David Johnson writes:
>>From Sunday night, Hans Rancke [email removed] writes:
>
>>It seems I haven't explained my idea about the economic cycles well enough.
>
>No, I get your point, I just don't see any `facts' that support these cycles.
>What is it about the technological disparities between worlds that suggests
>these cycles? I understand that you're saying that without things cycling
>up and down there ought to be no disparities - every world would be TL 15.
>Why does this have to be the case? While it's clear that technological
>knowledge ought to be equivalent throughout `known space' there is nothing
>to suggest that economic development is constant as well. It might
>be that lower tech worlds just haven't `grown' to higher technological
>accomplishment yet - like on contemporary Earth. Why the need to propose
>these mysterious `techno-economic cycles'?
I think we've lost track of the original question. As I recall it (correct
me if I'm wrong) you started out by asking how come Gram was the leader of
the Sword Worlds when Sacnoth was so much more powerful. I assumed that
you were talking about powerful in the naval sense (since a TL or two
dosen't mean nearly as much as the population size in the economic sense).
So I proposed two possible reasons why the Gram and Narsil fleets maybe
wasn't less powerful than the Sacnoth: One possibility was that Gram and
Narsil bought TL 12 ships. Another, postulating these economic cycles, was
that maybe they had been TL 12 themselves and still had a lot of TL 12
ships from back then. (Those two possibilities turned out to dovetail so
neatly that they subsequently got intermixed, but that's by the way).
Since then I've tried to defend the notion that the economic cycles are
_possible_. I don't say that they definitely must be, that there are no
other possibilities. Just that they are perfectly possible. I don't try
to prove that they exist, only that they could exist. OK? Nor did I use
them to explain the disparity of different TLs. My argument in that
direction was:
1) TL 15 _knowledge_ is readily available to anyone in contact
with Imperial society.
2) That many worlds have lower than TL 15 _industry_, cannot
therefor be explained by a lack of knowledge, but must be
due to other reasons.
3) The most likely limiting factors are economic.
4) Economic cycles are well-known on Earth today.
5) Granted, economic cycles does not cause TL swings on Earth
today (as far as I know).
6) However _if_ technology is limited by economy (as it is in
the Traveller universe), sufficiently large booms and recessions
_ought_ to be able to affect the TL of a world.
>>(Remember, I also assume that a world can
>>maintain ships and equipment at least two levels above their own TL)
>
>I'm not sure this is really relevant to our discussion
It applies to the ability of Gram and Narsil to maintain a TL 12 fleet with
TL 11 and 10 economies.
>but I'm not sure
>I agree with this idea. A TL 6 mechanic is going to have problems fixing
>the electronic-fuel-injection in my TL 8 car just as a TL 6 computeroid
>is going to have difficulties trying to replace the vacuum tubes in my PC.
>A TL 4 electrician won't have a clue how to fix the CRT on my TL 5 TV.
But my whole point is that they _will_ have much more than a clue. The
knowledge is there even if the industry isn't.
>Of course, you're going to say she can because her world was at TL 8 when
>she went to trade school two decades ago. :-)
That too.
>If the 5FW counters `prove' that there are truly disparate TLs in the
>Sword Worlds doesn't that lend credence to the idea that disparate TLs
>are due to disparate techno-economic *development* rather than `cycles'?
No, it proves that the authors of a board game have different priorities
from the authors of a role-playing game.
>And won't that, in turn, generally call for Sacnoth to be the dominant
>world unless Gram is receiving outside help?
Not in terms of the economy according to _Trillion Credit Squadron_. The
GPP (Gross Planetary Product) of Gram is close to that of Sacnoth and that
of Narsil is a lot bigger.
>>IMO one should prefer
>>the one that corresponds most closely to GDWs version.
>
>I agree. Someone *please* dig out those *5FW* counters!
There are 7 SW squadrons that must be TL 12 (jump3 capable), 9 that could
be TL 12, but propably are TL 11 (jump2 capable), and none that can be TL
10 (no jump1 squadrons). The troops are marked with TL: One brigade from
Gram is TL 11 and one from Joyeuse is TL 10. The rest are anonymous and
consists of four TL 10 corps and 2.5 TL 11 corps. No TL 12 corps at all.
The whole force is much less than the total available Sword World forces;
the attack on the Imperium appears to be a secondary effort. Most of
their prime units must have gone against the Darrians. Any Gram TL 12
units could be there.
>>Actually, while I've no doubt that GDW's Sword Worlds owe their origin to
>>Piper, they actualy have a lot less in common with Piper's than one might
>>think.
>
>Really? How so?
I had always assumed that GDW just took all the Sword World names they could
find in "Space Viking" and used the Tolkien names and the Norse Mythology
names (not even swords!) to fill out the subsector. But a short while ago I
checked, and it turns out that there are a whole bunch of Piper SWs that
has no Traveller SW counterpart. Most of the duplications are with really
famous swords like Excalibur, Joyeuse, and Durendal - the kind of names
anyone would dig up once the idea of 'Sword Class' names had ocurred to
them. So what the Traveller SWs owe to Piper is actually little more than
the concept of the sword names. The societies are different in a number of
ways too (Women accepted in 'male' roles for instance).
