Or how involved are the commons, and how can they become involved? What structures are in place for the common citizen to get information, employment and such from their government, and how does it vary from one government to the next? Aside from the Zhodani, that is, where the only way to get ahead is to be psionic.
Governmental Involvement
- Thread starter Jame
- Start date
Andrew Boulton
The Adminator
There are probably at least 11000 different answers to this question in the Imperium.
I second AB's point - the newer editions of Traveller are making the Imperium a far more centralised bureacracy than it used to be (rather like the drift to police state in Herr Blunkett's Britain).
The anarchist in me is beginning to feel the repression of overarching interstellar governmental institutions that suddenly appear from the coup d'etat of the 'making canon more rational and coherent' bureau.
In my view the government of the Imperium for most common citizens is a distant mystery interfaced by the 11000 world governments that are inflicted upon them. Only nobles, generals, big corporates and long term travellers get a glimpse of the mystery that is Imperial government.
The anarchist in me is beginning to feel the repression of overarching interstellar governmental institutions that suddenly appear from the coup d'etat of the 'making canon more rational and coherent' bureau.
In my view the government of the Imperium for most common citizens is a distant mystery interfaced by the 11000 world governments that are inflicted upon them. Only nobles, generals, big corporates and long term travellers get a glimpse of the mystery that is Imperial government.
<<<In my view the government of the Imperium for most common citizens is a distant mystery interfaced by the 11000 world governments that are inflicted upon them. Only nobles, generals, big corporates and long term travellers get a glimpse of the mystery that is Imperial government.>>>
If that's the case, then those Nobles, Generals, CEOs, and Travellers are the Rock Stars and Movie Stars of the Imperium with the same groupies, stalkers, etc... So how many people have had their characters become famous in the Imperium?
Later,
Scout
If that's the case, then those Nobles, Generals, CEOs, and Travellers are the Rock Stars and Movie Stars of the Imperium with the same groupies, stalkers, etc... So how many people have had their characters become famous in the Imperium?
Later,
Scout
Jame wrote:
"Or how involved are the commons, and how can they become involved? What structures are in place for the common citizen to get information, employment and such from their government, and how does it vary from one government to the next? Aside from the Zhodani, that is, where the only way to get ahead is to be psionic."
Jame,
Which government are you talking about; a commoner's planetary government (or regional government in the case of balkanized worlds) or the Imperial government? There is quite a difference.
First, we often forget that the Imperium is an assembly of governments and not an assembly of citizens. Governments are the real members of the Imperium, not people. The title Imperial citizen is largely an empty one because very little is actually accrued from possessing it.
There is no staggered heirarchy of levels of governance like the type we take granted in federated nations like Australia, Canada, Germany, the USA, etc. From the Imperial viewpoint, there is no federal-state-local style division of authority and sovereignty, nothing like a Sector-Subsector-System-Planet-Region-State-Local-etc. series of governmental 'slices'.
A commoner owes the Imperium very little and recieves very little in return. A commoner has a far greater relationship with her planetary government. That is the government she turns to for employment, information, and all the other things we denizens of the 21st Century West automatically expect from a government.
What a citizen can expect, how a citizen can get ahead, even what rights a citizen possesses has much more to do with what planetary government she lives under and very little to do with the Imperium. The Imperium is a blend of the WTO, NATO, Common Market, and any other supranational entity you care to name.
Sincerely,
Larsen
"Or how involved are the commons, and how can they become involved? What structures are in place for the common citizen to get information, employment and such from their government, and how does it vary from one government to the next? Aside from the Zhodani, that is, where the only way to get ahead is to be psionic."
Jame,
Which government are you talking about; a commoner's planetary government (or regional government in the case of balkanized worlds) or the Imperial government? There is quite a difference.
First, we often forget that the Imperium is an assembly of governments and not an assembly of citizens. Governments are the real members of the Imperium, not people. The title Imperial citizen is largely an empty one because very little is actually accrued from possessing it.
