In May of 1994, a new discussion started on the TML concerning the
issue of planetary generation. I saved this second discussion as an
additional reference for people interested in delving further into
the topic.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Date: Sun, 8 May 94 16:38:29 EDT
From: William White <whitew@eden.rutgers.edu>
Subject: Interstellar Politics, Of A Sort

              The Political Economy of the Imperium

I want to talk a little bit about the Imperium, and some of the
assumptions that underlie its structure.  Let me begin by listing
two of the problematic areas that I think merit consideration.

1)  In UWP generation, world physical characteristics are
independent both of Starport type and Population details.  As has
been pointed out, this leads to cases where hostile, hellish
worlds with millions or even billions of inhabitants sit next
door to garden planets with populations measurable on the fingers
of one hand.

2)  Nearly every star system has a starport of one kind or
another, no matter how useless the real estate in the area is. 
In fact, since the starport code is generated _first_, there is
no relation between the starport and anything else in the system
except its tech level.

One way to approach these "problematica" is to say, "Well,
they're completely non-rational; let's change them."  That's a
valid solution.  And that's been done here on this list, so I
don't propose to go that route again.

The other approach is to say, "Well, this doesn't seem to make
sense.  But there are certain assumptions that I'm working with
in making that judgement.  Okay, so what assumptions about an
interstellar society are necessary to justify the approach that
these rules take?"

One answer, at least, was suggested by the writer who said that,
essentially, "Third Imperial culture is a _starfaring_ culture." 
(It consists, in other words, of _travellers_.)  

This lets us decouple the mainworld characteristics from the
value assigned to a system by Imperials.  They aren't looking for
a garden world just like dear old Terra (or Sylea, or Vland). 
They live in space, viewing planets as resource centers rather
than places to colonize or settle down upon.

Of course, that is not to suggest that there are no planet-bound
or planet-centered cultural groups within the Imperium, or even
non-travelling subcultures within Imperial culture -- there may
be segments of the population of Capital/Core, perhaps, who view
the rest of the Imperium the way some New York City dwellers look
on the rest of the United States.  But the culture into which
most Classic Traveller PCs mustered out may have been what can be
called "mainstream Imperial culture".

This rationalization only gets us part way, however.  It can be
asserted that the main objection to the UWP generation sequence,
all considerations of culture aside, is that, economically, some
results are hard to justify.  I don't dispute that here.  But I
do suggest that economic behavior exists within a political
framework -- that is, a structure of regulations, laws, and power
struggles and imbalances.  By attempting to rationalize some
apparently illogical results within a political economy
framework, the referee can "flesh out" the underpinnings of a
world or a subsector and make it more real, interesting, and fun
for his (or her) players.

The lo-pop garden world next door to the hi-pop hellhole is a
case in point.  Instead of calling this an irrational result of
arbitrary die rolls, we can say that the lo-pop world is a
tourist site or rest and recreation area for the teeming masses
who labor on the surface, in orbital facilities, on the jovian
moons, and out in the Oort clouds.  The world government has
petitioned the subsector nobility to make sure that the garden
planet next door is preserved for that purpose, and so the
proclamations have been duly made.

[Note that adventure hooks can be found here:  What if some
outsiders decide that they do want to settle there?  The hi-pop
world, with no authority outside its system, may hire PCs to
investigate, negotiate, and/or evict.  Or the squatters can hire
them to help defend the settlement (a la the Magnificent Seven),
or to escort a spokesman to the subsector capital to plead their
case.]

The ubiquity of starports is another matter altogether.  It seems
that some of these serve no good purpose -- why would someone
spend their hard-earned credits to build a starport in the middle
of nowhere?  The "if you build it, they will come" argument only
goes so far, even if we assume a highly mobile and transient
community of interstellar travellers.  

It occurs to me, however, that just as the U.S. government
subsidized the building of the interstate highway system, the
Imperial government would subsidize (and otherwise encourage) the
construction of starports.   Thus, while some starports would be
built by megacorporations and smaller companies anticipating a
profit, others would be financed by the Ministry of Commerce,
still others by the Scout Service, and others by the Navy.  Some
megacorporations might be induced to build a starport by virtue
of a tax write-off they would then become eligible for.  Low tech
worlds might contract with higher tech corporations to build a
starport in exchange for certain concessions or rights upon the
planet.

[Adventure hook:  PCs become involved in the investigation of
shoddy construction practices by a subsector-wide corporation,
where substandard materials are used but assessed as more
expensive so that the bill can be presented to the Ministry of
Commerce, and the excess credits pocketed.] 

