Terra during the Long Night

> From: Hans Rancke-Madsen [email removed]
> Subject: (3408) Terra during the Long Night
>
> The key lies in the centuries of the Interstellar Wars where
> Terra and it's colonies were locked in a struggle with the
> Vilani Empire, a potentially overwhelming enemy. Terra fought
> this conflict under the auspices of a world government whose
> combined forces would be too strong for any individual former
> country to challenge. Any nationalists would therefor have to
> resort to terrorism or possibly guerilla action. This combined
> with a "you traitorous scum are hampering our struggle against
> the evil Vilani Empire, jeopadizing the future of the entire
> human race" line of propaganda could well relegate nationalism
> to the same popularity as nazism and racism.

  But the history of the Rule of Man could disrupt this: The war was over.
It was won. And then the newly aquired colonies almost the entire military
of the victorious part says: "We're a new political entity. Bye bye!"
  Imagine MacArthur establishing himself as military dictator of the West
Pacific Alliance including Japan, Hawaii and all the territory inbetween
including all US forces there and setting out as a totally independent
political entity that regards the continental US as 'little brother':)
  My guess as to a possible reaction on Terra when the Rule of Man cut and run
is great disillutionment with all traces of interstellar government since they
have shown themselves to be either hostile or indifferent. I don't think that
the wartime 'we must stick together' mentality could survive long after the
threat was gone *and* the spoils of war was totally lost.

  Judging from contemporary politics a big 'musical chairs' about that eternal
question: "Who shall foot the bill?" would ensue. Different regions and nations
would push for different principles. Some would argue for payment after wealth.
Some for payment after natural resources, some for payment after combat losses
(they who lost the most pay the least) and some would argue that they didn't
want that stupid war in the first place so why should they pay for it?
  Any historical arguments about who the blame belonged to would quickly be
forgotten amongst the biased histories the various factions and their supporters
would push out. There is also the big possibility that somebody claims that
EarthGov is a conspiracy against <their country> totally run by <their enemy>
whith the sole purpose of destroying them. Such capers have worked before, and
I sadly see no reason why they should stop working suddenly.
  Small rulers always look for ways of making themselves appear big and
powerful. One of the best methods is to attack, physically or verbally, some
big and powerful entity that is guaranteed not to strike back. EarthGov seems
like an ideal target for this kind of attacks, since its reason for existance
is to make things *better* for humankind. If they start issuing frag-orders
for interface figters to go and dump FAE on "nests of anti-internationalist
terrorists" hither and dither they are just proving their opponents points.

  Remember that we are talking about periods spanning hundreds of years here.
Since ideologies that were totally outdated 45 years ago seem to be on the
rise now, I see no reason why any ideology couldn't make a comback in 200 years
let alone 1800. Imagine the debate on EarthNet some time after the end of the
Nth Interstellar War and after the Fall of Night:
  "What proof does *you* have that the 'vilani' existed, you totalitarian
internationalist? Do you have any eye-witnesses that participated in *any* of
the 'Interstellar Wars'? We have let experts scientifically examine the
wreckage on display in the victory monument and they found that it is a fake!"

  Also note the large number of *ethnically homogenous* worlds all over Charted
Space hailing from *ethnically homogenous* fleets of low-sleep ships from Terra
launched during the Long Night or shortly before. I cannot imagine them
occuring if there were a EarthGov controlling military and strategic (like
spaceflight) resources. And the fact that they feel the need to emmigrate from
Earth seems to indicate that everything wasn't all that good there.

>       Hans Rancke

- -bertil-
PS: I'll try to give pre-Night Terra the 'Hard Times UWP treatement' and we'll
     see what the result is:)
- --
"It can be shown that for any nutty theory, beyond-the-fringe political view or
 strange religion there exists a proponent on the Net. The proof is left as an
 exercise for your kill-file."

