O.K., I've picked up Survival Margin. It makes an interesting
read, even though most of it is Traveller News Service re-feeds.
There's an explanation of how the Regency (the new name for the
Domain of Deneb) managed to prevent itself from becoming
virus-fodder when almost all of the rest of Charted Space got
eaten. There's a problem with said explanation:
I'll grant that the routes across the Rift (the Aslan J5 route
and the Imperial J6 route using a couple of undocumented fueling
stations) could be blocked at their choke points, preventing
infection from the main portion of the Aslan Hierate. I'll even
accept that the Regency could choke off traffic coming around the
Rift through Corridor sector. BUT...
There's no natural barrier like the Rift anywhere coreward of the
Imperial/Vargr border. I would think that, given the fractious
nature of Vargr society, it would be in practice impossible to
establish a "sterility line" (sealed border) anywhere in the
extents. This requires that the Regency border with the Extents
be sterilized. Which would appear to logically require more man-
and ship-power than the Regency could reasonably expect to have
available.
The Zhodani Consulate has a similar problem. Worse still,
there's no barrier to prevent the virus from making an "end-run"
around the entire Consulate, and therefore coming into the states
in the sectors spinward of the Regency, _from_ spinward. Which
means that the Zhodani Consulate must seal its borders
_all_the_way_around_the_Consulate_. A massive undertaking, and
one that even the Imperium in its heyday probably could not have
handled.
Similar comments can be made about the Sword Worlds, the Border
Worlds, the Darrian Confederation, the Federation of Arden, and
the non-aligned worlds in Spinward Marches. Even if all of these
states engage in _full_ cooperation, there is not going to be
sufficient tonnage or crews to seal the borders.
Certainly, dropping the transponder systems will help, as will
the isolated-computer-for- -communications idea. But I'm not
convinced that these measures would be enough. Not to mention
the time that would be needed to actually implement them in
either the Regency or the Zhodani Consulate.
In short, I don't see that the Spinward States could escape the
Virus. I'm barely willing to accept that the Hive Federation
could recover from it in the short order postulated, given the
importance that they attach to a uniform gene pool, hence the
importance of maintaining some sort of interstellar travel
network. And given the assumed higher level of computer
expertise hinted at throughout the published Traveller material
since day one of Classic Traveller. But I don't see the Spinward
States escaping it. The best I can see is that it would hit them
later than it would the rest of the Imperium, so they wouldn't
have fallen as far. But the same statement could be made about
the K'kree (who were trashed by the Virus, by implication), or
about the Aslan (who are explicitly noted as not having the
uniformity of computer systems that the Imperium, the Vargr
Extents, the Hivers, and the K'kree all allegedly had).
Comments, anyone? More info, Loren?
==========================================================================
Jeff Zeitlin [email removed]
* QMPro 1.01 * My GOD! You mean Dulinor actually RELEASED Windows?