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Traveller-digest           Saturday, 13 July 1996       Volume 1996 : Number 246

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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

         1. Re: Correction...
         2. Re: Spacesuits
         3. Re: Favorite Movie Lines...
         4. Re: The Iridium Standard
         5. Re: Traveller-digest V1996 #245
         6. Re: Pop Culture in Trav (was Corn Dogs)
         7. OFF TOPIC: I'm baaaack! :)
         8. Re: Pop Culture in Trav (was Corn Dogs)
         9. Re: Jump space theory
        10. Antimatter Missiles in Traveller
        11. Antimatter Missiles in Traveller
        12. Re: Good experience with IG...
        13. How the Imperium Really Fell (long)

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

From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Date: Fri, 12 Jul 1996 22:07:58 PST
Subject: Re: Correction...

In somewhere mysterious you write:

> On Thursday, July 11, shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) wrote:
>> Nope. The "rule of thumb" is that *3* km/s give you the energy of an
>> equivalent amount of TNT. 
>
> My correction stands corrected. That explains the factor of 3
> difference (BTW, my calculations show the break-even point at
> 2.89km/s). The 5km/s "rule of thumb" was given in Grolier's
> encyclopedia. Considering that energy rises with the square
> of velocity, that's one heck of a rounding error. :-)

Can't trust anybody these days, can you? :-)

> On a related topic:
>
> I must have wasted over an hour trying to find out how many
> joules were released by 1 ton of TNT. I looked through text
> books, encyclopedias, etc. to no avail. The next time I had
> access to the Web, I used AltaVista and found it in under 2
> minutes! From now on, the Web's the *first* place I'm going
> to look for *any* kind of obscure information.

I got it from the sci.space FAQ. :-)

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

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

From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Date: Sat, 13 Jul 1996 02:07:55 PST
Subject: Re: Spacesuits

[re-mailed to you from rec.arts.sf.science]
[the original seemed to come from jringo1508@aol.com]

>The generic answer to the delta E of a human is that a human body "can
>melt 50 lbs of ice" in 24 hrs.

Well, this gives us a figure to start working on heat loading from.

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

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

From: "Stuart L. Dollar" <sdollar@goodnet.com>
Date: Sat, 13 Jul 1996 06:26:57 -0800
Subject: Re: Favorite Movie Lines...

On 12 Jul 96 at 16:43, Derek Stanley spewed:

> Paul Walker wrote:
> > 
> > >To paraphrase Jeff Goldblum from Jurasic Park.
> > >
> > >"You were so busy trying to figure out how to do it that no one bother to
> > >stop and think whether they should be doing it at all."
> > 
> > I know this is way off topic, but I think this is one(probably second) of my
> > all time favorite lines from a movie.  BTW, I think it applies incredibly
> > well to Virus.
> > 
> > As a side note, those of you who have kids will appreciate my favorite line:
> > 
> > >From the mother in "Honey I blew up the Kid":
> > 
> > "There's one thing that every kid knows, dads mean fun, but momma means
> > business!!"
> > Let's not forget.
> 
> "You came in that?  You're braver than I thought."
> 

"Hey now...don't be mean..we don't have to be mean.  'cause remember, 
no matter where you go, there you are."

Peter Weller in Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension

Stu

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

From: "Stuart L. Dollar" <sdollar@goodnet.com>
Date: Sat, 13 Jul 1996 06:26:57 -0800
Subject: Re: The Iridium Standard

On 12 Jul 96 at 21:42, Charles Pratt spewed:

> On Fri, 12 Jul 1996, Stuart L. Dollar wrote:
> 
> > Very, very true...
> >
> > In an environment where communications are limited to the speed of
> > the fastest ship...information is THE most valuable cargo...
> 
> Exactly...Has anyone given any thought to the myriad of private x-boat
> knock offs that would almost certainly be prevalent in the Imperium?  Like
> the Fed-Ex's and UPS's of the Traveller universe...

Of course, depending on how thoroughly regulated mail service is in 
the Imperium, there might be none at all.  