From: [email removed]
>From: Hans Rancke-Madsen [email removed]
>>
>>The key lies in the centuries of the Interstellar Wars where
>>Terra and it's colonies were locked in a struggle with the
>>Vilani Empire, a potentially overwhelming enemy. Terra fought
>>this conflict under the auspices of a world government whose
>>combined forces would be too strong for any individual former
>>country to challenge. Any nationalists would therefor have to
>>resort to terrorism or possibly guerilla action. This combined
>>with a "you traitorous scum are hampering our struggle against
>>the evil Vilani Empire, jeopadizing the future of the entire
>>human race" line of propaganda could well relegate nationalism
>>to the same popularity as nazism and racism.

>  But the history of the Rule of Man could disrupt this:

I find it hard to dispute your arguments, because I find them very
plausible. But the key here is that we are not looking at Terra at
the beginning of The Long Night and trying to extrapolate what
might happen. We're looking at Terra before and after The Long
Night and trying to interpolate why things _didn't_ go the way
you suggest. So the answer here is that it could, but obviously
it didn't.

>                                                       The war was over.
>It was won. And then the newly aquired colonies almost the entire military
>of the victorious part says: "We're a new political entity. Bye bye!"
>  Imagine MacArthur establishing himself as military dictator of the West
>Pacific Alliance including Japan, Hawaii and all the territory inbetween
>including all US forces there and setting out as a totally independent
>political entity that regards the continental US as 'little brother':)
>  My guess as to a possible reaction on Terra when the Rule of Man cut and
>run is great disillutionment with all traces of interstellar government
>since they have shown themselves to be either hostile or indifferent. I
>don't think that the wartime 'we must stick together' mentality could survive
long after the threat was gone *and* the spoils of war was totally lost.

Me neither. So obviously the spoils of war wasn't lost. My guess is
that Terra became the regional capital for what was later to become
the Solomani Sphere and got _very_ preferential treatment from Dingir.
Remember, What's-his-name the First never called himself Emperor.
Imagine MacArthur keeping on making loyal noices and blaming non-
cooperation on "administrative problems". Would Congress want to
publisize their inability to  control him? Would Joe Public ever
realize the true state of affairs? Perhaps. But now increase the
communication lag to that between Terra and Dingir, and what have
you got? At least a possibility that Terra's reactions could be
kept reasonable. Remember, hundreds of more or less virgin worlds
lay around them ready to be colonized or dominated.

>  Judging from contemporary politics a big 'musical chairs' about that
>eternal question: "Who shall foot the bill?" would ensue.

I'm not saying all this wouldn't happen. I'm just saying that
if nationalism has become a swearword, then anybody would have
to pay lip service to the concept of World Unity. I wouldn't
say that slavery will never reappear in Denmark, but I don't
think it will be called slavery.

Another possibility is that Terra never lost jump capacity. I
don't see why they should have, in fact. It just became
unprofitable to trade across more than a few parsecs. Propably
Terra kept up contact with the nearest dozen worlds, exploiting
them to keep everybody at home satisfied. They would've fought
wars during The Long Night, yes, but with their colonies, not
between regions.

Oh, one more thing: for this to work, a stable population must
have been established, with population artificially controlled
at a given level.

>  Remember that we are talking about periods spanning hundreds of years
>here. Since ideologies that were totally outdated 45 years ago seem to be
>on the rise now, I see no reason why any ideology couldn't make a comback
>in 200 years let alone 1800.

True, lack of ressources allows the weirdos, the sickos and the
powermongers free play. But a sufficiency of ressources gives
the sane people a chance. Only a chance, granted, but apparently
Terra lucked out during the Long Night. The solution would be a
controlled populations _and_an_absence_of_rivals_.

>Imagine the debate on EarthNet some time after the Fall of Night:

>  "What proof does *you* have that the 'vilani' existed, you totalitarian
>internationalist? Do you have any eye-witnesses that participated in *any*
>of the 'Interstellar Wars'? We have let experts scientifically examine the
>wreckage on display in the victory monument and they found that it is a
>fake!"

:-D

>  Also note the large number of *ethnically homogenous* worlds all over
>Charted Space hailing from *ethnically homogenous* fleets of low-sleep
>ships from Terra launched during the Long Night or shortly before.

What fleets? The ships that colonized Old Islands Subsector were launched
prior to the invention of the jump drive. As for the ethnical homogenous-
ness of a lot of worlds I refer to my library data piece about National
Reemergence for a plausible (well, I think it's plausible) explanation.

