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Canon Subject 1: Imperium and Member Worlds

I also believe the Imperium describes itself as feudal because it operates under the pre-1789 premise of territorial supremacy instead of the post-1789 concept of territorial sovereignty.

Ah, well, this is what I'm getting at. If you begin by laying out the principles, you avoid all (well, perhaps most) of the contradictions that arise as the materials pile up.

But I agree, that's enough thread derailment for one day. :)
 
unavoidable. so make it a feature, not a bug. my latest poll on official rules/materials vs house rules/materials indicates that 1) people rely on the official setting while 2) customizing it heavily towards their own games. so incorporate this necessary and pre-existing practice into traveller - make the setting general and allow referees and players to populate it with specifics. not only is this the way it has to be done, it's also realistic - the galaxy is a big place, not even the emperor can begin to grasp it all, and not only will unknown aspects suddenly arise and make their presence known but new features will be appearing all the time. incorporate that into the game.
Bull. You didn't pay attention. What it asks is only RULES, not setting.

Which is why I pointed out you bungled it. Your choice of available answers doesn't say anything about setting...
 
What I do think is that each relationship was negotiated differently, that each remain subtly different, and that each evolves over time. I believe that many Imperial nobles under the rank of marquis act as living treaties.

This is exactly right. Traveller very much leans towards "people, not laws".
 
Well if nobles are living treaties, it is that much more a political act to assassinate one that has that post.
 
The Imperial government begins at the subsector level - is this still canon for a 'powered by T5' version of the third Imperium?
 
Bull. You didn't pay attention. What it asks is only RULES, not setting. Which is why I pointed out you bungled it. Your choice of available answers doesn't say anything about setting...

yeah, you're right. I conflated the two. (aren't there quite a few posts, recent posts, complaining that traveller rules are conflated with the otu setting? I think there are ....)

shall we investigate? parse out official/house rules vs official/house settings? maybe you could set it up, I'm no good at it ....
 
The Imperial government begins at the subsector level - is this still canon for a 'powered by T5' version of the third Imperium?

Since there is no Third Imperium setting book for T5, I would have to say that anything that came before T5 is still true unless there is a specific T5 reference to the contrary (or until contradicted by future publications).

T5 world generation still produces all of the traditional government types for worlds, but assigns Imperial Nobles to worlds differently and more specifically defines their land grants (which are different in size and scope than prior versions of Traveller).

Dukes of C6/Soc = F are still specifically "Subsector Dukes" assigned to Subsector Capital Worlds as their world association.
 
So either Marc is retconning the nobility of the third Imperium with T5 or the model of nobility in T5 is for the Galaxiad...
 
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So either Marc is retconning the nobility of the third Imperium with T5 or the model of nobility in T5 is for the Galaxiad...

Wil said:
I read it as the latter.

This is how I treat it as well. I go as far as letting the LTU nobles be LTU nobles, CT nobles be Golden Age nobles, and T5 nobles be Galaxiad nobles, and switch around based on what setting I'm playing.

I have Galaxiad-era nobles. I'm running two CT adventures at a con this summer that are technically in the year 1900. But single-world adventures seem to be quite setting-agnostic.
 
This is how I treat it as well. I go as far as letting the LTU nobles be LTU nobles, CT nobles be Golden Age nobles, and T5 nobles be Galaxiad nobles, and switch around based on what setting I'm playing.

I have Galaxiad-era nobles. I'm running two CT adventures at a con this summer that are technically in the year 1900. But single-world adventures seem to be quite setting-agnostic.


That is certainly a reasonable way to interpret the T5 Noble system relative to earlier rulesets in different eras.

However, there is a way to "harmonize" the two systems to a certain degree (especially if it turns out that T5 is retconning everything in all eras) based on how the land grant THexes are allocated (or for those who simply like the new T5 system and want to use to for their earlier-era campaigns).

For example, lets take a Count. Under pre-T5 nobility he was associated with 2 or 3 world clusters (with no particular indication as to criteria for assigning such clusters, and not all worlds were part of such "counties" anyway), and was given a land-grant of less than or equal to 10,000km2. Under the T5 ruleset he is associated primarily with a single high-population world (usually), and has 32 THexes to be scattered across the fief-world's sector (and 1 LHex per THex of personal property).

