Traveller-digest      Tuesday, October 5 1999      Volume 1999 : Number 1160



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

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: The Nth Traveller Flamewar
Re: Downport trouble...
Re: Laserconstruction tool
Re: Laserconstruction tool (sorry)
re: The Nth Traveller Flamewar
Starports Vehicles
Re: Starports Vehicles
Re: Annic Nova
Re: Shionthy
RE: Democracy and Traveller
Re: Downport trouble...
Re: Traveller Versions
Re: Shiont(h)y Belt
Re: TL8 Light Battlesuit
Re: Downport trouble...
re: Annic Nova
OT: The Insta-RPG generator!
Shannon and noise (was Re: Downport trouble...)
RE: Traveller Versions
RE: Shiont(h)y Belt
RE: Traveller Versions
RE: Traveller Versions
Re: MT and TNE designs
Re: Democracy and Traveller
RE MT/T5
Re: Democracy and Traveller

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

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 08:42:48 -0500 ()
From: "Joseph R. Dietrich" <yikes@evansville.net>
Subject: Re: The Nth Traveller Flamewar

>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?!?!).

No offense meant by this, but I think you are supposed know that there are
2,000 lbs in a ton the same way we Imperial users are supposed to know that
there are 1,000 kg in a ton. ;-)

I also wish that GT were metric -- it just feels more futuristic and
sensible and, for me at least, it's easier to use for things like vehicle
design.

Tschuess,

Joseph R. Dietrich
yikes@evansville.net

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

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 09:46:59 -0400
From: "Sword Worlder" <swordworlder@clinic.net>
Subject: Re: Downport trouble...

- ----- Original Message -----
From: Ethan Henry <egh@klg.com>
> No doubt residents of various Imeprial worlds will feel that the peculiar,
> well, peculiarities, of their neighbouring worlds are laughable, leading
no
> doubt to the occassional use of armed mercenary force to make the other
guys
> stop laughing, if only for a moment.

Um... so does this mean we here in Maine are in danger of being invaded by
donut-eating hockey players with a grudge?  Or should I expect to see yet
another Tim Horton's going up on Main Street?

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

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

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 10:10:09 -0400
From: "Eric Freitas" <ericfrei@gte.net>
Subject: Re: Laserconstruction tool

Hey, I just read your announcement that you have an FFS spreadsheet.
Could I get a copy of it?

Thanks,
    Eric


- -----Original Message-----
From: Holger Kadlez <hk1@stud.mw.tu-muenchen.de>
To: traveller@mpgn.com <traveller@mpgn.com>
Date: Tuesday, March 23, 1999 9:45 AM
Subject: Laserconstruction tool



Hello friends,

Although I'm perhaps the 756271st to do so, I wrote an Construction tool
for starship lasers. It is based on FFS V1 with some
house-modifications, but perhaps some of you might be interested. Is is
done in Excel 97, using lots of VBA (which is IMHO the only usefull
thing in Office 97).

AS I do not have a homepage, I will sent it to everyone interested by
email (ca 100kb).

Returning you to wantever you are doing,

Bye
Holger 'aradin' Kadlez

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

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 10:11:54 -0400
From: "Eric Freitas" <ericfrei@gte.net>
Subject: Re: Laserconstruction tool (sorry)

Oops, didn't mean to send the reply to the list.

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

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 10:15:17 -0400
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: re: The Nth Traveller Flamewar

Ethan Henry wrote:
>>>>>>>
There are more donut stores than grocery stores in parts of southern
Ontario. One of this country's finest, most cherished public institutions
is... Tim Hortons, a donut store named after a hockey player. I mean,
what could be more Canadian? 

No doubt residents of various Imeprial worlds will feel that the peculiar,
well, peculiarities, of their neighbouring worlds are laughable, leading no
doubt to the occassional use of armed mercenary force to make the other guys
stop laughing, if only for a moment.
>>>>>>>>
So *that's* what that War of 1812 thing was all about....donuts...  :-)

"Donuts...is there *anything* they can't do?" - Homer J. Simpson

Walt Smith

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

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 09:17:36 -0500
From: Loren Wiseman <lkw@io.com>
Subject: Starports Vehicles

A general announcement for GURPS Traveller Gearheads:

I have a selection of vehicles and spacecraft for GT Starports that need
checking and review, pronto. Rather than clutter the list, I will e-mail
these to interested parties, but I expect you to look them over and get
back to me ASAP.

