Traveller-digest      Tuesday, October 5 1999      Volume 1999 : Number 1158



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Versions (I will not)
Re: Book 8 (was: Re: Traveller versions)
Re: MT and TNE designs
Sulphuric Acid on Europa
Re: Re TNE/Nth RFW
RE: Traveller Versions
Re: MT and TNE designs
[BITS] Reviews of SpaceDogs and The Khiidkar Incident
Re: falkenbergs legions firing into civilians
The Nth Traveller Flamewar
Re: MT and TNE designs
Re: Downport trouble...
Re: MT and TNE designs
Re: Downport trouble...
Re: MT and TNE designs
Re: Downport trouble... 
Emulation
Democracy and Traveller
Re : The Darmine (was : Traveller versions)
Re: MT and TNE designs
Re: falkenbergs legions firing into civilians
Re: Democracy and Traveller

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

Date: Mon, 4 Oct 1999 19:17:35 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: Versions (I will not)

shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) writes:
>> BTW - would englobing in a nebula be a bad move?
>
>Nope. Nebulae *don't* look like what you see in the Star Trek movies.
>The material in those showy nebulae you see astronomical photos of is a
>better vacuum than you'll find in a lightbulb. Or even in low orbit
>around most planets.

Thanks - i suspected that it would have little effect but it's nice to get
an answer.

Dom

- ----------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com------------
                       MiB - Marines in Battledress
   "Protecting the Imperium from the Scum of the Galaxy"
Rob Prior's Mac software @ http://www.bits.org.uk/ 

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

Date: Mon, 04 Oct 1999 15:58:05 -0400
From: Thom Jones-Low <tjoneslo@together.net>
Subject: Re: Book 8 (was: Re: Traveller versions)

	I know there was set of rules for Robot construction published in
Dragon Magazine many years ago for CT and not by DGP. (Pre book 8). They
also published an alien (PC) generation system for CT, one of the better
ones. If I can actually find my notes, and TSR has been kind enough,
these may be published as part of the Dragon Magazine back issues
Wizards has been putting online. 

- -- 
	Thomas Jones-Low
	tjoneslo@together.net
> 
> Date: Sun, 03 Oct 1999 11:18:23 -0700
> From: "Benyamene' ZeAbe' Akella" <xrp@sierratel.com>
> Subject: Re: Book 8 (was: Re: Traveller versions)
> 
> > Book 8's color text is fine, but any attempt to use the design system
> >  reveals its huge omissions and descriptive gaps.
> 
> So, besides GURPs, what other Robot design rules are there, and how do they
> rank? Star Wars droid creation sucked, and, IIRC, B:8 was a little sparse.
> Many systems I have seen don't even bother with ship/'bot/critter creation
> rules, and this was one thing that Traveller had that hooked me good. ;)
>

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

Date: Mon, 4 Oct 1999 16:13:06 -0400
From: "Terry Carlino" <carlino@home.com>
Subject: Re: MT and TNE designs

>My problem was that I went to an Atari 1040ST (for financial reasons) when
>the C64 slowly perished and everything I had to transcript was from
>hardcopy.  Heheheheheh... then the diskdrive of the 1040ST died and I
>shifted to a PC some *months* later and again, had to transcribe from
>hardcopies!  Sheesh!!  LOL

One of the reasons I bought a scanner as soon as the prices dropped below a
hundred bucks. With the OCR software I got it makes retyping a thing of the
past. Not to mention the great artwork I can copy. (Purely for personal game
use.)

Terry C

All that is Gold does not glitter
Not all who travel are lost

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

Date: Mon, 04 Oct 1999 16:33:06 -0400
From: Ian Ferguson <ian@vax2.concordia.ca>
Subject: Sulphuric Acid on Europa

If this was already posted to the TML, I missed it:

>Sulfuric acid -- a corrosive chemical found on Earth in car batteries --
>exists on the frozen surface of Jupiter's icy moon Europa. 
>
>"This demonstrates once again that Europa is a really bizarre place," said
>Dr. Robert Carlson of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena,
>CA. "Sulfuric acid occurs in nature, but it isn't plentiful. You're not
>likely to find sulfuric acid on Earth's beaches, but on Europa, it covers
>large portions of the surface."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/10/991004070556.htm

Can you say "makings of atmosphere type B"?

