Originally posted by Haesslich:
WC4 Novel suggests that they are the same thing...
Originally posted by Bandit LOAF:
No, it doesn't.
Perception is reality, or so they say.
Certainly the Landreich and the Union are different “organizations” for the reasons LOAF mentioned, in particular the different documented histories. But the passage from the WC4 novel that Haesslich had in mind was probably the following–from Blair and Eisen’s discussion on p.115 (with Blair speaking):
“I mean, the Colonies were our allies during the war. They were loyal. Many of the best people in the Fleet were Border Worlders. Remember it was Kruger and the Landreich Sector Fleet that pulled the flanking action which helped save Earth. Gutsy fliers. Hell, I’d fly with them any day.”
It would appear that from the perspective of some (many, most) in Confed, including Blair and Eisen, the terms “Border Worlds” and “Border Worlders” (as well as “Colonies” and “Outer Worlds”) are shorthand for referring to every “technically” (also Blair’s word) independent and sovereign planet or colony, including the Landreich. And while the reference is sometimes probably only practical (much in the same way we sometimes refer to “Europe” or “European” in a political sense), at other times it certainly belies a prejudice that the “Colonies”, especially those making up the Union and the Landreich, are all really the same (no matter how much they may try to distinguish themselves) because they are all just “wayward” settlements that must and will one day, inevitably, “return home” to Confed.
In the same conversation, Blair goes on to argue that the Border Worlds are legally independent worlds. But it strikes me as curious that in the quoted passage he does not simply refer to “the Landreich”, for example, but to “Kruger and the Landreich Sector Fleet”, certainly a much more awkward (if still accurate) description given the precise point he’s trying to make. (Might even qualify as a Freudian slip.

) Anyway, Eisen puts it well with his closing remark: “Everybody has an agenda, Chris. We all have to decide which ones we can live with.”