Interstellar Government Options?

[Naly]

I've contemplated the routes that humanity may take if and when we colonize the stars...and the main problem I've come across is maintaining order over such large interstellar distances. I highly doubt we will ever (or at least not for even longer) figure out FTL communication and travel. So how would a government maintain itself in such difficult conditions? Would a democratic/republican system be possible or would a more authoritarian hand be needed in the stars?

I just kinda wonder if the Galactic Empire's territorial governor system would be the only viable one to keep the territories intact...

Thoughts, Ladies and Gentlemen?

[Korto]

A system that gives the majority of governing power to local authorities; eg confederation, federation, or some form of feudalism. With poor communications, decisions will have to be made on the ground. Mind you, the British Empire faced similar communications problems; I would consider their appointed governors as acting in a sort of feudalistic role.

[Guardsman Bass]

Unless the solar system and extra-solar human colonies in other systems are regularly sending spacecraft between themselves, they're going to be isolated from anything but communications. Under that situation, you're not going to have an interstellar government develop in anything but the loosest sense, and there would be almost no way to enforce its rule if one or more of the colonies decided to go off on their own/break contact with Earth.

Even with regular launches between systems, you're still going to have the "enforcement" problem. Realistic interstellar travel is slow and costly in terms of energy and resources.

Of course, having your colonists be human uploads/AIs/etc is a different matter, although they'll still be very loosely tied due to distance and time. They could be part of one gigantic, slow network between the stars.

[Stofsk]

Assuming baseline humans colonise the stars? You won't have any kind of central authority develop without wanktech rising in the form of FTL that can provide instant/close-to-instant travel and/or communication. Human beings when left to their own devices tend to go their own way. Even assuming you have lightspeed drives a round trip will still take a long time. Alpha Centauri? 4.3 ly away. To go there and back would take nearly a decade. Anywhere else and you start hitting 'generational gaps' in time, where a colony in a distant star system rebels, loyalists flee to the nearest system to tell their liege about it, who musters up the redcoats to teach those pesky colonials a lesson, only when they get there decades have passed. (and those colonials may well have prepared for reprisal, and would have had decades to do it in too - while your marines are sitting in stasis or whatever having no idea what they will find when they arrive)

You could have a potentially interesting story where a colony does that, then prepares for it and spends decades building up and arming up for the 'inevitable' invasion. Only it never materialises. So now you have this colony which is fully armed, probably has a lot of people on it too who don't know which direction to take their colony in, and who knows may have problems with their neighbours. Civil war might result, balkanisation etc. Then eventually emissaries of the Empire show up out of the blue in the middle of this and go 'sorry about that previous viceroy half a century ago, he was kind of a dick'.

On the other hand you can go out-there with transhumanists who have like immortality figured out or uploaded their consciousness into computers or whatever. The passage of time may not even matter to them.

[Swindle1984]

I had a whole sci-fi universe worked up once, but never actually wrote anything set in that universe.

Basically, a huge alien ship kidnapped a couple thousand people from all over the world and, while en route to its home system at FTL speeds, one of the abductees discovered that the alien ship has a voice-controlled computer (like the one in TNG), which understands english (and the other human languages) just fine since it's what translates for the aliens. And it has basically zero security built in because the alien society has rigid social mores and no one who isn't authorized to access the computer would ever do so; it's unthinkable. It never occurred to them that the computer might respond to a human making random queries and commands either. The human, realizing he has a huge advantage, commands the computer to lock out the aliens, then releases himself from his cell and raids the armory, distributing weapons to some of the other humans he released. They storm the ship, killing every alien they encounter, and just as they break into the bridge, the ship crashlands on a planet; turns out, shooting the shit out of a starship breaks some very important things, particularly when the aliens realize what has happened and start tearing the computer controlling most of the ship's functions to pieces. Realizing it was being dismantled and that critical parts of the ship were damaged in the fighting, the computer did the best it could to find a habitable planet and crash there so there was a possibility of survival. Most of the humans and all of the aliens are killed in the crash, but the leader (who initially broke them all out) has the remains of the dead humans preserved and DNA harvested from each of them. Thanks to the half-functioning computer and its automated factories, the survivors thrive on their new world and enjoyed increase lifespans, and the leader begins the process of cloning more people from the DNA of the dead, indulging in some genetic engineering to make them hardier survivors. Basically, the bodies of olympic athletes and above-average IQ's, nothing ridiculous like Khan.