Peez

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

Date: Mon, 4 Oct 1999 17:18:01 -0000
From: "Chris Seamans" <semo@pil.net>
Subject: Re: Re TNE/Nth RFW

- -----Original Message-----
From: Trevor, Peter <Peter.Trevor@rb.cwplc.com>
To: 'traveller@lists.imagiconline.com' <traveller@lists.imagiconline.com>
Date: Monday, October 04, 1999 12:37 PM
Subject: RE: Re TNE/Nth RFW


><quickly changing into asbestos underwear>

>
>Ah, but  the  Rebellion  was  started  by  the  assassination  of
>Strephon (maybe) by Dulinor to bring about democracy in  the  3I.
>He  and  the  pro-democracy  movement  are  to  blame  ...   thus
>"democracy"  on  the  interstellar  scale  could   be   seen   as
>dangerously radical and destructive.  The successors  to  the  3I
>would be anti-"interstellar democracy" not pro.


Ah, but perhaps Dulinor made his move when he felt that public support would
be in his favor... and the assassination of Strephon was seen as an act of
liberation.

Besides, the Rebellion itself can be largely characterized as the petty
squabbling of nobles, which would further support Dulinor's position.

Except for Daibei. If I could be anywhere when the Rebellion hit, it would
be Daibei. ;)

>It did seem like the democratisation of the OTU was an attempt to
>remove those elements that made the authors of TNE uncomfortable.


I'm not going to disagree here too much. However, I've been talking about
the issue of the democratization of the REGENCY, which is a slightly
different tack.

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

Date: Mon, 4 Oct 1999 22:26:05 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: RE: Traveller Versions

"Trevor, Peter" <Peter.Trevor@rb.cwplc.com> writes:

>Dom wrote:
>> The Dag sourcebook for T4 died when IG folded.
>So, can BITS print it?

We can. Whether we do is another matter. ;-)

I would suspect that a single fully detailed subsector with plots and hooks
and full planetary data, say with some ship designs and trade information,
published in a 101/LBB style package with notes for a chunk of M0 is more
likely in the short term.

I know that the next two products planned for release (before Christmas 99)
are 101 Patrons and ACQ.

Dom

- ----------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com------------
                       MiB - Marines in Battledress
   "Protecting the Imperium from the Scum of the Galaxy"
Rob Prior's Mac software @ http://www.bits.org.uk/ 

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

Date: Mon, 4 Oct 1999 22:30:20 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: MT and TNE designs

"The Roc" <roc@kewl.com.au> writes:
>My problem was that I went to an Atari 1040ST (for financial reasons) when
>the C64 slowly perished and everything I had to transcript was from
>hardcopy.  Heheheheheh... then the diskdrive of the 1040ST died and I
>shifted to a PC some *months* later and again, had to transcribe from
>hardcopies!  Sheesh!!  LOL

Okay. As an ex-Atari and now Mac user I have to ask a number of questions.

1) What package did you have the designs in?

2) Do you still have the disks?

3) Did you know that there is a ful blown ST emulator for the Mac and the
demo runs for 15min and allows cut and paste from the TOS environment to
MacOS?

4) I have said emulator and also a lot of packages and a working 4Mb 1040
STe with NVDI and twin DD, mono monitor.

5) If you can answer 1 & 2 there is a potential short cut to transcribing
them...

