop.

Its also in the name. VOC stands for United East-India Companies.

He said Dutch not Belgian

It got a good start/boost from shipping british goods which later caused the anglo-dutch wars. At one point it was running all of it i believe

Both are no-countries

Flevoland was sea.

We made it an inland-salt water lake retard.

We Dammed that sea so it became a lake.

Literally the British

They literally MADE it a lake. It used to be an inland sea with a giant outlet orders of magnitudes bigger than the straits of gibralta.

You know, those 40k cathedral ships but with windmills everywhere.
Also their drop pod is tulip shaped.

zwarte piet wuz spasemenz an sheeiiittt

Because we're only basing it on history. Not keeping it 100% the same.
You also want the potential for intrigue and war in there.

Mercantile as fuck
Who gives a shit about idealogies, principles and imposing direct rule when there is money to be made

Describe these factions to me.
What typically dutch stereotype is each based on?

Build a massive sea wall around what you want to drain and get the pumps working.

Manticore in the Honor books is based on Britain.

Speaking of manticore/honor Harrington, doesn't the earth faction end up acting a lot like the Dutch East India company? It's pretty much mercantilism personified, with world's more under corporate control than the control of the actual state

I thought Star Trek's Ferengi were basically meant to be 18th century European traders?

No, they were unflattering parodies of modern day free market conservatives.
Some people tried to build on the concept for some interesting worldbuilding, but they were always dragged back to their roots.
Why were they patriarchal chauvanists? Why did they have a concept of unions but a taboo around them? Because they're strawman for real life political discourse.

A space empire revolving around the Dutch would be all about trade and genocide to preserve their trade. Just look at their short lived Nutmeg monopoly. Actually sounds pretty cool to me.

>not building solar wind-powered space elevator pumps and selling the water todeep space mining facilites.

I'm hearing a lot of similar thoughts here.
But what sets apart mercentile empires from normal conquering ones? What behaviour and key traits typify it immediately?

I mean, is there anything other than the names you give to the decadent ruling class and combat squadrons that makes "mercantile" a meaningful distinctive trait?