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Subj:   TML biweekly: Msgs 7884-7900 V46#2

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From: traveller-request@engrg.uwo.ca (TML Admin)
Subject: TML biweekly: Msgs 7884-7900 V46#2
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TML biweekly    Wed Jun  8 21:00:03 EDT 1994    Volume 46 : Issue 2

Today's topics:

BUN# =AMN= =DATE====== =FROM==========  =SUBJECT/BODY==========================
 627  7888 06-Jun-1994 Joseph Heck      WWW page for the TML/Traveller << Howdy
 627  7889 06-Jun-1994 Steven M Bonnev  FFS: Battleship Armor! << FF&S/BL Disco
 627  7891 07-Jun-1994 BORIS ZAIDFELD   FGMP-16 Newsletter << Hi there,
 627  7892 07-Jun-1994 PSUAlum@aol.com  GEN/TML - Subject prefixes << GEN/TML -
 627  7893 06-Jun-1994 George Herbert   Sold something... << GDW just (finally)
 627  7894 07-Jun-1994 "Les Howie"      Re: TML nightly: Msgs 7884-7889 V75#19 
 628  7896 07-Jun-1994 Iain Fogg        Re: TML nightly: Msgs 7884-7889 V75#19 
 628  7898 07-Jun-1994 Steven M Bonnev  REPOST: FFS: SDB Floats << A slain mess
 628  7899 07-Jun-1994 David Johnson    All: Sword Worlds Technology << Gentles
 628  7900 07-Jun-1994 "Les Howie"      FF&S: Death Star Main Gun Attempt << I 
 628  7895 07-Jun-1994 rancke@diku.dk   Coyns << I'm doing a 'Secret of The Anc
 628  7897 07-Jun-1994 Wesley Esser     <<          David Johnson was looking f

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

Bundle: 627
Archive-Message-Number: 7884

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

Bundle: 627
Archive-Message-Number: 7885

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

Bundle: 627
Archive-Message-Number: 7886

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

Bundle: 627
Archive-Message-Number: 7887

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

Bundle: 627
Archive-Message-Number: 7888
From: ccjoe@showme.missouri.edu (Joseph Heck)
Subject: WWW page for the TML/Traveller
Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 13:10:36 -0500 (CDT)

Howdy.

Hopefully, this will slip past the ick that's been infesting the TML lately...

I've finally reestablished a server & pages for the TML/Traveller on the
World Wide Web. They include links to the GDW-Beta server, as well as links
to all the archives about the place (at least, the one's I know of - through
the TML instructions & such). Plenty of details - more to follow as I can...

the URL is : http://www.missouri.edu:80/~ccjoe/traveller/

Enjoy, and make any suggestions you like!
- -- 
 joe                          (314) 882-5000
 ccjoe@showme.missouri.edu    University of Missouri - Columbia  
 "with a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and
 imprenetrable fog!" -- Calvin
 <A HREF="http://www.missouri.edu/~ccjoe">ccjoe</A>

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

Bundle: 627
Archive-Message-Number: 7889
Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 18:03:54 -0500
From: bonnevil@mermaid.micro.umn.edu (Steven M Bonneville)
Subject: FFS: Battleship Armor!

FF&S/BL Discoveries, Part III

ARMOR RATINGS and the IMPERIAL NAVY SHIP-OF-THE-LINE

I just gained enlightenment on another shift in the rules which
should interest battle fleet naval architects.  This one is related
to starship armor factors on very large ships.

In _Brilliant Lances_, there is a design for a 1000-ton TL15 
Imperial Navy DE, the _Chrysanthemum_-class.  It is a close structure
with armor factor 62, which comes out to 2.214 cm of bonded super-
dense armor at a volume cost of about 0.62 % of the ship.  I decided
to scale this percentage for a 500000 d-ton sphere, to see what sort
of armor we might expect to see on a _Tigress_-size battleship.
(It's not quite fair, since the DE loses some mass to configuration,
but that isn't really vital for this argument.)