Fast forward a few decades and the planet is populated by millions, thanks to widespread cloning and natural reproduction. The leader establishes himself as emperor of a newly declared empire and lays down a written constitution. Over the centuries, they use what is known of human science (mainly recorded in the memories of the first generation and damaged archives, mainly from the internet, in the ship's computer) and what they can reverse engineer from the alien technology and begin STL interstellar travel, colonizing nearby star systems (and I mean really nearby; no more than sixty or seventy years via slowboat, one way.). Only one or two systems have a world they can (barely) inhabit, the rest are colonized using space habitats until they can make habitable worlds out of local moons or planets if any are suitable.

Government in the empire is mostly laissez faire; nobody gives a shit what you do, so long as you don't harm others or intrude on their rights. Since they know there are hostile aliens out there, every world maintains a militia (with mandatory training, but no mandatory service). As long as the local government follows the constitution to the letter, pays its taxes (sends a ship loaded with valuable resources and any new technological or scientific developments to the capital) once a decade, and the populace is happy, the emperor and his government don't particularly give a shit what the locals are doing. Every world has a related culture thanks to being taught the same history and social norms in school and the government following the same system, but develops their own cultural quirks and language dialects. In one instance, a world discards the constitution and experiments with socialism; the empire declares them off limits for trade and technology transfers (most of the new tech originating from the capital where the alien computer and starship are being studied, many worlds have an enlightened self-interest in remaining on good terms with the capital) and lets them do their own thing for a few decades until their government collapses and the people beg to have their old ways back, at which point they're welcomed back into the fold and given all the tech they missed out on. Another world rebels and, following a brief civil war, is taken over by a dictator. The empire immediately raises an army and sends a fleet out to bring the world under control, and after several decades of travel, the fleet shows up and discovers the planet is in the midst of another civil war to overthrow the dictatorship, making their job that much easier.

Eventually, they reverse engineer a FTL drive that is much slower than the original alien one (badly damaged in the crash and then picked at by engineers and scientists for several centuries) and only half understood, and the empire becomes more cohesive as a political and economic entity. At that point, they start expanding faster, begin running into alien civilizations, assimilate one or two single-planet alien species into the empire (mostly by the aliens realizing the humans massively outclass them and asking to join so they can share the benefits of their technology, but one or two get conquered and their native cultures effectively stamped out when they react with hostility to human exploration.), and discover that even with all their shiny new tech, and the more primitive aliens they met, they're still small fry compared to the long-established alien races out there, including the race whose ship they hijacked and crashed a few hundred years ago. Meanwhile, how has Earth been developing in their absence, and where is it?

I never wrote anything in that setting, but there's a decent reason for why colonies would still defer to the homeworld rather than just do their own thing: not only do they have a shared language and cultural identity, they're also dependent on the homeworld for the latest, greatest technological innovations and the homeworld won't share unless they follow the homeworld's rules. In this case, the homeworld has that advantage over them because it's sitting on a stockpile of half-functioning alien technology, and partly because it has an established scientific infrastructure, whereas colonies are nowhere near as established.

[Ford Prefect]

So how would a government maintain itself in such difficult conditions?

It wouldn't. If it takes literally forty years to contact your constituency by space phone, you're not really 'governing'.

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

Hell, even a flight from Earth to the outer reaches of the solar system is almost certainly going to take many weeks or months (accelerating to high relativistic speeds for a week-long trip is... not realistic). A government would have a rough enough time governing the Kuiper Belt directly, let alone Alpha Centauri.

Anyways, 'governing' other solar systems is an absurdity not just because it's impossible, but also because it's pointless. What benefit is there to ruling Tau Ceti, or whatever? The costs are so vast and distances are so enormous that trade is basically pointless, aside from the exchange of information, and that would be better done by just sending radio or laser bursts or whatever.

I had one interesting idea for a universe where the only supertech is the classic quantum-entanglement instant-communication magic, and because of that every colony is built around a gargantuan facility with a frankly silly amount of entangled particles there (assuming that it takes a big space to successfully bind and derive information from one half of a pair) and a giant flash-coloning section and body-storage facility, so the civil service/ secret police/ bureaucracy of the empire basically zip around as pure information frome planet to planet via the quantum web into identical cloned bodies all around the empire to attempt to keep the peace when there's effectively no way of enforcing their rule with hard power.

