Extreme Medical Costs

[rancke]

Perhaps the Imperium, like certain other forward-thinking cultures, ( ) has free healthcare paid from your taxes, and that's why it hasn't been mentioned.

Since I don't think that the Imperium taxes individuals, that's highly unlikely (if I'm right about the no-tax thing, of course). Healthcare for Imperial veterans (I'm including members of the civilians services in that term) paid for by Imperial taxes levied on member worlds would be perfectly plausible, but there's no evidence for that in the game rules. And considering how niggardly Imperial pensions appear to be, I'd say that it probably do not provide healthcare.


Hans

 

[Icosahedron]

I can't see "free" / welfare state anything Imperium-wide being enforcable. Communications and travel time being what it is it would be extraordinarily tough to collect the necessary taxes, then redistribute those to the various worlds along with providing the necessary level of services.

I can't see a functional Imperium not managing taxes. Whether an interstellar empire is feasible is another matter, but in order to exist, it would have to have a system for managing its taxes.

Now, one I could see the Imperium managing is having a fleet of hospital ships that move from system to system.

Surely, the obvious place for a hospital would be at the starport. It (or they) would be within the extrality zone, open to all Imperial citizens and paid for in the same way that the starport is paid for (however that may be). If the starport is too small for a hospital, then a corpsicle store and a visiting hospital ship would be a good way to deal with poorer worlds.

Since I don't think that the Imperium taxes individuals, that's highly unlikely (if I'm right about the no-tax thing, of course). Healthcare for Imperial veterans (I'm including members of the civilians services in that term) paid for by Imperial taxes levied on member worlds would be perfectly plausible, but there's no evidence for that in the game rules. And considering how niggardly Imperial pensions appear to be, I'd say that it probably do not provide healthcare.
Hans

I can assure you that niggardly pensions do not necessarily exclude free healthcare...! There may even be a cause and effect relationship. Yes, VetHealth is quite likely.

 

[rancke]

I can't see a functional Imperium not managing taxes. Whether an interstellar empire is feasible is another matter, but in order to exist, it would have to have a system for managing its taxes.

Sure, but the Imperium is widely regarded as taxing member worlds rather than individuals. I'm just not sure if that is actually canon or merely fanon, but IIRC there is no hint of individuals being taxed by the Imperium. (But neither is there any hint of individuals being taxed by planetary governments, so I'm not sure how much that proves.

(IMTU Imperial salaries and pensions are specifically excluded from being taxed by the member worlds. It's part of the boilerplate of membership treaties.)

I can assure you that niggardly pensions do not necessarily exclude free healthcare...! There may even be a cause and effect relationship. Yes, VetHealth is quite likely.

It would be quite likely if there had been any rules about PC veterans having health benefits. As it is, not so much.


Hans

 

[AlHazred]

Nowadays we have vaccinations and suchlike that everybody gets. IMTU, I assume that PCs from high-tech planets might have had some sort of treatments in utero (or over the course of childhood) to provide medical professionals more time to recover people who are dying/dead. Maybe something to prevent the loss of information from the brain once bloodflow stops? Medicine is not my area of expertise, so my exact predictions aren't up to the challenge I'll admit. (For instance, I'd never have predicted injectible oxygen at TL7-8.)

 

[Peter Newman]

DGP gave this as their answer for Megatraveller:

Doctor visit Cr 50 (+ cost of any drugs)
Physicians care Cr 100/day for patients hospitalized with a disabling illness. Cr 500 a day if it's a catastrophic illness.

Hospitals Cr 100/day for regular care and Cr 500/day for intensive care. Disabled patients who don't want to be hospitalized can pay Cr 50/day for a nurse (Medic-2).

Reanimation. [Requires TL 13+ and a specialist with Medic 5+, and a patient who was put in the low birth [1] "within moments after death" and who gets to the hospital within 30 days of that. [2] One try only. If it works you're alive but in a coma. If you don't recover from the coma you die for good. Cost Cr 100,000 for the Doctor + Cr 50,000 for his assistant and Cr 10,000 each for (up to 3) nurses, and hospitalization at Cr 5,000/day. [The Travellers' Digest #20 p 46]. Recovery time will vary by treatment method used - (Regrowth, replacement with cloned parts, replacement with bionic parts, or simple rest. Simple rest will take 1 month for 1 point to 1 stat, so that would be 90 days [or CR 450,000] before you get all your stats back up to 1's and can be transfered out of the reanimation unit to the ICU. [3]

[1] See also TD #21 [p40-44] for rules for reviving someone from a low birth. It looks as if 'dead' characters who take any damage from unsuccessful revival may die of that before revival is even possible.