It turns out that at 0.62 % of ship volume, the _Tigress_-size ship
can carry some 25.087 cm of bonded superdense armor, for an armor
rating of 702.  This is 2.25x the amount of armor needed to stop a
standard TL15 150MJ beam laser dead.

If one is willing to armor an expensive battleship a little better 
than a DE, at 1.77 % of ship volume you can have 71.5 cm of bonded
superdense armor plating, and an armor rating of 2002.  This is just
sufficient to stop a TL15 500 kT nuclear detonation x-ray laser dead.

Note that either value is sufficient to stop any of the "pea-shooter"
class PAWS in _Brilliant Lances_.

These armor ratings are very definitely not ridiculous.  If anything,
they may turn out to be conservative.

It looks to me like the lighter weapons are really only useful for 
anti-missile fire or to try and scrub the communications and sensory
antennae off a ship.  The only other thing I can think of doing with
them is to try to saturate a big ship's anti-missile defenses and get
a fusion weapon right up next to it.  So I suppose the *really* big 
ships like the _Tigress_-types will depend more on what we'd currently
consider very heavy weapons to do any real damage to the enemy line.
I have no idea what sort of power the TNE equivalent to the meson-T
delivers on target, but it is probably massive.  The big ships will
need to depend on heavy bays to back up the main gun, though, since
the turrets and "pea-shooter" spinal mounts on escorts won't do much 
good.  I'm not sure if the 100-ton bays can cut it; I haven't checked.

As for the _Chrysanthemum_ in a fleet action, well, I guess it really
is a cheap "tin can".  I suppose it's supposed to be an SDB hunter
and commerce cutter.

  Steve Bonneville
  <bonnevil@mermaid.micro.umn.edu>

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

Bundle: 627
Archive-Message-Number: 7890
Date: Mon, 6 Jun 94 22:27:31 CDT
From: djohnson@geds01.jsc.nasa.gov (David Johnson)
Subject: All: Techno-economics & SW Political Theory


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

Bundle: 627
Archive-Message-Number: 7891
Date:   Tue, 7 Jun 1994 00:27:22 -0400
From: BORIS ZAIDFELD <cs911408@red.ariel.cs.yorku.ca>
Subject: FGMP-16 Newsletter

Hi there,
      Does anyone has any information about FGMP-16 Newsletter?  I saw
an ad for it in Challenge 72, and i was wondering if anyone sub. to it and
any other information.
      Thanks,
              -Shalom Zaidfeld



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

Bundle: 627
Archive-Message-Number: 7892
From: PSUAlum@aol.com
Date: Tue, 07 Jun 94 00:33:08 EDT
Subject: GEN/TML - Subject prefixes

GEN/TML - Subject prefixes

re. gsw@aloft.att.com (gerald.s.williams)'s discussion of categories:

I agree entirely with Gerald's dread of category proliferation and feel
that his reduced category set is well thought out with the exception of
alternate histories.  Possibly AHIS could be placed under scenarios or
may maintain its own category.  Perhaps a test drive (or compilation of
categories in which messages currently posted would fall might be
enlightening.  As long as there are not many AHIS posts to interfere
with those interested only in fiction (or scenarios) or vice-versa it
could be combined otherwise a separate category may be a necessity.


Peter B Juzyk                       | 'Most plans don't even survive
Reading, PA                         |  contact with Reality'
Terra/Solomani Rim (1827 G867975-8) |   -Hammer Lanthrop, *Smash & Grab*


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

Bundle: 627
Archive-Message-Number: 7893
Subject: Sold something...
Date: Mon, 06 Jun 1994 23:29:57 -0700
From: George Herbert <gwh@crl.com>


GDW just (finally) mailed me and bought two of the adventures for TNE
I mailed them right before I changed jobs lo these 6 months ago 8-)
I am relieved to hear they got there.

