Subj: Traveller-digest V1999 #1315
Date: 11/5/99 11:47:02 AM Pacific Standard Time
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Traveller-digest Friday, November 5 1999 Volume 1999 : Number 1315
(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.
The following topics are covered in this digest:
Re: GT Starship gearheadedness
Re: Middle Eastern Cyberpunk
Re: Cons On Ice Scenario Idea
Re: Border Guards
RE: Nonhuman languages
Re: Nonhuman languages
Re: Joseph Dietrich's Imperium
RE: Justice and Criminal vs Civil
IBIS
Re: GT Starship gearheadedness
Re: Glitches after maintenance
Re: GT Starship gearheadedness
Re: Border Guards
Re: Islamic Observances in Interstellar Space
Whose Imperium??? (was Re: Joseph Dietrich's Imperium)
Re: Border Guards
re: Justice and Civil vs Criminal (OT-ish and Longish)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 5 Nov 1999 12:04:19 -0600
From: "Joseph R. Dietrich"
Subject: Re: GT Starship gearheadedness
>It's not clear to me, however, that this is a good model of how nuclear
>dampers work in Traveller. Traveller nuclear dampers are point-effect, not
>area-effect, weapons that have to be targetted on each individual missile.
I was always under the impression they were field-effect screens, at least
until TNE. MegaTraveller (which I cut my teeth on) seemed to treat them as
such -- no ND turrets, just screen packages.
>You forgot long term access space for the power plant, I think: 304 spaces
>+ 1196 = 1,500. Did you also figure using long tons (2,240 lbs) rather than
>short tons (2,000 lbs)? That might account for the apparent weight difference.
Short tons are what I used. Is this correct or incorrect? Question: Why do
spinal mounts use cf/50 for volume, when they would seem to be completely
enclosed in the hull (after all, the ship is built around it) and thus
subject to the cf/20 requirement?
>The surface area of turrets and bays is calculated for just that portion
>which is outside the hull proper.
Except that a turret is 3 spaces, right? Plus 1 in the hull for crewstation
and turning mechanism? The surface area of 800 would seem to suggest that
the turret is armored in it's entirety, as if it were completely
free-standing cube seperate from the hull (1,500 cf = 800 sf surface area,
according to GV). The 50-space bays are the same.
>My plan is to reinstate the crew requirement from HG: 1 crewman per 100
>dtons of weapons. These are mostly technicians.
I ended up doing this for the Type T NPAWS I designed -- 30 crew stations.
I actually came pretty close to the canonical size 3,001 spaces, with a
damage of 6d x 16,700. I'll post the cruiser once I get it finished tonight
or this weekend.
Another question: What are good ballpark figures for warship armor? The
Type T spinal mount is the largest NPAWs available to the Imperium
historically, and as I have it figured its maximum possible damage is
601,200 (and averaging around 350,700). The CA-15 has an armor value of 80
(1080 cm hard steel) in MT, which is roughly DR 29,760. The Type T's going
to go right through that, but it'll still take several hits to kill the
ship (it's got lots of hitpoints). OTOH, according to FSotSI, a BB-15, with
an armor value of 120 is going to have a DR of somthing like 6,000,000,
which seems unreasonable by an order of magnitude, at least.
Whaaa! I want that G:Starships book to come out *now*. ;-)
Ciao,
Joseph R. Dietrich
yikes@evansville.net
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 05 Nov 1999 13:04:25 -0500
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger"
Subject: Re: Middle Eastern Cyberpunk
> Keven Pittsinger wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>
> > "Hardwired" was the Cyberpunk sourcebook for the book of the same
> > name - a cyberpunk universe with much simpler computers, and much
> > more complex drugs.
>
> 'Hardwired' was *also* a story by Walter Jon Williams, one of the better
> cyberpunk novels, IMNSFBHO.
> >>>>>>>>>
> Thanks Kevin, that was the book R Talsorian Games' "Hardwired"
> sourcebook is based on - I wasn't as clear as I should have been,
> and the author's name had escaped me.
