Feudal Technocracy discussion

[kafka47]

To quote the words of Leonard Cohen..."I have seen the future, Brother. It's Murder."

With the current exchange rates, I really have to be selective about my Traveller that I buy because I would rather see a paper product like a 'zine than subscribe to something that will disappear, when the licence lapses.

If SJG would start offering things at a discount to Canadians and others, hw would certainly gained more friends in the Great White North...

 

[Liam Devlin]

Not all FT governed worlds are median to low populated(pop4 or less). Take Oriflame(TNE) pop 8, F-tech (800milion)/ Old expanses.

Admittedly there are various ways to run such a governance system, from eglatarian/ meritocracy-driven, to strictly Zaibatsu styled.

As fer more subscribers to JTAS at SJG games needed, I cannae answer that. Mayhap the GURPS-Traveller thing has predispositioned some against it. Tis a curious thing, I admit.

 

[daryen]

Originally posted by tjoneslo:
He's my executive summary.

If you do an analysis of which worlds are Feudal Technocracies (FTs), they are all low population (less than 10,000) worlds...

OK, if that is a necessary underpinning of his explanation, he is full of crap. Feudal Technocracies occur ALL THE TIME on moderate and high population worlds.

For example, looking at the two subsectors I know best (Darrian and Sword Worlds), I come up with the following list for FT worlds in CT (population in parentheses):
- Ektron (6)
- Darrian (9)
- Rorre (6)
- Narsil (A)
- Anduril (8)
- Gram (9)
- Excalibur (7)
- Sacnoth (9)
- Hofud (6)

That is NINE worlds in only two subsectors! And four of them are high pop worlds, too. Granted, neither contain any Imperial worlds, but that really shouldn't matter. And even when looking at the TNE data, the number doesn't change much (though the list does change some).

Also note that tech level is widely divergent. Rorre is TL 3 as it was set up by a bunch of "back to pre-contact" people who continue that charter. But they are still a FT. And there is Darrian itself which is TL E/G, and has been an FT for over 2000 years.

Add in the fact that all of the hi pop SW planets are FT (Gram, Sacnoth and Narsil), and I would say this premise has no legs.

 

[tjoneslo]

Originally posted by daryen:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by tjoneslo:
He's my executive summary.

If you do an analysis of which worlds are Feudal Technocracies (FTs), they are all low population (less than 10,000) worlds...

OK, if that is a necessary underpinning of his explanation, he is full of crap. Feudal Technocracies occur ALL THE TIME on moderate and high population worlds.
</font>[/QUOTE]That was my executive summary, not what the article said. If you want to debate the article, please go read it, not nit-pick my poor summary.

 

[rancke]

My suggestion is to look at the definitions of the two words (Both from Merriam-Webster's on-line dictionary):

tech·noc·ra·cy: government by technicians; specifically : management of society by technical experts.

feu·dal (definition 2): of, relating to, or suggestive of feudalism <feudal law>.

I'd say it is a system where the leaders are appointed in a feudal manner from technicians rather than the warrior types of the traditional European feudal system.

Basically, in a feudal technocracy the prime responsibility of leaders would be technical rather than martial in nature.


Hans

 

[Jame]

Has anyone read David Drake and S.M. Stirling's _The General_ series, along with its sequels? The first five (the original series) have a form of Byzantine circa 530s feudal technocracy, although they're steadily losing their expertise - they were once interstellar, but now are late 19th century tech - and they think of computers as gods!