I guess they've been a little busy, but they're still there and in
business buying articles 8-)

- -george william herbert
gwh@crl.com  

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

Bundle: 627
Archive-Message-Number: 7894
Date: Tue, 7 Jun 94 12:20:21 ADT
From: "Les Howie"  <lhowie@192.219.29.90>
Reply-To: "Les Howie"  <lhowie@Prograph.Com>
Subject: Re: TML nightly: Msgs 7884-7889 V75#19

Steven M Bonneville (bonnevil@mermaid.micro.umn.edu) wrote:
 
> It looks to me like the lighter weapons are really only useful for 
> anti-missile fire or to try and scrub the communications and sensory
> antennae off a ship.  The only other thing I can think of doing with
> them is to try to saturate a big ship's anti-missile defenses and get
> a fusion weapon right up next to it.  So I suppose the *really* big 
> ships like the _Tigress_-types will depend more on what we'd currently
> consider very heavy weapons to do any real damage to the enemy line.
> I have no idea what sort of power the TNE equivalent to the meson-T
> delivers on target, but it is probably massive.  The big ships will
> need to depend on heavy bays to back up the main gun, though, since
> the turrets and "pea-shooter" spinal mounts on escorts won't do much 
> good.  I'm not sure if the 100-ton bays can cut it; I haven't checked.
>
This is a good analysis.  To tell you the truth, I like the feel of being
able to armour my dreadnaughts in proper Fisher fashion.

As for tactics, would you not want to (1) engage with (relatively) light
armourment to detroy the antennas for the meson screen (I am under the
impression that cust out the meson defence) then (2) engange with the meson
armed big ships.

I have been thinking of some lighter meson armed ship ideas as well, but that
needs some development. 

> As for the _Chrysanthemum_ in a fleet action, well, I guess it really
> is a cheap "tin can".  I suppose it's supposed to be an SDB hunter
> and commerce cutter.
> 

Thats fine.  If there is no magic "torpedo" for frying big ships, torpedo
boats do not serve a lot of purpose.


Les Howie
Prograph International


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

Bundle: 628
Archive-Message-Number: 7896
From: Iain Fogg <isf1@mcs.le.ac.uk>
Date: Tue, 7 Jun 94 10:10:42 BST
Subject: Re: TML nightly: Msgs 7884-7889 V75#19


Please remove me from the mailing list.

Iain Fogg
isf1@le.ac.uk

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

Bundle: 628
Archive-Message-Number: 7898
Date: Tue, 7 Jun 1994 10:48:12 -0500
From: bonnevil@mermaid.micro.umn.edu (Steven M Bonneville)
Subject: REPOST: FFS: SDB Floats

A slain message, trying to return from the dead....

Les Howie <lhowie@Prograph.Com> writes:

>How do you submerge an SDB to hide under the world's oceans? 
[. . .]
>The TNE 400 Ton SDB has a volume of 5600 m^3, and a laden mass of 4886.17
>tonnes, for a specific gravity at 1G of .86.  It Floats!  

Oh yuck.  The MT 400 d-ton SDB had a specific gravity of about 2.0 laden,
so it wasn't a problem before.  You could give up some of the hydrogen fuel
storage and flood those fuel tanks with water, er, "unrefined fuel".  It
would take 29 G-turns worth to bring the SDB's specific gravity to just
over 1.0.  That would add about 725 tonnes of mass to the ship.  Since the
SDB has 112 G-turns, I suppose you could pay the price. 

Seems to me that you'd be better served adding armor to the hull and getting
some added value out of the mass -- besides, superdense armor is more compact.
But maybe there'd be some value in "crash surfacing" with this design.

  Steve Bonneville
  <bonnevil@mermaid.micro.umn.edu>

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

Bundle: 628
Archive-Message-Number: 7899
Date: Tue, 7 Jun 94 13:37:17 CDT
From: djohnson@geds01.jsc.nasa.gov (David Johnson)
Subject: All: Sword Worlds Technology

Gentlesophonts:

Here's my second try at this post.

Andy Lilly <A.S.Lilly@bnr.co.uk> writes:

> So in theory the world might be rated TL11 but actually still 
> retain (or have built up to) TL12 or TL13 in their starship production.