Dom

I'll let you

- ----------Dom Mooney---dom@cybergoths.u-net.com------------
                       MiB - Marines in Battledress
   "Protecting the Imperium from the Scum of the Galaxy"
Rob Prior's Mac software @ http://www.bits.org.uk/ 

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

Date: Mon, 4 Oct 1999 22:57:42 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: [BITS] Reviews of SpaceDogs and The Khiidkar Incident

BITS - British Isles Traveller Support
http://www.bits.org.uk/

I dropped by the Downport (http://www.downport.com/) and popped into
Freelance Traveller to see what's new. In it I was pleased to notice
reviews of our two new books by Timothy Collinson:

http://www.downport.com/freelancetraveller/features/reviews/spacedogs.html

http://www.downport.com/freelancetraveller/features/reviews/khiidkar.html

Thanks to Tim for reviewing them. If anyone else wants to post an
independent review of any of the BITS products, please consider sending it
to Jeff for Freelance Traveller! It would be appreciated (bad or good). We
need feedback to know if we're doiing things right...

For what it's worth, the comments on the TML about wanting LBB style
adventures influenced the decision to release SpaceDogs and the Khiidkar
Incident.

Dom (BITS Webmaster)

- -------------Dom Mooney---webmaster@bits.org.uk----------------
                 BITS - British Isles Traveller Support.
 http://www.bits.org.uk/              mailto:bits@bits.org.uk
Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
GURPS is a registered trademark of Steve Jackson Games, Inc.
BITS and CORE are trademarks of BITS UK Limited.
All rights reserved.

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

Date: Mon, 4 Oct 1999 18:23:05 EDT
From: AveNelso@aol.com
Subject: Re: falkenbergs legions firing into civilians

In a message dated 10/4/99 6:41:53 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
alanb@elf.brisnet.org.au writes:

<< 
 This whole business is stolen from history, as I'm sure 'Dave the Ancient
 History guy' would realise.  It's poached from the suppression of the 'Nika
 riots' in Constantinople by Belisarius and Narses.
  >>

    You know, as many times as I have read Gibbon, Grave's Count Belisarius 
and the Falkenberg books, I never made the connection between the Nike riots 
and the Falkenberg-stadium thing.   Jeeeze, you'd think I'd have figured that 
out.

        Dr Dave "The Ancient History Guy" Nelson

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

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 09:53:40 +1000
From: dadams@parracity.nsw.gov.au
Subject: The Nth Traveller Flamewar

Here is my slant (possably hersasy, but what the hey):

1. Classic Traveler.

3/4 of a roleplaying game. The lack of rules to use skills except for
combat  was in my mind a major hinderence for a GM. While players could
blast away with abandon, the rules could not cope with piloting and
computer usage. (This comes from the LBB 1 to 8). I did love Merchant
Princes and Robots, and most of the systems where good (planet creation was
a dream).

The Solomani and Zhodani books where also great and formed the basis of my
3I.

2. MegaTraveller.

A joy to use. While the vehical rules where unworkable, 101 Vehicals and
the basic ships in the rules covered what I wanyted in the game. Skill
system was simple but effective, combat reasonable and character generation
for the major careers generally unchanged from CT (I did wish extended
character design extended to all careers, as the normal careers where
underskilled compared to ECD).

Background was good, but I was never a fan of the rebellion. IMTU
(potential, I neve got a chance to use it) Stephons daughter survived the
assination and escaped to the Marches with Scout help.

2.1 The Collapse

While I never owned Hard Times, I do own Survival Margin, and thus know the
background (from a Dave Nielson perspective).

The reset that virus offered was totally unnessisary. If they wanted to
have a new background, they should have gone back to the major inspirations
of the 3I (Gibsons Rise and Fall of Rome, Asimov's Foundation and Nivens
and Pournell's Co-Dominium/Second Imperium).

All of these had a large Empire disinergrate into barbarism and strife. All
of these had a bastion of hope (Byzantium/Terminus/Sparta), and allowed a
sence of building a bright new future (well except for Rome).

The best way would have to advance the timeline say 200 years, after the
Imperium has torn itself apart from way and another long night has dawned.
Good and Bad factions rise (Hiver, Deneb, Zhodani, Solomani, et al) strive
to rebuild what was lost in the folly of greed and ego. The conflict would
be the fate of the people of the Shatered Imperium , will they find new
glories or find the same old evils?

