>>Bertil:
>>> There is no need to go in the hard way with blazing lasers and all that.
>>>All that is needed is that the threat of piracy is so big that merchants
>>>fear to travel,
>>
>>But that is a contradiction in terms. Think about the history of seafaring
>>on Earth. You can't have pirates without merchants to prey on, and you
>>don't have merchants unless trade is profitable. You only have pirates
>>where trade is profitable _in spite_ of the pirates.
>
> The piracy of Hard Times, or the Long Night, isn't a stable situation.
IMO you cannot compare the Long Night and Hard Times. The absense of
malignant destruction of high-population worlds prior to the Long Night
makes for two radically different situations.
It is also my contention that a high-population world (of sufficiently
high (ie. spacefaring) tech level) can defend itself against anything
short of the fleet of another high-population world (or equivalent league
of medium-pop worlds). Thus any high-pop world that survives the war years
relatively intact will be the center of an island of civilization. Mind
you, the civilization may not be all that deep. Many polities will become
reaver states, preying on neighboring polities. But they will not fade away.
Some may fall by the wayside, but the others, those that caused them to
fail, will themselves be the stronger for it. Oh, here and there some
polities will be so equally matched that they will destroy each other,
but not everywhere. Not even in most places.
Bertil:
>It is a dynamic story. A high number of 'loose cannons' turn to piracy,
>leading to a decline in commerce, leading to more loose cannons and less
>prey to feed them, leading to more desperate pirates attacking a larger
>percentage of shipping, leading to a decline in commerce and so on in an
>ever depressing spiral until trade is gone and the pirates starve or get
>their own planets.
But unless those 'loose cannons' are really, really huge, they won't be able
to touch the high-population worlds, nor the worlds closest to that HP world.
(The "deadly menace" of Indro the Lightless and his motley band of corsairs
and converted freetraders is completely ridiculous. If you define a patrol
as 5000 T worth of naval ships (more than a match for Indro's squadron), then
the worlds of Khavle and Pasdaruu subsectors can support approx. 9300 patrols
(something less than that if you convert local currency into Crimp (Credit,
Imperial) and insist on paying the patrols in Crimp). GDW has very little
sense of proportions wrt. interstellar communities.)
What's that? Where did those patrols come from? Note that I said support, not
build. How about some AWOL imperial squadrons? Otherwise, Westfir can build
900 400 T ships (or 130 patrols) in 28 weeks. That's two patrols for every
last world in the two subsectors, down to the most useless of them.
To resume: A HP world will be able to protect itself _and_ several trade
partners against anything short of a full fleet.
Now, there may be a few full fleets that have gone 'loose'. It sounds very
plausible. Certainly desertion will not confine itself to the measly 1000 T
vessels that _Hard Times_ implies. But such a fleet would be painfully
concious of the need for repairs and overhauls. Such a fleet would IMO
loose no time in taking over (as opposed to plundering) a suitable world.
(Or several suitable worlds, in which case we have a ready-made polity).
>From there it may begin raiding neighbouring polities, making a deadly
nuisance of itself and possibly causing the destruction of them. But the
trade it's own world could then flourish under it's protection.
To conclude: The Imperium has fragmented, and there seems no way of putting
Humpty Dumpty together again. But there is a limit to how small the fragments
will become.
And we haven't even examined how the various Safes will excersise a restrain-
ing effect on piracy. If England could send it's fleets halfway across the
world to protect the East India and China trade, then the Duchy of Delphi (or
whatever Margaret calls it) can send it's fleets to protect the Khavle trade.
Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
[email removed]
- ------------
"And now to conclude and to finish my song:
Let us hope that these hard times they will not last long.
I hope soon to have occasion to alter my song.
And sing: All the good times in the Empire.
In the Empire is jolly good times!"
Last verse of traditional song.