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Subject: Traveller-digest V1996 #717
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Traveller-digest     Wednesday, December 4 1996     Volume 1996 : Number 717



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Rebellion
Re: Nuclear Dampers
RE: Rebellion
Drop tanks
RE: Democratic reforms?
RE: Traveller Computer Wargame
RE: Rebellion
Re: Chirpers as food
Re: Nuclear Dampers
Re: Rebellion: Diplomacy, Democracy and the New World Order (Long)
Re: Nuclear Dampers
Re: Drop tanks
Punichment
Dulinor Dissing!
Re: Rebellion: Diplomacy, Democracy and the New World Order (Long)
Re: Dulinor Dissing!
Re: Rebellion: Diplomacy, Democracy and the New World Order (Long)
Re: Drop tanks

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

Date: Wed, 04 Dec 1996 11:15:42 -0800
From: Glenn Hoppe <starcity@eagle.wbm.ca>
Subject: Re: Rebellion

Stuart L. Dollar wrote:
> 
> On  3 Dec 96 at 13:01, K.C. Komosky spewed:
> > p.s. is there anyone who believes that democratic reforms in the
> > Third Imperium are NOT a good idea?
> 
> While romantic, its harder than hell to envision a democratic
> government whose communications range a couple of years from border
> to border becoming anything more than pure anarchy.  Perhaps concern
> about basic human rights on a local level would be a nice touch, but
> I can't see a democracy in the Western Civilization sense really
> working.

That's a good point.

I have another: The Imperium really is an organization of _independently
governed_ worlds. Does "democratic reform" on the Imperium's level
really affect local world governments? What's the point of world UPP's
otherwise? The Imperium just governs the "space between the worlds"
n'est-ce pas?

Some worlds have UPP's which indicate a local democratic government,
others are oppressive. If I were an interstellar traveller, I'd want the
starports to be ruled rather autocratically, with consistant laws and
regulations, to ensure my safety and avoid misunderstandings.

> Stu
> Stuart L. Dollar               sdollar@goodnet.com
> Traveller referee since 1978, Official USENet 
> spokesperson for Imperium Games
> ---------------------------------------------------
> "Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God." 
> -Thomas Jefferson

Another Jefferson quote aptly sums up your point, Stu:

"Information is the currency of democracy."  -- Thomas Jefferson

- -- 
===== Glenn Hoppe =====\ /--- MailTo:jumpspace@geocities.com ----
\ . . Enter Jumpspace --X-> http://www.geocities.com/Area51/8275 \
 ----------------------/ \========== Eschew Obfuscation ==========

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

Date: Wed, 04 Dec 1996 12:59:38 -0400 (EDT)
From: Robert Flammang <FLAMMANG@vms.cis.pitt.edu>
Subject: Re: Nuclear Dampers

Hi.

> From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)

> Also, there's the not so trivial detail that anything that'll
> discourage fusion reactions will *encourage* fission reactions. So
> emergency fission power units could be built that would only work if a
> damper was strong enough to almost shut down a fusion plant. Of course,
> Traveller ignores the reality of physics when it comes to dampers....

I've thought about these nuclear damper thingies quite a bit, and it
seems to me that, as postulated, they are open to a lot of abuse.

So I came up with a quick fix.

I say (contra canon) that the dampers increase or decrease the strength
of /weak-force/ nuclear interactions (and not of strong-force nuclear
interactions). This allows them still to be used in their original
mission. The heavy nuclei in a warhead's fissionables undergo beta decay
and become less neutron rich; when the damper field remits, these nuclei
decay to stable (and harmless) isotopes via alpha decay. The advantage
of this new postulate is that it gets rid of some of the more err...
interesting spin-off technologies that would result from control of the
strong force.

Possible spin-off technologies resulting from weak-force control:

1) Cheap compact neutrino detectors. (Gee, those already exist
in Traveller!)

2) "Reactionless" neutrino rockets. (Gee, we already have reactionless
drives in Travller!)

3) Stable controllable pion beams. (Got 'em already in Traveller.)

4) Meson (and for that matter, neutrino) communicators. (Got 'em
already. Well, the meson ones anyway.)