[2] TTD 13 [p34] has slightly different rules for this. They state that (if diagnosed within 1d6 minutes of the injury) using a TL 12+ medical kits can keep you 'barely alive' long enough to get to low birth or TL 9+ medical facility within 1d6 days and that if you then receive constant life support (or low berth power) than you can be sustained for 2d6 months. They also give a +1 Dm to revitification for each TL over 13.

[3] If you died from radiation see also the radiation rules in TTD #15 [p 38-44].

 

[Peter Newman]

I can't see a functional Imperium not managing taxes. Whether an interstellar empire is feasible is another matter, but in order to exist, it would have to have a system for managing its taxes.

I would argue that a system of taxing individuals would be an unmanageable system. There are just too many of them. Taxing worlds on the other hand is manageable since there are many, many fewer of them and they're easier to locate and have their pockets rifled through for loose MegaCredits.

After all if a planet fails to pay their taxes they are rebelling. Rebel scum get 'visits' from the Imperial Navy. If the Navies appearance does not persuade the local government to cough up the credits than any locals who prefer that they and their stuff be safe from random orbital weapons fire will either pay the bill themselves or make sure that the _new_ planetary government does so. The _old_ planetary government may be a bit busy 'apologizing to the Emperor' (in the full Japanese sense of the word).

Either way the Imperium gets the money. After the 'late payment fee' and the 'revised future tax assessments' and the 'increased enlistment quotas' and the 'full 72 hours liberty for all Imperial Marine and Naval crew as a 'gift' of the new government' I think that the next tax bill will be paid on time, or even ahead of time.

OTOH the Imperium has probably learned a bit from the Treaty of Versailles and if the planet truly _can't_ pay their taxes the Imperium may just auction off the spare continent or secondary planet to a nice Megacorp and apply the proceeds (less the 'auctioneers fee' of course) to the back taxes.

 

[aramis]

we have good evidence of per capita taxes... but not of a direct tax on the individual. And much like peter, I think there are too many people for a direct individual tax to be practical.

 

[BlackBat242]

You could always look at Lois Bujold's novels for inspiration (unless that's where you got the idea)... the subject is most deeply explored in Mirror Dance, where the lead character dies, is frozen, and is later revived... but suffers long-term damage.

 

[Icosahedron]

I can't see a functional Imperium not managing taxes. Whether an interstellar empire is feasible is another matter, but in order to exist, it would have to have a system for managing its taxes.

I would argue that a system of taxing individuals would be an unmanageable system. There are just too many of them. Taxing worlds on the other hand is manageable since there are many, many fewer of them and they're easier to locate and have their pockets rifled through for loose MegaCredits.

And where do you think the worlds get the money to pay their taxes to the Imperium...?

 

[Peter Newman]

And where do you think the worlds get the money to pay their taxes to the Imperium...?

From the Imperial point of view - who cares?

Imperial planets can have colonies. If the people of Mora decide to conquer their neighbors, convert their entire planetary systems into giant Gulags, and work them all to death to pay Moras taxes that is not the Imperium's problem (as long as the 'colonies' taxes are paid too, of course)....

 

[rancke]

From the Imperial point of view - who cares?

Imperial planets can have colonies. If the people of Mora decide to conquer their neighbors, convert their entire planetary systems into giant Gulags, and work them all to death to pay Moras taxes that is not the Imperium's problem (as long as the 'colonies' taxes are paid too, of course)....

While your main point is correct, you're wrong about a detail. Actually, it's very much the Imperium's problem, seeing as the neighbors all are member worlds and as such entitled to protection against their neighbors -- including Mora. Interference with other member nations is a real no no.


Hans

 

[aramis]

While your main point is correct, you're wrong about a detail. Actually, it's very much the Imperium's problem, seeing as the neighbors all are member worlds and as such entitled to protection against their neighbors -- including Mora. Interference with other member nations is a real no no.


Hans

Only on paper... Several adventures in print show that the practice is quite different from the claim. Member worlds are protected from foreign (non-imperial) aggression, and from certain forms of intra-imperial warfare... but not all.

AndI would tend to agree with Peter that, in general, the imperium isn't going to prevent small members being annexed. Big, powerful worlds, no... but backwaters.