Assistance will be appreciated (and rewarded).




Loren Wiseman
     Art Director  / Traveller Line Editor
     Traveller Guru-in-Residence
     SJ Games
     LKW@IO.COM
     (512) 447-7866 VOX
     (512) 447-1144 FAX

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

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 10:19:03 -0400
From: "Eric Freitas" <ericfrei@gte.net>
Subject: Re: Starports Vehicles

Great,
    I'm home sick, I'll look them over.

Eric

- -----Original Message-----
From: Loren Wiseman <lkw@io.com>


>A general announcement for GURPS Traveller Gearheads:
>
>I have a selection of vehicles and spacecraft for GT Starports that need
>checking and review, pronto. Rather than clutter the list, I will e-mail
>these to interested parties, but I expect you to look them over and get
>back to me ASAP.
>
>Assistance will be appreciated (and rewarded).

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

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 16:25:26 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: Annic Nova

>I wrote:
>>My main problem with the ANNIC NOVA is the magic capacitors that allow a
>>jump charge to be built up over several weeks.

Antony Farrell replied:

>I actually assumed that there were two sets of capacitors, one set for each
>jump drive fitted (Annic Nova had two seperate jump drives) plus a set of
>storage batteries which both stored power for normal ships use and charged
>the jump drive capacitors allowing them to discharge in the normal way.
 

And Keven R. Pittsinger likewise:
 
>I remember it as more of a bank of batteries or equivilent, kind of like
>Robert A. Heinlien's 'Shipstones'.

That's not the point. If you remember the discussion about drop tanks and
jump projectors half a year ago, you will remember that energy storage
devices that can build up a jump charge over time and store it for even a
few hours makes jump projectors possible and that jump projectors are even
more economically effective than drop tanks.


      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
		"Certainly not,' Gub-Gub retorted.'Vermicelli Minestrone
		was a poet - a famous food poet. He married Tabby Ochre.
		It was a runaway match. But she stuck to him through thick
		and thin. People said she was a colourless individual and
		would stick to anything. But he loved her dearly and they
		were very happy. They had two children - Pilaf and Maca-
		roni. He was a great man, was Minestrone. His library con-
		sisted of nothing but cookery books -  cookery books of
		every age and of every language. But he wrote some beauti-
		ful verses. His Spaghetti Sonnets, his Hominy Homilies, his
		Farina Fantasies - well, you should read them. You would
		never say again there was no romance in food.'
		   'It's a sort of cereal story,' groaned Jip."

			   --- Hugh Lofting's "Doctor Dolittle's Caravan"

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

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 16:29:31 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hans Rancke-Madsen <rancke@diku.dk>
Subject: Re: Shionthy

Douglas E. Berry writes:

>>Eskaloyt's sun is thought to have been between an F2 V and an F7 V. Since
>>_Regency Sourcebook_ changed a number of M-type stars to other types by
>>substituting an F, G, or K for the M and retaining the number, I'd
>>suggest that Shionthy's star ought to be an F4 V.
> 
>Perhaps Eskaloyt was a binary system, and Yaskodray only took one star with
>him.

Not a bad idea, but I think the holographic map in _Secrets of the Ancients_
would have shown that.


      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     rancke@diku.dk
- ------------
        "Kettelman bristled. Nothing got him angrier than when
         people implied that he was paranoid. It made him feel
         persecuted."
                                --Robert Sheckley

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

Date: Tue, 05 Oct 1999 10:42:34 -0400
From: Ian Ferguson <ian@vax2.concordia.ca>
Subject: RE: Democracy and Traveller

Terry Carlino writes:
<snipped>
>Athens was indeed the last "true" democracy, in that all 
>citizens voted on each issue, vice voting for a representative 
>to vote on issues.

