The Regency had so much going on why Norris.
Norris' biggest cult of personality was at GDW or maybe DGP. I don't know which. At some point, he became this guy who could do no wrong.
The problems are the Spinward Marches make a lot more sense if you figure that Norris does make a mistake - he initially supports Lucan. There's frankly no reason why Norris wouldn't, except for Norris' Plot Armor; Norris liked Strephon quite a bit, there's little reason to believe that Norris would be well-inclined towards Strephon's assassin, especially since Dulinor didn't manage to cement his authority and Lucan got named Emperor instead. Once Lucan is actually sitting the Iridium Throne, Norris would be (as an Imperial noble) conditioned to accept the guy as Emperor.
Norris would go along with Lucan at first. Perhaps as the civil war grinds initially and Lucan needs more fleets, he orders Norris to yield certain worlds to the Zhodani as a bribe for peace then withdraws a lot of Norris' fleets to use against Dulinor (because of the transit times these fleets would not tip the balance against Dulinor). The Zhodani don't really need the worlds but accept them because they know that turning them down would be more suspicious to the Imperium than accepting them. Even when Lucan strips the Corridor Fleet, Norris would probably still go along (but with increasing misgivings), perhaps Norris would further stretch his situation by assigning his some of his remaining fleets to patrol Corridor.
Only when Lucan makes his second or third demand for Norris to cough up ships would Norris decide his high-sounding but ultimately meaningless declaration of "being loyal to the Imperium but not any one leader." By this time, Norris doesn't have enough ships to deal with all of the problems with the Ihatei, the Vargr, and he's probably been skirmishing with the Restored Vilani Empire (because Norris wants to keep communications open with Capital) and some with Dulinor (Dulinor is across the Rift, yes, but both sides are probably aware of Calibration Points and use it to engage in small-scale jerkdom they really can't afford).
(In addition, given that it seems that Norris seemed to like Strephon well enough ... Norris' lack of reaction to Strephon seems very much like rampaging plot device. You'd think Norris of all people would scramble to verify if Strephon is the real thing or not and Norris' honor would demand that he follow Strephon to the end once verified.)
I still don't think he'd have implemented all democratic reforms. It just seems as the Imperium rips itself apart, the Marches would cling ever more strongly to idealized versions of the Imperium.
This is fricking brilliant, and such a source of inspiration. If GDW had done this, they might have survived.
TNE didn't kill GDW. I'm pretty sure the factors discussed by members of the GDW staff about what killed GDW would have killed it off, regardless of TNE.
One of the other big things I hated was how suddenly, and with no apparent difficulty the Vargr (!) for Pete's sake, were able to batter down the system defense forces of an entire sector, presumably one that had been fighting them for decades if not centuries, and take over so many worlds. I am not talking Imperial Fleets I am speaking about the system defense units of Dumptruck's world. The whole thing stretched my limits of disbelief far beyond what they would accept. The Vargr were always the comic opera Mussolini's of the Traveller universe, and once you understood the pack mentality they were easily beatable.
The Vargr as Mussolini ... that's a new one. I've been playing Traveller for decades and I admit that's the first time I've ever heard them described as Mussolini.
Using historical comparisons, the Vargr originally intended to fulfill the role of the Germanic tribes to the Imperium's Rome. I think in actual gameplay, the Vargr were more like the Barbary Pirates though - while in the United States we only think of when the Marines went to war and when the Europeans had finally had their fill of it and began using force to make the Barbary states stop (eg; near the end), the
razzia of the pirates lasted for some centuries.
Vargr space is essentially a quagmire for the Imperium. Because of their racial tendencies, Vargr societies are difficult to conquer and govern so it's not worth it. The Imperial Navy can go in there and strike some particular Vargr state hard, but after the dust clears and Navy goes home, it's like punching a bucket of water (in fact I'd say that's where all the "raid" and "battle" results for the Marine generation come from). Nevertheless, I think it is the vigilance of the Imperial Navy along the border and periodic punitive strikes that keep the Vargr raids to a "manageable" level.
MegaTrav I think did some serious damage to Traveller (I'd argue, in some ways even worse than TNE), particularly in introducing this idea that every single starship in the Imperium, right down to the smallest pinnance, is TL15. I've had a strong impression that system navies and so on actually don't run TL15. They either buy higher-tech than their worlds can natively support and have to depend on maintenance and spare parts from higher-tech places (a policy probably encouraged by the Imperium), or they run what they can support locally, which is more often TL11-12 in the case of a lot of Imperial worlds. This is similar to the Vargr. With the breakdown of trade (especially spare parts for warships being in short supply), system navies running those shiny TL14-15 (or even TL11-13) that can't support such ships locally find their shiny ships not very useful.
Vargr have no central authority, but they do communicate with each other. Each Vargr force is relatively small, but that means once word gets out at the Imperial Navy is no longer in a position to come burn your world down for raiding, the more desperate or glory-hungry Vargr are going to start taking their ships or small flotillas down to the Imperium and see if there's something to be gained from the situation. At first it is a trickle. Eventually a few pirates start returning after making some big haul in the Imperium and word gets out: If you're lucky or savvy, it's open season. Then there's a torrent of pirates and such poking at various systems.
How well they fare varies: I doubt the Vargr are a threat to a TL12 High Population world with plenty of industry. In fact, individual Vargr are not stupid - a system like that is unlikely to even be attacked (and occasionally there's that dumb Vargr or that one who thinks he has some angle ... and is disabused of that idea pretty terminally).
Not all of the worlds in the Imperium like that, unfortunately. These Vargr are going to find the systems that are vulnerable to raids or could be vulnerable to raids. Then those worlds are going to be raided until there's nothing worth raiding there (and probably for a while after that as it takes time for word to get out).
:CoW: (no offence intended - I wish there was a tongue in cheek emoticon)