>>I believe, however, that the GDW SW ancestors did, like Piper's SW ancestors,
>>flee a lost civil war.
>
>I just checked the *JTAS* Contact article again. It merely describes the
>original Sword Worlds settlers as `Solomani exiles'. There is no mention
>of *any* warfare. The time is the c-400.
You're right. I've mixed my own idea up with the official info. 'Exiles'
does imply some sort of pressure on them, though.
>I'm not sure when the Interstellar Wars occurred.
This was long after the Interstellar Wars. _Cats&Rats_ says that they left
Terra in -420. That they used 29 years to get to the Spinward Marches
implies a desire to get _really_ away from it all. My interpretation is
that they were losers in a civil war in the Old Earth Union. Not official.
>>Remember that my theory ties TLs tightly to the economy. I know it hasn't
>>worked that way on Earth today, but it's the only explanation that I can
>>see why nearly all worlds aren't TL 15.
>
>Doesn't different levels of `techno-economic development' explain the
>disparate TLs as well?
That's just what I said. It's two different and independent bits of my
argument. The disparate TLs indicates a close tie to economy. Economy can
(and often does) fluctuate. Ergo TLs can fluctuate. If you postulate that
Sword World economy dosen't fluctuate you get stable TLs. If you postulate
that it does you get unstable TLs.
>>As to why
>>it dosen't happen in the Imperium and the Darrian Confederation:
>> 1) Maybe it does. Why is only 4 Imperial worlds in the Spinward
>> Marches TL 15?
>
>Because these are the only four that have achieved that level of `techno-
>ecomomic development'?
Certainly. The stable economy theory. But one set of UPPs isn't enough to
say anything one way or the other about this. Of course, we do have
several sets of UPPs for the Sword Worlds, but since they have world
populations fluctuating by bilions within a decade I don't know that
we can really rely on them.
>>So this seems to be the assumption that dosen't fit. Examine it. Change it
>>to fit. Specifically the part of the assumption that has the individual
>>Sword Worlds tied together in an 'emperor-level' feudal technocracy. Try
>>to imagine the tecnocracies stopping at the planetary level.
>
>But this isn't what *you've* proposed! If Sacnoth is selling its high-tech
>goods to all the other Sword Worlds then the technocracy can't stop at the
>individual worlds because the economy doesn't!
Are the US and Europe and Japan different countries? Yet their economies
are tightly intertwined.
>This is the nature of a
>feudal technocracy - the poltical situation is tied directly to the economic
>situation.
>If the economy is interstellar then political power in interstellar...
I don't see how that follows.
>...and the center of power out to be the strongest technocracy - Sacnoth.
>Unless there is outside influence like the Zhodani. Again, quoting the *JTAS*
>Contact article:
>
>"A Confederation Council, made up of representatives from all worlds,
>regulates interworld trade, handles diplomatic relations with outside powers,
>and adjudicates interworld disputes."
>
> Sounds like the Japanese *keiritsu* to me.
Sounds like a slightly stronger European Union to me.
>>If, that is, wars were decided by mathematical formulae. Let's not get that
>>simplistic.
>
>Well, fine, but I'm merely trying to provide some data for your 10-to-1
>question.
No offense meant.
>>Nowadays they _do_ have a politically stable Confederation.
>
>Doesn't sound like it from the above quote.
Perhaps not, but it sure sound like it from the length of time the Gram
Coalition has lasted.
>>Make that overran every two centuries and you're nearer the mark. This is
>>actually quite important. If the Sword Worlds really bothered the Imperium
>
>>Imperium has taken quite decisive action whenever the Sword Worlds have
>>ovestepped the line.
>
>I merely saw `decades' as analogous to centuries when comparing a millenia-
>old empire to a two-century-old nation.
I think that is wrong. Whatever the age of an institution, the people who
run it usualy thinks in terms of their own generation.
>I feel the Sword Worlds *have*
>been a bother and that the Imperium *hasn't* taken *decisive* action. A
>pacification campaign is decisive and consistent with past Imperial actions.
The pacification campaigns took place before even the Ante-bellum period of
the Imperium. The 3rd frontier War took place after the Civil War and the
Psionic suppressions. I find no problem with accepting that Imperial
attitudes were different in those two periods.
>>OK. So you think the Confederation is one huge Feudal Technocracy, right?
>
>No, I think it is a bunch of planetary technocracies too. *You* have suggested
>there is a great deal of economic integration between these economies which,
>in my understanding, calls for a broader interstellar technocracy as well.
I must have a different definition of 'intergration' than you. I think these
worlds all produce whatever is most profitable at any given time and sell it
to anyone who will buy. That's not intergration in my book.
Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
[email removed]
- ------------
"A subsector official pompously states that the
subsector armed forces have four Kinunir class
ships in service, each with enough troop strength
to put down any military operations that threathen
the peace of the Imperium."
---Adventure 1, The Kinunir