Suederwind wrote: A rogue human nation that started to build a spacefleet would come under immediate pressure to join into and abide by the TCA rules.
So, no North Korean space navy?
Jokes aside: how would the TCA react to such a threat?
Probably in a similar manner to that in which the United States and the international community has reacted to the development of nuclear weapons by North Korea and Iran: diplomatic pressure, economic sanctions, and the ultimate threat of force.
Fortunately, construction in orbit is impossible to conceal, and very vulnerable to attack. Unlike nuclear warhead development, that can be moved underground and dispersed.
Suederwind wrote:Could you tell us a bit more about those limits? How many ships would a human superpower typically have, how big are they allowed to be, what kind of weapons would be allowed, et... ?
They're police forces, not space navies, and the allocation is by system, not by nation. There is no "territory" in space around a multinational planet, and so any police force patrolling the space around a multinational planet must be multinational. There is no "American" space fleet. The United States is a participant in a multinational Earth-Mars system police force. How such a force is made up and controlled is a local matter, out of the jurisdiction of the TCA. In the Earth-Mars system, the police force is broken up into divisions based at each planet.
Police frigates are usually under 200m in length, and are limited in number according the amount of traffic that they have to regulate. The Earth-Mars system would obviously require a much larger police force than remote Esperanza.
Suederwind wrote:Are conflicts between sucht national space navies and the TCA usual
No. As with local police, county sheriffs, state police, state militia and federal military, there may be jurisdictional disputes, but there is almost never armed conflict. The potential for conflict in the early unregulated colonial period between the various competing colonial authorities and individual nations is what led to the formation of the TCA, and this treaty was successful in averting such conflict.
Suederwind wrote:Are civilian companies allowed to send FTL vessels for exploration or is that handled exclusively by the TCA?
All FTL spacecraft must be licensed through the TCA. Private exploration is possible, but it must be authorized. Exploration and colonization is a very expensive and dangerous proposition. Most such activity is done as a joint venture between individual actors and the Scout Corps. A sufficiently funded lone wolf entity might take vessels licensed for something else and use them for independent exploration or even colonization, but they would do so without the support of the TCA or any licensed shipping, and any fruits of such unauthorized exploration (such as territorial claims) would not be recognized by the international community.