5) Cheap, small, and long-lasting power sources (Fission Plus!)
which would become possible at, oh, TL12 or so. For that matter, you
could make fusion plus by causing hydrogen to beta "decay" into
neutrons, which would then combine with the ambient hydrogen to form
deuterium and release energy. An easy way to get over the Coulomb
barrier and make a colder sort of fusion.

So, waddaya say? Who votes that that the first reference to dampers in
Book 4 had a typo? ("Strong," when it should have been "weak.") You know
my vote. 8^)

- -Rob

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

Date: Wed, 4 Dec 96 18:02 GMT0
From: aboulton@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Boulton)
Subject: RE: Rebellion

In-Reply-To: <01BBE11A.1ADE0DA0@flfnas01-p04.mts.net>

<< p.s. is there anyone who believes that democratic reforms in the 
Third Imperium are NOT a good idea? >>

Yes. I'm not sure if demoncracy (oh, wow! wonderful Freudian slip 
there!) can work with something like the Imperium.

Problems:

1. How do you get 11,000 worlds to agree on how to implement it? (Just 
look at the problems the EU has, and there's only 15? of them!)

2. Since most of the worlds are non-democratic, how are they going to 
elect a representative?

3. With a travel time from frontier to Capital of >1yr, just how 
representative is it going to be?

    ---------=========oooooooooOOOOOOOOooooooooo=========---------
Andrew M J Boulton                  http://www.compulink.co.uk/~fubar/
 "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste"

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

Date: Wed, 4 Dec 1996 19:38:35 +0100 (MET)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Drop tanks

Stewart Eyres writes:
>Hans Rancke-Madsen wrote:
> 
>>per settler (even less if drop tanks can be used at both ends of the
>>jump, but drop tanks are not invented until late in the 11th
>>Century). The
> 
>Huh?  You are, I think, refering to the introduction of drop tanks by
>Tukera & General Products announced in the pre-5FW news items.

I am indeed.

>However, Drop Tanks had been around longer than that, as they appear
>on the TL 14 Close Escort design (the date of which isn't entirely
>clear, but I would guess pre-Solomani Rim War - ie the 9th Century.) 

In that case they must have been retrofitted.

>I don't know if there are TL limits on Drop Tanks, but there was never
>anything that suggested that the technology was especially difficult
>or advanced.  

TAS News Brief datelined 097-1105 in JTAS#2:

        "...L-Hyd drop ships have only been in service for the last
        dozen years in the interior,  being made possible by recent
        advances in the field of capacitor engineering..." 

>It is just that the economic, strategic, and tactical
>advantages are not very clear - ie. no one has bothered to do an
>analysis (at least in the Classic Traveller setting) which has lead to
>their widespread introduction.  

The problem with this that their economic, strategic, and tactical
advantages OUGHT to be perfectly clear to anyone who has had a few 
years to consider them. There are some very cute tricks that
can be done with drop tanks. For one thing, drop tanks allow double jumps 
between refuelling, which would make rifts much less of a barrier than they 
seem to have been. For another, drop tanks makes the logistics of 
establishing deep space fuel depots much easier, which would also help with 
the rifts and could be very useful on some trade and X-boat routes (An 
X-boat fuel station in hex 1508 of the Spinward Marches would for example 
cut weeks off the trip from Jewell to Regina). Also, if drop tanks are 
possible there seem no apparent reason why jump projectors (an idea of mine 
where you energize the jump grid from outside the ship and use the 
same grace period that drop tanks use to get the ship away from the jump 
engine, thus saving both the engine and the fuel tankage) shouldn't be 
practical (the last bit is assuming that jump engines still works the same 
way in T4 as in Megatraveller, of course). Yet such a device would 
revolutionize cargo transport. So why haven't anyone thought of these
and other dodges in the 10,000 years of jump travel?

The answer is that the reason why drop tanks aren't used to their full 
potential is that they haven't been available for very long! They must 
have been invented some time between 1080 and 1090, and their full 
potential propably hadn't been realized by the time the Crash
put a stop to further developement except in the Regency.

>I suspect they only make sense if they are reusable

The version used by Tukera isn't, but the ones described under the
Megatraveller rules surely must be. My theory is that the first
generation of improved capacitors dosen't allow reuse, but that
second generation capacitors does. I posted a long posting about this
on gdw-beta some weeks ago. If you like, I'll send you a copy.