It is not often noted, but the Imperium does in fact possess
considerable power regarding megacorporations and smaller
interstellar corporations down to at least the subsector level. 
_The Imperium permits them to exist_.  That is, by virtue of the
laws and regulations it promulgates, the Imperium makes it
feasible for star-spanning corporations to function.  They are
not natural or even inevitable constructs.  If the legal
structure of the Imperium was altered so that only the capital of
individual worlds or subsectors could be consolidated for
business ventures, a very different economic environment would
prevail, one perhaps more similar to the mercantile era of
Terra's 17th and 18th centuries (or thenabouts).

The assumptions I am making here are different from but no less
valid than those made by advocates of changing UWP generation. 
In a sense I am making the case for an "active Imperium" that
acts on the worlds within its domain, indirectly, by governing
the relationships between them.  In MegaTraveller terms, I
suppose that would put me in Dulinor's camp.  And we all know
what happened to him.

Comments?  I'm all ears.

Bill White
whitew@eden.rutgers.edu

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

From: james vassilakos <jimv>
Subject: politics and world rationalization
Date: Sun, 8 May 1994 22:21:47 -0700 (PDT)

William White <whitew@eden.rutgers.edu> writes:
> main objection to the UWP generation sequence,
> all considerations of culture aside, is that, economically, some
> results are hard to justify.  I don't dispute that here.  But I
> do suggest that economic behavior exists within a political
> framework -- that is, a structure of regulations, laws, and power
> struggles and imbalances.  By attempting to rationalize some
> apparently illogical results within a political economy
> framework, the referee can "flesh out" the underpinnings of a
> world or a subsector and make it more real, interesting, and fun
> for his (or her) players.

I was somewhat astonished at the timing of this article, being that
I'm currently mulling over this very subject in anticipation of
releasing yet another program (this time a sector generator, or rather
set thereof).

Anyway, a little over a year ago, we had a long discussion about
the problems in basic mainworld generation (pgs 24 and 25 of the
megatraveller ref's manual). And needless to say, I was in favor of
route #1 (change the damn system) whereas others were in favor
of route #2 (rationalize the inconsistencies). I really have nothing
new to add on this topic, except to say that I've just put a
transcript of the old discussion up for ftp. Feel free to take a
look at it, and if you do, let me know what you think.

The node: ucrengr.ucr.edu (138.23.166.21)
The directory: pub/trek
The file: tml-93feb

           _   /|       Jim Vassilakos
           \`o_O'       jimv@cs.ucr.edu
             ( )        jimv@wizards.com
              U         Riverside, California, USA

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Date: Mon, 9 May 94 22:38:40 CDT
From: djohnson@geds01.jsc.nasa.gov (David Johnson)
Subject: Traveller World Generation

Jim:

Been reading your past discussion - some great stuff (I'm only half-way
through it).  Makes me feel a little sheepish about the variant generation
tables I posted last week.

In general I agree with many of the points you had made by the half-way
point.  Thanks a bunch for making that discussion available.

More later.  I've a final in eleven hours and haven't studied yet.  :-)

Happy Travelling,

David Johnson
Houston, Texas, USA


Date: Tue, 10 May 94 18:26:36 CDT
From: djohnson@geds01.jsc.nasa.gov (David Johnson)
Subject: TML World Generation Discussion

Jim:

Howdy.  Finished reading over the past world generation discussion you made
available.  That was a lot of information to absorb.  My general feeling
was that the discussion was starting to get a little too complicated.
I guess I agree with your comment of 19 Feb 93:

> Hmm... this is starting to entail lots
> of variables.

I'm not much for rules in the first place.  My approach to role-playing is
to generally ignore the rules except when they can provide a lot of useful
information with a relatively small amount of effort.  This is illustrated
by the difference between the basic and extended canonical rules.  The
basic rules give plenty of info on the main worlds for a relatively small
amount of effort while the extended rules give lots of info for the (less
important) rest of the system *and* requires a great deal more effort.

That said, I do feel the basic rules need work which is why I developed
variant world generation tables for the Earth Colonies campaign (but that only
address the main world).

The concern about spectral types interested the scientist in me (I was an
engineering major) but pretty much bores the role-player in me (I'm now a
humanities major).  I realize some `garden' worlds get generated about
stars that sort of ruin the garden but I'm willing to deal with that on
an individual basis.  (I realize though that this becomes an issue when
you seek to expand the system to include some sort of random life generation.)