 
"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent" -Isaac Asimov, from "Foundation"
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This tagline brought to you by Big Ed's Taco Emporium, conveniently located next to
Bob's Pet Shop.
Stuart L. Dollar           sdollar@goodnet.com    

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

From: Bontainer@aol.com
Date: Sat, 13 Jul 1996 10:20:00 -0400
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1996 #245

unsubsribe traveller digest

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

From: muskrat@msn.fullfeed.com (John Kovalic)
Date: Sat, 13 Jul 1996 10:38:23 -0500
Subject: Re: Pop Culture in Trav (was Corn Dogs)

>On 12 Jul 96 at 10:24, "Stuart L. Dollar" said:
>
>> being saved on CD-ROMs and other hi-tech medium, I don't think a knowledge
>> of our culture would be too difficult to obtain.  Also remember that the RC
>
>Problem is that there is 3,600 years of culture in between and we see
>none of them.  There wouldn't be that many references to the culture
>of ONE nation, on a balkanized world, that frankly was a backwater
>world in the 20th century...

(Best Beavis and Butt-Head impersonation herte) Yes! YYYYES! YYYYEEEESSSS!

Exactly!

How many pop-cultural references do we have lying around from 1600 BC?
What's left is mostly in the form of Myth and Legend, not people quoting
Euripides (which isn't even 3,600 years away)....

I remember a science fiction story of a future civilization (the remenants
of an After-The-Bomb type affair) worshiping the image of Micky Mouse,
because they had no connecting context to put it in. In that case, the
contemporary pop cultural referrence worked (for me, anyway - even though I
didn't much like the story).

Corn dogs and Python? Love 'em both. But I don't think they'll survive
4,000 years. The latter Traveller publications did. And a lot of other 20th
century Anglo-American institutions. It just broke down my suspension of
disbelief.

John Kovalic





******************************************************************
"This must be Thursday. I never COULD get the hang of Thursdays"
                                                     - Arthur Dent
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*                 "Wild Life": a Web comic --                    *
*       MUSKRAT CENTRAL: http://www.msn.fullfeed.com/muskrat/    *
******************************************************************




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

From: "Peter L. Berghold" <peterb@superlink.net>
Date: Sat, 13 Jul 1996 11:39:45 -0400
Subject: OFF TOPIC: I'm baaaack! :)

Hi Folks!

I've just come back from the state of Maine where I spent 5 days camping on
the shore of Lake Damariscotta.   Was really good to get away and spend time
in a TL1 state of existance. (or is camping TL0? TL2? who cares...)
- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
- -=-=-
Peter L. Berghold -- Sr Unix Specialist, TCG, Staten Island NY
http://mars.superlink.net/~peterb               peterb@superlink.net 
VOX: (718) 355-2722                              -or- berghold@tcg.com
FAX: (718) 355-4282   "... once more into the breach..."


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

From: "Peter L. Berghold" <peterb@superlink.net>
Date: Sat, 13 Jul 1996 12:14:54 -0400
Subject: Re: Pop Culture in Trav (was Corn Dogs)

At 10:38 AM 7/13/96 -0500, you wrote:

>Corn dogs and Python? Love 'em both. But I don't think they'll survive
>4,000 years. The latter Traveller publications did. And a lot of other 20th

Along the same lines just 150 years ago chewing the fat from a cow or pig
was a popular snack...  By fat, I mean the stuff that nowadays would be used
for suet and fed to the chickadees as chickadee pudding. I don't remember
what the snack was called, the closest modern equivilent I can think of is
pork rinds.

The only reason I even know about it is in the process of my mother tracing
our geneology she stumbled upon a diary from one of our ancestors ( her name
I forget as well.)   She describes the men of the family eating this stuff
for breakfast along with their morning porrige. 

Today with our health concious culture nobody would even think about eating
that stuff...
 
- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
- -=-=-
Peter L. Berghold -- Sr Unix Specialist, TCG, Staten Island NY
http://mars.superlink.net/~peterb               peterb@superlink.net 
VOX: (718) 355-2722                              -or- berghold@tcg.com
FAX: (718) 355-4282   "... once more into the breach..."


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

From: Derek Stanley <dstanley@direct.ca>
Date: Sat, 13 Jul 1996 09:34:37 -0700
Subject: Re: Jump space theory

Bri wrote:
> 
>On Fri, 12 Jul 1996, Derek Stanley wrote:
> 
>>all your jump fuel in external collapsable bladders,  By the time the
>>field is formed the fuel is consumed and the ships volume is exactly 
>>what it was before.  On a Midu Agasham this would give 10,500 cubic 
>>meters in which to place weapons, power plants, etc.
>
>This is cannon, just look at the Gazelle close escort. It operates on
>exactley the same principle.