My reconciliation would be based on how the THexes are assigned.

For example (and I will ignore the non-mainworld hexes for the purpose of the illustration), I might assign about half of the 32 THexes to the Fiefworld. Of the remaining 16 THexes, I might assign half of them them to 1 or 2 closely associated worlds (i.e. a "cluster"). Of the remaining 8, I might assign half of them to THexes within the fief-world's subsector, and the remaining 4 would be scattered about the fief-world's sector.

So in the end, the Comital title is associated primarily with one world (and we will make it a high-population world, if possible), but is also associated with a core of 1 or 2 additional worlds (comprising the 2-3 world cluster of pre-T5 nobility). The remainder of the THexes across the subsector, and (to a lesser extent) the rest of the sector, then represent simple off-world interests relative to the core-worlds, in declining frequency that farther one moves away from the fief-world.

It is not a perfect harmonization, but the point is that you can still create noble territories that look somewhat like the pre-T5 assignments using the T5 ruleset.
 
That is certainly a reasonable way to interpret the T5 Noble system relative to earlier rulesets in different eras.

The one problem with that approach is the T5 nobility system is baked into the T5SS data, which is supposed to represent an 1105 baseline.

At some point I've meant to work through the Solomani Rim materials to compare T5SS noble data and canonical text data, but I am afraid of what I'll find.
 
The one problem with that approach is the T5 nobility system is baked into the T5SS data, which is supposed to represent an 1105 baseline.

At some point I've meant to work through the Solomani Rim materials to compare T5SS noble data and canonical text data, but I am afraid of what I'll find.

Good point. That is one of the reasons I came up with the "harmonization" I detailed above. It uses the T5 system for the T5SS Noble Extension data, and still gives a nod to the pre-T5 nobility system based on how the THexes are assigned.
 
It's certainly an extrality line - a legal boundary for customs purposes.

But, Fly, I need a reference for your statement. I have been assuming that the starport is typically built, maintained, owned and operated by the world.

Mind you, I doubt that people consider GURPS TRAVELLER material as 100% Canon (Hell, I use GURPS TRAVELLER and I don't!) but this might prove to be an interesting tidbit in light of T5's spelling out of Fiefs within the Imperium...

Article VII – Extra-territoriality of Designated Imperial Possessions:

“The governance and operation of starports or other territories ceded to Imperial use is reserved to the Imperium. Movement of material and sentients between such territories and the member world shall be controlled by the member world, subject to Imperial laws governing such movement. Such territory shall be excluded from the jurisdiction of any
member world, and no material or sentient shall enter such territories from any member world without the express consent of the governing Imperial authorities responsible for such territory.”

– the Warrant of Restoration,
001-0000


That last bit of tidbit is located on page 42 of GURPS TRAVELLER STARPORTS in a sidebar. The "other territories ceded to Imperial use" clause might apply to fiefs. ;)
 
Hal, that agrees with other material that others have brought up with me. Thank you.
 
Updated the OP with stuff gleaned from this discussion. Thank you guys for contributing.
 
Just one comment. When it's said that the Imperium owns the starports, does it mean all starports, or just those form a cathegory (let's say C) up?

I don't imagine an E rated starport to have neither SPA representatives nor extrality zone...
 
The UWP starport is the Imperial owned and designated starport for that world.

If it's a Class E, then the Imperium owns the transponder, if there is one, and the log "book", if there is one. And presumably the markings on the slab of bedrock.

What the starport code means is subject to interpretation. On Tureded, it's actually four starports.
 
I don't imagine an E rated starport to have neither SPA representatives nor extrality zone...

Well, certainly not one that can be enforced easily. Even an E port can potentially be quite large though, and the fence might have been put up by the locals...
 
Class E can be treated as an Imperium owned 'development lot' or land bank, where the Imperium intends to develop a starport when there is a reason to.

Thinking in T5 terms it might be on what will someday be an Imperial fief.

There's a beacon, so there's probably a chainlink fence, a bank and ditch or at least some boundary markers with the Imperial sunburst carved on them.



Imagine a patron hires the PCs to move those boundary markers :devil:
Lots of old Westerns to draw inspiration from for that.
 
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