Traveller-digest      Friday, October 8 1999      Volume 1999 : Number 1170



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Beware of the Stobor (was: Re: Annic Nova)
Re: subsector/sector mapping software
Re: Annic Nova
re: Annic Nova
Re: Firing two guns at once
Meeting Fellow Travellers
re: Firing Two Guns at Once
RE: Firing two guns at once
Re: Survivor kids (Was: Annic Nova)
Re: "Side-arm" Firing
Re: Firing two guns at once
Re: Annic Nova
Re: Annic Nova
Re: Meeting Fellow Travellers
Re: Firing two guns at once
Hamlet in Space was: Re: falkenbergs legions firing into civilians
Re: Democracy and Traveller

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 08 Oct 1999 07:21:48 -0500
From: Black ICE <wombat@premier.net>
Subject: Beware of the Stobor (was: Re: Annic Nova)

Timothy.Collinson@solent.ac.uk wrote:
> 
<<snip>>
> 
> Black Ice then said:
> 
> >If you haven't read it yet, read _Tunnel in the Sky_, by Robert
> >Heinlein.  It deals with a school survival trip gone wrong....
> 
> Yes, this was one of my favourite books in my youth  I just loved it so it
> may have been in the back of my mind.  (I haven't read it for a while, but
> would probably enjoy it just as much now).  What *was* the name of the
> 'creature' they were told to look out for which they spent ages puzzling
> over what it actually was.

**spoiler alert**












Stobor.  I especially liked the scene when they were rescued, and found
out that their teacher had used the word "stobor" simply to concretize
the unknown threat of local fauna.  When one of the students said
something to the effect of "Then there aren't any stobor?", the teacher
responded that of course, there are stobor, since the students had built
stobor traps to protect their settlement from some local critter.... 

- -- 
AuricTech Shipyards Journeyman Gearhead
"Gold-Plated [tm] solutions for copper-plated problems!" (r)
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shadowlands/9776

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 8 Oct 1999 08:27:43 -0400 (EDT)
From: Michael Houghton <herveus@Radix.Net>
Subject: Re: subsector/sector mapping software

Howdy!

Matt replied to Mark:
> Jim Vassilakos' Galactic is pretty damn good, try the following url:
> www.chara.gsu.edu/~lewis/Traveller/gal24.zip , but it's about 6MB.
> 
> 
> >Hi
> >Can someone recommend the best subsector mapping software? Dos/Windows or
> Linux
> >preferred, but I can handle other formats.
> >--
If you go with Linux, and have Perl and Perl/Tk, I have a partial port
of Galactic available at www.radix.net/~herveus/traveller/

yours,
Michael

- -- 
Michael and MJ Houghton   | Herveus d'Ormonde and Megan O'Donnelly
herveus@radix.net         | White Wolf and the Phoenix
Bowie, MD, USA            | Tablet and Inkle bands, and other stuff
                          | http://www.radix.net/~herveus/

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 8 Oct 1999 02:24:26 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Annic Nova

In mail you write:

> Timothy.Collinson@solent.ac.uk wrote:

> If you haven't read it yet, read _Tunnel in the Sky_, by Robert
> Heinlein.  It deals with a school survival trip gone wrong....

"Watch out for stobor."

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 8 Oct 1999 08:59:26 -0400
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: re: Annic Nova

Keven R. Pittsinger wrote:
>>>>>>>
BTW, although I owned the original supplement at one time (and just recently picked up a xerox copy of it again), I took one look at it, said to 
myself, "How do you fix the damned thing if the battery breaks?", and 
promptly filed it.
>>>>>>>
You use it until the battery breaks, then you sell it to the Jumpspace
Institute of Regina for enough cash to buy a Far Trader...or maybe
even a Subsidized Liner. ;-)

Walt Smith

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 8 Oct 1999 08:31:13 -0600 (CST)
From: "Jason Kemp" <Jason.Kemp@tdh.state.tx.us>
Subject: Re: Firing two guns at once

Black ICE wrote:

> Shawn Campbell wrote:
> > 
> > One of my players likes to shoot 2 handguns at once.
> > 
> > I have been increasing the difficulty by one level. (routine task become
> > difficult when attempting to fire two weapons)
> > 
> > I've been wondering if this is too severe or not enough... or if it should
> > be based more on the weapons recoil.
> 
> Probably not severe enough.  After all, there are at least five problems
> with firing two handguns at once:

<<SNIP>>

> 5.  Keeping track of ammo.  It is difficult but doable to keep track of
> the remaining ammo in _one_ weapon.  I can't see a firer being able to
> keep track of remaining ammo in two weapons, under the stress of a
> firefight.  Thus, rather than anticipating one's last shot before
> reloading (and thus being ready to begin reloading), the firer likely
> will not know that his/her/its weapon has run dry until he/she/it hears
> that awful "click" on an empty chamber, or sees the slide lock back
> after the last shot in the magazine.