NP, dood.
Williams *also* came up with a couple other really cool books, 'Voice of the Whirlwind' (I *THINK* that's the name of it) and 'Angel Station'. VotW was cyberpunk with star travel, though they didn't get into that too much. The hero was an ex-grunt from a corporate SF unit called the Icehawks, troops trained in all kinds of nasty stuff *plus* some cut-down Zen. 'Angel Station' was about contact with a biological engineering species and its economic impacts on human technologies, the hero & his sister, the heroine, basically economically conquer space by getting exclusive rights to the alien technology. Cute stuff, and definitely worth reading for ideas.
Keven
- --
tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Science-Fiction Adventure
In Reavers' Deep
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 05 Nov 1999 11:09:43 -0700
From: Ethan Henry
Subject: Re: Cons On Ice Scenario Idea
"Jason Kemp" wrote:
>
> PCs come across a STL generation vessel, with several thousand
> members of some minor race held in Cold Sleep. Probably no info
> available to translate the linguistics of the computer records, and
> everything on board indicates that this is a colony ship of some form
> or another.
Uh-huh.
Kiiiiirrrrrrrkkkkkk!!!
Kaaaaaahhhhhhnnnnnn!!!
- --
Ethan Henry egh@klg.com
Java Evangelist, KL Group http://www.klg.com
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 5 Nov 1999 10:10:28 -0800 (PST)
From: Craig Berry
Subject: Re: Border Guards
> Date: Fri, 5 Nov 1999 10:06:13 +0100 (MET)
> From: Tommy Grav
>
> Well, I don't know if this can happen in the USA or anywhere else,
> but there was a murder here in Norway, were in the criminal case, the
> kid (who was charged of killing his cousine) was found not quilty, while
> when the killed girls parents brought him up on civil charges, they
> were awarded several hundred thousand Norwegian kroner.
>
> Not guilty, son, but you still have to pay.
It certainly *can* happen in the USA, and indeed did so rather recently,
about three miles from where I'm sitting now. You may have heard of the
case; it involved a rather well-known former football player, his ex-wife,
and her waiter friend.
- --
| Craig Berry - cberry@cinenet.net
--*-- http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html
| "They do not preach that their God will rouse them
a little before the nuts work loose." - Kipling
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 05 Nov 1999 13:18:57 -0500
From: Ian Ferguson
Subject: RE: Nonhuman languages
Kenji Schwarz writes:
The candidates are:
Droyne (Oynprith):
Aslan (Trokh):
Vargr*: this would be my #1 choice
K'kree:
Other: Zhodani might be nice, too (yes. I know they're humans)
Peez
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 5 Nov 1999 10:19:24 -0800 (PST)
From: Kiri Aradia Morgan
Subject: Re: Nonhuman languages
On Fri, 5 Nov 1999, Kenji Schwarz wrote:
> The candidates are:
> Droyne (Oynprith): 1
> Aslan (Trokh):
> Vargr*:
> K'kree:
> Other: _____________
>
> *As there is no single language for the entire Vargr species (how absurdly
> improbable!!!!), I'll assume Gvegh, said to be the dominant language in
> the area behind the Claw.
>
I'll put in a vote for Gvegh.
I've a hard time believing that any species other than the Droyne and the
Vilani would have ONE language.
IMTU, and in my novels, most intelligent species have several languages.
In my Terran Federation one of the biggest conflicts is between the whole
of the Federation and the mostly Japanese speaking Fringe, especially the
planet Shiratori which has as part of its constitution that it will NEVER
again be dependent upon another power for its self defense... the rivalry
between the Terran Starfleet and the Shiratori Self-Defense Force is quite
notorious. (Shiratori was one of the first Terran colonies that grew big
enough to have colonial worlds of its own. Hiroaki Nomura remarks "I
sometimes find it hard to believe that all our ancestors came from eight
little islands on Earth." To which his wife, Princess Justine
Wells-Ataniell, replies: "They didn't ALL, you know.")
