Have you ever considered how vast the 3rd Imperium is?

[Spinward Scout]

Let's try to steer clear of discussion of any current political or government setups. There's a great discussion going on here in this thread. I'd hate to see it shut down or anyone getting an infraction under the "No Politics" rule.

 

[Carlobrand]

Lemmee see if I have this sequence right:

Hereditary nobility existed long before the concept of "Divine Right" came about.

Yes, but once societies rejected Divine Right, ALL hereditary Nobility/Royalty with real power was abolished. Hence, the 3I isn't plausible.

Depends on your definition of hereditary Nobility/Royalty. On late twentieth and early twenty first century Earth, we have in North Korea, Syria, Cuba and China with its "Red Princelings" numerous situations where people have high levels of power/wealth/influence simply because their parents did.

Hereditary nobility is not actually based on a Divine Right to rule. ...

Near as I can tell, no one's suggesting hereditary nobility is based on Divine Right. The concept of Divine Right evolved after evolution of an hereditary nobility as a justification to solidify existing custom, and I'm not sure whether it evolved in all early cultures that went through an hereditary nobility stage or just some. Rather the disputed contention seems to be whether "hereditary nobility with real power" fell away after the concept of Divine Right was rejected or simply evolved into alternate forms with different names.

Hereditary nobility actually tends to be based on the right to marshall arms. Hereditary nobility invariably arises among the class that has the wealth and resources to own and marshall arms in pursuit of their interests, and very often their first effort is to use their power to restrict the lower classes from the privilege of arms. True, the wealth and resources to own arms typically equates to land wealth. However, when the ruler can strip your family of its hereditary holdings or demand fees in exchange for the right to pass it on to your heirs, the right to property has little strength. The noble's rights to arms, armor, and retainers on the other hand is a much more difficult right to abridge. Easier to execute a noble than to bar him and his line from their martial rights.

 

[Drakon]

Rather the disputed contention seems to be whether "hereditary nobility with real power" fell away after the concept of Divine Right was rejected or simply evolved into alternate forms with different names.

In that event, my thinking is that the concept of hereditary nobility with real power fell away when that nobility became incompentent, unable to do the job that the nobility was supposed to, in exchange for a "right to rule". That job is to protect and defend the populace, primarily.

(Or rather, that is the primary benefit for, and reason why, that populace submits to rule by the local potentate.)

Not necessarily from just say, Vargr coursair, but local criminals, plagues, and natural disasters, as well. Once the nobility is unable to protect its people from whatever calamity, the populace loses confidence in that noble and the basis for that noble's patent.

I agree the concept of the "divine right" to rule is a later addition. And an early victim of nobles unable to take care of their populace in changing times. And there are some families in democracies who do attempt at making politics a family business. This could be a chicken and egg discussion.

Hereditary nobility actually tends to be based on the right to marshall arms. Hereditary nobility invariably arises among the class that has the wealth and resources to own and marshall arms in pursuit of their interests, and very often their first effort is to use their power to restrict the lower classes from the privilege of arms.

Might may not make right, but might does make power, the ability to coerse others into complicance with the noble's desires. Maintaining a near monopoly on the priviledge of arms, or at least superior firepower, makes the job of intervening in local disputes far easier.

True, the wealth and resources to own arms typically equates to land wealth. However, when the ruler can strip your family of its hereditary holdings or demand fees in exchange for the right to pass it on to your heirs, the right to property has little strength.

This depends more on the trust and reputation of the emperor. An emperor who does so for what are perceived to be unjust cause, can end up with nobles revolting against him. Theoretically, the Emperor can do as he pleases, and change nobles on the whim. However in practice, doing so makes other nobles nervous, and can have unintended consequences.

It goes back to the line about how the Imperium is held together by the rule of men not laws. Good nobles would not deny hereditary rights for little reason.

The noble's rights to arms, armor, and retainers on the other hand is a much more difficult right to abridge. Easier to execute a noble than to bar him and his line from their martial rights.