> Hence, they may well be used by large merchant concerns.  To a large
> degree, the military and other Imperial agencies would probably
> consider the arrangement too vulnerable for heavy investment.

Drop tanks are a god-sent to military agencies. Just ask anyone who's
played in one of Steve Higginbotham's TCS campaigns.

> Anyway, Drop Tanks are not exclusively 11th Century technology.

Oh yes, they are! ;-)



      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: Wed, 4 Dec 1996 12:32:36 -0600
From: "K.C. Komosky" <kc@mb.sympatico.ca>
Subject: RE: Democratic reforms?

>K.C. Komosky Wrote:
>> And presumably after his reforms successfully take hold, in future
>> generations the Reformed Imperium will be politically and economically
>> strong enough for Dulinor's heirs to re-integrate the wayward pieces.
>
>> p.s. is there anyone who believes that democratic reforms in the Third
>> Imperium are NOT a good idea?
>
>I must have misinterpreted what Dulinor was doing, I thought he was
>after  having a greater control over local governments. I didn't think
>it had anything to do with democratic reform.

Although Dulinor's precise objectives were never gone over in great detail, 
I think it worked both ways - both increased influence by the Imperium in 
individual worlds, and increased influence by Imperial citizens in the 
Imperium.

>(A very bad idea, how do you run a democracy in something the size of
>the Imperium? Long live the Nobility!!!)

You know, replace a few of the proper nouns, and you have almost an exact 
quote from present-day Chinese rulers (or in America a few hundred years 
ago, or Britain before that, or France in 1785, or...)

Also worth noting is that everyone in TNE (ie RC, Regency) seems to be very 
much opposed to the nobility. It seems they are agreeing with Dulinor 
without even realizing it!

K.C. Komosky
kc@mb.sympatico.ca

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

Date: Wed, 4 Dec 1996 12:34:49 -0600
From: "K.C. Komosky" <kc@mb.sympatico.ca>
Subject: RE: Traveller Computer Wargame

>> 3) _Fifth Frontier War_: Very heavily modified _Imperium_ system, about the 
>> (oddly enough <grin>) Fifth Frontier War.
>
>I own this one too.  Great game.  Full of background detail about the 
>war and very integrateble with the role playing game.  They even have 
>rules for deciding the war as you play your role playing game. 
 
Does anyone know where I could get a copy?

Please?

K.C. Komosky
kc@mb.sympatico.ca

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`
end

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

Date: Wed, 4 Dec 1996 12:44:36 -0600
From: "K.C. Komosky" <kc@mb.sympatico.ca>
Subject: RE: Rebellion

>On  3 Dec 96 at 13:01, K.C. Komosky spewed:
>> p.s. is there anyone who believes that democratic reforms in the
>> Third Imperium are NOT a good idea?
>
>While romantic, its harder than hell to envision a democratic
>government whose communications range a couple of years from border
>to border becoming anything more than pure anarchy.  Perhaps concern
>about basic human rights on a local level would be a nice touch, but
>I can't see a democracy in the Western Civilization sense really
>working.

Well, the Zhodani seem to be able to make it work. Okay sure, their 
franshice is a little bit narrow, the Consulate is a full-fledged democracy

The Solomani Confederation, while not completely a democracy, they are a 
partial. Each world or governmental unit selects representatives (some of 
them are elected) to the Solomani Secretariat.

Obviously the First Republic (successor to the Third Imperium) would be 
quite a bit different than a modern parliamentary democracy, but they could 
work something out.

K.C. Komosky
kc@mb.sympatico.ca
 

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

Date: Wed, 4 Dec 1996 21:08:11 GMT
From: Carlos Alos-Ferrer <alos@merlin.fae.ua.es>
Subject: Re: Chirpers as food

>From: Carlos Alos-Ferrer <alos@merlin.fae.ua.es>
>>        Chirpers and humans are the unique source of meat in this planet at
>>the moment of the Collapse... in the first months, there is just not enough

>From: "Glenn M. Goffin" <sudet@well.com>
>Do you have a fix for the chirpers' psionic ability not to be seen when
>they don't want to be?  See Adventure 2, Research Station Gamma.  It's set

Point 1: Each adult Geonee has already befriended a Chirper as a pet, so
they know how to attract and, if necessary, trick them.

