When it comes to college education, Scottish universities do not charge Scottish or E.U. students tuition fees, although undergraduates from the rest of the U.K. are charged up to £9,000 ($14,500) a year. In other words, provided they can afford it, the SNP would seek to model themselves on Scandinavian democracies like Norway and Denmark, emphasizing the role and responsibility of the state to provide universal benefits, and the need to support the economy through expenditures on jobs and infrastructure.

However, when it comes to matters under London's purview -- defense, foreign policy, and the currency -- the picture is altogether less clear. On national security, for instance, Britain's Ministry of Defence (MoD) is not currently planning for Scottish independence, and an MoD spokesperson told me the Scottish government hasn't spoken with London about forming a separate armed service for itself. The Scottish Government had no comment -- nor would it remark on numbers floated by The Independent that suggested it would seek to maintain a defense force of 12,500 armed servicemen with 20 to 25 naval vessels.

A principal point of contention is the United Kingdom's nuclear deterrent, the submarine-launched Trident missile system based at Her Majesty's Naval Base Clyde in western Scotland. The MoD is not contemplating any policy that would move the missiles from their present location, yet a spokesperson for the Scottish Government was clear any scenario that would keep nuclear materials in Scotland would be unacceptable. It is the current position of the Scottish Government to "ensure an appropriate transition and relocation" of Trident out of Scottish territorial waters. The SNP is, however, in the process of debating its historic opposition to NATO membership, long rejected as an alliance with a nuclear capability.

Scotland would, upon independence, also seek to stay in the European Union. The Scottish Government believes that its membership can continue unbroken, yet both Professor Alexander Türk of King's College London and Professor Martin Trybus of the University of Birmingham indicated to me that as a new state, Scotland would have to leave the E.U. and reapply through the usual channels (via Article 49 of the Treaty on European Union, to be precise), a process designed to institute compliance with European laws and standards.

Linked to this is the issue of currency. The Scottish Government wishes to "continue to operate within the sterling system," in other words, to use the British pound and have interest rates set by the Bank of England -- a monetary union without fiscal union. Scotland's problem is that if it joins the E.U. as a separate state, it would be expected to adopt the Euro, a change favored by only 5 percent of the country.

During the accession process, Scotland would become a party to European monetary agreements designed to stabilize national currencies and streamline admission into the Eurozone. Unless they can somehow opt out, staying on the pound under such circumstances would be "difficult," Türk said, since the U.K. has gained permission to stay out of the Euro and has no intention of backtracking on that any time soon.