The Gazelle uses ridged external tanks to give it better insystem 
preformence (more G-Turns) according to all the TNE write ups, I don't 
recall any of the Classis write ups.  The problem is that with the tanks 
attached the Gazelle's jump preformance degrades from a 5, bare hull, to 
a 3, external tanks.

>And if I recall correctley, even FFnS states it.

FF&S, having just looked at the page tells you how much fuel is required 
but doesn't say how the fuel is consumed.  TNE doesn't say much more, 
p224, "Starships tned to have large fuel capacities due to the need for 
coolant and jump discharge mass..."  Which doesn't tell us anything 
really.  Brilliant Lances, Technical Booklet p4 says, "Jump Drives 
require fuel, dispacement mass, and coolant, all of which are 
collectively called jump fuel (liquid hydrogen being used for all three 
functions)."  

None of these sources really tell us how much fuel is consumed during the 
initial formation of the jump-field.  However, two of them refer to 
coolant, if the jump-drive is simply turned off after the establishment 
of the jump-field why on earth would you need coolent?  My theory is that 
the jump-drive remains active thoughout the lenght of the jump, most 
of the fuel is consumed during the initial activation of the drive, but 
the active drive maintains the jump-fields integrity.

If this is not so the most economically viable thing to do with a 
Far-Trader would be to move all the jump-fuel to collapsable external 
bladders and convert the fuel tanks, 420 cubic meters, into cargo hold.  
Thus the ship would displace 230 tons upon activation of the drive and by 
the time the field was formed, because the collapsable tanks would be 
drawn back into the ships hull, it would only dispace the original 200.  
This way you maintain your original volume during transit in J-space but 
you gain an extra 420 cubic meters of cargo space.

Of course the ship would look something like a feeding humpback whale 
with these tanks full.

Derek Stanley


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

From: Jason E English <jeest5+@pitt.edu>
Date: Sat, 13 Jul 1996 13:30:43 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Antimatter Missiles in Traveller

Hello, One and All!
   I'm wondering if anyone can help me out. I'm looking for rules on the
use and effects of antimatter missiles in any version of Traveller. I'm
using the New Era rules to run a Star Trek campaign (yes, I know it's
evil, but the TNE rules are so much better), and I'm trying to adapt the
effects of photon torpedoes.
   Along the same lines, can anyone tell me how I might develop
anitmatter warheads for use in the FF&S rules? (Think of it -
antimatter RAM grenades, mortar rounds, AGMs...oh, can you feel the love!)
   I'd appreciate any information you can send my way.  Thanks a lot.

Laugh While You Can!
Jason "Banzai" English
(jeest5@pitt.edu OR Visit Banzai's Web Page at "http://www.pitt.edu/~jeest5")



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

From: Jason E English <jeest5+@pitt.edu>
Date: Sat, 13 Jul 1996 13:32:53 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Antimatter Missiles in Traveller

Hello, One and All!
   I'm wondering if anyone can help me out. I'm looking for rules on the
use and effects of antimatter missiles in any version of Traveller. I'm
using the New Era rules to run a Star Trek campaign (yes, I know it's
evil, but the TNE rules are so much better), and I'm trying to adapt the
effects of photon torpedoes.
   Along the same lines, can anyone tell me how I might develop
anitmatter warheads for use in the FF&S rules? (Think of it -
antimatter RAM grenades, mortar rounds, AGMs...oh, can you feel the love!)
   I'd appreciate any information you can send my way.  Thanks a lot.

Laugh While You Can!
Jason "Banzai" English
(jeest5@pitt.edu OR Visit Banzai's Web Page at "http://www.pitt.edu/~jeest5")



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

From: Joe Walsh <ransom@connect.iconnect.net>
Date: Sat, 13 Jul 1996 13:51:40 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Re: Good experience with IG...