Also the Khalanghaari, a neighboring humaniti empire, have conflicts
between speakers of three main language groups: Khalinghaarin, Selkeren,
and Kam'zari.
I once ran a Traveller campaign set in this universe. It was a lot of
fun. Hiroaki ended up serving in the Kam'zari House of Ataniell fleet
after being publicly disavowed by Shougun Rensselaer in order to avert a
full-scale war between Shiratori and Terra at a strategically inopportune
time...
Hm... maybe I should try that again. Would any of you local SF Bay Area
people play in a heretic TU?
Kiri
******************************************************************************
Kiri Aradia Morgan 93! Thou Art God
tiamat@tsoft.com
"If time passes, everything turns into beauty
If the rains stop, tears clean the scars of memory away
Everything starts wearing fresh colors
Every sound begins playing a heartfelt melody
Jealousy embellishes a page of the epic
Desire is embraced in a dream..." -- X-JAPAN
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 5 Nov 1999 10:28:36 -0800 (PST)
From: Terry Mixon
Subject: Re: Joseph Dietrich's Imperium
- --- Robert Eaglestone wrote:
> I'm still a bit captivated over Joseph Dietrich's TU, and would
> like to set out some ideas for anyone who is also a bit captivated.
What is this? Does it have a link to his page or is this some kind of
prited material?
Thanks.
terry
=====
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Bid and sell for free at http://auctions.yahoo.com
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 05 Nov 1999 13:41:15 -0500
From: Ian Ferguson
Subject: RE: Justice and Criminal vs Civil
Walter Smith writes:
>Then there was the Rodney King beating case a few years back
>- some Los Angeles, California police officers got a bit too
>enthusiastic in their apprehending of one Rodney King, who was
>resisting arrest...and someone got it on videotape.
That's putting it rather kindly. At one point in the
videotape, Mr. King was down on his hands and knees
while several police officers took turns hitting him
with their batons. No doubt, Mr. King is not a model
citizen, but it looked pretty clear that the officers
were allowing their "enthusiasm" to overcome their
professional standards. Makes you wonder what happens
when the cameras are not around. I would expect that
law enforcement officers might get "enthusiastic" on
many low law level worlds, if the PCs give them any
trouble.
>The officers were acquitted of using excessive force-
>apparently it wasn't clear to the jury just how much Mr. King
>was actually resisting, and they could not get to the beyond
>reasonable doubt stage.
There are those who argue that there were other
considerations. I cannot say what the jurors where
thinking, but it is only fair to point out that the colour
of Mr. King's skin may have been a factor. Just how are
off-worlders, let alone aliens, treated on planet? I
expect that backwater systems that are visited rarely, or
poor worlds that may resent "rich outsiders," might be
downright rude to the average PC.
>Mr. King proceeded to sue, of course (taking the officers to
>civil court), as expected. What I did not expect was for the
>United States Federal Government to charge the officers with
>violating Mr. King's civil rights. It looked like the government
>had decided that this high-profile, emotionally charged circus
>of a case needed a guilty verdict for spin purposes, and tried to
>create a guilty verdict themselves when the courts in California
>did not do so.
Would you then completely rule out the possibility that
certain human beings in the federal government thought
that the officers broke the law? It might be interesting
to have a TU world with competing systems of law, where
jurisdictions overlap and the courts go out of their way
to embarrass the other courts. Players caught in the
middle might have a bad time ;)
>ObTrav: Legal skill may run a poor second to a high Social
>Standing score, or other evidence of good governmental
>connections.
Not to mention monetary worth or race.
Peez
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 5 Nov 1999 14:00:48 -0500
From: "Lyle Youngblood"
Subject: IBIS
>------------------------------
>
>Date: Fri, 5 Nov 1999 10:16:18 -0500
>From: "Jory Earl"
>Subject: Re: Dragon Magazine Archive
>
>IBIS = Imperial Bureau of Interstellar Service or something like that. It
>was a spy-based classic Traveller service that would make special
operatives
>for the Imperium. During your service you are given anagathics in order to
>keep you young. Really cool service variant.