	True, in as far as most Athenians were not citizens.

Peez

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

Date: Tue, 05 Oct 1999 08:28:12 -0700
From: Bruce Johnson <johnson@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
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?

Absolutely not! It _worked_: witness the ISP's noticing their traffic being
routed through Europe.

The system was never expected to work with 100% efficiency all of the time. In
fact that was the great intellectual breakthrough of packet-switched
networks...that they _could_ work at efficiencies of less than 100%, something
a switched telephone network could not do at the time. (and may not even
now...I think the telco's have handled their switching problems the old
- -fashioned way: throw faster hardware at it.)

The Internet was never designed to 'survive' a nuclear war, it was designed to
provide _some_ means of communication, however slow and incomplete, in
situations where normal communications lines would be shut down.

If there wasn't such a concentration of traffic along the US cross these
continental backbones, in fact, the cable cut would have been less noticeable,
but due to the exponential growth of the network, more and more traffic has
flowed along the few big pipes able to carry it. This is the exact
vulnerability that the original Arpanet was designed to overcome.

Problem: we need more and bigger pipes. A worldwide backbone network with the
capacity of the US's woudl have allowed the designed 'route around breaks' to
function perfectly well, with only minor slowdowns of traffic.

ObTrav: Since here, at least, network traffic grows faster than the pipes can
be built, I wonmder what a mature TL-15 or 16 commnet looks like. Is
everything wired together? 

Have they decided that they can really walk over and check the state of the
coffee pot rather than hitting the Coffee-server and checking it's sensor
readings, reducing network traffic? Is it safe to plant roses in your backyard
before getting it blue staked? T4, in M0 postulated ubitiquous low power
wireless links, and computers everywhere.

Presumably, given Shannon's law, and the fact that the 3i can make and handle
X-ray lasers, is the hard limit of information transfer related to the
frequency of these? Do they really want trillions of little X-Ray laser diodes
all over the place? I'd imagine that one could be turned into a rather nasty
little antipersonnel device in a pinch. What frequency _would they use? After
all, x-rays cover a rather high range of frequencies.

Or have they found a way around Shannon's law?

This pertains to the richness of the computing/comms network on a given
Imperial world.

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

Date: Tue, 05 Oct 1999 08:35:25 -0700
From: "Benyamene' ZeAbe' Akella" <xrp@sierratel.com>
Subject: Re: Traveller Versions

> In the beginning there was CT and it was good.

Amen. Only Traveller fans would work out the phylogeny of a game system. I
am quite amused.

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

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 08:56:50 -0700 (PDT)
From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@molly.iii.com>
Subject: Re: Shiont(h)y Belt

Leonard Erickson writes:

> If it's got a stellar wind, the <????>pause (the place the wind quits
> displacing the interstellar medium) will be giving off a lot of hard
> radiation. 

For the sun, the heliopause.  I don't know if there's a separate term for stars other than the sun.  Another point of note is that the solar wind would be dramatically more dangerous than normal -- matter/antimatter collisions would generate some extremely nasty, extremely high-penetration radiation.  Without specially designed shielding, expect it to cook the entire crew of a typical travelle starship in hours.

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

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 08:59:51 -0700 (PDT)
From: Anthony Jackson <ajackson@molly.iii.com>
Subject: Re: TL8 Light Battlesuit

jmaclean@ix.netcom.com writes:

> I'm perfectly willing to accept that the body is an inefficient power plant
> and that power consumption should therefore be reduced in a legged
> suspension.  However, I disagree that the efficiency of legged transmissions
> can be noticeably improved over human locomotion for *battlesuits*.  After
> all, the wearer has to fit inside the legs and they have to match the
> motions his limbs are capable of.  

You can probably create better energy reclamation systems (to recover the energy when the foot hits the ground) than the human body has. 
> 
> You've conviced me it's not a factor of 10, but I'm holding out on that 
> last factor of 2.  As it stands, legged suspensions have the same
> efficiency in GURPS as wheeled suspensions. 

Nah.  The wheeled suspension requires 1/4 the power to move at the same speed (speed factor 16 vs 8); a railroad suspension requires 1/16 the power.

