Traveller Background 16

Gentlesophonts:

From Thursday night, Alexander W. Holt [email removed] replying
to [email removed] writes:

> 1.  In point one you said that the Regency Navy has evolve to using
> different types of ships.
> Most pocket empires (supposedly) will no have squadrons of
> battle riders.

This would seem to me to be a good place for development.  What are the
nature of Regency naval forces?  Rather than focusing on the details of
ship design let's concentrate on tactics, strategy and design philosophies.
Both Ted7(?) and Alex have raised some good points about these issues.
Let's start exploring them.


Steven M Bonneville [email removed] writes:

> After all, the Zhodani Consulate is now humaniti's biggest living
> government, and the Regency is the second largest.

The idea of a Zhodani-Regency alliance is intriguing.  (If the Federation
and the Klingons can do it in 80-some years why not the Zhos and the
Denebians?)  Scott Kellog has been posting some *very* original stuff on the
K'kree.  Maybe we could do something similar for the Zhodani and *finally*
flesh them out into `real' human beings.  Except for the Imperial psionic
bias that we all bought into back in the heydays of the 5FW, can anyone
come up with a good reason not to see the Zhodani in a postive light?


Jeff Zeitlin [email removed] writes:

>   In the event that Norris dies without a successor, the more
>   opportunistic factions in the _other_ states may prevail in their
>   counsels, and the Spinward States would then go down together.

Certainly Norris anticipated this point and has made arrangements for his
successor.  While I suspect this is (will be?) Seldrian what's to stop
Norris (or his successors) from holding an election for the successor
*prior* to the demise of the current Regent?  The current system in
Mexico in which the reigning, er, excuse me, *presiding* President virtually
hand picks his successor might serve as a good model.  Even if elections
were held and it took several months to poll all the worlds in the Regency
a leadership crisis could still be avoided.  (The recent assassination of
the Mexican successor provides an interesting insight into problems with
the `hand picked' option.)

Other alternatives to `hand picked' or `elected' successors also exist.  There
might be a specific chain of command in the event of the demise of the
Regent - a `Vice' Regent or some such thing.  The Sector Dukes of the
old Domain would be good candidates.  The Sector Dukes (Vice Regents?)
might even rule as a quadumvirate until the Regency Moot met to select a
successor.

The point is there are several ways to avoid a leadership crisis and its
inherent instability.

BTW, what is the noble hierarchy in the Regency?  Under the Domain there
were four Sector Dukes under Norris, right?  These still ought to be around.
I know Norris was sometimes referred to as Sector Duke at Regina but at
other times it seemed the Duchess of Mora was the chief duke in the
Spinward Marches.  (Isn't that why Norris's capital is at Mora?)

Maybe we ought to identify these figures as part of the development of
the Regency.  There ought to have been Sector Dukes for the Marches,
for Deneb, for Reft and for the Trojan Reach - each of which also held
a subsector fief.  In the Marches there were Dukes for Regina (which
included Jewell), Vilis, Lanth(?), Rhylanor (which included Aramis),
Lunion, Mora, Glisten and Trin's Veil.  What about Deneb, Reft and
Troy?  Which subsectors managed to survive the Vargr incursions, the
Aslan invasions, and the onslaught of Virus?

Happy Travelling,

David Johnson
Houston, Texas, USA