Well, I go and post a message that inadvertently sets off a really
strong 2nd Amendment discussion, and what happens? My damned
mail server goes down for a week. Personally, I am a very strong
2nd Amendment supporter, but not all (or even most) of the
worlds in my Traveller game reflect this.
I do make a separation between planetary cultures and Imperial
culture. I see Imperial culture as the overall set of values and
attitudes held by the Imperial citizens who spend most of their
lives travelling from world to world. This group would tend to
include most (but not all) PCs, as well as a fairly large portion of
the Imperial nobility and the members of the Imperial services
(IISS, IN, IMC, IA). I also tend to see another distinct cultural
group, the Corporate culture. This group is similar to the Imperial
culture, but is based on loyalty to a megacorporate entity.
The Imperial culture I tend to see as being fairly individualistic, and
while I don't think it is violence-prone, I feel it does not shrink
away from violence, and sees violence as another legitimate
(though costly) way of solving problems. In terms of views about
weapons and armor, these items are tools used to stay alive and
to further the goals of the individual or group in question. For
this reason, weapons are fairly available in the extrality zone
of most starports (I generally set starports at Law Level 2, but
when rolling for possible harrasment by Security I pretend the
Law Level is about a 6; the starport managers frown on
property damage).
The Corporate culture would have a similar outlook, but this outlook
would be colored by a loyalty to the megacorp. This loyalty might
be based on tradition or on greed, but it would still be loyalty. In
this case, violence would also been seen as a legitimate means
of problem solving, but this judgement would be strongly
tempered by the possible economic or reputation effects on the
megacorp and on the person or group in question.
The Planetary culture would be a wildcard. Each world has its
own unique culture, or at least a subset of an overall ethnic
culture like Solomani or Vilani or what have you. Every kind
of viewpoint you can image (and plenty you cannot imagine)
would show up in some Planetary culture.
Commodore Lilly sez
>Nice idea. If you limit the ammunition and, better still in Traveller, have
>a unique identifier for every gun and its rounds (radioactive trace elements
>in the bullet metal, etc.) then everyone can be defended while still being
>able to catch those people who abuse the system. Anyone else got any clever
>ideas for expanding on this? Except, "every adult male gets his own
>battledress" is still out the window, as far as MY game's concerned ;-)
Now there's a neat idea for handling one world's law level. In fact, you get a
couple of possible offshoots:
1 - As above; the government does not abuse this, and nearly all gun owners
play along as well. The main play effect here might be that the PCs, upon
visiting the planet, have a small adventure either getting local weapons
permits, or inadvertently violate local weapons laws.
2 - As above, but the local government takes a more oppressive bent and begins
cutting back ammo quotas and keeping "hit lists" of known ammo buyers. Lots
more adventure possibilities here: The PCs could be hired by pro-weapon
resistance forces as mercenaries, or if technically skilled could be hired as
illegal ammo makers. Or they could become smugglers, running ammo to
the resistance. Or the PCs might get hired as infiltrators or trouble
shooters by the local government.
Well, there's my .02Cr. For those of you offended or annoyed at the
recent rash of gun rights discussions, I offer a minor apology, but in
general I think things like this deserve discussion. As I have shown
above, there is a Traveller relevance to this topic, since it is
intimately involved with one of the eight Universal Planetary Profile
numbers. I realize the others don't get discussed as much, but there
is little argument over world sizes or atmospheric types. The only
other controversial one would be government, which also will
generate the occasional massive arguments (I hope we all remeber
the great Feudal Technocracy debate).
And for those of you not in the U.S.A., who feel disconnected from the
main points of the gun rights material: Keep giving your input. I am
keeping notes based on the info from our foreign friends, and your
views or the views of your governments will absolutely show up in
some planetary culture somewhere in my universe. I thank you all
for your ideas.
Steve Charlton
[email removed]
None of the above reflects the views
of my gracious employers.