For Example, should Regina decide to annex Wypoc, for example, as long as Wypoc's imperial obligations continue to be made, the means of production weren't damaged, and no Chemical-Biological-Radiological weapons are used, and there was a reasonably believable causus beli, the Imperial Authorities probably won't bother sorting it out... Nor will they bother to assist.

If, however, they went after Extolay, you can bet interventions would happen.
Extolay is more important - more people, a naval base, a class B rather than Class E port.

Likewise, if a world starts gobbling up too many, or does even one without a reasonable causus beli, intervention should follow.

 

[Dragoner]

Yes, Adv 7 put that idea to rest, what is said and done are two different things.

 

[mike wightman]

Ahh, the Garda Vilis issue, not to mention all the merc tickets, overthrowing world governments, with megacorp backing (off world interference yes?)

The government on Quiru is a military junta which is the result of a mercenary
operation. Imperial force has not yet been brought to bear.

and probably never will be.

 

[Dragoner]

Though one could use it either way, there is the merc ticket where they are doing things undercover to avoid intervention by the Imperium. It is left up to GM fiat imo, and nicely done that way.

 

[rancke]

Only on paper... Several adventures in print show that the practice is quite different from the claim.

None of the adventures in print that I know of show that. Not that I'd dismiss the possibility of someone circumventing Imperial regulations. With the connivance of the various high nobles and Imperial officials responsible for enforcing them. However, on the available evidence the rate of such incidents must be quite low.

Off-world intervention is limited to a level appropriate to safeguard legitimate interests of those off-world groups providing the aid. The aid must be to an on-world group, and if it appears that the brunt of the fighting is being borne by the off-world group, the Imperium intervenes (barring the abovementioned subversion of Imperial principles).

And when the dust settles, the world is formally going to be controlled by the new local group, not the off-world group.

Member worlds are protected from foreign (non-imperial) aggression, and from certain forms of intra-imperial warfare... but not all.

True. They're not protected from outside aid to on-world groups unless that aid proves excessive.

And I would tend to agree with Peter that, in general, the imperium isn't going to prevent small members being annexed. Big, powerful worlds, no... but backwaters.

And yet, the number of worlds controlled by outside forces is quite small and so far I haven't found one that couldn't be explained by an preexisting ownership at the time the owning world joined the Imperium. Garda-Vilis, for example, was a colony of Vilis long before Vilis joined.

For Example, should Regina decide to annex Wypoc, for example, as long as Wypoc's imperial obligations continue to be made, the means of production weren't damaged, and no Chemical-Biological-Radiological weapons are used, and there was a reasonably believable causus beli, the Imperial Authorities probably won't bother sorting it out... Nor will they bother to assist.

Where do you come up with the assessment that makes this assumption probable? Not from any of the existing evidence as far as I can tell.

Ahh, the Garda Vilis issue, not to mention all the merc tickets, overthrowing world governments, with megacorp backing (off world interference yes?)

Interference, yes, take-over, no.

The government on Quiru is a military junta which is the result of a mercenary operation. Imperial force has not yet been brought to bear.

and probably never will be.

Same question as I posed to Wil. What do you base your assessment of probability on? From everything evidence I know of (that would be relevant evidence, of course) Imperial force is very likely to be applied in short order. (Though I'm quite prepared to believe in some sort of subversion of due Imperial process in any single instance -- provided someone can provide a plausible one).


Hans

 

[rancke]

Yes, Adv 7 put that idea to rest, what is said and done are two different things.

Well, it's been quite a while since I read Broadsword and I may have missed something. What specifically in Adv 7 puts the idea that the Imperium usually intervenes when someone invades an Imperial member world to rest?


Hans

 

[aramis]

Well, it's been quite a while since I read Broadsword and I may have missed something. What specifically in Adv 7 puts the idea that the Imperium usually intervenes when someone invades an Imperial member world to rest?


Hans

Specifically, because they have to essentially find war crimes to trigger imperial intervention in the Garda Villis issue.

 

[rancke]

Specifically, because they have to essentially find war crimes to trigger imperial intervention in the Garda Villis issue.

Who was invading Garda-Vilis? Not Vilis. Garda-Vilis already belonged to Vilis when it joined the Imperium in (most likely) 470, so it's ownership would have been acknowledged in the membership treaty. As far as the Imperium is concerned, Vilis doesn't count as an attack from outside.


Hans

 

[mike wightman]

How very pragmatic of the Imperium.

Just like the Imperium has laws against slavery but if a world already practices slavery it's fine (TTA)?

How come a megacorp can use merc intermediaries to enact regime change - oh wait, they hide behind a group of locals so its a local problem not off world interference.