>I cannot imagine them occuring if there were a EarthGov controlling military
>and strategic (like spaceflight) resources. And the fact that they feel the
>need to emmigrate from Earth seems to indicate that everything wasn't
>all that good there.

Oh, I don't know. There will allways be idealist and/or misfits. How
about people who wanted to have more than a child apiece? Try turning
your argument around. Would a region use ressources on outfitting
colony ships, if there were fighting/in danger of fighting a war? If
any colony ships were launched during the Long Night, then that
rather argues for a superabundance of ressources. Such fleets would
after all be a total loss to the economy with no prospect of any future
returns.

>PS: I'll try to give pre-Night Terra the 'Hard Times UWP treatement' and
>we'll see what the result is:)

That could be interesting ;-) But don't forget that there are
no Lucan the Nutter involved in the fall of the Long Night.

      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     [email removed]
- ------------
"I know there are some people in the world who do not tolerate their
fellow human beings, and I just can't _stand_ people like that!"
                                (after Tom Lehrer)

> From: Hans Rancke-Madsen [email removed]
> Subject: (3413) Re: Terra during the Long Night
>
> I find it hard to dispute your arguments, because I find them very
> plausible. But the key here is that we are not looking at Terra at
> the beginning of The Long Night and trying to extrapolate what
> might happen. We're looking at Terra before and after The Long
> Night and trying to interpolate why things _didn't_ go the way
> you suggest. So the answer here is that it could, but obviously
> it didn't.

  I'm not totally convinced about that because our data is sadly lacking.
Almost all we have are two datapoints: UN-something have become a defacto
EarthGov before/during the Interstellar Wars and Terra is probably united
when the Dawn comes.

  It would be as if shown two pictures of Europe 1800 years apart, one over
the Roman Empire year 200 and one over the (potential) EEC year 2000.
A deduction from that might be that the changes in 1800 years are that
the focus of the political entity has gone northwards, the different regions
(called 'nations') have become more independent, the name have changed, and
the government has changed. The two latter probably happened at the same time
with the change in government leading to the change of name.

  I think it is very possible, keeping in mind that a lot of things can
happen during 1800 years, for a planet to begin as one entity, balcanize in
several periods, fight some wars and unite again.

  S&A talks about the Dusk and mentions that the Old Earth Union, which
apparently included Terra and some worlds probably not further from Terra
than 10 or 15 parsecs, failed during one point in the Night, that all
habitations in the Solar System except for Luna were abandoned at some
time during the night and that the Terran Mercantile Community existed at one
point during the night. It still leaves half-a-millenium sized holes in the
history.

  When discussing Terran participation in Interstellar communities during
the Long Night it is interesting to note that one of the prerequisites for
something like this to form in the first part of a Night is jump-1 access
to other worlds. Terra has only 4 neighbours on jump-2 distance and none on
jump-1. Had there been just one less neighbour on jump-2, Terra would have got
the Hard Times classification of "Isolated" which would have made matters
worse.

> True, lack of ressources allows the weirdos, the sickos and the
> powermongers free play. But a sufficiency of ressources gives
> the sane people a chance. Only a chance, granted, but apparently
> Terra lucked out during the Long Night. The solution would be a
> controlled populations _and_an_absence_of_rivals_.

  My guess as to the effective TL of Terra during the Long Night is 9, since
this is the lowest that supports jumptech. This is a fall of 4 units from
the C level they had at the end of the wars. Imagine the depression that can
make a TL go down 4 units. It is like going from today to before the Wright
brothers.

> >  Also note the large number of *ethnically homogenous* worlds all over
> >Charted Space hailing from *ethnically homogenous* fleets of low-sleep
> >ships from Terra launched during the Long Night or shortly before.
>
> What fleets? The ships that colonized Old Islands Subsector were launched
> prior to the invention of the jump drive. As for the ethnical homogenous-
> ness of a lot of worlds I refer to my library data piece about National
> Reemergence for a plausible (well, I think it's plausible) explanation.