3. TNE

The rules where good. Very good in parts. The background bites (see above).
The cannonical Change was unaceptable however (Heplar and others).

4. T4

Under all the crap a good game could be found. This is a lesson on how to
distroy customer good will due to shoddy work and poor editing. The
background needed work.

5. GT

I have allways played GURPS , I can make charater generation systems sing.
This however leaves a lot to be desired in GT as you dont get a sence of
history for a character as you do for all versions of Traveller. However my
bigest gripe is the Imperial mesurements used in the game (as a metric
user, how am I suppose to know that there are 2000lbs in a ton?!?!).

6. 2300AD

I loved this game. Truely Ruley!!! It is so much easier to explain the
French Empire than the 3I. People know how the French react, or Americans,
or British! Preconception can be a joy in a game like this (The same reason
I love Ars Magica, who needs a repressive religion when you can use your
history books and use the Caotholic Church!!!) Being an Aussie , it was
great to see a game that was not American-centric and the mechanisms where
Traveller like to make learning them easy.

All in all, I must say that GT is my pefered system at the moment, for the
simple reason I can find people playing it.
I still pefer 2300AD, and Love to see a MT/T5 fly, but can the market bear
it?

Darryl

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

Date: Mon, 4 Oct 1999 21:13:24 -0400
From: "Jory Earl" <j-man@iname.com>
Subject: Re: MT and TNE designs

>Ask around, or hit a flea market, and you should be able to find
>another drive, cheap.

Not exactly, Leonard.  :)   I been searching for months now and the only I
been able to find is people who still sell Commodore stuff want an "antique"
price for them.  The best deals I've seen yet are on Ebay.

___________________________________________________________
 J-Man
 ICQ# 2843475
 New Hampshire - U.S.A.
 Email : j-man@iname.com
 Home Page : http://www.geocities.com/~jman037/
___________________________________________________________

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

Date: Mon, 4 Oct 1999 21:12:12 -0400 (EDT)
From: Robert Prior <robert_prior@sympatico.ca>
Subject: Re: Downport trouble...

>There was a *major* break in the Internet Backbone in Ohio. Could that
>have done it?

So all this fault-tolerant, able-to-route-around-broken-links business is a
vessel of excrement?

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

Date: Mon, 4 Oct 1999 21:20:33 -0400
From: "Jory Earl" <j-man@iname.com>
Subject: Re: MT and TNE designs

>1541 disks aren't readable in PC drives without extra hardware. They
>use GCR format, which standard FDC chips can't handle. The same goes
>for older Mac floppies.

You are half right.  I have myself, successfully read several 1581 disks in
my regular old floppy drive on my Dell Dimension PC.  It reads the disks
WITHOUT extra hardware and creates a disk image on my PC's hard drive.

Here is proof, here is a message written to a SEQ file on my old Commodore
BBS in a forum called "The Inn", archized on a 1581 disk since 1994.

- -----------------
6:16 PM
HE WAITRESS LOOKING AT UCAS SAYS, " THANK YOU SIR FOR THE KIND OFFER OF
A^DANCE WHICH  LOVE TO DO HOWEVER,  REALLY HAVE TO WORK."  HE GOES OVER
TO^THE TEAPOT AN D GETS SOME HOT WATER AND PUTS A TEA BAG IN AND PUTS IT IN
FRONT^OF GLIVIE H AND^MOON LINE UP... THUS... A BLUE MOON...
- ----------------

There is a program called read81 that does this even better.  what I used to
cut n paste this was wordpad.


___________________________________________________________
 J-Man
 ICQ# 2843475
 New Hampshire - U.S.A.
 Email : j-man@iname.com
 Home Page : http://www.geocities.com/~jman037/
___________________________________________________________

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

Date: Mon, 04 Oct 1999 20:16:27 -0500
From: Black ICE <wombat@premier.net>
Subject: Re: Downport trouble...

Robert Prior wrote:
> 
> >There was a *major* break in the Internet Backbone in Ohio. Could that
> >have done it?
> 
> So all this fault-tolerant, able-to-route-around-broken-links business is a
> vessel of excrement?

