Professor Wayne King-Meiouf of the University of ProximaYesterday i returned to Proxima 7 after my intriguing business trip to Dino-Land. On the voyage back i reflected on my experiences there and put some thought into the DTA as a whole and how viable the young project is.
And young is the word, we shouldn't forget that the DTA only came into being officially on November 16th 2110 (the Dinos do not seem to be going to anything to mark this 1st anniversary). Very quickly following on from Yeng, Sirikwan, Voth and New Arit left the DDS orbit and joined the DTA. Over the last year however the hard work has begun in integrating these very different nations with the Dinos.
So is the DTA working? It is hard to tell for sure at this early stage as the Dinos dominate everything in the DTA from military strength to economic might. The Dinos are trying hard to make the DTA an association of equals though the Dinos will likely always remain firmly "first amongst equals". One interesting problem the DTA do have though is in integrating different alien races into an alliance.
Sirikwan and Yeng are fairly easy to integrate in many ways as they are Dinos essentially (although cut off from the ancestral homeland for millenia and thus developing very different cultural identities), the Aritans and Voth are more problematical (Artic seem to have taken to the DTA like a duck to water but then again Humans and Dinos do generally get on well).
Much of the DTA's teething troubles have been with the Aritans whom recently the Dinos have accused of not pushing their weight. Much of this might be down to alien differences with the Dinos generally being a relaxed but industrious race but the Aritans are rather paranoid and lazy in comparison. The Dinos and the Aritans are having to adjust to the reality of working together, something the Dinos have seldom done with aliens before.
If the Dinos can learn to do this then the DTA has a viable future, otherwise it will just become the Dinos and their satellites. This may be also viable but it won't be the DTA. It will require a sizeable cultural shift by the Dinos to this (and the other races too) to make the DTA a success, can they do it? We'll find out in the years to come.
