What makes the Imperium a Feudal Technocracy?

[aramis]

Are D and E class starports Imperial territory as well? Isn't that stretching it a bit much for an E-class starport which is described as follows.



I am not sure if I were running a planet that I would want my only contact with the galaxy controlled by an outside power. Can local planets establish and run their own starports? And if not, where does it specifically say that in the rules?

Lastly, how is that going to be enforced in an asteroid belt, or a system with a large number of local spaceports for intra-system traffic?

The E-Ports (which almost disappeared in T5) might not, but the D ports certainly do count as extraterritorial.

Tho' there's no reason even an E-port can't be clearly delineated.

Also, keep in mind that the codes are the minimum services for that level. As long as one or more are missing from the next level, they might have everything else.

Looking at MegaTraveller (because it's to hand...

An E Port has a beacon and a place to land as the minimum.
A D port has minor repairs and unrefined fuel, as well as a broker.
A C port has major repairs (implying a crane-equipped hangar), a better broker (which implies multiple brokers).
A B port has a shipyard proper, a bank office, and even more and better brokers, as well as refined fuel ready for sale.
An A port has a shipyard equipped for jump-capable ship construction.

In theory, if the port has everything but a bank office, it's STILL a C-port... because you can't make your payments there, so it's not a B-port despite the Bilstein Yards.

So, an E-port in the middle of the desert may look like an A-port, but have no readily available fuel... at which point, it's an E-port.

As for enforcement... the Imperial agencies will only do business at the designated port.

 

[mike wightman]

So are we now moving to the postulation:

the Imperium owns all the star ports in Imperial space - even the E ones - and hence is a technocracy because it controls the means for interstellar trade.

 

[rancke]

So are we now moving to the postulation:

the Imperium owns all the star ports in Imperial space - even the E ones - and hence is a technocracy because it controls the means for interstellar trade.

I'm not. The Imperium doesn't control the means for interstellar trade if starships can use the spaceports -- which I'm pretty sure they can, although I can't recall any references to that effect offhand.


Hans

 

[mike wightman]

Me neither, I'm not even convinced by the "Imperium owns all the star ports" argument.

Is this definitively stated somewhere?

 

[rancke]

Me neither, I'm not even convinced by the "Imperium owns all the star ports" argument.

Is this definitively stated somewhere?

Probably in GT: Starports if not anywhere else, though I think it was mentioned in CT and/or MT. The extraterritorial status is certainly mentioned many places.

There was an article in one issue of JTAS about the Starport Authority. That probably mentions it.


Hans

 

[Sir Brad]

JTAS #7 P. 6-12 talks about Champa Starport as an exemplar of an Imperial Starport.

 

[mike wightman]

But are we sure that every starport in the Imperium belongs to the Imperium and not the world?

I've long thought this to be the case, I just wonder if there is any evidence of other ownership.

Hmm, Fulacin starport in Twilight's peak is owned by the corporation, not the Imperium...

 

[rancke]

Now that you bring it up, I can think of other examples. There's one in BtC that belongs to a bank and the one on Aramanx was "financed by a consortium of Imperial commercial concerns at the urging of Sternmetal Horizons, LIC, which has a heavy interest in Aramanx." [TA:71]

The JTAS article I was thinking of must have been Skyport Authority by John M. Ford in JTAS #19, which is one of the issues I don't have. He was the author of GT: Starports, so I'm sure the ideas expressed there align with the ideas from the article.

There's an article on the Traveller wiki about the Starport Authority that looks like it was extracted from Starports. It says that "Over 97% of the starports within the Imperium and over 40% of those found on nearby non-member worlds are Imperial ports." That does leave a bit of wiggle room for atypical setups like the Fulacin one. (Roughly 300 in the whole Imperium -- an average of one per subsector).


Hans

 

[Carlobrand]

There's Paya's starport in Traveller Adventure, owned and operated by Oberlindes, in a tale which also establishes that the Imperium ain't doing anything to protect member worlds from interplanetary hazards - or else they were remarkably incompetent at it on this one occasion, or maybe Paya wasn't a member at that time. Hints there that the local government doesn't have any real authority inside the port, but the authority vests to Oberlindes, not the Imperium - unless it's some unmentioned subcontract thing.

Also establishes the Imperial Prime Directive: "The local government's territorial claims to the world of habitation shall be fully respected no matter how few the locals or how absurdly little power they might actually have to enforce those claims." Which most MegaCorps get around by helping some local faction overthrow the local government. Nasty loophole, that.

 

[Timerover51]

Is there anything in the rules which bars a planet from having an additional star port under its control?

 

[rancke]

Is there anything in the rules which bars a planet from having an additional star port under its control?

Not as far as I know, and there are at least two examples of worlds that have just that (Terra and Regina). I believe they are referred to as spaceports, but that's just a matter of terminology.

As I said earlier, I think of the Imperial starports as a way to prevent the member worlds from having a starport monopoly, not a way to impose a monopoly on the member worlds.


Hans

 

[Sir Brad]

IIRC the Imperium has legal jurisdiction over the worlds Primary Starport, regardless of who actually owns it, other starports can be built and can be also under Imperial jurisdiction or local jurisdiction. I think once or twice there are accounts of private owners having starport facilities that where better than the worlds "Official" Starport, but they where usually for private use by the owners interests.

 

[Ulsyus]

There's Paya's starport in Traveller Adventure, owned and operated by Oberlindes, in a tale which also establishes that the Imperium ain't doing anything to protect member worlds from interplanetary hazards - or else they were remarkably incompetent at it on this one occasion, or maybe Paya wasn't a member at that time. Hints there that the local government doesn't have any real authority inside the port, but the authority vests to Oberlindes, not the Imperium - unless it's some unmentioned subcontract thing.

