The Political Economy of the Imperium
I want to talk a little bit about the Imperium, and some of the
assumptions that underlie its structure. Let me begin by listing
two of the problematic areas that I think merit consideration.
1) In UWP generation, world physical characteristics are
independent both of Starport type and Population details. As has
been pointed out, this leads to cases where hostile, hellish
worlds with millions or even billions of inhabitants sit next
door to garden planets with populations measurable on the fingers
of one hand.
2) Nearly every star system has a starport of one kind or
another, no matter how useless the real estate in the area is.
In fact, since the starport code is generated _first_, there is
no relation between the starport and anything else in the system
except its tech level.
One way to approach these "problematica" is to say, "Well,
they're completely non-rational; let's change them." That's a
valid solution. And that's been done here on this list, so I
don't propose to go that route again.
The other approach is to say, "Well, this doesn't seem to make
sense. But there are certain assumptions that I'm working with
in making that judgement. Okay, so what assumptions about an
interstellar society are necessary to justify the approach that
these rules take?"
One answer, at least, was suggested by the writer who said that,
essentially, "Third Imperial culture is a _starfaring_ culture."
(It consists, in other words, of _travellers_.)
This lets us decouple the mainworld characteristics from the
value assigned to a system by Imperials. They aren't looking for
a garden world just like dear old Terra (or Sylea, or Vland).
They live in space, viewing planets as resource centers rather
than places to colonize or settle down upon.
Of course, that is not to suggest that there are no planet-bound
or planet-centered cultural groups within the Imperium, or even
non-travelling subcultures within Imperial culture -- there may
be segments of the population of Capital/Core, perhaps, who view
the rest of the Imperium the way some New York City dwellers look
on the rest of the United States. But the culture into which
most Classic Traveller PCs mustered out may have been what can be
called "mainstream Imperial culture".
This rationalization only gets us part way, however. It can be
asserted that the main objection to the UWP generation sequence,
all considerations of culture aside, is that, economically, some
results are hard to justify. I don't dispute that here. But I
do suggest that economic behavior exists within a political
framework -- that is, a structure of regulations, laws, and power
struggles and imbalances. By attempting to rationalize some
apparently illogical results within a political economy
framework, the referee can "flesh out" the underpinnings of a
world or a subsector and make it more real, interesting, and fun
for his (or her) players.
The lo-pop garden world next door to the hi-pop hellhole is a
case in point. Instead of calling this an irrational result of
arbitrary die rolls, we can say that the lo-pop world is a
tourist site or rest and recreation area for the teeming masses
who labor on the surface, in orbital facilities, on the jovian
moons, and out in the Oort clouds. The world government has
petitioned the subsector nobility to make sure that the garden
planet next door is preserved for that purpose, and so the
proclamations have been duly made.
[Note that adventure hooks can be found here: What if some
outsiders decide that they do want to settle there? The hi-pop
world, with no authority outside its system, may hire PCs to
investigate, negotiate, and/or evict. Or the squatters can hire
them to help defend the settlement (a la the Magnificent Seven),
or to escort a spokesman to the subsector capital to plead their
case.]
The ubiquity of starports is another matter altogether. It seems
that some of these serve no good purpose -- why would someone
spend their hard-earned credits to build a starport in the middle
of nowhere? The "if you build it, they will come" argument only
goes so far, even if we assume a highly mobile and transient
community of interstellar travellers.
It occurs to me, however, that just as the U.S. government
subsidized the building of the interstate highway system, the
Imperial government would subsidize (and otherwise encourage) the
construction of starports. Thus, while some starports would be
built by megacorporations and smaller companies anticipating a
profit, others would be financed by the Ministry of Commerce,
still others by the Scout Service, and others by the Navy. Some
megacorporations might be induced to build a starport by virtue
of a tax write-off they would then become eligible for. Low tech
worlds might contract with higher tech corporations to build a
starport in exchange for certain concessions or rights upon the
planet.
[Adventure hook: PCs become involved in the investigation of
shoddy construction practices by a subsector-wide corporation,
where substandard materials are used but assessed as more
expensive so that the bill can be presented to the Ministry of
Commerce, and the excess credits pocketed.]
It is not often noted, but the Imperium does in fact possess
considerable power regarding megacorporations and smaller
interstellar corporations down to at least the subsector level.
_The Imperium permits them to exist_. That is, by virtue of the
laws and regulations it promulgates, the Imperium makes it
feasible for star-spanning corporations to function. They are
not natural or even inevitable constructs. If the legal
structure of the Imperium was altered so that only the capital of
individual worlds or subsectors could be consolidated for
business ventures, a very different economic environment would
prevail, one perhaps more similar to the mercantile era of
Terra's 17th and 18th centuries (or thenabouts).
The assumptions I am making here are different from but no less
valid than those made by advocates of changing UWP generation.
In a sense I am making the case for an "active Imperium" that
acts on the worlds within its domain, indirectly, by governing
the relationships between them. In MegaTraveller terms, I
suppose that would put me in Dulinor's camp. And we all know
what happened to him.
Comments? I'm all ears.
Bill White
[email removed]