Imperial inter-border fleets.

[Blue Ghost]

Given Imperial naval organization, do the various pre-Rebellion factions keep fleets along borders of rival factions? Do Lucan, Dulinor and Margaret keep patrols along their borders with one another, or is there enough homogeneity among the major nobles that civil-war doesn't become a consideration until a major event, like the assassination of Strepheron, occurs?

How much tension is there between Norris and his rimward neighbor? Dude has enough to worry about with Swordys, Vargr and Zhos, but does he also have to worry about Lucan or the guys from Denab?

Thoughts?

 

[rancke]

Given Imperial naval organization, do the various pre-Rebellion factions keep fleets along borders of rival factions? Do Lucan, Dulinor and Margaret keep patrols along their borders with one another, or is there enough homogeneity among the major nobles that civil-war doesn't become a consideration until a major event, like the assassination of Strephon, occurs?

Do the US states keep their national guards on patrol along borders to neighboring states?

There are no pre-Rebellion factions in the teritorial sense. The domains are largely defunct, although Strephon is trying to revive them a bit. Sectors seems to be purely administrative units[*]. Duchy borders are not fixed by wars but by Imperial edicts.

You could probably come up with a setting that has two neighboring dukes feuding, but most duchies would have no need to guard against aggression from adjacent duchies. I think any duke that was caught directing violence against a fellow duke would be stripped of his honors and his office by the Emperor.

[*] Except for one statement where I believe 'sector' is erroneously used for 'subsector'.​

How much tension is there between Norris and his rimward neighbor?

Politically, quite a lot; they belong to two different political factions.

Dude has enough to worry about with Swordys, Vargr and Zhos, but does he also have to worry about Lucan or the guys from Deneb?

Lucan is an idle layabout and no problem (you did say pre-Rebellion, right?) and the Duke of Usani is four duchies away.

(Post-Rebellion Lucan can't get at "Archduke" Norris and the other dukes in the Domain of Deneb tacitly (or perhaps even explicitly, if there has been secret negotiations) accept his transparent ploy to become archduke.)


Hans

 

[Dagrill]

Given Imperial naval organization, do the various pre-Rebellion factions keep fleets along borders of rival factions? Do Lucan, Dulinor and Margaret keep patrols along their borders with one another, or is there enough homogeneity among the major nobles that civil-war doesn't become a consideration until a major event, like the assassination of Strepheron, occurs?
Thoughts?

Hi,

I prefer the Gurps universe where the Secret Service does it's job and the empire enters a golden age of prosperity and growth.

However, I would still see the Nobles bickering amongst themselves, although I think Norris' (after his promotion) major concern would be Duchess Delphine of Mora, creating a viable Border Worlds and realtions with the Vargr and the new state in the Vilis subsector. I don't know enough about Lucan, Dulinor & Margaret to comment about them.

Regards

david

 

[McPerth]

Given Imperial naval organization, do the various pre-Rebellion factions keep fleets along borders of rival factions?

Do the US states keep their national guards on patrol along borders to neighboring states?

I agree with Hans here. IMHO it's a good paralelism.

Do Lucan, Dulinor and Margaret keep patrols along their borders with one another, or is there enough homogeneity among the major nobles that civil-war doesn't become a consideration until a major event, like the assassination of Strepheron, occurs?

Until Strephon's murder, Lucan was just a court boy, and Margaret and Dulinor were two nobles more in the Moot (albeit influent ones, Dulinor as an Archiduke and Margaret as an Emperor 's relative)

How much tension is there between Norris and his rimward neighbor? Dude has enough to worry about with Swordys, Vargr and Zhos, but does he also have to worry about Lucan or the guys from Deneb?

Before the Rebellion, thre was no tension. Deneb and Corridor were the SM's link with the Imperium, and the base for most of the reinforcements, should another Frontier War occur, and Norris was not the highest Rank noble in SM, so his voice has no more offical weight than any other noble's there.

You could probably come up with a setting that has two neighboring dukes feuding, but most duchies would have no need to guard against aggression from adjacent duchies. I think any duke that was caught directing violence against a fellow duke would be stripped of his honors and his office by the Emperor.