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

Date: Tue, 05 Oct 1999 17:35:16 +0100
From: Ewan Quibell <E.D.Quibell@bton.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Downport trouble...

<stuff about the internet snipped>

> ObTrav: Since here, at least, network traffic grows faster than the pipes can
> be built, I wonmder what a mature TL-15 or 16 commnet looks like. Is
> everything wired together?

Mesh topology networks cost significantly more than Star topology
networks. But in a TL15-16 world who knows ?

I posted a story of the horseless carriage a year or so ago, as an
indication of how current thinking of the future can be radically
different than the reality. As I said then we are in the infancy of
information technology now, in another 60 years, who knows what it
will be like ? In 3000 years anything you could come up with is not
beyond the realms of possibility.

> Have they decided that they can really walk over and check the state of the
> coffee pot rather than hitting the Coffee-server and checking it's sensor
> readings, reducing network traffic?

No they will use the network, as that much traffic won't affect the
network, and it saves them from getting up :-)

> Is it safe to plant roses in your backyard
> before getting it blue staked? T4, in M0 postulated ubitiquous low power
> wireless links, and computers everywhere.

One of the best quotes I have read recently was about computers in
door knobs, and wireless networks over the wide area is something we
are looking into for off campus student access.
 
> Presumably, given Shannon's law, and the fact that the 3i can make and handle
> X-ray lasers, is the hard limit of information transfer related to the
> frequency of these?

Yes and no. 2400 baud is the fastest speed you can drive a phone line
at, but lots of people are using 56K modems to read this message. I
posted on data transfer between Xboat and tender a while back which
went into frequency divisional multiplexing of lasers. As long as the
frequencies don't interfere with each other, or you can distinguish
the interference then you can get more bandwidth, add compression and
away you go.

> Do they really want trillions of little X-Ray laser diodes
> all over the place? I'd imagine that one could be turned into a rather nasty
> little antipersonnel device in a pinch.

Current networking equipment makes effective antipersonnel devices,
in-fact so do CD players. If something has a class 1 LED or Laser
sticker on it, don't look at the Laser or LED it if you value you
eyesight, and don't point it at anyone else. Third law of data
communications is never look down a fibre unless you are positively,
absolutely, and unequivocally sure that there is nothing on the other end.

> What frequency _would they use? After
> all, x-rays cover a rather high range of frequencies.
> 
> Or have they found a way around Shannon's law?

Probably, but I don't know Shannon's law well enough to say that with
any real conviction.

> This pertains to the richness of the computing/comms network on a given
> Imperial world.

As I said, anyone's ges is as good as yours.

Hope this helps more than hinders.

Ewan
- -- 

   Ewan Quibell                       Their's not to make reply,
   Senior Communications Engineer     Their's not to reason why,
   Computer Centre                    Their's but to do and die:
   University of Brighton             Into the valley of Death
                                      Rode the six hundred.
   E.D.Quibell@brighton.ac.uk              Alfred, Lord Tennyson

   #include<stddisclaimer.h>

   My spelling is entirerly due to dyslexia, typos, and poetic license

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

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 12:47:32 -0400
From: Walter Smith <SmithW@HARTWICK.EDU>
Subject: re: Annic Nova

Hans Rancke-Madsen wrote:
>>>>>>>>>
That's not the point. If you remember the discussion about drop tanks and
jump projectors half a year ago, you will remember that energy storage
devices that can build up a jump charge over time and store it for even a
few hours makes jump projectors possible and that jump projectors are even
more economically effective than drop tanks.
>>>>>>>>>>
Did you mean some kind of jump fuel tender - where you run a hose to the
ship, have the ship burn the fuel as it comes, then the ship holds the charge
until it reaches a safe jump distance?

I didn't see jump projectors from the Annic Nova technology, but some
kind of fuel tender with a refueling probe, of course.