>------------------------------
I believe it was Imperial Bureau of Internal Security and they were a
KGB
riff, both secret police and an espionage service. IMTU, they exist and I
use
them that way.
Lyle
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 5 Nov 1999 12:54:08 -0600
From: mindbreaker@unforgettable.com
Subject: Re: GT Starship gearheadedness
Anthony Jackson writes:
>>>>
Second, I don't recall CT ever specifying how they worked, but they seemed
to be a single large system onboard a warship, which suggested they
probably were area dampers.
>>>>
IIRC, it's kind of a hybrid. Book 4 is actually the best source for tech
detail on Nuclear Dampers. It describes a system of two
variously-spaced-apart generator nodes which propogate overlapping damping
fields over a scalable area, but then use point defense fire control to
modulate interference & coincidence of the field waves, and thus focus the
resulting concentrated effect on specific targets such as fissionable
masses in enemy warheads, to either surpress or prematurely enhance [!] the
atomic processes therein.
Note that this is also similar to the described operation of the Ancient's
hand-held and planet-based disintegrators (described as a 'development' of
damper tech) in Twilight's Peak...
- -Chad
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 5 Nov 1999 11:10:04 -0800 (PST)
From: Craig Berry
Subject: Re: Glitches after maintenance
> Date: Fri, 5 Nov 1999 16:01:26 +0200
> From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Jussi_Kenkkil=E4?=
>
> > Anyone have any nice glitches I can throw at them during the shakedown?
>
> Have one of the major components suffer a fake malfunction. This means
> that when they run a self-diagnostic program, it gets convinced that
> there's something wrong with some esoteric part. The characters can
> check it, "repair" it or even replace it, and the program is still
> convinced there's something wrong. Finding out the problem with the
> electronics involved in the self-diagnostics can take time. (Especially
> when the "malfunction" is on some vital piece of machinery, and it can't
> be used because of inbuilt safeties.)
This is particularly annoying when the problem with the electronics also
causes the death of three members of the frozen watch, near-death due to
vacuum exposure of another crewperson, and a poignant rendition of "Daisy,
Daisy" during the repair process.
- --
| Craig Berry - cberry@cinenet.net
--*-- http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html
| "They do not preach that their God will rouse them
a little before the nuts work loose." - Kipling
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 05 Nov 1999 11:22:22 PST
From: "Brandon Cope"
Subject: Re: GT Starship gearheadedness
>From: "Joseph R. Dietrich"
>
>Another question: What are good ballpark figures for warship armor? The
>Type T spinal mount is the largest NPAWs available to the Imperium
>historically, and as I have it figured its maximum possible damage is
>601,200 (and averaging around 350,700). The CA-15 has an armor value of 80
>(1080 cm hard steel) in MT, which is roughly DR 29,760. The Type T's going
>to go right through that, but it'll still take several hits to kill the
>ship (it's got lots of hitpoints). OTOH, according to FSotSI, a BB-15, with
>an armor value of 120 is going to have a DR of somthing like 6,000,000,
>which seems unreasonable by an order of magnitude, at least.
From what I understand from 3rd parties, the people who wrote designs for
Fighting Ships of the Shattered Imperium didn't pay much attention to the
rules; therefore, some (many?) of the designs are badly flawed.
OTOH, I have absolutely no intention of using (and hence, designing)any
warships greater than 10,000 dtons, so a lot of this discussion doesn't mean
much for my campaign.
A generous and sadistic GM,
Brandon Cope
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 05 Nov 1999 14:30:03 -0500
From: Rob Brady
Subject: Re: Border Guards
At 09:34 PM 11/4/99 -0800, Leonard Erickson wrote:
>In mail you write:
>
> > courtroom to determine the truth. As long as the globe showed red,
> > you were telling the truth *as you knew it*. The instant it started
> > turning blue, you were in deep kimchee...