[Guardsman Bass]

Hell, even a flight from Earth to the outer reaches of the solar system is almost certainly going to take many weeks or months (accelerating to high relativistic speeds for a week-long trip is... not realistic). A government would have a rough enough time governing the Kuiper Belt directly, let alone Alpha Centauri.

That's not too bad. There were empires on Earth that were governed and held together in spite of the fact that it took months to completely cross them.

I had one interesting idea for a universe where the only supertech is the classic quantum-entanglement instant-communication magic, and because of that every colony is built around a gargantuan facility with a frankly silly amount of entangled particles there (assuming that it takes a big space to successfully bind and derive information from one half of a pair) and a giant flash-coloning section and body-storage facility, so the civil service/ secret police/ bureaucracy of the empire basically zip around as pure information frome planet to planet via the quantum web into identical cloned bodies all around the empire to attempt to keep the peace when there's effectively no way of enforcing their rule with hard power.

Stephen Baxter had a similar idea for transportation in his Manifold: Space novel. The main issue is that the enforcement bureaucracy would have to have local support and arms in order to do anything (not to mention colonial consent in building the facility to send them around).

[Rossum]

Well, the thing is that while the various human colonies might not be linked together on a galactic scale, hopefully they will be keeping closely in tought with eachother on a planetary or solar-system wide scale.

If a human colony ship (or three) travels into a solar system and sets up a colony on a planet then they should ensure that their new planet becomes and remains a one-world order. Human civilization on that planet would start with one or two colonies, and as longa those colonies make sure to stick together, have everyone pay taxes to the same authority, and keep their laws and language fairly similar than over the following generations then they will all stay as one planet-spanning political entity. There might be cultural differences in different areas (though the existance of the internet and mass media could give everyone a similar frame of reference) their language or languages would all evolve together with planet-wide communication networks so hopefully they won't have a 'tower of Babel' incident that makes communication difficult.

Even if multiple colonies spring up on different planet of in asteroid belts then the various solar systems should keep all their colonies in contact with one another. Sending signals from the inner planets in a system to the outerones would be slower but there should be no reason why the guys stuck on the outer planets can't listen to the news or enetertainment programs in their little system wide civilization.


I figure that the various human systems would rely quite a bit on media, communication, and other cultural memes to keep all their citizens happy and in-line. Not necessarily an orwelian Big Brother thing, just keep them all happy an content enough to keep paying their taxes and not rebel and split up the system. I'm tempted to say they would start a religion or at least a values system like Humanism to promote unity and non violence among the human colonists. Something like "We are all humans and share common ancestors, while our brothers and sisters on other colonies may have developed different cultures and languages that just makes Humanity all the better and more diverse. We should all help eachother and learn from our brothers in the stars." or whatever.

Basically, Earth starts a religion that promotes understanding, learning, and ethical treatment of others and teaches that to all the colonists who spread to the stars. They print out 'Bibles' of some sort and send them out as well. That way, even if the colonists and their descendants are separated from the others by several decades or generations then the resulting culture will hopefully want to re-establish communication with the others on the times they do get back in contact. If said "Holy Books" are also full of things like the scientific method, and handy info on surviving in space and stories of mistakes from previous Earth civilizations that shouldn't be repeated then it should provide enough helpful info that people would read it just for the usefl info and find the messages of unity just as useful. As long as the message of "keep humanity unified" gets passed down and taken to heart then humanity should survive just fine and keep their various inter-steller interactions pleasant until faster-than-light communication is developed.


Of course, thats not really a government and thoughts of "bettering humanity through awesome philosophies and good intentions" aren't enough to keep things running. Still, weather its a democracy or a dictatorship, whatever governing sysem is used to run the colonies is going to make use of communications, mass media, some kind of religion or values system, and hopefully providing aid to its citizens. Bread, circuses, and religion can do wonders for providing stability to a government.

And no, I'm not saying that religion is inherently awesome, I'm just saying that its a good way to spread memes through out a population and keep it going for generations. As long as the memes carried by it are benevolent and promote keeping humanity together and the religion itself has enough... other stuff... in it to keep it propagating then it should do wonders to keep the idea of human unity flowing even through whatever revolutions, dark ages, tyrannies, or disasters will inevitably strike the numerous colonies. If the "holy book" its spread with has enough useful info in it and promotes education and thinking then whatever damage its (inevitably misinterpreted) messages might cause in the wrong hands will hopefully be minimized.