This is a good point but one might wonder then why Sacnoth has not made
similar efforts to push its space TL to 14.

> To apply this to a wider range of products, even should your own world be 
> TL11 and unable to supply TL12 replacements for your bought-in TL12 
> thingummy-jigs, there's no reason why you shouldn't buy, steal or smuggle 
> such from other worlds.

Maybe, but it's tough to fight a prolonged war this way against an opponent
who can produce his own goods internallly.  Essentially though, this is what
I've proposed for Gram - it's been receiving aid from the Zhodani.

Happy Travelling,

David Johnson
Houston, Texas, USA

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

Bundle: 628
Archive-Message-Number: 7900
Date: Tue, 7 Jun 94 20:52:07 ADT
From: "Les Howie"  <lhowie@192.219.29.90>
Reply-To: "Les Howie"  <lhowie@Prograph.Com>
Subject: FF&S: Death Star Main Gun Attempt

I will confess that I like to push the limits of a set of 
rules.  I hope that this post will show one end of the limit 
of Meson gun design.  I have read in the GDW-Beta archives of 
a meson SMG design which I would love to see posted.

This extreme is an attempt to build the Star Wars Death Star 
main weapon.  Some time ago I retrieved the following from 
rec.arts.sf.science, posted by Erik Max Francis, 
max@alcyone.darkside.com, in response to a question there:

>The total energy required to give every little infinitesimal 
>bit of a spherical, uniform mass escape velocity from every 
>other little bit (also called the binding energy) is
>
>    (3/5) G M^2/R,
>
>where G is the universal constant of gravitation, M is the 
>total mass of the sphere, and R is its initial :-) radius.  
>Of course, this will not be entirely true for a 
>nonspherical, nonuniform object like a planet, but it's 
>certainly within an order of magnitude or so.

Now for Earth, from the sci.astro faq, we have:

(1) G =   6.673e-11 N m^2/kg^2 (7e-11)
(2) M =   5.974e24 kg
(3) R =   6.371e6  m

Which, unless I have screwed up here, is about 2.25e32 j, or 
2.25e26 Mj

So if we want to build a death star, we need a weapon (a 
Meson Gun would seem ideal) which will feed that much energy 
into the core of a planet in a reasonably short period of 
time -- say about 30 minutes.

Lets assume that we can design the weapon with an ROF of 100.

This gives us a discharge energy of 2.26e24 Mj.  Working at 
TL 14 and selecting a tunnel length of 250 m (to give a short 
range of 10 hexes, the other calculations fall out:

3a Effective Tunnel Length 300m
3b Tunnel Volume           5.62e24 m^3
3c Cross Sectional Area    2.25e22 (a diameter of 8e7 km !!)
3d Tunnel Mass             3.37e24
3e Tunnel Price            5.63e23 MCr

I won't bore you with damage values, which run from 7e12 
down.

Well, so much for the Meson armed death star -- back to the 
drawing board, Darth.


Les Howie
Prograph International


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

Bundle: 628
Archive-Message-Number: 7895
From: rancke@diku.dk
Subject: Coyns
Date: Tue, 7 Jun 1994 17:42:27 +0100 (METDST)

I'm doing a 'Secret of The Ancients' adventure for my players at the moment.
It's a different secret than the official one for several reasons; one, that
I don't like the whole Grandfather business at all, and, two, that even if I
did like it most of my players know it too, and that tends to ruin their
sense of wonder. And IMO the secret of The Ancients ought to be full of
wonder.

I have, however, tried to make my version fit all the clues left behind. My
Ancients left the universe in much the same state than the GDW Ancients did,
they just went about it differently. So some of he things I work out should
be useful even to those who want to stick with Grandfather and the kids.

At the moment I'm trying to work out how an Ancient set of coyns looks. We 
know the names of the coyns in the set of 36 used by modern Droyne, and 
we've been told what some of them looks like. The Ancient set consisted of
38 coyns and some of the odern coyns (Aslan, Hiver, K'kree) cannot be part 
of the set.