I really liked the idea suggested by Bruce Pihlamae that proposed an
approach to developing worlds similar to that used to generate characters.
The generation of the geosphere, native biosphere, external cultural
influences and subsequent interactions seems very interesting.  (I also
like the `resonance' of this approach with the character generation scheme.
This does begin to become a product of one's approach to one's particular
gaming universe though - another important point raised in the discussion.)
Unforunately, this particular stream of the discussion seems to have died
out.  (I also agree with your sense that this is more `world building'
than `world generation' - sort of like the `expanded' character generation
rules - but I *do* like it.)

I've jimmied (Oops!  Just realized you might not like that term.  :-) with
the trade classifications myself.  (In addition to many of the points raised
I've always found the fact that waterworlds - Hyd A - can't be agricultural
to be more a product of our own land-lubber bias than objective consideration.)
Generally, though I've never been satisfied with my limited attempts to
rectify this situation.  This is probably due to the fact that trade codes
don't really matter except in the trade and commerce rules.  Not being
much for rules anyway I just don't encounter the trade codes that much.

The other point I found of interest was the notion of some sort of `life
scale' that details the sophistication of native life.  In general I come
down on the side of this measure not addressing technological accomplishment
(sentience is important regardless of TL, IMHO).  On the other hand I'm
uncomfortable with randomly occurring sophonts but the idea of a code that
will tell me whether the local life consists of water-borne single-cell
organisms or highly sophisticated mobile predators does seem quite useful.
I see no problem just adding this code to the `Remarks' section of the UWP.
Say a code like `LX' where the `X' is the UWP digit.  (I've added columns
under `Remarks' in the Earth Colonies campaign that address local defense
battalions and system defense boats already.)

I find the `Resource' measure of less use.  Planets are pretty large bodies
and most will possess *some* sort of resources.  It seems to me that more
important will be the *accessibility* of those resources which leads you
back to `good' biospheres.  (No matter how much lanthanum there is on some
`hell-hole' there is a price to be paid to extract that resource in such
an environment - making it ultimately less valuable, unless you *can't* get
it somewhere else - and if I can't get it anywhere else, how did I find it
to be useful in the first place?)

The last issue I feel I need to address is the suggestion that government
and law level might influence tech level.  First off, you'll see from the
variant world generation that I posted from the Earth Colonies that I've
rejected the government types from Traveller (which were always problematic,
IMHO) in favor of a government characteristic that attempts to address the
nature of popular consent and the exercise of authority that is unrelated
to the specific manifestation of that consent and exercise of authority.
I also abandon the `weapons restrictions' guidelines for law level in favor
of a more loosely defined level of government intrusiveness that primairly
manifests itself in `encounter throws' for the local police - whether
such an encounter occurs because of a weapons violation, expired license,
or your haircut is up to the referee.

That said, I would be very careful about any modification of tech level by
government type or law level because such modification is highly susceptible
to contemporary political views about the nature of technology and the
practice of science that are extremely lacking in objectivity.  Even in
the TML discussion there was a great deal more ideology than technology - both
with respect to `oppressive vs. open' government types and with repsect to the
nature of government intrusiveness (law level) into the practice of science
and technology.  (I say this as a practicing engineer currently involved
in the joint US-Russian space program *and* as a soon-to-be science and
technology policy graduate student.)

A very enjoyable read.  Thanks for making it available.  I've sent this
directly to you but I will probably post it to the TML as well.

Happy Travelling,

David Johnson
Houston, Texas, USA

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

From: erwin@fritz.cuug.ab.ca (Erwin Fritz)
Date: Tue, 10 May 94 06:27:14 -0700
Subject: Re: TML nightly: Msgs 7491-7491 V73#15

William White <whitew@eden.rutgers.edu> writes:
>Subject: Interstellar Politics, Of A Sort
>              The Political Economy of the Imperium
>I want to talk a little bit about the Imperium, and some of the
>assumptions that underlie its structure.  Let me begin by listing
>two of the problematic areas that I think merit consideration.

[munch]

>Comments?  I'm all ears.
>Bill White

Excellent article!  Exactly the kind of thing I subscribe to this list
to read!  

When I roll up systems, I don't muck with the starport or population 
rules.  I like the challenge that results from having to explain why
a world has 10 billion people on it when its temperature is 100 below
zero and has an insidious atmosphere.

If the rules change so that only garden worlds have high populations,
then each worlds starts to look suspiciously the same.

erwin@fritz.cuug.ab.ca