  Going from S&A, there are two periods of mass emmigration from Terra.
The first is where big groups of various small nationalities go and colonize
because they fear that EarthGov and the situation on Terra will effectively
annihilate their cultures (through dissolution and absobtion). This occur
around the Fall of Night.

  The second wave, not stated explicitely, occur around -400 Imperial and it
is now those who will eventually become the Sworldworlders leave. This is at
the absolute depths of the night. This isn't commented upon, but it has a
mark on the timeline.

  BTW: You mention your library data entry, and I remember it mentioning a
planet called Funftreich. It made me wonder were the Fourth Reich were. My bet
would be on Terra, during the Night.

> >PS: I'll try to give pre-Night Terra the 'Hard Times UWP treatement' and
> >we'll see what the result is:)
>
> That could be interesting ;-) But don't forget that there are
> no Lucan the Nutter involved in the fall of the Long Night.

  That is why I didn't include any warzone, intense warzone and black
(nukem-til-they-glow) warzone DM's in the analysis of Terra:)

>       Hans Rancke

- -bertil-
- --
"It can be shown that for any nutty theory, beyond-the-fringe political view or
 strange religion there exists a proponent on the Net. The proof is left as an
 exercise for your kill-file."

>From: [email removed]
>
>>From: Hans Rancke-Madsen [email removed]
>>
>>I find it hard to dispute your arguments, because I find them very
>>plausible. But the key here is that we are not looking at Terra at
>>the beginning of The Long Night and trying to extrapolate what
>>might happen. We're looking at Terra before and after The Long
>>Night and trying to interpolate why things _didn't_ go the way
>>you suggest. So the answer here is that it could, but obviously
>>it didn't.
>
>  I'm not totally convinced about that because our data is sadly lacking.
>Almost all we have are two datapoints: UN-something have become a defacto
>EarthGov before/during the Interstellar Wars and Terra is probably united
>when the Dawn comes.
>
>  It would be as if shown two pictures of Europe 1800 years apart, one over
>the Roman Empire year 200 and one over the (potential) EEC year 2000.
>A deduction from that might be that the changes in 1800 years are that
>the focus of the political entity has gone northwards, the different regions
>(called 'nations') have become more independent, the name have changed, and
>the government has changed. The two latter probably happened at the same time
>with the change in government leading to the change of name.

Now I'm getting confused. Didn't you start this thread by pointing out that
Terra had apparently gone through the whole Long Night without any
significant changes to regional names? Are you saying now that the name
changes _are_ significant? If so, what's the problem?

>  I think it is very possible, keeping in mind that a lot of things can
>happen during 1800 years, for a planet to begin as one entity, balcanize in
>several periods, fight some wars and unite again.

Sure. I agree. Very possible. But did it?

>  S&A talks about the Dusk and mentions that the Old Earth Union, which
>apparently included Terra and some worlds probably not further from Terra
>than 10 or 15 parsecs, failed during one point in the Night, that all
>habitations in the Solar System except for Luna were abandoned at some
>time during the night and that the Terran Mercantile Community existed at one
>point during the night. It still leaves half-a-millenium sized holes in the
>history.

That's a revision of what they said in _Solomani Rim_. I dug SR up last
night, and it states that Terra during The Long Night was the capital of
the Old Earth Union (containing "most of the early Terran colonies from
Barnard to Forlorn and from Dismal to the merchant refuelling station at
Sirius"; approx. 17 worlds) and that it and The Easter Concord, The Vegan
Polity and The Dingir League survived the Long Night "by trading within
themselves and maintaining their defenses". No mention of any Terran
Merchant Community or any catastrophic failure of the Old Earth Union.

>  When discussing Terran participation in Interstellar communities during
>the Long Night it is interesting to note that one of the prerequisites for
>something like this to form in the first part of a Night is jump-1 access
>to other worlds. Terra has only 4 neighbours on jump-2 distance and none on
>jump-1. Had there been just one less neighbour on jump-2, Terra would have
>got the Hard Times classification of "Isolated" which would have made matters
>worse.

It didn't need to form, it was there to begin with. It contracted down
to 17 worlds. And I don't think that any world containing most of the
human beings in a subsector can really ever be called isolated. The
rest of the subsector might be considered isolated from it...