On Fri, 12 Jul 1996, Stuart L. Dollar wrote:

> Actually reading somebody else's comments about IG led me to 
> remember an experience I had several weeks ago...
> 
> When IG first put up their website, I called up and placed an order 
> for 2 of the hardbounds (1 to put away for posterity, 1 to use).  At 

I did the same thing...

> the time I could only afford 2 of them, so I ordered 2.  Later on, I 
> figured it would be nice to have a 3rd book to use, so about a month 
> after placing the original order, I put in an order via the order 
> form for a 3rd book...

I figure on getting my third one from the local games retailer who I have 
been hounding to make sure he gets plenty of the upcoming Traveller 
material.  After bugging him about it, I figure I'd better give him some 
of my money. :)

> About a week after I placed a second order, a woman whose name 
> escapes me (receptionist, perhaps?) called me from IG.  I had placed 

I've spoken to her (the receptionist/order taker) so many times she 
actually remembers my name, I'm embarassed to say. [G]  More embarassing, 
I never asked her for her name...

Anyway, I recently placed yet another order, this time for membership the 
Citizens of the Imperium club.  I haven't been a member of a fan club 
since...well, since I joined the Atari VCS/2600 game machine's fan club 
in 80 or 81!  I feel kinda silly joining Citizens of the Imperium, but what 
the hell...

> my 1st order with her as well.  She was just calling back to make 
> sure that I was wanting 3 total, and hadn't just inadvertently forgot 
> about my first order...
> 
> As someone who has managed people in various sales and customer 
> service environments for 15 years now, I appreciate anytime somebody 
> shows that they care about their work enough to go an extra mile...

I've found her to be thoughtful and courteous as well.  An excellent 
liason between IG and their customers.  I hope they realize what a great 
person they have in their employ.

> August is going to be a long time coming... ;-)

Yup.


- -Joe
______________________________________________________________________________
Joseph E. Walsh      |  Atari 8-Bit User and Programmer Since 1982
ransom@iconnect.net  |  Classic Traveller Referee Since 1983
Stuck in the '80s    |  Microsoft-Free and Loving It! :)



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

From: Jim Vassilakos <jimv@e2.empirenet.com>
Date: Sat, 13 Jul 1996 11:57:06 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: How the Imperium Really Fell (long)

James Lowry <jlowry@tfb.com> writes:
>    Frankly, I have to say I've never liked the Virus. (As a plot
> device, I make no statements as to how possible it is.)  Mainly, I thought
> of it as GDW selling out the Traveller universe to the fashionable 'dark
> future/cyberpunk' fad.
>    Anyway, I've been thinking along the lines of an 'alternate
> history.'  Everything is the same, until the aperance of the Virus.
>    Is there anyone who feels the same way, and would like to work out a
> 'dim future' version of the events of 1120+, or am I alone in this?

Speaking as one James to another, I have to tell you that it's already
been done. Not by me but by Bertil Jonell, one of our very own TMLers.
He sent me an article back in 1991 that found its way into the 6th and
final issue of the Guildsman, an online & paper fanzine I was running
at the time. Since I'm currently working on asciifying some of those
old articles, I figured I might as well send this one to the list.
Personally, I think it would have made a much better history than
the Virus, but that's just my opinion.

                  How the Imperium Really Fell

                  Copyright 1991 Bertil Jonell
                   d9bertil@dtek.chalmers.se

     Editor's Blurb:
     ---------------
     It all started late last year when Traveller players
     across the net heard an ugly rumor. The Imperium, GDW's
     extraordinarily comprehensive setting for the Traveller
     RPG, was going to fold because of a computer killing
     virus so that the gaming company could launch its new
     product, called "Traveller: The New Era", in a future,
     lower-tech extrapolation of the current and well-loved
     setting. Players, referees, and computer scientists
     alike were amazed, astonished, dumbfounded, and
     otherwise cranky about the news, not doubting GDW's
     willingness to smash it all (ala the assassination of
     Strephon) just to stir things up. Despite the injury,
     however, players seemed angrier over the affront to
     their intellect. "If they want to destroy the Imperium,
     why use a computer virus?" Why indeed? In his article,
     Bertil introduces a more creative and somewhat more
     believable explanation concerning how the Imperium
     really fell. We all hope that GDW will read it and use
     it!