I find it difficult to argue against this point.

 

[rancke]

Hereditary nobility actually tends to be based on the right to marshall arms. Hereditary nobility invariably arises among the class that has the wealth and resources to own and marshall arms in pursuit of their interests, and very often their first effort is to use their power to restrict the lower classes from the privilege of arms. True, the wealth and resources to own arms typically equates to land wealth. However, when the ruler can strip your family of its hereditary holdings or demand fees in exchange for the right to pass it on to your heirs, the right to property has little strength. The noble's rights to arms, armor, and retainers on the other hand is a much more difficult right to abridge. Easier to execute a noble than to bar him and his line from their martial rights.

That sort of nobility was replaced (in Europe at least) by another sort that had different powers. A sort that I think is a lot more analogous to Imperial nobles than the martial ones. Analogous to the nobles of the 19th Century. They're the social elite from which the movers and shakers are recruited. The 'labor pool' as Strephon sometimes refer to them [not canon]. They didn't have many (if any) legal rights that commoners didn't have too; they just owned most of the land (Which is, incidentally, one of the ways the analogy is strained; the most important power Imperial nobles have is the strong hold they have on interstellar government).


Hans

 

[Ackehece]

honestly I don't think we can comprehend the true size

straight up ignoring the population and political etc ramifications...

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/1925pd7oihnlzjpg/original.jpg

I would bet that most people here have no idea that the continent of Africa is so huge.

http://io9.com/africas-true-size-will-blow-you-away-1441076531


I work in maps and yes projections really distort our view of the world little lone of the universe...

 

[esampson]

First of all, once more, let me remind you I don't own, nor have access to T5, so, anything about hoop drives I know has been read in this board.

IMHO it breaks too much the nature of OTU. Even a few prototypes will allow faster communications for the Imperial government, and a few VERY HUGE (over 1 Mdt) tenders capable of carrying battelships or even battletenders with their complements will surely alter the nature of war in OTU (imagine one of those tenders in a deep raid on Zhodani space in FFW, carrying whole battle squadrons and profiting they can be quite far away when news of their same existence arrive to reinforcements, or just moving reinforcements, allowing to kkep more deep reserves). They will be worth their cost, no matter how high is could be...

Sort of agreed. I would not have them be part of MTU either without a lot of thought. There is a difference, however.

Since they are going to be either 'early', 'prototype', or 'experimental' I'm going to assume that might come with limitations beyond those simply stated in the book. Yes, by the rules it is possible to make a ginormous battle carrier that uses a hop drive, but just because something like that is possible by the rules doesn't mean that it has to occur in the universe. It is quite within my authority as referee to say that such engines are limited to a certain maximum size, come with extra disadvantages that would render them much less useful for military exploits like what you mentioned, or are otherwise unsuitable.

A long time ago I learned that as the referee (or GM/DM/whathaveyou) just because a player realizes that the rules say that something can be done you are not obligated to allow it. This includes weird race/class/weapon combinations that turn characters into absolute death machines, weapon/feat combinations that make a character semi-invulnerable and the like. In a similar vein I don't feel at all obligated to let a player have a hop drive just because they work out a way to build it with the tech staging chart (and by extension I wouldn't say that the Imperium must have the ability to built them just because the tech staging chart works out that way).

 

[McPerth]

Since they are going to be either 'early', 'prototype', or 'experimental' I'm going to assume that might come with limitations beyond those simply stated in the book. Yes, by the rules it is possible to make a ginormous battle carrier that uses a hop drive, but just because something like that is possible by the rules doesn't mean that it has to occur in the universe. It is quite within my authority as referee to say that such engines are limited to a certain maximum size, come with extra disadvantages that would render them much less useful for military exploits like what you mentioned, or are otherwise unsuitable.

Agreed, but even with this unreliability, those gigacarriers might be worth be built. Let's asume they misjump about 1 in 12 (11+ in 2d6) times. When they do, the fleet caried, being itself fueled, is not lost, and the ship itself might be recovered with some time (and some tankers), assuming it has no fuel for a second jump (for what I've read, it needs less fuel than regular jump drives).