Suggestion:  To help players and you track situations like this, my 
gaming group has used glass beads and small containers (like cups, 
sewing organizers, etc.) to track these kinds of values.  Fill a 
container with the number of glass beads equal to the rounds 
contained in the weapon.  Each time it's fired, the PC pulls out a 
glass bead from that weapon's container for every round fired.  When 
the container is empty, the gun is empty.  When they reload, the 
player can pick up the beads they just emptied and return them to the 
weapon's container.  As a GM, it helps, because you can hear the 
clink of beads as they remove them from one container and place them 
with the "spent" ones.  And as a player, nothing's more satisfying in 
a gun fight than to hear the sound of all the beads as you return 
them to the "unspent" container, letting you know you've got 
firepower again!  :)

We've done this mostly when playing Hero System games, tracking such 
things as Body, Stun and Endurance, but it also works great for 
tracking ammo rounds and such in all systems involving guns with 
limited rounds of fire.

Hope this helps,
Jason

=============================
Jason Kemp, ADS Programmer IV
(512)458-7111 ext. 3375

Internet Address: jason.kemp@tdh.state.tx.us
==============================

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 08 Oct 1999 06:45:04 PDT
From: "Gary Miles" <garyglennmiles@hotmail.com>
Subject: Meeting Fellow Travellers

Hi all:

Just want to let everyone on the list know about the great time I had last 
weekend. My wife and I drove from Des Moines, IA to the St. Louis area for 
Archon, one of the best SF conventions in the midwest.

As a side trip, we drove about 15 miles further to O'Fallon, Illinois and 
visited "Medieval Starship", Jay LaRosee's great little gameshop.

Just so everyone knows, Jay is a great guy. Couldn't be more friendly. And 
his shop is the kind of FLGS that I want to run myself someday. Besides 
games and comics, he has a great little section of arms and armor for sale.

Most importantly to those here, the shop is a Traveller "Shrine of Heroes". 
As most of you know, Jay has recently acquired the original GDW business 
sign, which is now fully restored and hanging on a wall next to the William 
H. Keith original canvas of the "Traveller Adventure" cover next to a framed 
version of the cover, and two old Traveller advertising posters. In a glass 
case, he has the hardback G:T book signed by Marc Miller, Loren Wiseman and 
Steve Jackson, right next to the hardbacked compilation of the GDW Alien 
Modules signed by Marc. The GURPS shelf of the game racks has all of the G:T 
materials prominently displayed.

Also, when I mentioned I was trying to fill a few holes in my collection, he 
invited me back the next day so I could sift through some of his duplicate 
items, and I found three things I've been looking for for a long while.

Jay, it was great meeting you and reminiscing with a fellow Traveller. To 
anyone else on the list– if you are anywhere in the area of his shop, stop 
in... you will have a great time.

Also, when I get my photos developed, I will try to email a couple of shots 
of Jay and myself with the sign and Keith painting to Swordworlder, so he 
can maybe put them up somewhere on his sight for everyone to check out.

And finally, it's worth the trip just to see the 2' stained-glass window 
hanger portraying a 95-ton Shuttle!

Gary

______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 8 Oct 1999 09:45:38 -0400
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: re: Firing Two Guns at Once

Eris Reddoch wrote:
>>>>>>>>
The only place this sort of thing would be useful is a shoot out in
a closed room where the object is to put a lot of lead in the air
fast and hope something hits the other guy before something hits
you. Not much skill in something like that.
>>>>>>>>
See Bruce Willis' role in _Last Man Standing_. His usual combat
technique in that movie was two pistols in a small room, emptying
both into a crowd of bad guys. Very expensive for ammo, but 
similar in effect to spraying the room with an SMG on full auto (both for 
doing damage and for suppressing enemy response fire).
He seemed to generally hold one weapon in sight plane, and the other
weapon paralell to it, so both were firing at the same target but with
a wider danger space and higher rate of fire.
As a friend of mine said after watching that movie, "He can't leave town.
He has too much ammo."