Though the jump drives in Annic Nova seemed to need a very long time
to build up a useful charge, compared to the jump drive of a standard 
Traveller starship. Granted, they were accumulating solar power,
but what if the type of jump drive technology used in the Annic Nova's
drives were incapable of handling a sudden energy spike like you see
in a standard jump drive? - not just because it wasn't designed to take
it, but because this particular variant of jump drive technology is
incapable of such sudden state changes during the charging phase.

Walt Smith

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

Date: Tue, 05 Oct 1999 09:21:48
From: "Douglas E. Berry" <gridlore@pop.mindspring.com>
Subject: OT: The Insta-RPG generator!

RPGnet has an interesting toy to play with..

http://www.rpg.net/kajigi/buzz.php3

"End, the SciFi game, where brave orphans and investigators battle monsters 
with the aid of astounding naivete -- and a bit of cool guns! The 
characters, using a dynamic system of randomly generated character creation, 
face challenges armed only with their charm using the fascinating card-based 
system. Available soon at a store near you."
- -- 

Douglas E. Berry       gridlore@mindspring.com
http://gridlore.home.mindspring.com/index.html

If someone is arrested for jaywalking or littering just
after midnight next New Year's Eve, for at least a minute
or two he will have committed the crime of the century. 

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

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 13:05:42 -0400
From: "Sword Worlder" <swordworlder@clinic.net>
Subject: Shannon and noise (was Re: Downport trouble...)

> > Or have they found a way around Shannon's law?
>
> Probably, but I don't know Shannon's law well enough to say that with
> any real conviction.

Not that I have any practical experience with it, but Shannon's Theorem
[C=Blog2(1 + S/N)] applies to a transmission system that introduces noise
(N).  I suppose it is possible to find a noiseless system.  Back to the
question of a perfect conductor, eh? ;-)

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

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

Date: Tue, 05 Oct 1999 19:09:35 +0200
From: Volker Greimann <volker@greimann.de>
Subject: RE: Traveller Versions

Hmm. Although I agree about the MT+ instead of T4 bit, I cant see why GURPS
would/should die...

IMHO, its a good, solid system of endless variety, published by the last
cool RPG companies thats 
still around (and which is still not governed by suits, as most of the rest
are by now)

My view of wha should have happened would therefore be:
MT evolves into MT+ and coexists with the alternative rules sourcebooks for
G:T. Traveller
takes the lead in SciFi Gaming again.
(Add in a dozen or so of smaller licensees like BITS, etc, and you have my
idea of gaming-paradise)

At 13:19 05.10.99 +0100, you wrote:
>    What should have happened:
>
>    Timeline    Evolution of Traveller rulesets (and others)
>
>      1980           CT
>                     :     T2K
>                     :      :      T:2300
>      1985           :      :         :         GURPS
>                     :      :      2300AD         :
>                     :     T2K2       :           :
>      1990           MT     :.....    :           :
>                     :          23C-house    (GURPS dies)
>                     :              :
>      1995           MT+            :
>                     :              :
>                     :              :
>      2000           ?              ?
Volker
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
Volker A. Greimann --- http://www.greimann.de --- volker@greimann.de

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

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 13:46:10 -0400
From: Glenn Myers <glenn.myers@ansys.com>
Subject: RE: Shiont(h)y Belt

I an bizarre coincidence, I just finished reading Jack Williamson's
SeeTee Ship and SeeTee Shock and many of the same questions occurred to
me.

I figured any Antimatter in the system would be easily detected through
the radiation pouring out of it.

Glenn

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

Date: Tue, 05 Oct 1999 11:05:48 PDT
From: "Brandon Cope" <copeab@hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: Traveller Versions

>From: Volker Greimann <volker@greimann.de>
>
>Hmm. Although I agree about the MT+ instead of T4 bit, I cant see why 
>GURPS
>would/should die...

Obviously, he hates GURPS ;-)

Of course, it's not as if the game mechanics (especially for combat) for CT 
and MT (and perhaps TNE) are that hot: they are all more cumbersome than 
what GURPS uses (MT is especially obnoxious with regards to the damage 
rules). For my MT pbmail campaign (sorry, no openings) I've used the MT 
rules to see if you hit and (slightly modified) CT rules to determine 
damage.