I've listed the facts I've used (numbered) and the assumptions I've made
(lettered). If anyone can come up with facts I have missed or have some 
good ideas, please let me know.

1) Coyn sets found in Ancient sites range in size from 6 to 38 pieces.
   [_Imperial Encyclopedia_ p. 21].

a) The lesser sets found are subset of one standard 38-coyn set, not 
   alternate sets.

b) The Ancient coyn set is identical to a pre-Ancient coyn set used by 
   pre-Ancient Droyne in prediction ceremonies.

2) Grandfather introduced the coyns as a tool of casting to a number of
   Chirper worlds around -75,000. [_Droyne_ pp. 6 and 45]. On some worlds
   the Chirpers gained the ability to caste, on others it didn't work
   (Vanejen, described in _Research Station Gamma_, is an example of the
   latter).

3) Grandfather modified the coyns on later visits and introduced the Aslan,
   Hiver and K'kree coyns (at least). [_Secret of The Ancients_ p 32].

b) The Ancient coyn set consisted of six groups of six plus two specials.
   The six castes was one group. Void, Soil, Air, Gas, Water, and Fire was
   aother (these were the Droyne concept of elements: Earth (Soil), Water,
   Fire, Good (breahable) Air (Air), Bad (unbreathable) Air (Gas), and the
   absence of any of the other five (Void). 18 of the other coyns mentioned
   in the modern set were also in the Ancient set, though any grouping of 
   them into sixes lacks common themes (the third group, Darkness, Cold,
   Noise, Signal, Heat, and Light are pairs of opposites  -  but so are
   Genesis & Death and Defeat & Achievement from another of the groups).
   Anyway, the abovementioned plus Aspiration, Sacrifice, Beast, Mercenary,
   Voyages, Justice, Change, and Phoenix (can't really be a phoenix, of
   course; it must be a legendary Droyne beast with the same characteristics 
   as the phoenix) were also part of the Ancient set. Humaniti, Vargr, 
   Aslan, Hiver, and K'kree was not. Remains the Droyne, which was one of
   the two special coyns. The remaining special coyn disappeared from the
   set when Grandfather re-introduced it, presumably because it was no
   longer relevant to the new Droyne. I suggest Eskaloyt, the Droyne
   homeworld itself. We now have 30+2 coyns. We lack one group of six, all
   of them coyns that were subsequently removed. One solution supplies not
   only a group with a common theme, but also the explanation of why they
   became redundant: Six prey animals native to Eskaloyt. Used by primitive
   Droyne to perform hunt magic.

So I suggest that the Ancient coyn set consisted of:

Worker     Warrior      Drone       Technician   Sport    Leader
Void       Soil         Air         Gas          Water    Fire
Darkness   Cold         Noise       Signal       Heat     Light
Genesis    Aspiration   Sacrifice   Defeat       Death    Achievement
Beast      Mercenary    Voyages     Justice      Chance   Phoenix
Hissayt    Emissyob     Ayvaylk     Bestoy       Nebbay   Hayyarn
Droyne     Eskaloyt

But I can't just hand a list like that to my players. I'd much rather give
them a description of what the coyns look like. And that's where I need some
help. I've come up wih a description of most of the coyns. Some I like, some
I'm not thrilled about, and some I downright dislike, but can't come up with
a good alternative to. So if you think of something you think is better, let
me know.

c) The modern coyns that duplicates Ancient coyns duplicates their design 
   too.

4) The first Grandfather set (in -75,000) consisted of 38 coyns and included
   one with a human and one with a flame [RSG pp. 4 and 38].

d) The set of six fake coyns menioned on page 13 of _Twilight's Peak_ are
   copies of real coyns (albeit modern coyns); they depict an aslan leader,
   a flame, a human, a cloud, an ice crystal, and a sine wave.

e) The depictions of the six castes on page 64 of TP and pp. 12-13 of
   _Droyne_ are taken from the coyn depictions of those castes.

f) The coyn shown on the back of _Droyne_ (two flames and the lower third
   is obsured by a droyne) is not a variant of the coyn wih the single
   flame.