His character must have had very strong hands and wrists, of course.
Very cinematic, how realistic? I've only held one handgun at a time
myself, and I never fired them...<G>

Eris again:
>>>>>>>>>
BTW, weapons' experts...what's with this sidearm pistol shooting
that seems to be so popular on TV/movies these days?  Is there *any*
advantage that you can see to it?
>>>>>>>>>>
Makes me think of Gunkata. I don't know if it's real or not, it's supposed
to be a relatively new oriental fighting style that uses handguns in close
combat instead of Sai, Nunchaku or such classic martial-arts weapons.
A handgun is about the size of a knife, I guess someone with a 
handgun got tired of being at a disadvantage against a knife in close 
quarters.

Walt Smith

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 08 Oct 1999 09:48:22 -0400
From: Ian Ferguson <ian@vax2.concordia.ca>
Subject: RE: Firing two guns at once

Shawn Campbell writes:
>One of my players likes to shoot 2 handguns at once.
>
>I have been increasing the difficulty by one level. (routine task 
>become difficult when attempting to fire two weapons)
>
>I've been wondering if this is too severe or not enough... or if it
>should be based more on the weapons recoil.
<snipped>
>What are your thoughts?

	There are a number of possible considerations.  I am an old
	CT fart, but here is what I do:

	1) -1 DM for shots from the off hand

	2) -1 DM for all shots if firing two weapons

	3) additional penalties it firing at more than one target,
	depending on how far apart the targets are

	4) additional penalties if a weapon is normally fired with
	two hands; -1 for a SMG, -2 for a carbine, etc.

Peez

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 8 Oct 1999 15:48:56 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: Survivor kids (Was: Annic Nova)

Timothy Collinson writes:

>>> b) How many kids would have to be involved to get a reasonable gene
>>>>   pool. I'd been imagining around 20 or so in the original population.
> 
>Actually, I was thinking of an almost Edenic environment (at least in the
>locality of the original colony) as I would have thought 20 odd teenagers
>would pretty much need that to survive.  (I'm basically imagining they have
>no experience of living outside their usual technological lifestyles; and
>very little tools and technology to hand anyway - they're weren't supposed
>to be or expecting to be here: misjump, adult supervisors dead, no chance
>of rescue.)

There's a book by Jules Verne you may want to check out. I don't know the
French or English titles, but in Danish it was something like "Two Years'
Holiday". It's about a group of school children who is accidentally
marooned on a small island with no adults around.

>>You'd need life expectancy rates, age of fertility, # of births per year
>>per person, % of chance for the woman to die in childbirth, etc. For a
>>low population, say, 20-30ish, it'd be easy to do it by hand.

You'll have to deal with the first generation by hand, because it will be
demographically skewed. For instance, if most of the girls are prepubescent,
you won't get any population increase at all the first few years. Then, for
the next 20-30 years the population growth could be quite high, provided
the kids could solve the problem of death in childbirth. Theoretically
every girl could have another child each year, though personally I wouldn't
think that very lightly. 

Anyway, once the first generation begins dying of old age, you can begin
handling it as a simple percentage increase each year.

Personally. if I wanted to set up such a situation, I'd skip lightly over
fertility and death rates and simply increase population by 2D6-2% of the
original population per year for the first generation, then gradually
throttle down to a steady increase of, say, 1% of the whole population
per year (or half a percent or 2).


      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
        "The referee should determine the nature of subsequent
         events based on the individual situation."
                                _76 Patrons_, p. 8

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 8 Oct 1999 08:58:08 -0500 ()
From: "Joseph R. Dietrich" <yikes@evansville.net>
Subject: Re: "Side-arm" Firing

Eris wrote:

>BTW, weapons' experts...what's with this sidearm pistol shooting
>that seems to be so popular on TV/movies these days?  Is there *any*
>advantage that you can see to it?


No, unless you get points for style with the gangsta crowd. Of course, you
lose those points if you are haning out with shooters. I've done some
practical pistol shooting like this (just for fun), and was promptly
ridiculed.


And Lyle wrote:

>I'm by no means an expert (qualified marksman on rifle, sharpshooter
>on pistol), but I assume you're talking about the current TV and movie
>trend of holding the pistol sideways which I completely fail to understand.