Point 2: Although the world is TL 7, the Geonee have TL 16 items...

Point 3: If you put chains on the Chirpers and put a simple electronic
mechanism, there is no psionic ability that can avoid anything.
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carlos Alos-Ferrer                          E-mail: Alos@merlin.fae.ua.es
Dpt. Fundamentos del Analisis Economico     Phn: (34) 6 5903400, Ext. 3226
Universidad de Alicante                          (34) 6 5903614
03071-Alicante (Spain)                      Fax: (34) 6 5903685
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Wed, 4 Dec 1996 20:12:48 +0000
From: anders.backman@macademic.se (Anders Backman)
Subject: Re: Nuclear Dampers

>I've thought about these nuclear damper thingies quite a bit, and it
>seems to me that, as postulated, they are open to a lot of abuse.
>
>So I came up with a quick fix.
>
>I say (contra canon) that the dampers increase or decrease the strength
>of /weak-force/ nuclear interactions (and not of strong-force nuclear
>interactions). This allows them still to be used in their original
>mission. The heavy nuclei in a warhead's fissionables undergo beta decay
>and become less neutron rich; when the damper field remits, these nuclei
>decay to stable (and harmless) isotopes via alpha decay. The advantage
>of this new postulate is that it gets rid of some of the more err...
>interesting spin-off technologies that would result from control of the
>strong force.
>
>Possible spin-off technologies resulting from weak-force control:
>
>1) Cheap compact neutrino detectors. (Gee, those already exist
>in Traveller!)
>
>2) "Reactionless" neutrino rockets. (Gee, we already have reactionless
>drives in Travller!)
>
>3) Stable controllable pion beams. (Got 'em already in Traveller.)
>
>4) Meson (and for that matter, neutrino) communicators. (Got 'em
>already. Well, the meson ones anyway.)
>
>5) Cheap, small, and long-lasting power sources (Fission Plus!)
>which would become possible at, oh, TL12 or so. For that matter, you
>could make fusion plus by causing hydrogen to beta "decay" into
>neutrons, which would then combine with the ambient hydrogen to form
>deuterium and release energy. An easy way to get over the Coulomb
>barrier and make a colder sort of fusion.
>
>So, waddaya say? Who votes that that the first reference to dampers in
>Book 4 had a typo? ("Strong," when it should have been "weak.") You know
>my vote. 8^)
>
>-Rob

I vote YES there was a typo as described
As a matter of fact the above was IMHO the best entry in any Traveller list
ever! Will incorporate into my camapaign pronto (the neutrino comms I
already have) and will discuss with my physicist player at next session.
GREAT.


/Backman

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

Date: Wed, 4 Dec 1996 14:59:30 -0500
From: TPeterAZ@aol.com
Subject: Re: Rebellion: Diplomacy, Democracy and the New World Order (Long)

In a message dated 96-12-04 13:08:54 EST, Andrew M J Boulton wrote:

<Snip>  
>  2. Since most of the worlds are non-democratic, how are they going to 
>  elect a representative?

This actually isn't a problem.  They don't need to elect a representative,
they could simply appoint one.  The Imperium is so large that it is
implausible, of not impossible, to monitor "democratic elections" on each of
the 11,000 worlds.  Which brings us to the next problem:

>  3. With a travel time from frontier to Capital of >1yr, just how 
>  representative is it going to be?
>  

This is something I have wondered about for years.  Given the scale of the
Imperium, forget democratic reforms, how is diplomacy carried out?  Think
about this for a moment.  The Aslan Yerlyaruiwo ambassador is sitting next to
Strephon on the family dias when Dulinor decides to enact his "brilliant"
plan to "save the Imperium."  He gets caught in the crossfire and the Aslan
are understandably ticked off.  Well, ticked off once they hear about it,
approximately 7 *months* later.  (Assuming the message traveled at jump-6, no
less.)  So just how much authority must this, or any, ambassador have had?
 Can you imagine the negotiations?

   Strephon: "Well, we'd really like the Aslan not to engage in fleet actions
in the Reaver's Deep sector."
   Aslan Ambassador: " I think that would be acceptable, I'll get back to you
on that in a year-and-a-half."