>
>Yeahg, part of every use included asking a set of test questions,
>including some that you were supposed to lie in answer to.
>
>If they globe *didn't* turn red during the lies, you were a pathological
>liar and the veridicator couldn't be used on you. But such folks are a
>minority. They also tend to be rather careless, so getting other
This reminds me of a book I read long ago... The radical conservationists
were trying to stop the megacorporations from damaging the environment
any more, and this ad copy writer got caught in the middle of it.
Apparently, despite the fact of a VERY high law level, some bloke
discovered that there were people who would commit crimes because they
_enjoy_ being beaten. He would get someone to commit a murder, and the
police would beat him to death upon capture, and he would laugh the whole
time.
- --
Build giant starship fleets and fight monumental naval
battles with Trillion Credit Squadrons.
Rob Brady robb at datatone dot com
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 5 Nov 1999 11:38:41 -0800 (PST)
From: Craig Berry
Subject: Re: Islamic Observances in Interstellar Space
> Date: Fri, 5 Nov 1999 06:26:38 PST
> From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
>
> And I'm sure that as (I am told) many mosques have a plaque or other
> indicator indicating the direction of of Mecca now, offworld mosques
> might well have some sort of indicator controlled by a computer.
>
> For personal use, something incorporating a gps type system might work.
Of course, since praying "toward" Mecca even on Earth involves praying
along the great circle leading there (you don't stand on your head if
you're 170 degrees away, in other words), one would probably see the same
sort of practical correction applied here. You'd aim for the point on the
horizon directly above or below the current location of Sol in the sky.
A complication here is that mosques are often built (on Terra) so that
their orientation naturally focuses on the direction of Mecca. The Saudi
embassy in Washington DC is a lovely example; it has a sort of outer
curtain wall which is aligned with the street and adjoining lots, but the
building inside (which includes a mosque) is rotated about 30 degrees so
that the front doors are pointed at Mecca. Makes for a rather striking
effect.
Needless to say, this couldn't be done if the direction to Mecca changed
on a daily cycle. This alone might lead to most 'mainstream' Muslims
accepting a compromise in which some on-planet location -- first landing
point, first mosque constructed, location of a shard of the Kaaba -- is
taken as "local Mecca" for prayer purposes. Of course, there would be
ultra-orthodox Muslims who insist on praying toward Mecca itself. They
would thus do the five daily prayers in five directions, spinning through
a circle each day. I might imagine their picking up the nickname
"Dervishes" for this.
It may not be long (on historical timescales) before real-world Moslems
need to face part of this issue. On the Moon, the direction to Mecca from
any point on the surface is fixed (plus or minus about three degrees,
which is fairly neglibile. However, the daily cycle of prayer would pose
a problem. Do you pray five times over the lunar day, or the terran? If
the latter, do you do it by Mecca time, or GMT, or whatever time is being
kept in the base? With the latter two, how do you decide what latitude's
sunrise and sunset to use?
> I do agree that the direction would too little to worry about when
> taking even a jump 6 in the Marches. I was being a bit disingenious
> with regard to prayers in jump, knowing that some scholars will nitpick
> doctrines to death, and it might be argued that one couldn't know the
> right direction while in jump.
I would imagine that there would arise a fatwah for this, like "toward the
bow". Again, there would be dissenters.
> Think there's a chance that for those places, they'd go by the
> calculated time of the new moon?
Some Moslem countries use a calculated new moon standard today. In fact,
one of the elements of the BCCI banking scandal a few years back involved
a scheme that went awry because of differences on this issue. I don't
remember the specific countries involved, but both were to end a banking
holiday at hilal, the next sighting of the new moon. Country A used
calculation, and ended the holiday on the predicted date. Country B used
observation, and its official observers failed to spot the moon and
extended the holiday one day. As a result, a key transaction failed to go
through between the two countries, causing a ripple of unmade payments
which led to exposure of (that part of) BCCI's machinations.