It's very simple: The people making these movies think it looks cool. It's
all about image, baby! ;-)

Tschuess,

Joseph R. Dietrich
yikes@evansville.net

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 08 Oct 1999 09:10:59 -0500
From: Black ICE <wombat@premier.net>
Subject: Re: Firing two guns at once

Jason Kemp wrote:
<<snip>>
> 
> Suggestion:  To help players and you track situations like this, my
> gaming group has used glass beads and small containers (like cups,
> sewing organizers, etc.) to track these kinds of values.  Fill a
> container with the number of glass beads equal to the rounds
> contained in the weapon.  Each time it's fired, the PC pulls out a
> glass bead from that weapon's container for every round fired.  When
> the container is empty, the gun is empty.  When they reload, the
> player can pick up the beads they just emptied and return them to the
> weapon's container.  As a GM, it helps, because you can hear the
> clink of beads as they remove them from one container and place them
> with the "spent" ones.  And as a player, nothing's more satisfying in
> a gun fight than to hear the sound of all the beads as you return
> them to the "unspent" container, letting you know you've got
> firepower again!  :)

Not a bad idea.  However, I would have the GM handle the cups and beads,
requiring the players to keep track of their ammo mentally (just as one
must do when firing an actual weapon).  That way, if the player loses
track, and pulls the trigger on an empty chamber, the GM can gleefully
display the empty cup, shrug, and say, "C'est la guerre."

Note:  As a player, I will often change magazines when I'm getting
_close_ to running dry, especially if there's a short lull in the
firefight (such as when the enemy is reloading).

<<snip>>

- -- 
AuricTech Shipyards Journeyman Gearhead
"Gold-Plated [tm] solutions for copper-plated problems!" (r)
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shadowlands/9776

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 8 Oct 1999 16:13:53 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: Annic Nova

Keven R. Pittsinger writes:

>>Not so. In all my calculations on the subject I've included a jump drive on
>>the ship itself. It's true that if you assume that you can make do with the
>>capacitor part of the jump drive alone (having a jump drive sitting around
>>on a space station to provide the calculations), you can get even better
>>results, but it's the lack of internal tankage that's really important.
> 
>Waitasec here.  You're talking about leaving the jump drives *themselves* 
>behind during a jump??? The drive itself doesn't 'do' the calculations. The 
>ship's *computer* does, per the CT/HG rules (and every *other* set of rules 
>I've seen so far as well, AAMOF).  It controls the jump drives, which open 
>the hole into jumpspace to drop the ship into.  No jump drive, no jump.  
>Otherwise, they could just send those big bricks ('battle riders') through 
>jumpspace without bothering to have to build a tender for them.

If you go by the rules as explained in _Starship Operator's Manual_, the
jump drive is simply a Honking Big Fusion Plant, and if that is so, you
don't need to have the jump drive aboard the ship, provided the jump
capacitors can store the jump charge for a few minutes before they
discharge. You can simply have a computer and a HBFD on the station and
charge the capacitors trough a big electrical cable to the ship. You
then release the ship, allow it to move outside the jump limit of the
station, and release the jump charge from the capacitors to the jump
grid. And, again according to _SOM_, the capacitors can store a jump
charge for several hours.

However, since CT does not explain what a jump drive is (just how it works),
I deliberately don't talk about leaving the jump drives themselves behind.
 
>>The energy storage devices on the Annic Nova accumulates solar energy over a
>>period of 1-6 weeks. Once they have accumulated enough energy the ship can
>>jump. If they are not jump drive style capacitors, they are something even
>>better. Annic Nova dosen't need any fuel tanks. That puts her one up on
>>every other known ship in Charted Space.
> 
>She still needs fuel to *manuver*.

Indeed. And the power plant is far more efficient than the jump drive when
it comes to getting energy from fuel (IF, that is, the jump drive actually
use all the jump fuel for energy. So if you can charge the jump capacitors
slowly enough to let the power plant do it instead of having to have the
jump drive do it, you can jump with far less fuel. 

>>The original handwave explanation of why a ship needed 10 to 60% of its
>>space taken up with fuel tanks was that jump capacitors had to be filled
>>so fast that you couldn't use a normal power plant to fill them.
>>Introduce a capacitor capable of slowly building up a charge over a week
>>and you most certainly do break canon. (Unless the jump fule is actually
>>used for... no, let's not go there ;-)
> 
>Again, the device being charged was *not* specified as being the capacitors.  

So what? It's an energy storage device. You can charge it slowly. Once it
is full, you can jump. What difference does it make if you have to route
the energy through a "real" capacitor or not?

>My take on it was that the capacitors are part of the drives themselves, 
>which *are* accounted for in the design. A high tech 'accumulator' that 
>stores the solar energy is seperate from the jump drives. This space is 
>*also* allocated in the design.

Really? Have you reverse-engineered the Annic Nova? Could you post the
result?