OK, I'm exaggerating a bit to make a point, but, do you see the problem?
 I've often felt that the Imperium only worked because the sector archdukes
must have wielded extraordinary power in their domains.  Dulinor, who I feel
was more foolish than evil, should have made sure that the other archdukes
would support him before trying to knock off Strephon.  After all, they're
the ones who would have been most responsible for dealing with their
neighbors and maintaining the status quo.  In fact, you would think that the
Aslan ambassador should have been calling on Duke Craig and Duke Norris.
 Especially since they seem to be the only significant leaders referred to
during the so-called Rebellion who appeared to have a clue.  Margaret got
"the trains running on time" (Maggie's Farm, anyone?); Brzk, after he got
over his delusions of grandeur, largely kept to himself; Strephon decided he
was more trouble alive than dead (George Bailey Syndrome, just in time for
the holidays);  and Lucan and Dulinor, who seem to be made for each other,
beat the holy hell out of each other, the other factions, the Imperium, etc.,
etc., etc.

Try imposing democracy, representative or otherwise, on this group, and it'll
make the Rebellion seem well-managed by comparison.  

No sir.  I don't buy it.  The Emperor, and his assassination, should have
made very little difference in the long run.  Core certainly was the
metropole of the empire, but the peripheries (the domains) should have been
stable enough, and important enough in their respective regions, that order
should have been maintained.  OK, the Zhodani thought, "Whoopee!  No more
Imperium!"  (Actually the Solomani probably thought that more than the Zhos.
;) )  Nevertheless, weren't several of the Frontier Wars won (ostensibly) by
the Domain of Deneb before orders (and ships and personnel and supplies)
could arrive from Capital?  The Domains could not have been less than the
strength of the Imperium.  Notice that no one Domain (which became the
various factions of the Rebellion) could dominate any one of the others with
any kind of success.  The Solomani couldn't even beat a divided Imperium.
 What does that tell you?  I know I am a vocal supporter of Classic Traveller
here on TML, but the likelihood of the war playing out as it did, or even
getting going for that matter, doesn't jibe with the picture of the Imperium
as a largely bureaucratic entity with fuedal chains of command centered at
subsector and sector capitals.  

Someone posted the other day that the Imperium was like the Roman Empire, too
big to sustain itself.  I agree, but the Roman Empire disintegrated into a
collection of smaller kingdoms, each concerned with maintaining the status
quo in their particular corner of the world.  I think, if you buy the
rebellion at all, the most likely endgame is similar to MT Hard Times, with
smaller safe areas ruled, or at least maintained, by their traditional
institutions (or those institutions co-opted by new faces)  and some less
friendly space in between them.

Whew, I really got rolling there, didn't I?  Let me know what you think.  And
Keep the Flame.


Tim Peter
<TPeterAZ@aol.com>
"Never let your schooling get in the way of your education."--- Mark Twain

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

Date: Wed, 4 Dec 1996 12:14:14 -0800
From: bmac@astro.ucla.edu (Bruce Alan Macintosh)
Subject: Re: Nuclear Dampers

Roderick Darroch Elliott wrote:
> 
>         Perhaps it's because I used to play SFB a lot, but one thing that
> has struck me about Trav is a relative paucity of different ship-mounted
> weapons...  which got me thinking:
> 
>         OK: it's possible to dampen the Strong Nuclear Force... what about
> a weapon system that has the _opposite_ effect?  Things go boom?

That's what disintegrators (TL-16 in MT, not sure what they will be in 
T4) were...

Bruce

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

Date: Wed, 4 Dec 1996 15:37:55 -0500
From: TPeterAZ@aol.com
Subject: Re: Drop tanks

In a message dated 96-12-04 13:44:23 EST, Hans Rancke-Madsen wrote:

> (An X-boat fuel station in hex 1508 of the Spinward Marches would for
example 
>  cut weeks off the trip from Jewell to Regina). 
 