ObTrav should be clear... :)
- --
| Craig Berry - cberry@cinenet.net
--*-- http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html
| "They do not preach that their God will rouse them
a little before the nuts work loose." - Kipling
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 5 Nov 1999 13:39:54 -0600
From: "Joseph R. Dietrich"
Subject: Whose Imperium??? (was Re: Joseph Dietrich's Imperium)
>> I'm still a bit captivated over Joseph Dietrich's TU, and would
>> like to set out some ideas for anyone who is also a bit captivated.
>
>What is this? Does it have a link to his page or is this some kind of
>prited material?
No, actually it's just a developing idea that me and Robert have discussed.
I'm trying to develop my next Traveller game, and I've asked a couple of
questions to the list (the fuel-less jump drive thread having garnered the
most responses). Roberts been very helpful to me in generating ideas on the
setting at large.
In brief, it's space opera/science fantasy pure and simple, with a huge
dose of Fading Suns-style neogothicisim, using the Imperium as a backdrop.
Originally it was going to be set in the Rebellion era, but it's starting
to develop into a post-rebellion, post-hard times setting.
As part of the flavor, I wanted jump drives that didn't use huge amounts of
jump fuel. I also am going to have a lot of Ancient relics laying about,
including some huge jump gates that allow transit from certain strategic
sytems to others.
Other elements include a lot of ignorance of technology, a religious
revival in the form of a Universal Church, psionics,
things-man-was-not-meant-to-know, secret societies, and other phenomena
strange and mysterious.
I was thinking about calling the setting _Dark Imperium_ or some such thing.
The only stuff I have up on a webpage that's Traveller-related are some
things that I did for my *last* game, which was also space opera, but with
a Star Wars flavor (and using the SW-RPG rules). Alas, it was all hand
written, so transcribing it to the 'Net has been a pain. So far, the only
stuff up is a lot of statistics (some vehicles, weapons and armor, sensor
rules) -- MT stuff converted to SW-RPG terms.
If anyone is interested, it's at:
http://www.evansville.net/~yikes/joespace.html
There be some FUDGE material there too, as well as a very small amount of
other stuff.
Oh, and if you don't know about Fading Suns, check out:
http://www.holistic-design.com/FS/FSmain.htm
Ciao,
Joseph R. Dietrich
yikes@evansville.net
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 05 Nov 1999 13:45:13 -0600
From: Black ICE
Subject: Re: Border Guards
Rob Brady wrote:
>
<>
>
> This reminds me of a book I read long ago... The radical conservationists
> were trying to stop the megacorporations from damaging the environment
> any more, and this ad copy writer got caught in the middle of it.
> Apparently, despite the fact of a VERY high law level, some bloke
> discovered that there were people who would commit crimes because they
> _enjoy_ being beaten. He would get someone to commit a murder, and the
> police would beat him to death upon capture, and he would laugh the whole
> time.
_The Space Merchants_, by Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth. IMHO, it's
much better than the sequel, _The Merchants' War_.
Either can be used as an idea-mine for a dystopic Government Type 1
(company/corporation) society.
- --
AuricTech Shipyards Journeyman Gearhead
"Gold-Plated [tm] solutions for copper-plated problems!" (r)
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shadowlands/9776
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 5 Nov 1999 14:43:15 -0500
From: Walter Smith
Subject: re: Justice and Civil vs Criminal (OT-ish and Longish)
Ian Ferguson wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>
Walter Smith writes:
>Then there was the Rodney King beating case a few years back
>- some Los Angeles, California police officers got a bit too
>enthusiastic in their apprehending of one Rodney King, who was
>resisting arrest...and someone got it on videotape.
That's putting it rather kindly.