It is, indeed, a container of that which promotes growth.... ;-)


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

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

Date: Mon, 4 Oct 1999 21:24:08 -0400
From: "Jory Earl" <j-man@iname.com>
Subject: Re: MT and TNE designs

Anthony, email me and I'll send you the program that reads 1581 disks in a
PC's 3 1/2 drive.  You'll get a disk image on your hard drive that you can
open with Wordpad.  Its a messy file, but you can cut and paste into a word
processor so you can clean it up.
___________________________________________________________
 J-Man
 ICQ# 2843475
 New Hampshire - U.S.A.
 Email : j-man@iname.com
 Home Page : http://www.geocities.com/~jman037/
___________________________________________________________

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

Date: Mon, 04 Oct 1999 21:41:00 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@accesstoledo.com>
Subject: Re: Downport trouble... 

> Robert Prior wrote:
> > 
> > >There was a *major* break in the Internet Backbone in Ohio. Could that
> > >have done it?
> > 
> > So all this fault-tolerant, able-to-route-around-broken-links business is a
> > vessel of excrement?
> 
> It is, indeed, a container of that which promotes growth.... ;-)

ROFL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Keven

- -- 
tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

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

Date: Mon, 4 Oct 1999 21:49:19 -0400 (EDT)
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: Emulation

>> There are programs that READ commodore disks in PC drives and ctreate disk
>> images on a PC's hard drive.
>>
> Any idea where I might find such a program, and would I be able to get the
>files into a wordprocessor?
>
>Antony Farrell
>>
>
try <http://www.emulation.net> last I checked they had pointers to over 2
dozen various emulators... including a Mac+ emulator for later Macs... now
if only my PvR disk was still valid...

William F. Hostman  |  "Smith & Wesson: THe original Point and Click
interface!"
Aramis 0602 C55A364-C S kk+ as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge-
533
Mailto:aramis@gci.net http://home.gci.net/~aramis http://www.alaska.net/~mhaa
ICQ:14640742          AIM:AKAramis	ARM 1.0: 3 R H++ P+
IMTU 1.0: tc tm++ tn- t4-- tt+ to- tg-- ru+ ge 3i+ c+ jt-() au+ st- ls
pi+() ta+ he+(-) kk+ as+ hi+ dr+ va++(--) so+ zh++ vi+ da++ sy- ge- pi+

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

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 12:16:29 +1000
From: dadams@parracity.nsw.gov.au
Subject: Democracy and Traveller

How can you have a democracy when communication times are so long that it
give Romans the shivers?

People complaign of the alienation they feel from their elected oficials
even in their own state/city. What about the level of remoteness percieved
from national polaticians from Canberra/Washington/London/Berlin/Otowa?

Apart from the Zhodani, who's is in fact a oligarchy with an Athenian
Citizenship critria (Only certian people can vote, in Athens I believe it
was 1 in 10 and we call this TRUE democacy).

Fuduallism works where comunication rates are slow and constrained, and
Democracy only works where communications allow easy transmissions of
people's views (traditionally walking distance, enhanced by better
comunications like newspapers, postal systems and lately telecomunications
and the computer network). When people have the information , they can
(Theroreticly) make sound desisions.

From (my) observation, The 3I proberbly had the double whammy of no borders
to expand and it was too big to run as a fudualism. Even the Interstellar
wars was political not territorial. Thus it became regressive. To say that
the Regency was able to become a democracy is like saying that Stalin was
able to create a workers paradise, fine on paper but utter bull in real
life.

Darryl

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

Date: Tue, 05 Oct 1999 13:11:09 +1000
From: "Robert O'Connor" <robocon@ozemail.com.au>
Subject: Re : The Darmine (was : Traveller versions)

Peter Newman wrote :-
> If I want to explain
> the fact that the reason the Darmine tend toward
> obsessive compulsive disorder is that their
> bodies chelate away the massive amounts of heavy
> metals on their home world, Ishag (density of 1.7).
> A very small amount of this heavy metal ends up
> in the fat myelinating the nerve cells in their 
> brain.  Since the copper makes electrical
> connectivity higher it is easier for connective
> pathways to form in the brain and the brain tends
> to be more likely to want to repeat actions.