A generous and sadistic GM,

Brandon Cope

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

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

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 18:43:45 +0100 
From: "Trevor, Peter" <Peter.Trevor@rb.cwplc.com>
Subject: RE: Traveller Versions

Volker Greimann wrote:
> Hmm. Although I agree about the MT+ instead of T4 bit, I cant
> see why GURPS would/should die...

I wasn't being *totally* serious with  that  part,  although  the
T2K2  system  could  have  become  the  core  of   a   GURPS-like
multi-gerne system.  All it lacked was a magic system for fantasy
games.  As such it would have been  superior  as  GURPS  lacks  a
proper task system (yes,  I  know  someone  tried  inventing  one
recently).  GURPS is an evolutionarily earlier game ... and isn't
metric.

(And I know how some people here love it, so I couldn't resist  a
dig.)



> My view of wha should have happened would therefore be: MT
> evolves into MT+ and coexists with the alternative rules
> sourcebooks for G:T. Traveller takes the lead in SciFi Gaming
> again. (Add in a dozen or so of smaller licensees like BITS,
> etc, and you have my idea of gaming-paradise)

You missed off: DGP never died and no one  ever  heard  of  Roger
Sanger.



Regards PLST
"Rome wasn't burned in a day."

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

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 19:00:27 +0100
From: SD Mooney <dom@cybergoths.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: MT and TNE designs

shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) writes:
>You are *really* gonna hate yourself. There's a simple driver that
>lets a PC access Atari ST disks. And it's been available for a *long*
>time.

And anything written using a TOS1.04 and later machine writes MSDOS 3.3
flavour 720k disks. Most third party formatters offered the option to
convert to MSDOS while preserving data or to write MSDOS or better disks.

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: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 15:31:11 EDT
From: AveNelso@aol.com
Subject: Re: Democracy and Traveller

I think the real problem with democracy in Traveller isn't travel time, so 
much as it is shear mass of people.   If each world gets a representative, 
that's 10,000 reps.  Each one of these representatives "represents" anywhere 
from a few thousand to 10,000,000,000 people.   Can your really have an 
accountable, representative official who takes into account the needs of 
10,000,000,000 people?   And if he is only one of 10,000 representatives, how 
much real voice do the people have?    Democracy at this level would really 
be a sham, an image or a convenient fiction.

        Dave "The Old Marquis" Nelson

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

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 15:32:13 -0400 (EDT)
From: "William F. Hostman" <aramis@gci.net>
Subject: RE MT/T5

>I still pefer 2300AD, and Love to see a MT/T5 fly, but can the market bear
>it?
>
>Darryl

More importantly, would MWM bear it? (He's been remarkably anti-MT in the
past.)

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 12:40:55 -0700 (PDT)
From: Kiri Aradia Morgan <tiamat@tsoft.com>
Subject: Re: Democracy and Traveller

On Tue, 5 Oct 1999 AveNelso@aol.com wrote:

> I think the real problem with democracy in Traveller isn't travel time, so 
> much as it is shear mass of people.   If each world gets a representative, 
> that's 10,000 reps.  Each one of these representatives "represents" anywhere 
> from a few thousand to 10,000,000,000 people.   Can your really have an 
> accountable, representative official who takes into account the needs of 
> 10,000,000,000 people?   And if he is only one of 10,000 representatives, how 
> much real voice do the people have?    Democracy at this level would really 
> be a sham, an image or a convenient fiction.
> 
What about online democracy?  If everyone has net.access, and the
representatives are obliged to vote as their constituents direct, this
might actually work-- mightn't it?  Of course, decisions would be made
slowly; one couldn't respond to an immediate threat this way.

Kiri

******************************************************************************
Kiri Aradia Morgan                                  93!  Thou Art God
tiamat@tsoft.com

"If time passes, everything turns into beauty
If the rains stop, tears clean the scars of memory away
Everything starts wearing fresh colors
Every sound begins playing a heartfelt melody
Jealousy embellishes a page of the epic
Desire is embraced in a dream..."              -- X-JAPAN 

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

End of Traveller-digest V1999 #1160
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