Re: Terra during the Long Night.

>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.