Now to match coyns to descriptions. The first six are easy, thanks to
assumption e):

A massive droyne with digging tools     Worker
A tall droyne with sword and shield     Warrior
A flying droyne with a bottle[1]        Drone           
A medium droyne with tools and detector Technician
A slender droyne with ball and bat[2]   Sport
A big-headed droyne with a spear[3]     Leader

[1] A feeding bottle, perhaps?
[2] My best guess. It looks like a giant spoon and an irregular disc. I
    suggest that it's for _feldoss_, a popular droyne game that I just
    made up ;-) 
[3] A ceremonial spear, of course. See later.

The rest are a bit more tricky. The ones we know about, apart from the
Aslan and the human, was a flame, an ice crystal, a cloud, a sine wave,
and two flames. The flame and the ice crystal can be Fire and Cold. The 
cloud could be Air, Gas, or Water (or any of the philosophical concepts, 
of course; a cloud could be the symbol of hope to an agrarian community
("I do so hope it will rain")). The sine wave I eventually assigned to
Signal, which gave me a jagged zig-zag line for it's opposite, Noise.

Now, going down the list here are the symbols I came up with for each coyn:

Void        Nothing engraved. A blank disc.
Soil        A massive cliff. 
Air         A white cloud (ie. the outline of a cloud).
Gas         A black cloud (ie. a filled-in outline of a cloud).
Water       A foam-flecked wave.
Fire        A flame.

(Except for the Void and the Fire I'm pretty dissatisfied with these, but
they are the best I can come up with. Any suggestions?)

Darkness    Two different sized cresents (The moons of Eskaloyt)
Light       A sun.
Cold        An ice crystal.
Heat        A campfire (Two flames arising from a tree log). 
Signal      A sine wave.
Noise       A zig-zag line.

Voyages     A sailing ship.
Justice     A ceremonial spear[4].
Chance      Six sticks in a random pattern[5].
Beast       A ferocious six-limbed carnivore in mid-jump[6].
Mercenary   A big-headed droyne with arms and armour[7].
Phoenix     A six-limbed animal surrounded by flames.

[4] Used by primitive Droyne leaders to dispatch those judged guilty or
    supurfluous to the community (This must have been before krinaytsyu
    became common; when it did, the Leader kept the spear as his symbol
    of authority).
[5] The Droyne use such sticks to generate random numbers according to 
    the pattern they fall in; coyn drawing is not, of course, considered 
    a random procedure since theyare assumed to predict future events.
[6] The _Stomfelk_, the most feared predator on Eskaloyt.
[7] I reasoned that mercenaries must be krinaytsoyni, and the most common
    krinaytsoyni are leaders. Hence a leader with weapons for a mercenary.

Genesis     An egg.
Death       A droyne skull.
Achievement A brimful cup.
Defeat      An empty, tipped-over cup.
Hope        Six stars in a random pattern[8].
Sacrifice   A droyne sitting with eyes closed[9].


[8] Well, what can I say? If I could come up with good symbols for Air
    and Gas, I'd use the (rain) cloud for hope. As it is I'm falling back
    on a Droyne constellation symbolising hope.
[9] A droyne commiting krinaytsyui, of course.

The Hissayt, Emissyob, Ayvaylk, Bestoy, Nebbay, and Hayyarm are various
six-limbed herbivores and omnivores once important to Droyne hunters. I
had descriptions of them all worked out, but those notes seems to have
dissappeared.

Finally the two special coyns:

Droyne     A group of three droyne, a leader, a drone, and a worker[10].
Eskaloyt   Some strange irregular outlines (diferent on the two sides)[11].

[10] In other words, an alpha-male, a female, and a beta-male.
[11] Polar projections of Eskaloyt. Since they don't have the lattitude
     and longitude lines common to human map projections they are unlikely 
     to be identified as such by humans. 

Well, that's what I've got so far. Any comments?