And, being TL 17, see that at TL 16 their reliability will be quite decent, and, at least in MT (and so in the Rebellion millieu) there are several planets with this TL, so reliability would be quite aceptable, given above premises.

A long time ago I learned that as the referee (or GM/DM/whathaveyou) just because a player realizes that the rules say that something can be done you are not obligated to allow it. This includes weird race/class/weapon combinations that turn characters into absolute death machines, weapon/feat combinations that make a character semi-invulnerable and the like. In a similar vein I don't feel at all obligated to let a player have a hop drive just because they work out a way to build it with the tech staging chart (and by extension I wouldn't say that the Imperium must have the ability to built them just because the tech staging chart works out that way).

Fully agree in all of this, but I'm afraid too many times I took that to bear (as when I defended squadron integrity was one of the advantages for multi rider tenders against single raider tenders) I've been hit with "rules don't talk about that" like responses...

 

[esampson]

. . .And, being TL 17, see that at TL 16 their reliability will be quite decent. . .

Their reliability will be whatever you set it to be, as referee. Yes, strictly under the charts their reliability isn't that bad, but if you go 'strictly under the charts' you're going to find yourself in a whole lot of other problems as players put together combinations that the game designers didn't envision.

 

[Carlobrand]

That sort of nobility was replaced (in Europe at least) by another sort that had different powers. A sort that I think is a lot more analogous to Imperial nobles than the martial ones. Analogous to the nobles of the 19th Century. They're the social elite from which the movers and shakers are recruited. The 'labor pool' as Strephon sometimes refer to them [not canon]. They didn't have many (if any) legal rights that commoners didn't have too; they just owned most of the land (Which is, incidentally, one of the ways the analogy is strained; the most important power Imperial nobles have is the strong hold they have on interstellar government).


Hans

In most cultures, the nature of and relationship between classes evolves over time. I agree, the Traveller model seems to owe more to the nobility of the 19th century Europe than to the nobility of earlier eras and other cultures, right down to the odd business of little petty nobles with big titles that don't have much of anything behind them (i.e. PC dukes and such).

 

[JBHemlock]

This is a fascinating couple of discussions. I didn't intend to write a wall o' text in reply, but that's what happened.

tl;dr: The Imperium endures because it stays out of people's lives.

The wall o' text:
On the nobility thing, my own take is that the yoke of nobility doesn't particularly weigh heavily upon the shoulders of any Imperial worlds, and so it's not really a problem.

The Imperium has often been described with phrases like "the space in between all of its component worlds", and I think that really addresses the impact that imperial nobility has on the various worlds. Sure everyone is a subject of the Emperor, but how much does that actually affect the average man in the street? After all, individual worlds within the Imperium have their own governments, and those governments can be extremely varied. Obviously the Imperium has no problem with democracies or theocracies or oligarchies or whatever, so it seems like the Imperial nobility doesn't place itself in a position of dictating much to its subjects. Probably the biggest impact of the Imperium (and Imperial nobility) on the average person is the Imperial tax.

Here's where I trot out my political/economic weenie beanie. I love this sort of thing. I've happily spent entire days trying to work out trade volumes and government budgets for various sectors. In my opinion, I'm not convinced that individual Imperial citizens pay an Imperial tax.

Think about it. You've got the Imperium, divided up into administrative chunks which are then subdivided down into smaller chunks, all the way down until you get to a planet. As the chunks get smaller, the communications delay gets shorter, until you get to your planet with (roughly) instantaneous communication at any reasonable tech level. This is the point where you have a government or system that is in the business of supplying services to their population, and that's probably the level at which most of the taxation happens. Those taxes (or fees, on worlds where this is all privatized) go towards paying the police and fire department, funding the local military, etc. Things that have a direct impact on people living on those worlds.