If there's a local 3I noble responsible for that world or system, they may take an easy path and subcontract out to a corporation to do the running for them, so long as Imperial taxes, duties and fees keep rolling in. The analogy I have in mind here is the tax farmers used by the Roman and Byzantine empires, particularly in Anatolia and the Levant. That could explain the presence of a corporation running a starport, and the the port still having extraterritoriality WRT the planet.

Is there anything in the rules which bars a planet from having an additional star port under its control?

Probably not, but they may be classed as spaceports...

 

[kilemall]

Hmm.

Reading over this as I was trying to explain to non-players what Feudal Technocracy is.

The example that pops into my mind is Rollerball's corporations.

Of course, the fact that you can't get power anywhere but from Houston's Energy doesn't exactly make it 'rulership and services by consent'. Perhaps more consent and bargaining between the corporations for services provided for 'their' employee/citizens.

As noted, the main OTU contractees would be the planets signing up for the Imperium for lack of a better term, space services, and the Imperium itself.

Perhaps another more subtle service is ensuring that there IS trade to occur, which means letting planets rise or fall to their natural TL value rather then interventionist policies so that there are the productive and the non-productive or exploited planets.

Or perhaps allowing wars civil or uncivil to occur on the planetary level, the allowing of small brush fires to clear the undergrowth and prevent a massive fire that would threaten 'the forest'.

Another 'services by consent of the governed' example might be turning the noble meme upside down- perhaps planets, megacorps or whomever contracts for 'their nobles' as representatives and troubleshooters for their interests.

As such, a family might serve as the nobles for a planet or a region by general acclaim for generations, but enough unrest or dissatisfaction and a new noble is reassigned/created- avoiding the whole issue of elections or other governance yet being reactive to local preferences and needs.

Finally, could be that 'services for consent of the governed' could imply an interstellar right of changing citizenship of planets, the services of taxation and residence and profitable planetside economic governance and possibly additional social/economic services.

I'm gathering there are some T5 definitions on this relationship that would supercede previous material, just throwing this one out there for discussion as to how a functioning feudal technocracy would be a working thing.

 

[BwapTED]

Now that you bring it up, I can think of other examples. There's one in BtC that belongs to a bank and the one on Aramanx was "financed by a consortium of Imperial commercial concerns at the urging of Sternmetal Horizons, LIC, which has a heavy interest in Aramanx." [TA:71]

The JTAS article I was thinking of must have been Skyport Authority by John M. Ford in JTAS #19, which is one of the issues I don't have. He was the author of GT: Starports, so I'm sure the ideas expressed there align with the ideas from the article.

There's an article on the Traveller wiki about the Starport Authority that looks like it was extracted from Starports. It says that "Over 97% of the starports within the Imperium and over 40% of those found on nearby non-member worlds are Imperial ports." That does leave a bit of wiggle room for atypical setups like the Fulacin one. (Roughly 300 in the whole Imperium -- an average of one per subsector).


Hans

Right, so the Imperium controls or owns (whichever) the vast majority of starports.
And these starports are part of the "space between worlds", which the Imperium governs, and not under the jurisdiction of the member worlds. Extrality lines and all that.

The Imperium seems to me to be feudal in the sense that anything is feudal.
(Historians tend not to use the word so often these days, at least not without qualification, for what seem to me very good reasons. But we aren't discussing Medieval Europe, or historiography, but a game setting. No need to get pedantic.)

The Imperium has a monarch and a bunch of peers/nobles, with oaths of fealty, fiefs, and vassalage.

The navy career seems to open a lot of doors for higher social status (I mean that a character's SOC can go up from random rolls, unlike most services). This suggests to me a strong link between the upper ranks of society/ the nobility and the fleets of starships that the Imperium uses to police its space and fights its wars.
Advantageous marriages?


On top of all this, the Imperium of the OTU is something like default TL 15, right?

But a lot of worlds are lower.

This could just be uneven development , varying population levels, resource differences, etc. To a large extent, I imagine it is.

But it does possibly suggests that the Imperium controls a lot of advanced tech, and the people running the show use that technical advantage to maintain political control on many worlds.

 

[BwapTED]

I definitely seem room for a less 'feudal' take on the 31, even within what I know of the OTU.
Which is a lot less than an actual expert, like Rancke.


It could be a sort of Bonapartist system, with an emperor and a nobility that's as much meritocratic as it is hereditary. Win enough victories for the Imperium and you may get knighted, then maybe you begin to rise up the chain, all the way to Duke/Duchess, even.
The careers are open to talents, as the saying went.
The Emperor has great powers. He's basically a military dictator in the clothing of a monarch. Thus the Right of Fleet Control as a precedent for taking the throne (this echoes Roman history, too, natch, which I am certain the writers intended).
The Moot advises, and confirms the Emperor's right to rule, but it's not a parliament actually running the Imperium.

 

[kilemall]

The Imperium seems to me to be feudal in the sense that anything is feudal.
(Historians tend not to use the word so often these days, at least not without qualification, for what seem to me very good reasons. But we aren't discussing Medieval Europe, or historiography, but a game setting. No need to get pedantic.)

Rancke is unfortunately an absent friend and thus unavailable to respond to any charges of being pedantic.

But I expect he wouldn't mind being argued with one last time.

 

[BwapTED]

Rancke is unfortunately an absent friend and thus unavailable to respond to any charges of being pedantic.

But I expect he wouldn't mind being argued with one last time.

Oh, I was thinking more of my own tendency to get a bit pedantic about history.
Not Hans!



EDIT:

Oh, absent. He passed away? RIP, Hans.

 

[BwapTED]

Starports as fiefs, with the nobles collecting revenues from them and paying regular tribute/fees to the Emperor?

 

[Condottiere]

Unlikely, if the intent is to promote trade.