Problem with the above explanation :-
	The only way the copper will work the way you want it to is if it is
incorporated into porphyrin-like molecules. In other words : the copper
atoms act as electron carriers, and parallel electrical circuits are
created.
	The lipids that make up myelin may be modified in this way to protect
the myelin from free-radical mediated destruction by metal ions. Copper
will be in an ionic form unless it is "organified" by association with
some carrier protein e.g. caeruloplasmin.
[Manganese associated Parkinsonism and the effects of mercury (minimata
disease) are good examples of metal-induced neuropathy].
	The problem with this handwave is that the 'cable properties' of
neurones will be affected because their resistance is lower, leading to
faster conduction of nerve impulses.
	This will lead to the formation of reverberant circuits as you have
suggested, leading to an increased predisposition to seizures and motor
tics. These nasty effects are likely to show well before any higher
behavioural ones.
	[Compare the situation to re-entrant circuits in ischaemic myocardium
in the development of dysrhythmias].
	As far as neurochemistry is concerned, OCD is characterised by
depletion of serotonin via decreased synthesis and exaggerated breakdown
of this neurotransmitter (hence the successful use of serotonin reuptake
inhibitors and clomipramine in treating this problem).

Alternative explanations?
	The Darmine chelating system may hinder the uptake of compounds that
are incorporated into the relevant enzymes ; or the enzymes are a low
activity variant (genetic variation similar to that seen with the
metabolism of hydralazine or isoniazid, etc).


Robert O'Connor
Medico, Gamer

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

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 11:34:58 -0700
From: "Antony Farrell" <Skaran@bigpond.com>
Subject: Re: MT and TNE designs

- ----- Original Message -----
From: Terry Carlino <carlino@home.com>
To: Traveller Mailing list <traveller@mpgn.com>
Sent: Monday, October 04, 1999 1:13 PM
Subject: Re: MT and TNE designs


> >My problem was that I went to an Atari 1040ST (for financial reasons)
when
> >the C64 slowly perished and everything I had to transcript was from
> >hardcopy.  Heheheheheh... then the diskdrive of the 1040ST died and I
> >shifted to a PC some *months* later and again, had to transcribe from
> >hardcopies!  Sheesh!!  LOL
>
> One of the reasons I bought a scanner as soon as the prices dropped below
a
> hundred bucks. With the OCR software I got it makes retyping a thing of
the
> past. Not to mention the great artwork I can copy. (Purely for personal
game
> use.)
>
> Terry C
>
> All that is Gold does not glitter
> Not all who travel are lost
>
I've got hold of a scanner now thought I'd give that a try to get the data
on. Thanks for all your suggestions.

Antony Farrell

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

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 13:57:29 +1000
From: david.d.jaques-watson@centrelink.gov.au
Subject: Re: falkenbergs legions firing into civilians

Dear Folks -

Alan mentioned:
>> The only reason it worked for Falkenberg was that it was a
>> complete surprise, one that he could do it, and the other that he would
do
>> it.
>
>David Drake used the same idea in one of his "Hammer's Slammers" stories.
>I can't remember the title.

"Counting The Cost"??
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
David "Hyphen" Jaques-Watson        Beowulf Down (Tavonni/Vilis/SM 1520)
http://www.tip.net.au/~davidjw                       davidjw@pcug.org.au
"I file things in historical order, with a hashing algorithm of gravity"
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
REQ'D DISCLAIMER - material & opinions contained within are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily represent, in whole or in part, the
position of Centrelink or any other Commonwealth Government agency.
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 00:02:59 -0000
From: "Chris Seamans" <semo@pil.net>
Subject: Re: Democracy and Traveller

- -----Original Message-----
From: dadams@parracity.nsw.gov.au <dadams@parracity.nsw.gov.au>
To: traveller@lists.imagiconline.com <traveller@lists.imagiconline.com>
Date: Tuesday, October 05, 1999 2:31 AM
Subject: Democracy and Traveller


>How can you have a democracy when communication times are so long that it
>give Romans the shivers?