Certainly, some money needs to get funneled up to the Imperium, but does it actually come from people directly? The problems that people historically have with "vast and distant ruling empires" seem to me to mainly be problems with taxation. The argument can be made, for instance, that the story of the American Revolution is one of discontent with a system of taxes and tariffs that seemed to be mainly aimed at keeping the mother country rich. If the Imperium simply declared "hands off" in issues of taxation, it could avoid the whole spectrum of those problems. What could it tax, then? Perhaps it taxes interworld commerce. It wouldn't want to tax that too much, because it wouldn't want to stifle it, but that's a source. At the same time, the Imperium doesn't really need a lot of revenue. After all, most of the things that a government has to pay money for have already been taken care of by the local governments. This really leaves, in my opinion, only a few things to pay for: noble incomes, the IISS, and the Imperial Navy. Of the three, the Imperial Navy is by far the biggest bill, but is it really enormous? Probably not.

Look at it this way: Vland sector has about 677 billion Imperial subjects living in it, with a Gross Sector Product (for just the Imperial component) of about 5,930 trillion credits. It also has a total trade volume (adjusted for the number of Imperial subjects) of 72.8 trillion credits. Now, I take great exception to the canon economic values, but we'll stick with them for the purposes of this. That trade volume represents something like 1.23% of the economy of the sector, so it's really not a major factor in anyone's lives (outside of the traders, of course ^_^).

Let's say the Imperium levies a trade tariff of 1% against that trade. That's an extremely low tariff, but it still gives the Imperium a revenue of 728 billion credits a year for Vland sector alone. To pay the nobility, the costs of the IISS and Imperial Navy, and general Imperial projects. Now, it's possible that the nobility isn't even paid (since higher noble families are typically landed, they may get all their income from their lands), but even if they are, their income would be a rounding error against a sector revenue of 728 billion. If we assume that the Navy gets 60% of that (leaving the other 40 for the IISS and the other miscellaneous Imperial projects, such as Longbow and the like), it's looking at 427 billion credits a year. And how much would the Navy have to do in Vland sector? Probably not much. The individual worlds - at least the wealthy ones - handle their own small scale defense and policing. The Imperial Navy probably only has to deal with system defense for poor yet important systems, leaving the rest of the Navy free to concentrate on pure Imperial defense against major foreign powers.

I suspect that Imperial revenue is far greater than this, but you could easily see how you could get an order of magnitude more revenue for the Imperium without doing more than imposing a fairly lightweight tariff on interworld trade. The canon size of the Navy (from the various sourcebooks) seem to be easily supportable at this level of revenue.

My own take on the Imperial nobility is that they exist mainly because someone has to administer the Imperium, and that it's far easier to do so if you limit the number of people you have to consider. There are relatively few rulers of Imperial domains - hell, there are relatively few rulers of Imperial counties - and you still have a huge pile of nobles to choose from. Strephon could make Norris Archduke of Deneb because, even limiting the candidates to upper level nobility, there were so many people to choose from. And from Strephon's point of view, there'd be a good chance that the next Archduke of Deneb would come from Norris' family because the best way to learn to rule a domain is from the Archduke of a domain.

The Imperial nobility appear to be a pool of candidates which are cheap for the Imperium to support. Assuming that the character creation rules that allow characters to increase their social standing are literal (i.e.: it's possible for anyone to increase their social standing in the Third Imperium, as opposed to those rules simply saying "oh, you were a Baron all along"), the barrier of entry to that pool is pretty porous, too.

 

[Carlobrand]

...A long time ago I learned that as the referee (or GM/DM/whathaveyou) just because a player realizes that the rules say that something can be done you are not obligated to allow it. This includes weird race/class/weapon combinations that turn characters into absolute death machines, weapon/feat combinations that make a character semi-invulnerable and the like. In a similar vein I don't feel at all obligated to let a player have a hop drive just because they work out a way to build it with the tech staging chart (and by extension I wouldn't say that the Imperium must have the ability to built them just because the tech staging chart works out that way).

