I think that good and bad are an arbitrary concept. Politics is about a negotiable morality, its mind games and tricks to fool us into getting behind a particular conventional wisdom. We have laws and rights and constitutions and we've signed and ratified traties in the UN but we violate all of them at home and abroad all the time in the name of one invented moral imperative or another.
What is it they say? Everything is permissable? Forget your stupid judeo-christian moral brainwashing and realize that before Jesus Christ showed up, saved us, then had his words and ideas appropriated for the economic and political gain of nobles and kings and all thier friends, the Greeks had lots of very open ended ideas and questions about life. Just because we all live in countries founded by christian faithfuls doesn't mean that a basic idea of the permissibility of human thought doesn't still govern us in many ways. What we believe in has little to do with what we do as a result of how we vote or empower those who act on our behalves. So Joe is very right. The concept of right and wrong is arbitrary and an invention of human consciousness. Often we blur the line and forget about it all the time.
As for the question about who is a nation and who gets represented, it isn't about whether you classify them as proper countries or empires, but whether they represent a suffient base of power and sovereignty that they are effectively as much a nation as Bretonia or Liberty. The Corsairs and outcasts are obviously 2 such nations. They come from a sleeper ships and since the other houses come from one they are sufficiently large and powerful to need to be at the table, or at least invited to speak. When I said proxy influence that would fall to them. So the Mollies might get help from Bretonia and then the Outcasts too. Corsairs might run interference on behalf of Order concerns. Rheinland might look to delay laws or actions that would harm the economic interests of Republican shipping, while Liberty would probably not sign any traties which explicitly deny them the ability to act as they are right now with Nomads.
Conservatively I'd say that 6 powers would be representable, with all others falling under the umbrella of the rest. The 4 houses and the two nations of the Hispania. Whether you give the unlawful Hispanids a proper seat or if they are there grudgingly, is hard to tell. Would probably have to be with the consent of the other parties present.
On the matter of IMG, a corporation and a government aren't that different. Corporations are owned by the shareholders and the entire operation is held up to their interests. Governments are teh same since the people are meant to be the shareholders in society. ANd increasingly the line between government and corpration, at least in western societies is breaking down again. CEOs are presidents and prime ministers, not that they werent already, but are even less effective or held to account. So to say that a corporation does not represent a sufficient influence of independant sovereignty is to underestimate the real powers of private business.