There are canon examples of this (as Suffren and Backman in Diaspora), but I also agree that any violence among them will be stopped by the Imperium, and my guess is that where there's danger of it, IN would be stronguer than usual as a deterrant.

 

[Spinward Scout]

You could probably come up with a setting that has two neighboring dukes feuding, but most duchies would have no need to guard against aggression from adjacent duchies. I think any duke that was caught directing violence against a fellow duke would be stripped of his honors and his office by the Emperor.

I always got the opposite feeling, especially with Mercenaries throughout the Imperium. And the Imperial Rules of War could just as easily be applied inside the Imperium. Or maybe I've read/watched Dune too many times... But there would definitely be a lot of "Cold Wars" between large Corporations and MegaCorps. Maybe even between Imperial Domains. Would having a Duke as Chairman of the Board of a Corp stop another Corp from Corporate Espionage or worse?

 

[Carlobrand]

...How much tension is there between Norris and his rimward neighbor? Dude has enough to worry about with Swordys, Vargr and Zhos, but does he also have to worry about Lucan or the guys from Denab?

Thoughts?

Norris' rimward neighbor is Corridor, a half-empty sector that is very like an isthmus connecting the Marches to the rest of the Imperium. As such, it is home to the Corridor Fleet and is far more concerned with keeping the narrow ismuth open - there apparently being a whole lotta Vargr to coreward of Corridor - than with playing political games with the fellow Imperials the next sector over.

As I recall, Lucan is one of Strephon's boys, second in line for the throne. I suspect he's more concerned with palace politics than with what might be happening years away in a distant frontier sector. I don't really see any problem from that quarter unless something happens to Strephon.

 

[rancke]

I always got the opposite feeling, especially with Mercenaries throughout the Imperium. And the Imperial Rules of War could just as easily be applied inside the Imperium.

The Imperial Rules of War do apply inside the Imperium. But mercenaries are employed in conflicts between two sides down on a planet. Offworld interests are allowed to supply aid commensurate with their interests on a world, but they need a local catspaw and having the bulk of a war being financed by offworlders triggers Imperial intervention. In short, the Imperium does not tolerate interstellar conflict, only local planetary conflict.

Or maybe I've read/watched Dune too many times... But there would definitely be a lot of "Cold Wars" between large Corporations and MegaCorps. Maybe even between Imperial Domains. Would having a Duke as Chairman of the Board of a Corp stop another Corp from Corporate Espionage or worse?

Covert conflict escapes Imperial attention by being covert. And it's kinda difficult for a duke to invade a world in a neighboring duchy and remain under the radar. People tend to notice invasion troops.

Note that although trade wars are ignored as long as they stay within certain limits, they are still against Imperial law. It's not a good idea to perform illegal acts right under the nose of Imperial military units.


Hans

 

[Blue Ghost]

Thanks for the replies, and sorry if my Imperium geography was a little confused. I was just skimming the Rebellion sourcebook for some info the other night, and the notion of a civil war within the Imperium, to me at least, suggested that there was military tension of somekind within the Imperium. I thought it might be a holdover from centuries past when there was an actual fracture of the nobility and command structure and fleets and marine regiments were slugging it out.

My thought was that if a rebellion of sorts broke out, then wouldn't there need to be a kind of already existing tension for hostilities to initiate? Maybe the uniformity of the Imperial Navy and other armed forces is a facade, and that there are deep social rifts between polities. I don't know, I'm just kind of tossing out ideas here.

I always thought of the Imperium to be fairly homogeneous prior to Mega-Traveller, with lots of little kingdoms and republics kissing the feet of the core worlds who ran the big armed forces, notably the navy. But MT seemed to "shatter" (to coin a phrase) that idea, and said that maybe the Imperium was that way, but this is how it is now. And, at the risk of repeating myself, if that's the case, then how stable was the Imperium to begin with?

It might make for an interesting alternative setting. :smirk:

 

[rancke]

And, at the risk of repeating myself, if that's the case, then how stable was the Imperium to begin with?

As it turned out, it was a lot less stable than everyone thought it was. The whole shattering is portrayed as a horrible surprise for everyone.

