Can this universe be saved?

Long time ago when GDW started publishing their support material
for Traveller, it was a rather interesting world they portrayed.
The Spinward Marches was a rough and ready frontier, where a man
had to rely on himself. Sure, there were a few high-population
worlds where you could relax and have city-type adventures, but in
the low-pop. systems  -  The Outback, as it were  -  you were on
your own; the navy had a few Kinunir and Gazelle class starships,
but mostly you had only your own wit and skills to pit againt evil
pirates and whatnot. There were a lot of cracks for these pirates
and other malcontents to hide in, and a looseness about the whole
setup that allowed PCs plenty of scope to right (or commit) wrongs,
explore near-empty star systems and generally have a good time.

Then "Azhanti High Lightning" and later "Fighting Ships" told us
about the juggernauts of the Imperial fleet: 60.000 T ships by
the gross, 100 and 200.000 T ships by (at least) the dozen. Why,
then, don't they buy one less dreadnaught and enough Kinunirs
to put a couple in each starsystem, thus ending piracy forever?
Later "Trillion Credit Squadron" told about how to finance the
fleet and "Fifth Frontier War" showed more than a 100 trillion
credit squadrons in the sector (propably many more, since the
map only shows some of the sector, and some ships presumably
are held back to protect the rimward part of it). And on top of
this comes the civillian shipping. With the assumption that
goods must be moved around to pay for all theese warships, I
once calculated the trade tonnage in Glisten subsector to
48 *million* tons! And Glisten is a comparativly low-population
subsector...

It's those high-population worlds that does it. Look at Mora, a
world with 10 billion people. According to "Trillion..." each
contributes Cr 500 per year to the naval budget. That's Cr
5.000.000.000.000 (five *trillions*). Naval investments are
equal to 10 times the yearly budget; so Mora alone can finance
*fifty* squadrons. Of course, some of that will have to be used
on local planetary defenses. Anybody want to calculate the
number of meson cannons you can buy for a third of fifty
trillion credit?

And dare I mention that there are three more high-population worlds
with a total population of thirty billion in Mora subsector ?

If we use the rules in "Striker" we get a slightly smaller figure:
a yearly budget of "only" 3,08 trillion Cr. Of this, a mere 30% goes
to the Imperium (and how many meson guns can Mora get for the
remaining 70%?), giving us a paltry 9 trillion credit squadrons
with a little bit left over. But this is only after a long
period of peace, where the military budget is 1% of the gross
national product. In times of war that figure can be raised to
15 times that or 45+ squadrons.

Can this universe be saved?

I have some requirements of my Traveller campaign. Mostly they
are concerned with keeping things reasonably close to the
original concepts:

1) Starships are expensive, but not totally beyond the means of
   a determined, adventuresome and lucky group.

2) Some worlds has a reasonably high volume of traffic; the navy
   are present here and piracy, if not entirely impossible,
   depends on stealth and audacity, rather than brute force. But
   others are small out-of-the-way frontier planets where anything
   can happen  -  and usually does (da-da-da-DAH!)

3) The size of and demands on the navy makes it impractical to
   maintain navy ships in the small star-systems. The navy con-
   centrates on the important worlds and make do with irregular
   patrol sweeps at the others.

I have some ideas for patches, but I would like to hear your
reactions before I say more. Am I talking sense? Or through my
hat? Do you have any ideas or suggestions?

   Hans Rancke, University of Copenhagen
          ..[email removed]

- --=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

- - I hate it when people call me paranoid.
  It makes me feel persecuted.