User blog comment:GrandMethuselah67/Lore Sheet: The United Republic of Humankind/@comment-4867780-20150705091736/@comment-26322734-20150709224853

"I'd say people naturally tend to crave independence once they have grown strong and mature enough. You know, the same way children eventually leave their parents to claim full control of their own lives, and follow their own path under their own rules alone ?"

Not if they just don't find anything wrong with the rules they've grown up with. That, and I know many people who hadn't left their parents, and even if they have they tend to still stick to the rules they've grown up with because it's all they really know.

"Yes, the Republic offers great advantages, but goods and services are inherently exportable, if only to make them available to such a gigantic and far-spanning population. So they can have what they love without bending the knee to a greater system they no longer need."

The U.R.H. is pretty isolationist, actually. Because of their virtually unlimited resources, they don't really need to trade. Sceding from the U.R.H. tends to cut you off from those resources; this was put in place specifically so that soverign nations don't arise and scede. Besides that, people also feel cultural ties to the U.R.H. Considering most citizens have been living for more than three hundred years at this point, it's just home.

"I'm not trying to downplay your Republican version, but it just seems highly improbable for matured communities to obey their "parent" for life without some implacable un-democratic coercion, which in turn casts a dictatorial shadow on a supposedly republican system."

Well, usually nations scede from their parent nation because said parent nation restricts the smaller nation's rights in some way (England towards Colonial America, for example). However, this isn't the case in the U.R.H. It isn't corrupt because after centuries of existing, the U.R.H. is able to snuff out corruption or things that would threaten the nation without having to restrict rights. Though, admittedly, cession has happened in the past of the U.R.H; it's just at this point, there's nobody that really wants to do it anymore, especially since things seem to be going well.

"I can totally see humanity being united into a Star Trek - like Federation of independent communities (each their own "wo/man" while sticking together out of political wisdom), but as much as I hate to admit it, a Cassius-like approach seems the only credible way to permanently merge them into a single entity."

In real life, Totalitarianism is as viable as Communism. It doesn't work. Throughout history, Totalitarian governments have been messy and self-conflicting (Communist China, Soviet Russia, North Korea). In fact, Totalitarianism usually arises in previously oppressed or depressed countries; the citizens are mad and want their country to be great again, so they hire a dictator. The U.R.H is far from a depressed civilization, so it's not like they're seeking any Neo-Fascist regime. Plus a dictatorship in the U.R.H. won't work at all (even if the government keeps people under control via powerful A.I., everyone is a super, some with access to magic, psionics, or extra-dimensional/quantum phenomena; all citizens are super-intelligent with an average I.Q of 298 as opposed to today's 110).