Who says the Imperium (or the Regency) wants that?  Remember, Jewell to
Regina is only two jumps at J-6.  I have always agreed with the notion that
the government would have ways of disseminating information more rapidly than
the civilians can get their hands on it.  Great way of keeping a step ahead
of the locals.  Can you imagine being able to put your spin on a news story
*before it breaks*!  Very useful stuff, indeed.  And who is to say that there
isn't a secret base there already?  Got to be some comets or something
floating around out there in deep space for the military to exploit.  In MT
Arrival Vengeance the AHL-class cruiser conducts comet-refueling deep within
the Great Rift.  In fact, I've been curious as to how plausible that is.  Any
astronomer types out there know?  Let me know.  

Tim Peter
<TPeterAZ@aol.com>
"Never let your schooling get in the way of your education."--- Mark Twain

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

Date: 04 Dec 96 15:44:14 EST
From: Hugh Foster <100326.446@CompuServe.COM>
Subject: Punichment

>> ... infect prisoners with something like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

I love the idea but wouldn't that count as 'cruel and ususual'   punishment?
<<

Yup, in a democracy. But how many Traveller worlds are democracies? Not many,
Betty!

[------------------------------oOo-----------------------------] | Hugh Foster
100326,446       | | Just because he's on the road, it doesn't mean his mind is.
| [------------------------------oOo-----------------------------]

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

Date: 04 Dec 96 15:44:16 EST
From: Hugh Foster <100326.446@CompuServe.COM>
Subject: Dulinor Dissing!

>> I don't think that Dulinor's daughter is any nicer than her dad, and if
historical rulers are   anything to go by, female monrachs are not nicer and
kinder than their male counterparts. <<

Ey! Dulinor wasn't nasty; he did what he genuinely thought was the right thing
for the Imperium as a whole. Unlike Lucan who looked out for No.1 and Margaret
who didn't want to go out of business.

Isis would probably have done what she saw as her duty to try and live up to her
dad's example.

[------------------------------oOo-----------------------------] | Hugh Foster
100326,446       | | Fame is proof that people are gullible.
| [------------------------------oOo-----------------------------]

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

Date: Wed, 4 Dec 1996 14:55:03 -0600 (CST)
From: "Joseph E. Walsh" <ransom@connect.iconnect.net>
Subject: Re: Rebellion: Diplomacy, Democracy and the New World Order (Long)

On Wed, 4 Dec 1996 TPeterAZ@aol.com wrote:

> OK, I'm exaggerating a bit to make a point, but, do you see the problem?
>  I've often felt that the Imperium only worked because the sector archdukes
> must have wielded extraordinary power in their domains.  Dulinor, who I feel

This is, IMO, precisely right.  Just take a look at T4's introductory 
pages (I don't have my copy with me right now, so can't site paragraph 
and page) - it says something about individual representatives having 
extraordinary power, because they can't consult with the home office.  It 
says also something like, "This results in the home office accepting all 
sorts of wacky agreements" or something like that.


So, I'd say, yes, the Imperium and the megacorporations operating within 
it are big believers in delegation.  I'd also say that's a good reason 
for honor being an important aspect of life in the Imperium - especially 
for nobles.  Those who are known to be dishonorable will not be given the 
enormous power and responsibility that is available in such positions.  
Thus, if you want to get ahead in the Imperium (and in many megacorps) 
you've got to show yourself to be honorable and loyal.


- -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! :)
       .....Official Reporter of Imperium Games Product Info.....

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

Date: Wed, 04 Dec 1996 13:14:52 -0800
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Dulinor Dissing!

At 03:44 PM 12/4/96 EST, Hugh Foster wrote:
>
>>> I don't think that Dulinor's daughter is any nicer than her dad, and if
>historical rulers are   anything to go by, female monrachs are not nicer and
>kinder than their male counterparts. <<
>
>Ey! Dulinor wasn't nasty; he did what he genuinely thought was the right thing
>for the Imperium as a whole. Unlike Lucan who looked out for No.1 and Margaret
>who didn't want to go out of business.

You know, I thought that the Reagan/Bush team was a horror.  Found them
abhorrent in every opinion and statement.  In 1986, I found myself face to
face with VP Bush, with a loaded M-16A1 in my hands.  So since *I* thought
it was "right", I would have been justified in shooting him?