The communication times are long, but not so long as to create the sorts of
problems that people seem to think they would. A representative democracy,
for example, could be easily as effective as the noble system presented in
Traveller.

The problems of a government controlling a vast territory will always be the
same. It could be argued that a democratic system would in fact be more
advantageous over such a vast distance, due to the ability to cashier
leaders at a more local level.

>People complaign of the alienation they feel from their elected oficials
>even in their own state/city. What about the level of remoteness percieved
>from national polaticians from Canberra/Washington/London/Berlin/Otowa?


The alienation factor would probably be much the same as it is now, really.
The basic idea would still be the same: elected officials who go off to
someplace else and do their job.

>Apart from the Zhodani, who's is in fact a oligarchy with an Athenian
>Citizenship critria (Only certian people can vote, in Athens I believe it
>was 1 in 10 and we call this TRUE democacy).


When people call it a "true" democracy because that sort of political system
was first used in Athens, not because it is a perfect example of the modern
ideal of a liberal democracy.

After all, the Greeks invented the term and the system of government. Might
as well consider it "true."

>Fuduallism works where comunication rates are slow and constrained, and


The only problem is that the system of government that is present in the
Imperium isn't really feudalism. Concepts such as free trade and
megacorporations don't fit neatly into the pigeonhole provided by that term.

If anything, the system is closer to that of France during the Age of
Absolute Monarchy (from the Sun King on). In fact, the Imperial Moot is very
similar to the lobby of aristocrats in pre-revolutionary France.

>Democracy only works where communications allow easy transmissions of
>people's views (traditionally walking distance, enhanced by better
>comunications like newspapers, postal systems and lately telecomunications
>and the computer network).

Well, no, not precisely. Democracy has only really been tried where
communications allow easy transmission of people's views and opinions. That
doesn't mean that speedy communications are a requirement for a democracy.

>When people have the information , they can
>(Theroreticly) make sound desisions.


Since, in theory, elections would take place on the subsector and sector
level, this is something of a moot point. Although communications are slow,
they're not so slow as to make something like a representative democracy
unworkable. Keep in mind, as well, that the Regency covers much less
territory than the former Third Imperium, which would make the system even
more attractive.

One of the real problems is policing the elections to make sure that
everybody's playing by the rules. Another real problem is the perceived weak
leadership abilities of politicians in a democratic system. Still, I think
it's safe to assume that there are also weak nobles and aristocrats... so it
becomes something of a moot point.

>From (my) observation, The 3I proberbly had the double whammy of no borders
>to expand and it was too big to run as a fudualism.

I'm not sure that I can agree with this. While the size of the Imperium was
surely a factor, the concept of strong noble leadership at "local" levels
would tend to offset the problems with size and speed of communication to
some extent.

After all, isn't that supposed to be the point of the Imperium's system of
Government?

>Even the Interstellar
>wars was political not territorial. Thus it became regressive. To say that
>the Regency was able to become a democracy is like saying that Stalin was
>able to create a workers paradise, fine on paper but utter bull in real
>life.


You say this on what authority, exactly? Keep in mind that Stalin really had
no intention of creating a workers' paradise, so the use of that example is
somewhat unfair. He wanted to create a totalitarian, dictatorial state and
saw communism as an effective method to attain that goal.

On the other hand, according to canon, the Regency (just one small chunk of
the former Third Imperium) did become a democracy, in fact, had to become a
democracy. If you can come up with some reasons why it couldn't have become
a democracy, I'm all ears. All you've succeeded in doing so far is to say
that democracy relies on the speed of communication, which is arguable. Even
if I concede that a democracy requires a high-speed of communication to
function, with the system of sectors and subsectors that already exists
canonically this isn't as much of a factor as it would appear.

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

End of Traveller-digest V1999 #1158
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