      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
        "A  subsector  official  pompously states that the
        subsector  armed  forces  have  four Kinunir class
        ships in service,  each with enough troop strength
        to put down any military operations that threathen
        the peace of the Imperium."

                        ---Adventure 1, The Kinunir

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

Bundle: 628
Archive-Message-Number: 7897
Date: Tue, 7 Jun 94 06:35:21 EDT
From: wesley@hd62.haledorr.com (Wesley Esser)






         David Johnson was looking for some suggestions about the governent
         of the Regency - here's my take on it:

         ----------------------%<------------------------------------

         Government Structure of the Regency

         The Regency has three actual branches of government: Legislative,
         Judicial, Executive; and the Military.  The legislative branch
         consists of two chambers, the Moot and the Senate, which share
         power.  The judicial branch consists of a series of appeals courts
         of varying power, and executive branch consists of the various
         Governors.  The military is not a separate branch, but is not
         beholden to the other branches.  The Regent is the highest level
         of authority for each branch. 



                                          Regent <--
         R                                  |      |
         E W       --------------------------------|------------------
         G I     Legislative Branches  Judiciary   |Executive     Military
         E D       |           |           |       |    |            |
         N E       |   -----------------------------    |            |    
         C         |   |       |           |            |         Admirals
         Y       Regency     Senate---> Regent's        |        ----------
                  Moot         |         Court          |         Marshals 
         ----------|-----------|-----------|------------|------------|-----
         S       Sector        |         Sector         |            |    
         E W     Dukes         |------> Apellate        |            |    
         C I       |           |         Court          |            |     
         T D       |           |           |            |            |     
         O E       |           |           |            |            |
         R         |           |           |            |            |
         __________|___________|___________|____________|____________|_____
           S      Sub          |           |           Sub         Fleet  
         S E W   Sector        |----------------->    Sector      Admirals
         U C I   Dukes         |           |        Governors        |     
         B T D     |           |           |            |            |    
           O E     |           -------------------      |            |    
           R       |                       |     |      |            |    
         ----------|-----------------------|-----|------|------------|-----
         W       Counts                District  -->Planetary     Reserve 
         O      Marquises               Courts      Governors     Admirals
         R       Barons                                          ----------
         L                                                        Generals
         D                                                                



         At the top of this hierarchy, wielding the highest power of the
         executive, legislative, judicial and military branches, is the
         Regent.  The office is held for life and passed on to the
         designated heir.  The Regent appoints candidates to all executive
         and judical posts on the sector and subsector levels, subject to
         confirmation by the Senate.  The armed forces are controlled
         directly by the Regent with no oversight by the Senate or the
         Moot.  The titles held by the Regent include, but are not limited
         to:  Lord Regent of the Third Imperium, Archduke of Deneb,
         President of the Senate, Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Navy,
         and Supreme Marshall of the Imperial Army.

         The Moot is the senior chamber of the legislative branch, composed
         of the peers of baronial rank and higher in the realm who serve as
         long as they maintain their title (usually for life, although
         abdications do occur).  There is approximately one noble per
         planet in the Regency, and as such, the Moot tends to favor the
         rights of lower population worlds.  The members of the Moot are
         predominantly human.  Although the Moot does vote to confirm the
         succession to the Regency, this power is mitigated by the fact
         that they can only vote for, not against a new Regent.
         Politically the Moot tends to be dominated by the Aristocratic,
         Imperiallist and Sovreignist blocks.

         The Senate is technically the junior chamber of the legislature,
         although in fact it is more active politcally than the Moot.
         Senators are popularly elected representatives of Senatorial
         Districts of approximately 1 billion sophonts.  Being based on
         population, these districts can vary in size from a portion of a
         world to a dozen or more entire worlds.  Because of this, the
         Senate tends to favor the high population worlds, where some 96%
         of the Regency's population live.  In addition, the Senate is a
         more cosmopolitan body, with 29 Llelywolly Senators from Junidy,
         11 Gl'lu Senators from Kibushish, one Ebokin Senator from Yebab,
         several Aslan Senators from the spinward regions, and even one
         Chirper Senator from Vanejeen.  Senators serve 10 year terms, and
         may be elected to no more than 3 terms in succession.  The Senate
         has the power to confirm or reject all appointments to the
         Judicial and Executive branches made by the Regent. Unsuprisingly,
         the Senate tends to hold Democratic/Interventionist views.