Provisional agreement, with the provision being that it's a good idea to collect those somewhere so you can let new players know up-front, unless you're dealing with a clever new twist that some imaginative soul pulled out of his or her hat in the midst of a game session.

 

[esampson]

Provisional agreement, with the provision being that it's a good idea to collect those somewhere so you can let new players know up-front, unless you're dealing with a clever new twist that some imaginative soul pulled out of his or her hat in the midst of a game session.

Certainly when you are dealing with more general house rules (e.g. we are going to make this modification to laser pistols) it's a good idea to collect those somewhere, but what I was mostly referring to was the fact that just because someone can create some sort of unexpected combination you don't have to allow it.

In the case of players purchasing hop drives I would not feel nearly the need to document it because my own personal style tends to be 'just because it's in the book doesn't mean you can buy it'. Saying 'no, you can't buy an experimental hop drive even though the planet is TL15' isn't really any different to me than saying 'no, you can't buy nuclear warheads even though those are included in the book' (and before anyone says it, yes, I know they are banned by Imperial law. However it wouldn't be that unusual for a player to say 'can I find an illegal arms dealer and purchase them from him?')

 

[Carlobrand]

Certainly when you are dealing with more general house rules (e.g. we are going to make this modification to laser pistols) it's a good idea to collect those somewhere, but what I was mostly referring to was the fact that just because someone can create some sort of unexpected combination you don't have to allow it.

In the case of players purchasing hop drives I would not feel nearly the need to document it because my own personal style tends to be 'just because it's in the book doesn't mean you can buy it'. Saying 'no, you can't buy an experimental hop drive even though the planet is TL15' isn't really any different to me than saying 'no, you can't buy nuclear warheads even though those are included in the book' (and before anyone says it, yes, I know they are banned by Imperial law. However it wouldn't be that unusual for a player to say 'can I find an illegal arms dealer and purchase them from him?')

I agree with that. My pc's and mercs wouldn't get battle dress and advanced energy weapons, top-quality computers, anything that might put them on an equal footing with Imperials. If one want to find a way to acquire such things illegally, one had best be a government with deep pockets and very skilled espionage resources, 'cause the no one in the organized crime world is going to risk the precautions in place to prevent or react to unauthorized transfer of such tech.

 

[McPerth]

I agree with what you say about availability for players, but I wat talking about availability to IN and Imperial agents.

The same fact of availability (even if somewhat unreliable) hoop drive to IN allows for those gigatenders and fast courriers (as I guess at those TL only hoop 1 will be available, I guess we're talking about 10 parsecs a week), that will allow even to probably cross the Great Rift in a few weeks and to move reinforcements forward to battle lines quite quicker tan most canon tells us.

So, as told, I see it a MAJOR retcon to allow those drives at TL 15-16, even if unreliable, that "shrinks" the Imperium and changes the setting too much to my liking (repeat: to MY liking).

 

[mike wightman]

The FFW boardgame includes several TL15 merc units an even a TL16 outfit for hire.

Perhaps its a matter of who you know and what your Soc is

As for hop rives the only way I could see it happening is for the Imperium to reverse engineer a higher TL ship, much like they did with black globe generators.

There is no evidence of this happening in the OTU up to 1248

 

[esampson]

I agree with what you say about availability for players, but I wat talking about availability to IN and Imperial agents.

The same fact of availability (even if somewhat unreliable) hoop drive to IN allows for those gigatenders and fast courriers (as I guess at those TL only hoop 1 will be available, I guess we're talking about 10 parsecs a week), that will allow even to probably cross the Great Rift in a few weeks and to move reinforcements forward to battle lines quite quicker tan most canon tells us.

So, as told, I see it a MAJOR retcon to allow those drives at TL 15-16, even if unreliable, that "shrinks" the Imperium and changes the setting too much to my liking (repeat: to MY liking).

My point isn't that hop drives are available to Imperial agents but not to players. It is that sometimes as a referee you end up saying that even though the rules as written imply a certain thing can occur (through the various combinations that can be created) you don't have to say that it actually does occur.