If people from one colony come in contact with people from another one and both know of the same religious text as a cultural framework (and said text explicitly tells them to keep an open mind about how others might interpret the text) then there could be hundreds of years of cultural drift and language difference and they would still have something in common to talk about.

[sirocco]

Rossum's comment made me wonder what kind of colony would develop out there, far from Earth.

After having spent centuries in a generational ship and having learn every last rules of the galactic guide (Earth history, main legislations, basic rights and, etc.), you'd basically have a single unified civilization at the arrival on the new planet. Factoring the access to advanced technology and the ability to create rapidly a vast communication network, there will be very few variations between the different settlements for a long time.

So basically you'll easily end up with the "Planet of Hats" trope.

[Starglider]

I've contemplated the routes that humanity may take if and when we colonize the stars...and the main problem I've come across is maintaining order over such large interstellar distances.

Whis is 'maintaining order' an issue when interstellar war is a practical impossibility? An interstellar government is considerably less likely or for that matter desireable than a single world government on Earth, which is not looking terribly likely.

I dislike the unquestioning assumption that bigger government is always better. When a nation state falls to dictatorship and/or extremism it is horrible for the population of that country, but at least the citizens have some chance of escape, revolution is a realistic prospect and there is some chance of liberation by other nations. If and when a monolithic unitary government goes bad there is literally no escape. There is no way to change this without significant modification to human psychology.

[Generalissimo]

If the travel times between stars are too long sovereign systems are inevitable.

In these circumstances any interstellar government will likely be an incredibly loose international organization - something like to the old League of Nations with (somehow) significantly less central authority.

[someone_else]

fixed written rule rulers. They are completely independent, but also identical, so while they don't coordinate explicitly, they still make the same decisions so it gives the illusion of unification.

I usually like to think of it implemented as AIs. Suppose you have one template for a ruler that is copied for everybody. Since they are running the same program, if you put two of them in the same situation, they'd make the same decision, every time.

Now, they might have different situations, so it'd temporarily branch off in other directions. But, those fixed rules are still the key goal, so over time, it'd want to guide society back to that same path

I had a similar concept of AIs becoming the "moral guard" of a government.

One of the main problems is common on both our approaches:

Humans being humans, the machines will be tampered with, if that proves unfeasible they will be ignored or replaced with fakes/figureheads.
Of course this will be done by the very wealthy/corporations, possibly with the people's support (just tell them some bullshit they can swallow).

Since none will come to their rescue in a reasonable timescale, the AIs must be much more than just "moral control" or "fixed rule rulers", they need to be able to defend themselves from such attempts.

And not necessarily by owning a bot army, economic domination should be enough.

They may end up being THE government of a peaceful utopia (choose your flavour, in any case the AI will work the same but behind the scenes, without population knowing)

Basically, Earth starts a religion that promotes understanding, learning, and ethical treatment of others and teaches that to all the colonists who spread to the stars.

Please no. We all see how badly Christianity went even if Ghospels are full of good intentions (and Islam for that matter, no less good book). Random crackpotters will add nonsense and grossly misinterpret stuff for their own personal power. In a few centuries you'll get someone claiming that the book says "Gay Is Evil" and gaining followers to bash them.

I'd personally screen colonists and send only 100% atheists out of Earth. Likewise any religious text is banned. There are enough reasons to kill each other already. Religion can and should be avoided. Otherwise you get Evangelicals IN SPAAAACE!!! And none wants that.

To do what you want the books to do, you need to make them smarter than a human, interactive (so they explain the concept until the human grasped it correctly) and able to defend themselves in the highest sense of the term (being able to manipulate polithics or economics to make sure none decides to dump them for profit).

[Number Theoretic]

Picking up the issue of "Imperial Law Enforcement" or punishing/preventing rebellions again: An empire could build several fleets of interstellar warships and send them into interstellar space where they patrol each colony. If they have enough fleets, then every colony will be visited by one of the fleets every few years. The exact timing would of course depend on the empire's resources and now and then ships need to leave the fleet for landfall in their home systems while they are replaced by other ships.
Any rebellion could then be answered in a relatively short amount of time by the nearest "patrol fleet" (of course that response depends entirely on the fleet commander, giving him an insane amount of power).

[Lord Baal]

This patrol method seems like the more "reasonable", but it will need tons upon tons of ships and resources! If to be effective, they should run expecting a revolt on every stop, so they should mobilize an army ready to defeat the estimated maximum force they will face at their next stop!