Dulinor was an assassin, plain and simple.  Remember that he didn't just
kill the Strephon clone, he also shot the Empress, the Grand Princess, an
Aslan ambassador, and his agent tried to kill the Twin Princes.  God only
knows how many of Strephon's relatives died elsewhere to clear the path to
the Iridium Throne.

Lucan may have started the Black War, but Dulinor took part in the
destruction.  Lucan was a spoiled brat, Dulinor was an experienced Archduke!
For a man claiming to represent "the people", he sure incinerated a lot of them.

The leader I wanted to see come out of the Rebellion intact was Duke Craig
of Daibei.  A calm, competent man who withdrew into his borders and refused
to sentence his people to ruin because two madmen wanted the same shiny chair.

+----------------------------------------------+
| Douglas E. Berry          dberry@hooked.net  |
|     Professional Driver - Traveller Guru     |
|        http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/        |
|**********************************************|
| "Life's a journey, not a destination."       |
|                                   -Aerosmith |
+----------------------------------------------+

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

Date: Wed, 04 Dec 1996 13:14:55 -0800
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <dberry@hooked.net>
Subject: Re: Rebellion: Diplomacy, Democracy and the New World Order (Long)

At 02:55 PM 12/4/96 -0600, Joe Walsh wrote:


>So, I'd say, yes, the Imperium and the megacorporations operating within 
>it are big believers in delegation.  I'd also say that's a good reason 
>for honor being an important aspect of life in the Imperium - especially 
>for nobles.  Those who are known to be dishonorable will not be given the 
>enormous power and responsibility that is available in such positions.  
>Thus, if you want to get ahead in the Imperium (and in many megacorps) 
>you've got to show yourself to be honorable and loyal.

In my Imperium the real power is the subsector Duke.  Each subsector is
unique enough to make anything but the longest range planning impossible for
the Sector and Imperial offices.  The Duke's men handle the day-to-day
crisis management, taxes, and defence operations.
+----------------------------------------------+
| Douglas E. Berry          dberry@hooked.net  |
|     Professional Driver - Traveller Guru     |
|        http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/        |
|**********************************************|
| "Life's a journey, not a destination."       |
|                                   -Aerosmith |
+----------------------------------------------+

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

Date: Wed, 4 Dec 1996 15:24:10 -0600 (CST)
From: Joseph "Chepe" Lockett <jlockett@io.com>
Subject: Re: Drop tanks

Quoth TPeterAZ@aol.com:
> In Arrival Vengeance the AHL-class cruiser conducts comet-refueling deep
> within the Great Rift.  In fact, I've been curious as to how plausible
> that is.  Any astronomer types out there know?  Let me know.  

That's one of the big questions in astronomy right now, IIRC: just how
many cold, dark "brown dwarfs" and similar bodies are lurking out there,
invisible to our current telescopes and search patterns?  For that matter,
how many dim little red dwarfs dot the neighborhood -- they're almost as
hard to see!  Free comets and other planetismals are way below current
limits of resolution.

For that matter, Traveller's "Great Rift", "Windhorn Rift," et al. are a
bit dodgy under current astronomical knowledge.  The original explanation,
I believe, was that the Great Rift was an extension of the gap between
local spiral arms.  Then somebody realized just how big the galaxy really
is (I believe Goeran Damberg's web site has a nice graphic giving the
correct sense of scale), and it was explained as just a "region of low
stellar density."

The monkey-wrench in the whole thing is that even the areas between spiral
arms are not devoid of stars: it's just that the hot, bright, but short-
lived O and B stars that highlight the spiral arms don't live long enough 
to travel from those areas of star formation into the rest of the galactic
disk.  Remember those hard-to-see red dwarfs?  The "rifts" between spiral
arms are chock-full of 'em: they're just much harder to see next to their
more glorious cousins.  There's no particular mechanism for clearing such
a wide swath of space.

But it makes for a hell of a fun game, and some neat touches of
background.  ("Behind the claw," anyone? :-)

- ----------------------------*------------------------*------------------------
 Joseph L. "Chepe" Lockett  |"Nullum magnum ingenium | GURPS fan, Amiga user,
http://www.io.com/~jlockett | sine mixtura dementiae | Shakespearean scholar,
  Email: jlockett@io.com    | fuit." -- Seneca       | actor and director.

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

End of Traveller-digest V1996 #717
**********************************

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