It was 1116 on a cold planet in the Swordworlds. Emperor Strephon
and The Chairman of the High Council for the Zhodani Consulate
met in the utmost secrecy at the request of the Emperor. Two
years previously, the Consulate had sent a secret delegation to
Capitol/Core to inform the Emperor of the result of a test
several centuries in the planning.

In -7959, Imperial time, twenty years after their first orbital
flights, the Zhodanis mounted an expedition to their planet's
moon, Viepchakl. On the moon they found an extensive system of
underground tunnels dating back to the time of the Ancients. It
was still inhabited by Chirpers (regressed Droyne) similar to
those found on Zhdant itself. There were also a small number of
artifacts, among those a psionic booster. This was a device that
enhanced and focused the innate psionic power of teleporters so
that one person marginally skilled in teleportation could
teleport himself with full equipment or up to five other 
individuals (or warbots) over interplanetary distances.
Furthermore, the device automatically compensated for differences
in vector and potential energy between the two locations [1].

   Footnote #1: This artifact was the reason for the devastating
   plague that hit Zhdant after their first moon landings: the
   meeting between Viepchakl and Zhdant Chirpers (the latter
   members of the expedition) activated the tailored plague sown
   by the Ancients as a part of their final war. During its
   incubation time, it was brought down to Zhdant by humans and
   Chirpers testing the device. Even though they knew what the
   device did, the Viepchaklite Chirpers had lacked the technical
   skill to energize the device themselves before the Zhodani
   landed.
      When the first Chirpers began to die on the moon, it was
   already too late. The plague had spread to the Zhdant Chirper
   population and soon it targeted the humans on both Zhdant and
   the moon. All life on the moon was destroyed, and on Zhdant
   all Chirpers and 90% of the humans died. It took the Zhodanis
   nearly a thousand years to drag themselves out of the dark age
   resulting from the plague.

By 1114, however, in a manner similar to when the Imperium copied
the first black globe screen from artifacts found on Knorbes/
Spinward Marches, the Zhodani had succeeded in producing crude
but working copies of the teleportation enhancing device. The
Zhodani delegation to Core informed the Imperium of this highly
secret development. They assured that it would be used in the
case of an Imperial attack upon the Consulate or upon states
allied to the Consulate, and they asked the Emperor to scrap all
strategic fleet assets and only keep the anti-piracy detachments.
Their claims were proven in a demonstration where a volunteer
Zhodani and five warbot dummies teleported from a Zhodani cruiser
to an Imperial cruiser over Jewell/Spinward Marches while both
ships were engaged in heavy maneuvering at an interplanetary
distance from each other.

The Imperial High Command was terrified. Their age-old nightmare
of Zhodani commando warbots suddenly appearing in strategic
locations inside Imperial ships had come true. With just one
teleportation enhancer and a load of warbots, a lone Zhodani
teleporter could immobilize scores of frightfully expensive
Imperial ships.

For several centuries, both nations had been locked in a deadly
arms race, and with more area to protect and more enemies to
defend against, the bloated Empire was on the losing side. To
avoid alerting the Zhodani and other enemies that the Imperial
economy was on the verge of collapse, a policy was undertaken of
artificially inflating planetary GNP figures and underestimating
ship costs. Official figures claimed that the Imperium spent
around 1% of its total GNP for defense while the real figure was
actually closer to 60%. The Zhodani had penetrated the facade,
but it still fooled the Solomani, the Aslan, and the Vargr. While
creative accounting by IISS, the Department of Finance, the Navy,
and several Megacorps could hide the reality, it couldn't
overcome it.

Emperor Strephon immediately ordered that a countermeasure to the
Zhodani teleporters be found and installed on all Imperial
warships. Navy scientists informed him that a countermeasure
already existed: additional psionic shielding, but it was
ridiculously expensive. The already existent shielding in the
ships was one of the secret posts in the Navy budget. Repair and
maintenance of the frail and experimental electronics sucked up
immense amounts of money. Economists at the Imperial Department
of Finance then revealed to Strephon that the Imperial economy
simply couldn't handle the strain of equipping all or even the
most important ships with this new, expensive, and even more
frail and hard to maintain shielding.

Forced into a corner between the militant faction in the Imperial
Nobility led by Archduke Dulinor of Illelish ("The Zhodani will
attack us. It is just a matter of time. Any peace-treaty on their
part is a scam, so we must have this new shield") and the
economic realities of the situation, Strephon had no choice
except to start playing his trump cards.