There is no staggered heirarchy of levels of governance like the type we take granted in federated nations like Australia, Canada, Germany, the USA, etc. From the Imperial viewpoint, there is no federal-state-local style division of authority and sovereignty, nothing like a Sector-Subsector-System-Planet-Region-State-Local-etc. series of governmental 'slices'.
A commoner owes the Imperium very little and recieves very little in return. A commoner has a far greater relationship with her planetary government. That is the government she turns to for employment, information, and all the other things we denizens of the 21st Century West automatically expect from a government.
What a citizen can expect, how a citizen can get ahead, even what rights a citizen possesses has much more to do with what planetary government she lives under and very little to do with the Imperium. The Imperium is a blend of the WTO, NATO, Common Market, and any other supranational entity you care to name.
Sincerely,
Larsen
Thats a good point - I consider that the authority of many nobles, CEOs etc rests in prestige and the charisma of being nearer to the Emperor rather than in the Imperial Ministry of X backing them up. That explains the bastard feudal nature of Imperial nobility and 'he government of men not laws'sentiment of THE CREATOR.
A player who has travelled to Capital and been knighted by the Emperor is going to be a thing of awe and wonder on 1118-0987 or wherever s/he comes from. More so than a person who made MCr from selling widgets but has Soc 9 (that's my view anyway)
I think there is such a hierachy. However, I also think it is a highly variable one.
All the following is IMO. I like to think that very little, if any, of it is incompatible with established canon, but I know others disagree with me (Including L.E.W.)
.Anyway, the primary relationship between a member world and the Imperium is governed by the treaty of membership. That, in turn, depends vey much on the history of the world. Some worlds may grown up around an Imperial outpost and been granted independence and self-government at some point. Such a world would have a treaty that allowed the Imperium to meddle quite a bit with local government, though always with some sort of 'plausible deniability'. Such as calling the Imperial governor an "advisor". And if such a world has subsequently grown very powerful, the Imperial Advisor may 'chose' not to exercise all his treaty-defined prerogatives.
Another world may have been strong and powerful long before it became a member of the the Imperium. Such a world might have a treaty that specified an even greater degree of autonomy than the average Imperial world enjoys.
At the next level the Imperium organizes itself into duchies. Each duchy has a great degree of autonomy vis-a-vis the central government, but that, too, is highly variable. One duchy may be founded on a powerful pocket empire that entered the Imperium 'en bloc'. Such a duchy could have a separate treaty with the Imperium of its own. The Imperium allows its duchies wide latitude in how they are organized. Some are run by their duke as centralized autocracies using his nobles as viceroys. Others are run as a cluster of counties. Others as enlightened monarchies, others again as constitutional monarchies.
In short, I like to think that if you want a Imperium that leaves the member worlds pretty much alone, you can find a duchy where the worlds have a higher degree of autonomy than most of the Imperium, and if you want the Imperium to manage the member worlds with a heavy hand, you can find a duchy where that's thet way it works.
And if you want the Imperium to be the guarantor of personal liberties against oppressive planetary governments (so that you can use your clone of Piper's Zarathustra
), why, you can find that somewhere too.Hans
Very interesting, even if it is too centralised for my liking (which is not a criticism as I like to conceive of the Imperium as pretty loose!)
One of the problems with canon is that Imperial government started out as a distant and not too nice backdrop to a few worlds in the subsector of Regina (i.e. Kinunir).
As the 3I developed in a piecemeal fashion (especially by DGP, who were licensed to do the Grand Tour) it was implicit that there was a much stronger Imperial administration (i.e. one would imagine that a system of corporate law existed to account for transfers in the shareholdings of the megacorporations or a centralised court system existed to account for and supervise money's deemed under Interstellar law to be held on trust - i.e. that there was such a thing as interstellar law that was enforceable throughout 11000 worlds).
However this didn't square with the Roman Empire/medieval frontier view that was favoured by the Ancients of GDW.
The choice (for individual players and refs), as I see it, is either to go back to Imperial government as backdrop and not to make it too 'present' in the background or to do as Rancke suggests and create a well structured hierachy that is coherent. For me its horses for courses.
