Terra and the Long Night

I know this may sound like quibbling over details, but since when is a drop
from twelve to nine FOUR tech levels??? I always assumed that would only be
three tech levels.

I see no reason why Terra should have lost ANY TLs during the Long Night.
If merchant traffic continued, as implied in Supplement 10 (Solomani Rim),
then that traffic would have been J2 (probably), and state-of-the-art would
have been J3 (for the Navy, and possibly the pirates).
Since Terra was a high pop world, and center of a polity in its own right,
it probably used bulk carriers for MOST of it's off-world trade.  I cannot
imagine the pirate willing to attack an ARMED 20,000 ton ship.  I cannot
imagine the Terrans NOT arming their merchants in that situation.

The TL losses in Hard Times seem to deal largely with the long term effects
of nuclear bombardment of the planetary infrastructure.  Since none of that
occurred on Terra during the Long Night, Hard Times provides no valid
indicators of the effects of the Long Night on Terra.

BTW, as to the Nationalist question on Terra, note that 2300AD introduces a
plausible scenario for transportation of nationalism to the reaches of
known (and occasionally unknown) space.

And, to change the subject, has anyone noticed that Hard Times is entirely
humanocentric?  It assumes that any world with characteristics that make it
uninhabitable to humans will be "failing" or "dommed".  I'm sure any
non-human native race  would be surprised to discover they could no longer
live on their home planet since the TL has dropped.   After all, they
EVOLVED there for the local conditions, didn't they?

Which brings up the question of which worlds are homeworlds?
What minor races are out there that might use these "failing" and "doomed"
worlds as potential colonies now that the humans have gone home?

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I have learned to use the word "impossible" with the greatest caution.
                                    --W. von Braun