>  My guess as to the effective TL of Terra during the Long Night is 9, since
>this is the lowest that supports jumptech. This is a fall of 4 units from
>the C level they had at the end of the wars. Imagine the depression that can
>make a TL go down 4 units. It is like going from today to before the Wright
>brothers.

You're arguing in circles. A depression that can drop Terra 4 tech levels
must be very severe, so Terra propably dropped 4 tech levels. But what if
Terra didn't drop 4 tech levels? That would mean that the depression wasn't
all that bad, so propably Terra didn't drop 4 levels ;-)

I think that in order to maintain the Old Earth Union, they must have
retained jump-2 at least, and I don't see why they need to have lost
jump-3 at all. Wait, I take that back. Looking at the astrography of the
Solomani Rim it makes sense that they lost jump-3 and retained jump-2.
That would leave the Union isolated. The worlds to rimward are mostly
empty, to spinward and coreward the Dingir League and the Vegan Polity
jealously guards their own trade planets and to trailing is a three parsec
gap that makes trade that way unprofitable.

Note that the fact that the rimward worlds remained empty indicates a lack
of population pressure, which indicates population control, which would
allow a really stable economy. Stable, but stagnant.

>  Going from S&A, there are two periods of mass emmigration from Terra.
>The first is where big groups of various small nationalities go and colonize
>because they fear that EarthGov and the situation on Terra will effectively
>annihilate their cultures (through dissolution and absobtion). This occur
>around the Fall of Night.

Pity. In my personal Traveller universe I put the first diaspora during the
Rule of Man years. Expanding economy, United Nations ideology (nationalism
is BAD, but peaceful culturalism is good). I don't think I'll change that.
It makes more sense that small groups can afford to emigrate in a boom
period than in a depression. (And afore you mention how America was filled,
I mean a depression that affects both the emigration and the immigration
planets).

>  The second wave, not stated explicitely, occur around -400 Imperial and it
>is now those who will eventually become the Sworldworlders leave. This is at
>the absolute depths of the night. This isn't commented upon, but it has a
>mark on the timeline.

- -400 is not the depths of the  night. On the contrary, it's well into
the dawn. According to SR, "trade was reestablished in many areas by
- -500". And that makes sense. Any economy that could afford to send off
the Swordworlders had to have at least a little surplus. In fact,
unless Rats&Cats directly contradict this, I'll suggest that the Terran
Mercantile Community is the trade sphere created by the Old Earth Union
at the end of the Night.


>  BTW: You mention your library data entry, and I remember it mentioning a
>planet called Funftreich. It made me wonder were the Fourth Reich were. My
>bet would be on Terra, during the Night.

Funftreich is nonofficial, it's a planet I made up to supply
the people who colonized the Weltbund area. (That's why it's
placed in a sector for which I had no data :-). Actually, the
Fourth Reich is supposed to be now (or in a few years). Remember
that much of the history and culture of these neo-nationalist
planets are more or less made up to specification. The ideology
of Funftreich were not "Deutchland uber alles" but "Our ancestors
were amazing folks and we must strive to be worthy of them".
History was rewritten to fit. This happened a lot when abandoned
planets went neo-nationalist.



      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     [email removed]
- ------------
        "Come all brother spacemen that travel along.
         Oh, pray come and tell me where the trade is all gone.
         Long time have I travelled, and I cannot find none.
         Ch: And sing: All the hard times of the Empire.
             In the Empire are very hard times."
                                Traditional song.

Steve Bonneville asks:

> Why did the Terrans abandon all settlements except for the Earth-Moon area?

Note that that is all settlements in the Sol system. Terra
didn't abandone it's old colonies in the neighbouring systems.
Economics, I suppose. Trading with the colonies was profitable,
maintaining the outer system settlements wasn't.


      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     [email removed]
- ------------
        "Come all brother spacemen that travel along.
         Oh, pray come and tell me where the trade is all gone.
         Long time have I travelled, and I cannot find none."
         Ch: "And sing: All the hard times of the Empire.
              In the Empire are very hard times."
                                Traditional song.