The first was the Darrian Option. A sizable fraction of the
Corridor fleet was ordered to transfer to the Solomani Rim while
a similar number of ships in the Rim were transferred to
Corridor. This was officially called a "unit exchange maneuver".
In reality, however, the fleet that should of traveled rimward
traveled spinward towards the Darrian worlds in Spinward Marches,
gathering reserve units to boost its size along the way. Just
outside the Darrian border this combined fleet stopped in deep
space. A fleet courier continued on and delivered a message from
Emperor Strephon to the Darrians.

The message was an ultimatum. It asserted that unless the
Darrians attacked a long list of Zhodani systems with their
"Maghiz device" [2], elements of the Imperial Corridor Fleet
would sterilize all Darrian worlds with nuclear, chemical and
biological weapons. The Darrian response was that unless certain
coded and outwardly normal messages continued to be transmitted
over the Imperial Xboat Network from Darrian to certain places in
the Imperium, preplaced Maghiz devices would be triggered on
several strategic locations in the Imperium.

The fleet left.

   Footnote #2: The Maghiz device, also known by non-Darrians as
   the Star Trigger is a semi-mythical weapon that can induce
   sub-nova flares in a star. These flares will travel outwards
   at the speed of light and destroy all types of electronics
   within twenty light-years in a manner similar to nuclear EMP.
   Its accidental discovery set the Darrians back two thousand
   years.

The second card was the Ultraviolet Option, an extension of the
old Project Blackheart. Several Imperial deep penetration fleet
intruders equipped with enormous deployable solar arrays would
enter the Consulate. They would use their solar arrays to charge
their jump drives. In conjunction with sporadic wilderness
refuelings on cometary nuclei, this would enable them to travel
deep into the Zhodani Consulate without ever straying close to a
system. Once at their planned locations, they would use the
element of surprise to bombard Zhdant and several other core
Zhodani worlds with nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
Hopefully, this would disrupt the Zhodani deployment of the
teleportation device long enough for the Imperium to invade and
crush the Zhodanis once and for all.

Just a few weeks after the five ships had departed, a new
delegation from the Consulate arrived at Regina bringing proof
that all five ships had been intercepted and destroyed before
even leaving the Spinward Marches sector. The Zhodani message can
be paraphrased as follows: "We expected about as much from you
untrustworthy Imperials, and we will overlook it. But try
something more, and we will be forced to invade and crush you for
our own protection."

Strephon had secretly been on Regina to direct first the Darrian
option and then the Ultraviolet option while avoiding the usual
time delays. He now requested an immediate summit. The location
agreed on was the Swordworlds, allied to the Zhodanis but almost
inside the Imperial sphere of influence. Emperor Strephon
traveled there to try to cut a deal not too unfavorable to the
Imperium, but at least one person in his entourage viewed this as
a capitulation and spilled the beans. Word about what was
happening spread with a jump 6+6 fleet courier across the Rift to
Illelish where Dulinor put in motion the plan he had prepared on
the off-chance that Strephon would "chicken-out".

During the negotiations on that small, cold planet in the
Swordworlds, Emperor Strephon tried every trick in the book. He
promised a removal of all Imperial laws banning psionics. He
promised a total demilitarization of Spinward Marches and Deneb.
He promised the return of the areas the Imperium captured from
the Swordworlds during the 5th Frontier War. He promised a
cut-off of Imperial military support to their tenuous allies, the
Darrians. He promised to open all Imperial military installations
to Zhodani inspection teams. All these things demanded by the
Zhodanis and refused by the Imperium in past negotiations. But
every promise was dependent upon the Zhodanis not deploying their
teleportation enhancer and that Imperial inspection teams would
be allowed to ascertain that the Zhodanis held their half of the
agreement. And the non-deployment of the teleportation enhancer
was the only issue upon which the Chairman refused to negotiate.

In the end, Strephon had to yield. The enhancers would be
deployed, but he managed to cut a much better deal for the
Imperium than the original Zhodani proposal would have been.
According to the final version of the agreement, the Imperium
would permanently give up all claims for any area spinward of its
current positions in the Marches, coreward of Deneb, and spinward
of the Windhorn rift. The size of the Imperial fleets would be
cut by 50%, and the Spinward Marches would be transformed into a
demilitarized zone.

