So we're not talking about an internal matter, because in your example Lousiana's "we want to be part of France" movemnt would be funded by the French and supplied with arms by the French. That's a hostile act, period.
Absolutely right.
I doubt this would happen, but maybe each planet could have an 'Exclusive Economic Zone' (EEZ--this is a real world naval term for a coastal area that is considered part of the country that owns it, and could be fisheries, trade lanes, etc.) where planting a starbase in it would be a bonafide hostile act, period. Imagine a foriegn country sailing up to our coast line, just off of California and then build an oil rig. Yeah, that wouldn't work out.
Of course, this EEZ wouldn't be anything but a starbase-esque influence sphere. This ties in with my self-supporting starbase idea where starbases inside this area of influence wouldn't require constructors to upgrade, but would build upgrades themselves like planetary improvements. Anyway, the EEZ would be a nice way to keep ppl out of your space, and provides a nice 'border' for your empire.
This would make things very interesting in a Balkanized system where all the planets are just a parsec or two away from each other and two or more civs owning the planets. All the EEZ's would overlap at some point and here is where building that influence starbase to flip a planet wouldn't be an act of war--because those EEZ's overlap.
Anyway, either way it will make for more intresting play once the AI issue is patched.