Mind you, the writers really stacked the deck against the Imperium. If Dulinor had succeeded in taking control of Capital, he might have prevailed. If the queen and/or the crown princess had had duties elsewhere on Capital or somewhere else in the Imperium, they could have assumed command. If Lucan hadn't impulsively killed Varian, the "Legitimate Side" would have had a lot less dissention in the ranks. Likewise if he had not failed to kill all the witnesses. If Strephon had made sure Varian and Lucan had gotten some training in governing, Lucan might not have messed up quite so badly. If Archduke Tranian had been a little more on the ball, the Moot might have remained in control. If Varian had lived or Lucan kept the murder secret, he would have had no reason to be afraid of Strephon returning, so Strephon could have gathered Varian/Lucan, Margaret, Craig, the Archduke of Vland, and others under his leadership and defeated Dulinor. If Lucan hadn't been such an ass, he wouldn't have wasted his fleets like he did and wouldn't have driven the marginal sector dukes to secede. If the writers hadn't had such unrealistic ideas about the relative powers of Vargr corsairs and Aslan ihatei on the one hand and planetary defenses of high-population worlds on the other, the Vargr and Aslans wouldn't have made such major inroads on the Imperium. If the Solomani... well, the Solomani would have taken back the entire Solomani Sphere anyway, but that wouldn't have been fatal if the rest of the Imperium had weathered the storm. The Zhodani... the Zhodani might have taken the opportunity to carve the Spinward Marches up into independent buffer states, but again, not a fatal blow.

But be that as it may, the fact that the fragmentation of the Imperium was such a surprise to everyone suggests to me that there were no gross warning signs in the Classic Era. So no tensions strong enough to cause the sort of stress you envisage.


Hans

 

[Blue Ghost]

It reminds me of the old Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact, or maybe even Tito's Yugoslavia, where if there was dissent somewhere the leadership would roll in the tanks. I wasn't sure how mercurial the Imperium was, and then when MT came about in the late 80s it was a "oh wow" kind of moment.

I always pictured various fleets throughou the Imperium as having the basic design for each class of vessel, but that Imperial naval vessels would have the classic sunburst while the sector fleets would sport the crest of the house in control. Norris' unicorn-knight-chess-piece verse Margaret with her stylized bird-of-prey and so forth. I don't think that's unrealistic, but the tension between Imperial fleet units verse sector navies, or even local subsector or planetary/system navies is, well, still kind of murky when I think of the rebellion source book.

I guess you're right. The Rebellion was formulated to create a new dynamic for the game, as such you can't take it too seriously, but it lends one to speculate how smooth the classic 3I setting actually was. I mean were there massive covert operations that not only involved planetside forces, but also naval units engaging one another "on the dark side of the moon" so to speak?

Anyway, thanks for the replies.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Spinward, BG asked about fleets. I agree that there is probably a lot of intrigue (it comes with most political situations, but especially with semi-feudal ones) and maybe even some proxy wars. However, to poise a fleet on a fellow noble's border would be incredibly provocative, and much too obvious.

BG, you could look to the US Civil War as an example, also. Up until the moment of secession, there wasn't a lot of moving of troops. A lot of people simply didn't believe it would happen. When the attacks came they caught everyone by surprise (maybe not the local troops, but a bunch of the political players). It just didn't seem like something that would ever happen - until it did.

 

[Blue Ghost]

*nods in agreement*

That's a very succinct reply. It makes sense.

 

[rancke]

I always pictured various fleets throughou the Imperium as having the basic design for each class of vessel, but that Imperial naval vessels would have the classic sunburst while the sector fleets would sport the crest of the house in control. Norris' unicorn-knight-chess-piece verse Margaret with her stylized bird-of-prey and so forth.

The sector fleets are part of the regular navy. Sector dukes exercise civilian oversight on the sector level and subsector dukes on the duchy level, but the symbol used would be the Imperial Starburst, because it's all the Imperial Navy. It's reasonable to assume that if the duchies fund their own subsector navies, they would use symbols of their own. But the subsector navies of CT were changed to reserve fleets in MT, and I don't know if they have ever been reinstated (however much I'm in favor of doing so ).