However, while Strephon and the Chairman of the High Council of
the Zhodani Consulate signed the agreement, Archduke Dulinor
traveled towards Core to perform the now infamous coup. Strephon
got wind of the assassination when his ship was attacked in
Corridor on the way back. He diverted to his retreat position in
Gushemege to rally his forces and strike back. Meanwhile
Dulinor's coup had run into trouble.

Lucan, nephew of Strephon, third in line for the throne after the
Grand Princess and Varian, his own brother, had promised to help
back Dulinor by preparing incriminating evidence of Strephon's
"treason" in exchange for the position as Archduke of Deneb.
Dulinor's plan, as Lucan knew it, was that Dulinor would request
an audience with the "Emperor" [3], the Empress, and the Grand
Princess and then he would shoot them. The Illelish Guard would
then secure the throne room while Dulinor and Lucan presented the
"proof" that Lucan had prepared. Dulinor would then denounce
Strephon as a traitor to the Empire, assume the throne by Right
of Assassination, and declare war on the Zhodanis before they
could declare war on him.

   Footnote #3: Strephon maintained a secret policy of using an
   actor surgically altered to look and sound like him to cover
   for him when he didn't want his absence from Capitol/Core to
   be known.

Both co-conspirators had planned to double-cross each other from
the very start. Dulinor planned to have both Lucan and Varian
murdered after he had received the evidence, because as
legitimate heirs to the throne they would be threats. Lucan, also
aspiring for the throne, planned to have his brother Varian and
the real Strephon, returning from the Swordworlds, murdered. He
would then rally the Imperial Marine Guards to crush Dulinor
after the assassination of the "Emperor", the Empress, and the
Grand Princess. Lucan would thus emerge as both the legitimate
heir to the throne and the hero of the Imperium.

So while Dulinor shot and killed the "Emperor", the Empress, and
the Grand Princess in the throne room, one of his aides went to
fetch Lucan and the data-files containing the evidence. Lucan was
prepared for his arrival and had arranged it so that Varian would
be there at the same time. When the aide arrived, Lucan
personally shot him, Varian, a friend of Varian, and a Marine
guard stationed in Lucan's apartment. He then alerted the Palace
Marines that he had discovered a coup in progress.

When Lucan and the evidence failed to turn up, Dulinor's plan
fell apart, and he had to invent some other justification for the
assassination on the spot. The alerted guard units meant that his
own Illelish guard couldn't hope to secure the palace. Dulinor
was thus forced to leave the palace for Illelish to rally his
fleets. First he had to deal with Lucan. The war with the
Zhodanis would have to wait.

During the intense civil war that followed, both Lucan and
Dulinor squeezed every last quarter-credit out of every world
they could lay their hands on. They needed the money to prepare
their fleets for the expected Zhodani attack, an attack that
never came. When the Imperium fragmented, the Consulate decided
that the danger from the Imperium was gone for the foreseeable
future and sent a messenger to Archduke Norris of Deneb where
they told him that if he'd feel like breaking the signed
agreement and fail to implement a DMZ in Spinward Marches, they
would have nothing against it since they wanted their flank
protected. But if he ever tried to move against the Consulate...

The Imperial Economy that had a hard time supporting the enormous
military spending normally, couldn't hope to survive the Civil
War. Military expenditures increased to over 80% of the GNP, an
insurmountable load for any economy. It broke down as the
Imperium fragmented. Lucan was hit least, because while he had
raised the secret taxes like everybody else except Norris, he had
left the actual economic management to the experts. Dulinor, on
the other hand, had tried to control every last credit with
disastrous results. Production everywhere fell through the floor,
and the navies started to cannibalize commercial shipping when
they couldn't afford to repair their frightfully expensive
warships.

The destruction of commercial shipping led to even lower
productivity, even lower tax income and a greater need to seize
commercial shipping and so forth. This fateful chain of events
continued until vast regions of space which had formerly been
part of the Third Imperium lay without naval protection and
outside the routes of the merchant lines. And this, gentle
reader, is the concise history of how the Imperium really fell.


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

End of Traveller-digest V1996 #246
**********************************

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