General Civilian Finds and Claims in the Imperium - Second Addendum - Archeological Incentive Bonuses

[Spinward Scout]

I've been thinking about this for a while and finally put my nose to the grindstone. Some of this is from Classic Traveller Secret of the Ancients. Some of this is from the Traveller wiki. And the rest is just made up by me from extrapolating from other sources or my imagination.

As per my other posts like this, please comment if something is wrong.
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Civilian Finds and Claims in the Imperium - Second Addendum - Archeological Incentive Bonuses

 

[Kakistocrat]

Civilian Finds and Claims in the Imperium - Second Addendum - Archeological Incentive Bonuses

My initial impressions (I don’t have Secret of the Ancients and haven’t scoured the Traveller wiki, so please forgive my ignorance):

• How could one determine if something predates the universe? (I presume that that really means “something that predates the generally accepted age of the universe”.)
• Since the price of narcolethe ingredients is given in CR per liter, perhaps land prices should also be provided in CR per hectare, e.g. CR 10,000 per acre ≅ CR 24,710 per hectare.
• Who would provide rewards for ancient language discoveries, particularly at the higher end of the reward range? (It might take many years to show that an ancient language is an ancestor of a modern language, e.g. if the ancient language uses a different, previously undeciphered script.)
• On the other hand, I’d think that an essay for the Encyclopedia Galactica could be worth more than CR 100, particularly if the author assigns the copyright on the essay to the publisher.

 

[Spinward Scout]

My initial impressions (I don’t have Secret of the Ancients and haven’t scoured the Traveller wiki, so please forgive my ignorance):

• How could one determine if something predates the universe? (I presume that that really means “something that predates the generally accepted age of the universe”.)
• Since the price of narcolethe ingredients is given in CR per liter, perhaps land prices should also be provided in CR per hectare, e.g. CR 10,000 per acre ≅ CR 24,710 per hectare.
• Who would provide rewards for ancient language discoveries, particularly at the higher end of the reward range? (It might take many years to show that an ancient language is an ancestor of a modern language, e.g. if the ancient language uses a different, previously undeciphered script.)
• On the other hand, I’d think that an essay for the Encyclopedia Galactica could be worth more than CR 100, particularly if the author assigns the copyright on the essay to the publisher.

I'm not sure what the Third Imperium could come up with between now and then. But there's a theory out that we might just be the latest universe.

I'll have to look that up about land names.

Probably Universities or Museums about the Languages. Maybe the Imperium, if the Emperor is interested.

You might know more about essays than I do. What do you think it should be?

 

[Kakistocrat]

I'm not sure what the Third Imperium could come up with between now and then. But there's a theory out that we might just be the latest universe.

That’s what I find confusing — presuming that only one universe exists at a time, and that a universe begins with a Big Bang, by what means could something survive the end of the previous universe and the start of the current one?

Probably Universities or Museums about the Languages. Maybe the Imperium, if the Emperor is interested.

I could see interested institutions and individuals funding archaeological digs, hoping for something like the discovery of a previously unknown extinct ancient language (among many other physical or cultural artifacts), but I’m hard pressed to think of an example of someone receiving payment for proving the existence of such a language.

You might know more about essays than I do. What do you think it should be?

Don’t confuse my tendency towards prolixity with my having any knowledge about essays in encyclopedias.

I’d imagine that the price would depend upon both the particular topic and the length of the essay, but the main reason that I’d thought that the price could be higher than CR 100 is the sheer reach of the Encyclopedia Galactica — how many billions of subscribers must it have?

 

[kilemall]

I would think rewards for academics would include the potential for something functionally like the Nobel Prize, but also endowed chairs at universities