This is why the Imperium doesn't have hop drive battle carriers and why the world of Flooziedoodle isn't overrun by half-elf/half-ogre warrior/wizards who have taken feats X and Y and use the exotic dwarven smashmaster even though that combination is legal by the rules and results in an almost unstoppable character.

 

[McPerth]

The FFW boardgame includes several TL15 merc units an even a TL16 outfit for hire.

Perhaps its a matter of who you know and what your Soc is

I guess there exist in the Imperium some merc units equiped to Imperial standards (and maybe even higher), but I also guess most of them are former military (and highly trusted) personnel, if not directly "black" Imperial units, or at leat in hire of Imperial Intelligence (no matter which agency), not unlikely what Air America film depicts...

 

[Chuck Anumia]

Mercenaries

The FFW boardgame includes several TL15 merc units an even a TL16 outfit for hire.

Perhaps its a matter of who you know and what your Soc is

I guess there exist in the Imperium some merc units equiped to Imperial standards (and maybe even higher), but I also guess most of them are former military (and highly trusted) personnel, if not directly "black" Imperial units, or at leat in hire of Imperial Intelligence (no matter which agency), not unlikely what Air America film depicts...

Exactly!

I have my Caste Of Assassins (™) Mercenary Corps with at least one battalion (1,000 members) with Battle Dress and Energy weapons. All members are honorably discharged former members of the military and the entire corps is owned and operated by an Imperial Noble (whose homeworld produces Battle dress for the Imperium)
Other Mercenary units may have a few sets of Battle Dress left over and repaired after being discarded by other units but it is costly to acquire and maintain and no other units have more than 20 or so sets.

 

[darue]

probably been said before but: the Imperium doesn't rule the worlds, it rules the space between. Each planet has it's totally own form of government and Law, though nominally democratic/representative forms are 'preferred' and most common, almost anything is possible.

What the Imperium does:

1. The Imperium is able to excise a portion of the productivity of the planets, in the form of resources, value added goods and services. This is how the "tax" is paid.

2. A Bill of Rights of Citizens of the Imperium is enforced, setting a 'minimum legal standard'

3. 'civilian' Nobles of the Imperium control (most of the time) the Navy. They don't have all that much to worry about since subordinates are handling most issues. Info-systems and record keeping enable a fair degree of verifying performance and compliance, "corruption" is likely very limited, psychological testing is likely used on Nobles and they are inculcated from birth with the Obligations of their rank. They also want for nothing, and are unlikely to be bribed by "credits"

4. Control interplanetary communications via the x-boat network. (yes, they probably get an echo of every message, have faith in your encryption? I wouldn't) But also by the ability of the navy to interdict shipping. The Navy can challenge and board anyone they want anytime they want.

5. Gather information via the scout service and any other source available. The Imperial Bureaucracy is the ONE PLACE were info from around the galaxy is aggregated. They have a near monopoly on wide scale up to date information.

6. Real-Big Science and Vast Resources unrivaled by even megacorps. As they can compel co-operation from any megacorp

7. other things I'm forgetting to mention

but basically, they do one thing and do it well, control space. There's not that much to be gained by having instead many smaller regional organizations, for the most part Worlds have little interest in resisting or leaving the imperium, they mostly all get more than they give, and face little interference with how their own worlds are run. People can move to another planet if they don't like theirs. 99% of the population never even sees an imperial official outside of entertainment or documentary material. All in all, seems like not a bad system.

 

[SpaceBadger]

I have my Caste Of Assassins (™) Mercenary Corps with at least one battalion (1,000 members) with Battle Dress and Energy weapons. All members are honorably discharged former members of the military and the entire corps is owned and operated by an Imperial Noble (whose homeworld produces Battle dress for the Imperium)

Umm, why would a bunch of elite mercenaries who are honorably-discharged former military men want to refer to themselves as a "Caste of Assassins"? Do those words mean something different in their language?