>Now, under CT rules, that 10% volume per jump number is the amount of fuel
>required to provide the *energy* for a jump.

I don't think it actually says so anywhere. Just that the fuel is used. But
I could be misremembering.

>It was further explained that *part* of the drive was a fast-burning 
>high energy fusion reactor that needed constant attention during the burn.  

No, I think that was in MT, not CT. Can you give any CT references?

>>It's true, as someone pointed out, that nothing says these capacitors are
>>capable of accepting energy _faster_ than minimum one week, and I suppose
>>that would do for a handwave to reduce their impact  --  claim that they
>>cannot be charged in less than a week. But you'd still be able to do better
>>with Annic Nova type merchant ships than with standard Traveller Canon ships.
> 
>We're talking about a *LOT* of energy being stored here.  Those accumulators 
>were *big*.  But still, they were beyond the state of the art technology of 
>the 3I for energy density capacity.

I suspect that you are projecting your own assumptions onto the original
article. I don't remember anything about the Annic Nova having any volume
specifically dedicated to solar accumulators. But I'll check when I get
home.


      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
        "The referee should determine the nature of subsequent
         events based on the individual situation."
                                _76 Patrons_, p. 8

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 08 Oct 1999 10:14:02 -0400
From: Christopher Thrash <thrash@io.com>
Subject: Re: Annic Nova

I still have not chosen an "Alien Vessel (~800 dtons)" for inclusion in GT:
Starships. I am willing to consider a conversion of the /Annic Nova/ to GT,
as long as the worst canon-breaking bits (no LH2 requirement, primarily)
are either fixed or firmly pidgeon-holed as curiousities, not practical or
useful for the Imperium in general. 

This writeup would require a decision to either bring the Annic Nova
adventure forward to 1120, or assume that those events occured in 1105 and
explore what has become of the ship since then.

Two asides:

(1) Does anyone else see a resemblance between the jump drives on /Annic
Nova/ and those in FASA's Battletech universe?

(2) "Annic Nova" is a registry number, rather than a name, which implies
that there is a starfaring culture somewhere that manufactures them in some
numbers.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 8 Oct 1999 10:18:11 -0400
From: "Sword Worlder" <swordworlder@clinic.net>
Subject: Re: Meeting Fellow Travellers

- ---- Original Message -----
From: Gary Miles <garyglennmiles@hotmail.com>
> Most importantly to those here, the shop is a Traveller "Shrine of
Heroes".
> As most of you know, Jay has recently acquired the original GDW business
> sign, which is now fully restored and hanging on a wall next to the
William
> H. Keith original canvas of the "Traveller Adventure" cover next to a
framed
> version of the cover, and two old Traveller advertising posters. In a
glass
> case, he has the hardback G:T book signed by Marc Miller, Loren Wiseman
and
> Steve Jackson, right next to the hardbacked compilation of the GDW Alien
> Modules signed by Marc. The GURPS shelf of the game racks has all of the
G:T
> materials prominently displayed.

There, now.  I'm glad it's not just me going on about Medieval Starship ;-)
And don't forget that Jay offers a discount to TMLers.  Coupled with the
fact that he charges "actual shipping", instead of $5.95 P&H or some such,
he is a great source for that new G:T book that you can't find locally!

Which reminds me, I need to do some more work on that web site idea I was
going to run by him....  bye, now!

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The TRAVELLER Domain
http://www.downport.com
Colin Michael, WebDev

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 08 Oct 1999 11:26:45 -0300
From: Michel Vaillancourt <misha@empire.atlantic-online.ns.ca>
Subject: Re: Firing two guns at once

At 11:03 PM 10/7/1999 -0500, you wrote:
[AKUS Rule Mods Snipped]
>
>The only place this sort of thing would be useful is a shoot out in
>a closed room where the object is to put a lot of lead in the air
>fast and hope something hits the other guy before something hits
>you. Not much skill in something like that.

        While hardly an "expert" handgunner, I have fired my share of 9mm
into a body target.  The two-pistols approach has only every struck me to be
usefull for one thing...  allowing kinda-sorta SMG fire-rates from a single
shooter in situations where carrying an SMG will get you into trouble...
Particluarly if you allow "panic fire" rules. 

>BTW, weapons' experts...what's with this sidearm pistol shooting
>that seems to be so popular on TV/movies these days?  Is there *any*
>advantage that you can see to it?

        Yeah, it means that they don't have to train the actors how to
actually fire a handgun.  It is also used as a contrasting point between the
TV/Movie Spec Ops types (who always walk around with the weapon stiffly in
the double-brace position) and the Rest of the Crowd who look cool and
hip-shoot.