         The judicial branch exists to decide when (or if) Regency law has
         been violated, and consisists of a series of courts at various
         levels that have the ability to review the decisions of courts at
         lower levels. The lowest level are the Regency District Courts,
         corresponding to the Senatorial Districts.  These courts are the
         base of Regency law, and spend much of their time hearing local
         cases dealing with conflicts between Regency law and the local
         laws.  Decisions of the District Courts may be appealed to the
         Subsector Appeals Court, which can in turn lead to an appeal to
         the Regent's Court on Mora.  The final avenue of appeal is
         directly to the Regent, who can reverse the decision of any
         Regency Court.  Justices of the District Courts are elected from
         the district.  Justices of the Appeals and Regent's courts are
         appointed by the Regent for indefinite terms, but are subject to
         co[C[Cnfirmation by the Senate.  They may be removed from office by
         the Regent, or by a vote of the Senate.

         The executive branch consists of the Subsector Governors appointed
         by the Regent and confirmed by the Senate, and Planetary Governors
         appointed by the Senate.  It's purpose is to ensure that the will
         of the Senate and of the Regent is carried out.  Thus the
         Governors are responsible for collection of taxes, implementation
         of policy and enforcement of Regency law.

         The military in the Regency is not an actual branch of the
         government, but it funtions in many was as such.  The head of the
         military is the Regent, and under him are the Admirals and
         Marshals of the Realm.  Each Sub-Sector has a Fleet admiral
         assigned to it, and each high population world has a Reserve
         Admiral in charge of the reserve fleet, and a General in charge of
         the planet's ground forces.  The military, through the person of
         the Regent (undoubtedly with advice from the Senate and the Moot),
         has the right to decide when to wage war or make peace.  It is
         effectively outside the the control of the Senate, the Moot and
         the Governors on most matters.  The military is, however, bound to
         uphold Regency law, and thus must obey decisions of the judiciary.

         ----------------------%<------------------------------------

         I have tried to incorporate a few important ideas in this outline,
         most importantly the divisions of power between the Senate and the
         Moot, and their different focuses (i.e., the population based
         Senate v. the planet based Moot), the conflict between
         Sovreignists and Interventionists (to use David Johnson's terms),
         and the role of the Regent as the font of all political power. 

         One idea that I would particularly like comment on is the
         Senatorial District.  It would seem odd to me to allow , say,
         Menorb and Pixie the same level of representation given their
         different populations.  So I have combined Pixie into one district
         with Menorb, Yres and Boughene.  This gives a fairly compact
         district of 3,060,900,800 (New Era figures) which is further
         divided into three subdistricts, each of which elect one Senator.
         This seems to be more in tune with a democratic body than the
         arbitrary sector/subsector designation, as it can recognize
         clusters of worlds as sharing common circumstances without giving
         them seperate governments.  The main problem with this is the
         exact nature of the districts (they are a pain to figure out), but
         that seems ok to me too..it lets things stay flexible as
         populations grow and shift.  And just imagine the fights in the
         Senate of over redistricting!  I can see a whole adventure based
         on census taking, and whether the population of Wochiers has
         really passed 1 billion.  How's that for cerebral adventuring?  

         Also, this concept gives the minor races more of a chance to have
         representation in the Senate.  Imagine a Gl'lu delegation
         wandering around in insulated suits full of ammonia - how's that
         to remind your players that they aren't in Kansas anymore.



         So there you go guys...  go to town!  I'm off to the beach for a
         few days...I can't wait to get back and see what you all think!

         Wes Esser
         wesley.esser@hd62.haledorr.com

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End of TML Biweekly
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