Also, that system would be very delicate to external influence, the stops shouldn't be of years in between, but a half a year, a year tops, so you can oversee that no ship or ships are built and launched by the locals to a rally point where they could muster a fleet/army capable of stopping each individual patrol fleet.

Also in the case that one of the colonies do get enough resources to break free then you should either stop some of your fleets on patrol (the nearest) and rally them to the troublesome system, calculating that they all arrive within a acceptably similar time frame, and each that arrives awaits for the others to muster a critical mass to the attack OR you must have/raise a big enough fleet to defeat the rebels, and do so quickly, an quickly on this scenario could be from 4 to 50 years...

The other option to this is thrust that medical science would give us extended lifespans, but not up to 100 or 150, but life spans that at least 400 years, so a 10 years trip doesn't sound like much (however a human would certainly eat and consume a lot during those 10 years, so whole logistics are lagging behind this, that's barring the psychological and metal issues, if any, of living that much).

Preferably a extended life span of 500~800 years would do the trick better... even more if it's backed up with some sort of hibernation technology. Either that or telepresence, that's it, a militia or law enforcement that accompany each colony ship from the beginning and grow with it, in charge not only to combat external threats but internals too, and following directly to a central set of rules where they can't deviate and can be updated only from the central system. So no matter how far, this force would enforce the government law without hesitation or temptation.

For this, I see preferably a mix of people and robots, in a feudal like mash up. The people in this organism are going to be in directly charge of the armed robots, which in turn would rule the colonist and enforce the "central laws". The thing to put people on charge is that they would ideally prevent the colonist to mess with the robots, something they are interested to keep their status quo. But also one of the directives of the robots would be to keep in check this "nobility" by abiding the central laws over the ones given by the "nobles", so any attempt to violate the central laws will be refused by the direct enforces, that in turn could even depose the current rulers and await replacements for them.

Also this would require the colonist to be unable to build tech like weaponry, advanced robotics and advanced spacecraft propulsion, all this would fall to the hands of the nobility and/or the robots. Of course this scenario would need a HUGE load of development on robotics and ai programing, and it doesn't goes without flaws (like if the robots are so sophisticated why they don't do all the work, but maybe they are really expensive, and/or you only need one or two for every 100 unarmed humans) and ways to overthrow it. But I'm fond to write a history to it, or at least see anyone do it

[Simon_Jester]

I'd personally screen colonists and send only 100% atheists out of Earth. Likewise any religious text is banned. There are enough reasons to kill each other already. Religion can and should be avoided. Otherwise you get Evangelicals IN SPAAAACE!!! And none wants that.

I see a number of problems with this.

One is that in a reasonably modern environment, religious reasons really don't get people motivated to kill all that much compared to other things. The World Wars were fought for entirely secular reasons, with the possible exception of Japanese mystical super-nationalism, which as a 'religion' could easily evolve from complete atheism. Deification of abstract ideas like Will, the Invisible Hand, or National Spirit is hardly outside the realm of what atheists are capable of.


You can point to Islamic fundamentalism if you like... but that ignores a huge issue. The violence in the Islamic world may be perpetrated largely by fundamentalists, but it isn't really about religion. Certainly it isn't about trying to force people to become Muslims- that's why it's overwhelmingly Muslim-on-Muslim in places like Iraq.

On a very important level, things like terrorism in Israel, the guerilla wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and so on are about secular issues- the Western penetration of the cultural and political structures of the Muslim world, the sense that things like the nation of Israel and the presence of American armies are signs of profound cultural weakness and decadence which needs to be reversed. Islamic fundamentalism wasn't critical to that; secular Arab leaders were attacking Israel back when fundamentalism was barely relevant to politics in their nations, for example.

I don't think you'd actually make people less likely to kill each other for damn fool reasons by banning religion.

[Ahriman238]

I dimly recall a short story where humanity spread across the stars and adopted a monarchy purely as a practical concern. The distances, travel times (even with FTL) and population sizes involved in an interstellar group make democracy impractical, unless you're willing to call an election and wait forty years or so for the results.

Of course, none of these are really new problems, and I still think a representative democracy ought to work, but I'm told I'm overly optimistic like that.

Mostly, I remember the story for the line: the TRUE Final Frontier: the decimal point.