No doubt, Mr. King is not a model
citizen, but it looked pretty clear that the officers
were allowing their "enthusiasm" to overcome their
professional standards.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
One take on the situation: the recent widespread availability
of personal video cameras may have brought to light what the
professional standards at the LAPD were at the time, and they
were most shockingly *not* what was usually shown on the
cop dramas.
Ian again:
>>>>>>>>>>
Makes you wonder what happens
when the cameras are not around. I would expect that
law enforcement officers might get "enthusiastic" on
many low law level worlds, if the PCs give them any
trouble.
>>>>>>>>>>
I think it was a given in the King situation that the officers did not
know they were being taped. A valid point, though.
(Aside: I have never been a police officer. I do not know what conditions
or contributers there were to the Rodney King incident, nor do I know
exactly what actions the officers did that *were* in violation of department
policy and/or the law, if any. I was, of course, shocked by the video,
as the tv news show intended me to be, but my being shocked by the
actions of police officers does not, in and of itself, provide proof of
wrongdoing by said police officers.)
Ian again:
>>>>>>>>>>>>
of Mr. King's skin may have been a factor. Just how are
off-worlders, let alone aliens, treated on planet? I
expect that backwater systems that are visited rarely, or
poor worlds that may resent "rich outsiders," might be
downright rude to the average PC.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Aliens will be treated on backwater planets anywhere along the spectrum
from "Alien Gods Come to Show Us the One True Way" to "Alien Monsters
Come to Eat Our Children and Rape Our Women". As opposed to heavily
visited planets, where aliens will range along the spectrum from
"Cheaper to replace than robots" to "Welcome to our lovely planet,
how much money did you bring?".
Off-worlders may get similar treatment, even if human.
Ian again:
>>>>>>>>>
Would you then completely rule out the possibility that
certain human beings in the federal government thought
that the officers broke the law?
>>>>>>>>>>
In our legal system, it should not ever be what a government official
*thinks* - it should always be what he can, in the spirit and the letter
of the law, *prove*.
The appearance was of multiple attempts to "get" the officers,
a semblance of legal maneuvering to avoid the protections against
double jeapardy. The Feds did not push for an appeal, therefore they
must have seen no *legal* grounds for overturning the court's decision.
In absence of such grounds, they attempted to trump the decision
instead with the somewhat nebulous civil rights charges.
If the feds had gone after the California court system, that would
have been one thing - but no process of that sort came of the affair.
Evidently, the feds do not think the California court system is broken
*unless* it suits their purposes to disagree with a particular verdict - and
they then acted (via the civil rights charges) to trump the decision of said
court with respect to that verdict only.
Ian again:
>>>>>>>>>
It might be interesting
to have a TU world with competing systems of law, where
jurisdictions overlap and the courts go out of their way
to embarrass the other courts. Players caught in the
middle might have a bad time ;)
>>>>>>>>>
Being the scrap a bunch of big dogs are fighting over is always
mightly tough on the scrap. Of course, canny players may find
themselves in situations where they can play their tormentors
off against each other, or make seperate deals with one for
protection from the others - much like a drug dealer may become
an informant for the drug control agency, and in return get some
slack from the normal enforcement arms.
Ian again:
>>>>>>>>>
>ObTrav: Legal skill may run a poor second to a high Social
>Standing score, or other evidence of good governmental
>connections.
Not to mention monetary worth or race.
>>>>>>>>>
Either of which, in most situations, will be directly represented
by a Traveller social standing. Money, or course, is the simplest
way (through spending) for a character to raise social standing.
Most character generation systems have allowances to modify social
standing by the race of the character involved - for example, the Vargr
Charisma system, or the Zhodani mageocracy system.
Yes, I know that wasn't the "race" you were talking about.
This has some danger of getting seriously out of hand - some people
thought the Rodney King verdict important enough to perform assault,
arson and rioting over. I'd rather not bring that kind of devastation to
the TML, so I'd like to move this to private email as soon as others
think appropriate, if others would like to continue this at all.
Walt Smith
------------------------------
End of Traveller-digest V1999 #1315
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