mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
I would have thought the megacorportions have more influence on planetary economies than the Imperial government does.
Men, not Laws
- Thread starter Azezel
- Start date
The analogy is strained. The Imperium's relationship with it's member worlds is different from the US Federal government's relationship with the states. Prior canon stated that one port is the Imperial starport and that one port has extrality. The rest belong to the member world and does not have extrality. It also stated that the Imperium allowed its member worlds considerable autonomy.
That's a very big 'only' though. And which is it? Do the SPA force all interstellar trade to go through the Imperial starport or do they run the secondary startports too? Both seems to be overkill.
Who says they need to be able to provide Imperial customs and immigration clearance? Customs and immigration issues would seem to be a matter for the member world. In the adventure Zilan Wine, the permits are issued by Zilan officials, not Imperial SPA officials. (In the cut-and-paste counterpart adventure Exit Visa, the local authorities (of Alell) even have the authority to prevent or allow a ship inside the Imperial starport to take off -- that one I find pretty hard to swallow
.)I am thinking about them. They were run by the countries they provided access to, not by an empire that allowed its members full autonomy.
Hans
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Drakon
SOC-14 1K
Some thoughts
This is a fascinating thread, so I thought I would toss in a couple pence.
1) Its always a "Rule of Men". We attempt to bind men's actions with laws, but unless you have "good, decent" men enforcing those laws, laws are meaningless.
2) Bearer Warrants: There are several aspects of political power that are kind of glossed over. While theoretically the Emperor can do as he pleases, if his action are displeasing to enough folks, or even just enough of the right folks, he can find himself in a grave situation. Bearer Warrants give him "plausible deniability".
At worst, he takes a beating for "wondering aloud who would rid him of a troublesome priest", rather than out and out murder of an unarmed clergyman. "He said he could take care of things, and he betrayed my trust." This is at least a valid or understandable defense for politically frightening actions.
3) Wealth and power are two different things. They are often equated and confused and understandably so. People with political power always try to leverage that power into greater wealth. The old aristocracy owned the land and had the ability to rob, I mean "tax", anyone on their land. The modern congress critter or parliment member will be perfectly willing to discuss that special legislation you desire, for the right price.
Power is coersive, compulsive. Wealth is persuasive, but not complusive.
This is a fascinating thread, so I thought I would toss in a couple pence.
1) Its always a "Rule of Men". We attempt to bind men's actions with laws, but unless you have "good, decent" men enforcing those laws, laws are meaningless.
2) Bearer Warrants: There are several aspects of political power that are kind of glossed over. While theoretically the Emperor can do as he pleases, if his action are displeasing to enough folks, or even just enough of the right folks, he can find himself in a grave situation. Bearer Warrants give him "plausible deniability".
At worst, he takes a beating for "wondering aloud who would rid him of a troublesome priest", rather than out and out murder of an unarmed clergyman. "He said he could take care of things, and he betrayed my trust." This is at least a valid or understandable defense for politically frightening actions.
3) Wealth and power are two different things. They are often equated and confused and understandably so. People with political power always try to leverage that power into greater wealth. The old aristocracy owned the land and had the ability to rob, I mean "tax", anyone on their land. The modern congress critter or parliment member will be perfectly willing to discuss that special legislation you desire, for the right price.
Power is coersive, compulsive. Wealth is persuasive, but not complusive.
Quite possible. But that doesn't mean that influence is particularily big. (Again, note that I'm talking about high-population worlds; I'm sure interstellar companies can have a lot of influence of worlds below pop 8).
Hans
The function is one of regulation. The Imperium regulates traffic and sets the standards of safety and space worthiness. This has nothing to do with extrality it has to do with access. If you can't meet the standards you can't access the Imperial Starport.
Nobody except you is saying that the SPA run anything other than the Imperial Starport. The Imperium only has to say that any starship arriving from another system not transiting through the Starport is suspect of smuggling or committing a crime.
Who says they need to be able to provide Imperial customs and immigration clearance? Customs and immigration issues would seem to be a matter for the member world. In the adventure Zilan Wine, the permits are issued by Zilan officials, not Imperial SPA officials. (In the cut-and-paste counterpart adventure Exit Visa, the local authorities (of Alell) even have the authority to prevent or allow a ship inside the Imperial starport to take off -- that one I find pretty hard to swallow
It doesn't have to be "Imperial" customs and immigration. If the Imperium leaves these matters exclusively to local authorities then what better place to use as the port of entry than the Imperial Starport? One reason International airports exist is because they act as ports of entry where documentation can be checked and goods can clear customs/biosecurity/immigration.
An international flight that lands at a local airport must either organizes for customs and other officials to be waiting for them when they land or be suspected of illegal activity.
You've missed the point. despite the availability of multiple ports capable of being used as a point of entry those countries decided to limit the numbers of ports of entry for international shipping for economical and security reasons.
In Traveller, the Imperial Starport makes a perfect port of entry for interstellar shipping. Rather than having a porous border with many spaceports where smugglers or illegal migrants can enter camouflaged by legitimate traffic you limit the legitimate traffic to one port of entry and treat everything else as suspect. The extrality line at the Imperial Starport makes a good point to set up your offices and scanners.
Excellent point. I love your evil mind
Very well explained and observed from the real world.
(emphasis is mine)
In this case (smugling and edicts) also planetary laws have something to say. Imperium may allow you to carry weapons, but if the planetary authorities don't, you're smuggling them if you take them to the planet.