>Eris
>-- 
        --Michel

	-+=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=+-
	Michel R. Vaillancourt	misha@atlantic-online.ns.ca
				ICQ # 31172292
	"Reality Error in Progress....
			....Do Not Adjust Your Penguin"	
	-+=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=+-
	Into Cyberpunk?  Check Out:
		"http://www.atlantic-online.ns.ca/cp2020"
	Into Traveller?  Check Out:
		"http://www.atlantic-online.ns.ca/traveller"
	-+=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=+-
	***REMEMBER - Always virus-check your emails ***
	-+=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=+-

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 8 Oct 1999 21:58:54 +1000
From: "Alan Bradley" <alanb@elf.brisnet.org.au>
Subject: Hamlet in Space was: Re: falkenbergs legions firing into civilians

> From: "Douglas E. Berry" 
> Hamlet:  Instead of a ghost, a holographic recording of the dead king
> triggered by Hamlet's approach.  The King spells out his concerns about
> his brother.

From Oeksos, Prince of Dzengagh:
"FGMP, or not FGMP, -- that is the question: --
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And with hot plasma end them?"

(This speech continues, and talks about:
"The undiscover'd world, from whose bourn
No Traveller returns,"
which I think has something to do with Scout character generation survival
rolls.)

Or then there's Macbeth.  Of course, it should be set in Reaver's Deep, in
the Principality of Caledon, but it can also work in the Civil War:

"Be lion-mettled, proud; and take no care
Who chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are:
Gustus shall never vanquish'd be, until
great Nivzhine Belt to Zhimaway
Shall come against him."

(Planetoid ships, of couse!)

Alan Bradley
alanb@elf.brisnet.org.au

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 8 Oct 1999 22:42:26 +1000
From: "Alan Bradley" <alanb@elf.brisnet.org.au>
Subject: Re: Democracy and Traveller

> From: "Terry Carlino" <carlino@home.com>
> A federal state, with each Domain acting as a state might work. Each
> subsector sends a representative to a sector legislature, which in turn
> sends a representative to a Domain wide congress, each of which sends a
> senator to the Moot.

The most viable option, in my opinion, would be a Confederation, rather
than a Federation.  That is, the worlds would be the basic units of
government, while the interstellar state would be relatively weak, and only
deal with a few areas of responsibility.  This is of course, the notional
model of the Imperium, but in a "democratic" model, it would need to be
real.

The role of the interstellar government would roughly be to regulate trade
(kill pirates), to coordinate defence against external threats (kill
pirates), and to prevent warfare between the member worlds (kill pirates).

The big players in such a state would of course be the high-population
worlds, which would be also be the home bases of the megacorporations.  The
high-pop worlds contain the majority of the Imperial population, so
democracy works.  The people who are likely to come second in all this are
the populations of smaller and more backward worlds, who will have to sort
out their own way of dealing with their environment, but that happens
anyway.

Could some world governments decide to start empire building?  Hell yes. 
But this is the kind of threat the confederation was created to deal with. 
Everyone else gangs up on them, or else goes with the flow and creates a
new kind of interstellar state, which hangs around for 1100 years.

Oh, and a confederal structure can accommodate a wide variety of member
worlds.  Many of Jack Vance's books have interstellar governments of this
type.  

> Going farther afield let's look at the other cultures around the
Imperium.
> None of them are democracies, or even republics. The Solomani
Confederation
> is much smaller than the 3I and heavily fractionalized. The Aslan have no
> true central government. The Zho's follow the Imperial Pattern, with a
> Nobility and local control by that Nobility. The Vargr ... need I say
more?
> The really alien aliens aren't applicable.

I suspect that the Vargr model would be the most likely!  Specifically, the
Julian Protectorate is a large (multi-sector), very loosely organised
state, that doesn't really seem to have much of a centre to it at all, but
managed to kick the Imperium's teeth in in at least one war.  This is a
classic confederation, or actually, a confederation of confederations.

The Solomani Confederation *is* a republic, although not a democracy. 
Originally, republics were oligarchies, run by the "respectable" elements
of society, rather than the rabble.  The Sollie state, I suspect, would
pretty much break down into this pattern, with local social and economic
leaders tending to dominate the local Solomani Party organisations.  This
would not necessarily imply the existence of a "nobility", nor would it
preclude it.

Alan Bradley
alanb@elf.brisnet.org.au

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1999 #1170
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