[Number Theoretic]

@Lord Baal: i must say, you have really given some thought on that matter. I'd like to add just a few things concerning AIs: Their motives depend strongly on their design and how much they can be integrated together with human thinkers via Brain-Machine interfaces to create some hybrid thinking entity (perhaps even only temporary, as long as someone is linked to the machine). Concernig the AI design, it might also be possible, that the AIs either don't develop a personality at all (then you don't have to worry about a runaway AI) or that their "mind" or "personality" is too enigmatic to even consider turning against the humans. Of course then it might be dangerous to directly link your brain to one of those machines.

[Lord Baal]

Yup, I was aiming more for the personality less kind of AI. Even a not self aware, just one with a really well thought set of rules.

[Dr Roberts]

My solution would be that each world has a government which can make it's own rules as long as they do not conflict with the central governments rules and use droids which can only be reprogramed with a command from the central government making sure they are enforced.

[Number Theoretic]

Keep in mind, though, that nobody wants to be told what to do (or that what they want to do conflicts with imperial law) by a robot. Maybe that is the point, where our patrol fleets come in. And the effect could also be dampend, if the empire's emissary AIs are connected to or work together with some humans.

edit: typo errors, damnit

[Simon_Jester]

I dimly recall a short story where humanity spread across the stars and adopted a monarchy purely as a practical concern. The distances, travel times (even with FTL) and population sizes involved in an interstellar group make democracy impractical, unless you're willing to call an election and wait forty years or so for the results.

Of course, none of these are really new problems, and I still think a representative democracy ought to work, but I'm told I'm overly optimistic like that.

Mostly, I remember the story for the line: the TRUE Final Frontier: the decimal point.

Representative democracy works- but not over multi-year time lags. In effect you're electing your representative once and sending them off to represent you for the rest of their natural life. In a system like that, there's very little incentive for the old representative to stay responsible to his constituency. His quality of life has nothing to do with how well his constituents like him, and everything to do with how well the capital likes him.

[Dr Roberts]

I just meant the AI would only observe the local law enforcement enforce imperial law.

[Lord Baal]

AND react to enforce central law if the local deviate from it. Kind of exactly like my idea. Anyway, no one would appreciate a robot telling them what to do, OR punish them for doing something it doesn't approves.

[Lord Baal]

Giving this more thought, the central, imperial government should impose/force/preach strongly a creed/education/school of thought where the citizens of every level are taught to believe in working for something larger than life. The patrol routes (that I would like to incorporate to this "feudal" like idea of mine, if you don't mind) would be endless belts that would transport Nobles, colonists and enforcers to the colonies and bring resources back. Of course, even with enhanced lives, one could see the longest trips as one way only, besides lower people (colonist, serfs) could not be given the extended life time medical treatment/implants/modification/gene therapy/etc.. hence the importance of believing in the system.

The central government would be rather blind or poor sighted about the actual status of the colonies, the only way to enforce the constant rule would be by the "telepresence" I suggested with regular oversight in the from of patrol fleets. It would be cumbersome, slow, resource intensive and vulnerable to external threats system, however barring a advanced (FTL) alien invasion, is a interesting system. Central government appoint nobles trough wealth, influence, hereditary system, a combination of any and assign them a planet/system (maybe a system per family). In turn the nobles muster enough colonists (by force, servitude, volunteering, pick one or several) from their lands on capital system or any other draft mechanism and when enough are gathered the central government provides them enforcers (robots) and means of transport and colonization. In return, they are expected to return the investment with valuable resources, etc.... any variation of this could serve too. Maybe the nobles get send to colonies as a punishment or an award. Maybe they don't muster the colonist either. This could fit a lot of combinations.

If by any chance another empire like this (be it alien or a faction of it) is encountered/spawned then a dota-on-steroids like war would occur. Each will have to make long arse calculations about the next move of the adversary and start pumping out fleet after fleet as fast as possible, grinding each other slowly, or maybe sending massive fleets directly to the throat of the opponent, but that would be a risk movement filled of what if's (as pretty much everything on this scenario). Also, once you send off your fleets, coordination between them will be difficult (as war would make the patrol routes highly unstable and dynamically change them), there's the question of how to contact patrols to warn them that a their next target has been overrun by enemy forces for example... I would avoid a total war on this scenario, since it would fall from it's own weight.

Sorry for the double post, I tried to put this on the last one but when I tried to save the post I didn't let me.