It also has had to persuade the member world to accept a membership treaty that signs away its ability to regulate its own trade.
The ones the member world built to handle the traffic overflow that the Imperial starport doesn't have the capacity to handle. If the Imperial starport could handle everything, what would be the point of building the others?
How many international airports does the US have?
If the secondary starport receives regular traffic there will be customs and other officials ready there.
No, you've missed the point. That was the choice of those countries, not imposed from the outside.
And any world that feels like that will likely rely on the Imperial Starport. But canon evidence shows that at least some worlds do have secondary starports. Obviously they belong to the worlds that don't feel like that.
And with secondary starports an option, the fact that a world nevertheless relies on the Imperial starport alone would indicate that the SPA didn't use its position to help Imperial corporations at the expense of the locals.
Hans
With his signature and the stringent verification procedures such a powerful document would no doubt have, it's going to be a little hard for him to deny anything. Imperial warrants aren't about deniability. They're about marching into the offices of powerful provincial nobles and persuading them that they'd better do what the bearer says, or else. Plausible deniability is the last thing you want for something like that. ("I'm sorry, your Imperial Majesty, I was convinced that warrant didn't belong to the bearer.")
Hans
Vladika
SOC-14 1K
This is true, but, the Emperor could always claim the agent went rouge, and/or vastly exceeded his instructions?
Wrong kind of deniability, Hans.
"He exceeded his mandate" and "We had no idea this man was so ruthless when we warranted him" is the kind of deniability involved.
But that wouldn't need a 'to bearer' warrant to work. Just pick the right man (someone you can sacrifice with impunity) and write his name on the warrant. Or if you want an extra layer of deniability, send a blank warrant to one of your dukes and instruct him to select someone suitable to do the job and write his name on the blank warrant.
Hans
Ouch! Very true indeed
Which, as evidenced in the story of Norris coming to power, does happen.
with the non specific warrant you can send out "Agent Baxter" they can introduce themselves as Mr Smith, Duke Carter, Dr. Philips or Emmy-Sue Welsh Fetish ⌧ Queen of the Solomani Rim and still execute the powers of the warrant without having to make sure they are using the Identity who is on the warrant or making you make out warrants for all their identities and a few spare in case they need to take a new name mid mission.
I did some SWAGging with some maps and...
By those parameters, Ziru Sirka was about 4.5 times too far from Vland to the Solomani Rim, 2.5 times from Hub/Ershur if the Rule of Man had moved there, and still about two-thirds bigger than possible for the Third Imperium.
Or, maybe I brained it too much...
use 8 days per jump for a courier network at J2, the 3 (30.4day each) month rule gives 91 days, or 11 jumps.
J2 should thus give about 22pc - filling a sector.
Note that decentralization may allow infeudation to expand that to 6 months to the edge - the largest empires in history were not infeudated in a practical manner. Which said, we can push to 23 jumps for the command net...
| Jn | 3 month | 6 month |
| 1 | 11pc | 23pc |
| 2 | 22pc | 46pc |
| 3 | 33pc | 69pc |
| 4 | 44pc | 92pc |
| 5 | 55pc | 115pc |
| 6 | 66pc | 138pc |
Note that Capital to Earth is about 130 Pc; vland is about another 40.
Vilani culture might have been able to push out further due to its extreme conservatism... or might have been exploding at the point it went to war with Earth... or both. As in, even if they hadn't found earth, they probably wouldn't have remained one empire for long.
I fully agree with you here. I guess no 'to bearer' warrants would be issued, just to avoid the ending like the one issued by Chardinal Richelieu at the end of The Three Musketers.
Your data suggests an undisclosed J6 network may be in use to bind the more distant reaches of the Imperium to its center. I've used something like that in my TU: a classified J6 network running through the naval bases and used only for high-priority military communications. It's actually about the only way I can figure for initial Imperial reinforcements in Fifth Frontier War to arrive on the schedule required in the game. Also makes it more realistic for information to travel the 150-160 some-odd parsecs from Regina to Capital and for an Imperial warrant to get back in the year and some months between the time Santonocheev started looking like an idiot and the time Norris stepped in. I leave the Xboat network for general administrative and civilian communications.
Also means the Domain of Deneb is ideally situated for a breakaway: right at the edge of that limit, with only a ribbon of space through which the Imperium can send forces to contest such a move. Puts an interesting perspective on the whole Psionics Suppression business.
Undisclosed nothing. It has been a known fact that the Imperial Navy had J6 couriers since CT:Fighting Ships. It's also implied by the ship construction rules that civilians can build J6 ships, which in turn implies the existence of J6 commercial passenger liners between high-population worlds.
Basically, the MT writers who made up the story that gave Norris several months advance warning of Strephon's death messed up big time, ignoring both canon and simple logic.
Yes, I worked out the timing once and the reinforcements from Corridor arrive pretty much on shedule for having been alerted by J6.
The politcal faction that Santanocheev belonged to started looking like idiots several years before he became their poster boy. Norris's petition to the Emperor reached him (the Emperor) in 1104.
I have the Imperial Bureaucracy sending reports and orders by the X-boats according to 400 year old regulations, and then sending copies by Navy couriers that arrive long before the originals. My take is that it all started when Jump-5 as invented. The Navy kept the drive a military secret for a couple of decades and when the drive was declassified, no one wanted to fund an upgrad of the X-boat network, because "NavyNet" worked perfectly well for them. Something similar happened again when J6 was invented.
Hans
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