This takes us also into the good Imperium/bad Imperium debate - i.e. that Rancke's planetary 'advisor' is the watchman for the Imperial goverment proper and can utilise Imperial resources to quell local unrest or 'anti Imperial sentiment' (which might explain the senator imprisoned on board the Gash in ADV 1). Alternatively, the Imperial government may be a force for liberty and justice for all.
Of course, a person given watchman duties can always pervert his role if no one watches the watchman - this leads to a corrupt Imperium where nobles act like Machiavellian princes with their retainers (something that the Dulinor of Megatraveller had concerns about).
By the way - what is the canon basis for the concept of planetary treaties of membership of the Imperium? Is it in Library Data? Given the large amount of pacification campaigns to what extent are these 'treaties' fait accompli presented to worlds?
One of the problems with canon is that Imperial government started out as a distant and not too nice backdrop to a few worlds in the subsector of Regina (i.e. Kinunir).
As the 3I developed in a piecemeal fashion (especially by DGP, who were licensed to do the Grand Tour) it was implicit that there was a much stronger Imperial administration (i.e. one would imagine that a system of corporate law existed to account for transfers in the shareholdings of the megacorporations or a centralised court system existed to account for and supervise money's deemed under Interstellar law to be held on trust - i.e. that there was such a thing as interstellar law that was enforceable throughout 11000 worlds).
However this didn't square with the Roman Empire/medieval frontier view that was favoured by the Ancients of GDW.
The choice (for individual players and refs), as I see it, is either to go back to Imperial government as backdrop and not to make it too 'present' in the background or to do as Rancke suggests and create a well structured hierachy that is coherent. For me its horses for courses.
This takes us also into the good Imperium/bad Imperium debate - i.e. that Rancke's planetary 'advisor' is the watchman for the Imperial goverment proper and can utilise Imperial resources to quell local unrest or 'anti Imperial sentiment' (which might explain the senator imprisoned on board the Gash in ADV 1). Alternatively, the Imperial government may be a force for liberty and justice for all.
Of course, a person given watchman duties can always pervert his role if no one watches the watchman - this leads to a corrupt Imperium where nobles act like Machiavellian princes with their retainers (something that the Dulinor of Megatraveller had concerns about).
By the way - what is the canon basis for the concept of planetary treaties of membership of the Imperium? Is it in Library Data? Given the large amount of pacification campaigns to what extent are these 'treaties' fait accompli presented to worlds?
If the Imperium is a collection of governments, then wouldn't the citizenry be able to get involved with their local government? And what about those citizens on totally Imperial worlds (Capital, for instance)? Can they get involved?
And don't forget about joining the government as a worker - every bureaucracy need bureacrats!
And don't forget about joining the government as a worker - every bureaucracy need bureacrats!
Member Rated:
4 Icon 1 posted March 06, 2004 08:43 AMMarch 06, 2004 08:43 AM Profile for Jame Send New Private Message Edit/Delete Post Reply With Quote If the Imperium is a collection of governments, then wouldn't the citizenry be able to get involved with their local government? And what about those citizens on totally Imperial worlds (Capital, for instance)? Can they get involved?
And don't forget about joining the government as a worker - every bureaucracy need bureacrats!
The citizenry get involved if that is the fashion on a given planet.
By the way, why do we worry about "getting involved". It seems to me the main purpose of the citizenry "getting involved" is to prevent the state from messing things up. It is not a privelege in itself. How enthusiastic are you about "getting
involved" when you recieve a jury summons?
4 Icon 1 posted March 06, 2004 08:43 AMMarch 06, 2004 08:43 AM Profile for Jame Send New Private Message Edit/Delete Post Reply With Quote If the Imperium is a collection of governments, then wouldn't the citizenry be able to get involved with their local government? And what about those citizens on totally Imperial worlds (Capital, for instance)? Can they get involved?
And don't forget about joining the government as a worker - every bureaucracy need bureacrats!
The citizenry get involved if that is the fashion on a given planet.
By the way, why do we worry about "getting involved". It seems to me the main purpose of the citizenry "getting involved" is to prevent the state from messing things up. It is not a privelege in itself. How enthusiastic are you about "getting
involved" when you recieve a jury summons?