Hans

 

[Dagrill]

As it turned out, it was a lot less stable than everyone thought it was. The whole shattering is portrayed as a horrible surprise for everyone.

Mind you, the writers really stacked the deck against the Imperium. If Dulinor had succeeded in taking control of Capital, he might have prevailed. If the queen and/or the crown princess had had duties elsewhere on Capital or somewhere else in the Imperium, they could have assumed command. If Lucan hadn't impulsively killed Varian, the "Legitimate Side" would have had a lot less dissention in the ranks. Likewise if he had not failed to kill all the witnesses. If Strephon had made sure Varian and Lucan had gotten some training in governing, Lucan might not have messed up quite so badly. If Archduke Tranian had been a little more on the ball, the Moot might have remained in control. If Varian had lived or Lucan kept the murder secret, he would have had no reason to be afraid of Strephon returning, so Strephon could have gathered Varian/Lucan, Margaret, Craig, the Archduke of Vland, and others under his leadership and defeated Dulinor. If Lucan hadn't been such an ass, he wouldn't have wasted his fleets like he did and wouldn't have driven the marginal sector dukes to secede. If the writers hadn't had such unrealistic ideas about the relative powers of Vargr corsairs and Aslan ihatei on the one hand and planetary defenses of high-population worlds on the other, the Vargr and Aslans wouldn't have made such major inroads on the Imperium. If the Solomani... well, the Solomani would have taken back the entire Solomani Sphere anyway, but that wouldn't have been fatal if the rest of the Imperium had weathered the storm. The Zhodani... the Zhodani might have taken the opportunity to carve the Spinward Marches up into independent buffer states, but again, not a fatal blow.

But be that as it may, the fact that the fragmentation of the Imperium was such a surprise to everyone suggests to me that there were no gross warning signs in the Classic Era. So no tensions strong enough to cause the sort of stress you envisage.


Hans

Hi Hans,

so many if's it doesn't sound terribly likely, after all how often are the 'Royal family' together as a unit anyway? You might take out the odd one like Diana (or Mounbatten) quite easily, but a wholesale massacre very unlikely, the only thing I can think is that this Lucan must be 12 earth standard years or younger.

I still see it as a rather poorly thought out ATU,

regards

David

 

[Blue Ghost]

Hi Hans,

so many if's it doesn't sound terribly likely, after all how often are the 'Royal family' together as a unit anyway? You might take out the odd one like Diana (or Mounbatten) quite easily, but a wholesale massacre very unlikely, the only thing I can think is that this Lucan must be 12 earth standard years or younger.

I still see it as a rather poorly thought out ATU,

regards

David

Stranger things have happened, I suppose. I guess the rebellion is like the 5th Frontier War; it's there if you want to use it. I had this odd thought that maybe the DGP guys were influenced by the campy 1980 Flash Gordon movie, where Ming keeps his factions bickering.

 

[77topaz]

Norris' rimward neighbor is Corridor, a half-empty sector that is very like an isthmus connecting the Marches to the rest of the Imperium. As such, it is home to the Corridor Fleet and is far more concerned with keeping the narrow ismuth open - there apparently being a whole lotta Vargr to coreward of Corridor - than with playing political games with the fellow Imperials the next sector over.

As I recall, Lucan is one of Strephon's boys, second in line for the throne. I suspect he's more concerned with palace politics than with what might be happening years away in a distant frontier sector. I don't really see any problem from that quarter unless something happens to Strephon.

Corridor is trailward - the sector rimward of the Spinward Marches is Trojan Reach, which, like the Marches, lies on the frontier. Plus, there's numerous Duchies in between the Duchy of Regina (Norris) and Trojan Reach.

 

[Carlobrand]

Corridor is trailward - the sector rimward of the Spinward Marches is Trojan Reach, which, like the Marches, lies on the frontier. Plus, there's numerous Duchies in between the Duchy of Regina (Norris) and Trojan Reach.

Oop. I do that locally too. Can't tell you the number of times I've pointed east and said north. Fortunately, I've never had to depend on my direction sense.