Imperium by Government Type and Law Level

[sudnadja]

Possibly interesting government and law level stats for the Imperium

Counting client states and the solomani confederation, population counts are represented as the average of the min and max population:

The individual world governments of the average resident of the Imperium are not in the form of a democracy. Democratic governments represent a tiny fraction of the governments of the Imperium:

And law levels tend to be correspondingly high (traveller hexadecimal converted into decimal here):

So, say you are a fan of democracy, want high tech, and want to live on a world with a shirtsleeves environment? You have three choices in all of the Imperium:

Nusku (apparently located so close to Terra that it has a real-world star associated with it: 61 Cygni), democracy with tech 15, atmosphere 6, law level 3, hydrographics 9, and population between 3-4 billion. Pre-Rich.

Darsei, also tech 15, atmosphere 6, law 5, hydro 5 (giving lots of land area for its 400 million - 500 million population). Garden and Rich.

Athenae, tech 15, atm 6, law 4, hydro A - a water world with a tiny population of 9000-9999. Low Population, Water World.

It's interesting that a water world with such a low population can maintain its tech level, and how nice Nusku appears.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

Nusku makes sense. In G:IW, it is the first important Vilani world captured by the Terran Confederation. At the time of the Third Interstellar War, The Confederation overall is a representative democracy. Perhaps our "barbarian" ways infected them in profound ways that lasted over 3000 years.

 

[Timerover51]

A planet's government is based on a 2D-7 die roll plus the population exponent. A high population exponent therefore has a very strong bias to a high government level. The Law Level is based on the government type, so a high government level biases the Law Level to high level as well.

If you want something different, you either have to change the way government type and law level is derived, or as referee, impose the system that you want. Neither are options in the OTU.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

A planet's government is based on a 2D-7 die roll plus the population exponent. A high population exponent therefore has a very strong bias to a high government level. The Law Level is based on the government type, so a high government level biases the Law Level to high level as well.

If you want something different, you either have to change the way government type and law level is derived, or as referee, impose the system that you want. Neither are options in the OTU.

2D-7 can be less than 0. So already there is a bias problem. Sci-fi fills in the missing gaps though.

 

[sudnadja]

A planet's government is based on a 2D-7 die roll plus the population exponent. A high population exponent therefore has a very strong bias to a high government level. The Law Level is based on the government type, so a high government level biases the Law Level to high level as well.

If you want something different, you either have to change the way government type and law level is derived, or as referee, impose the system that you want. Neither are options in the OTU.

So using that rule, and solving for dierole+population=government, here is the histogram of die roles throughout the Imperium (this actually is dieroll-7):

Oops. Check that, I selected world size:

here's Government's die role: There does still seem to be a bias.

For example, "Efate", in the Spinward Marches, A646930-D, population exponent is 9, government is 3, the dieroll-7 must have been -6, which shouldn't be possible, right? Rhylanor is also like that. On the other side, Pysadi is C5766D8-5, pop=6 govt=13 meaning the dieroll-7 must have been 7. "Transfer" is like that too, A5648EB-C, population 8, government E (14), meaning dieroll-7 was 6.

 

[Timerover51]

2D-7 can be less than 0. So already there is a bias problem. Sci-fi fills in the missing gaps though.

There is a 58.34 percent chance that a 2D6-7 roll will be either a positive number or zero. If the population exponent is 8 or greater, that means that the lowest government type that you will get is a Civil Service Bureaucracy, Type 8. Type 7 is Balkanization and Type 6 is Captive Government.▮For a population exponent of 8, there is a 83.34 percent chance that a planet will have a government type of 6 or higher. There would be a 2.78 percent chance of a government type of 3, Self-Perpetuating Oligarchy, a 5.56 percent chance of a government type of 4, Representative Democracy. and an 8.34 percent chance of a government type of 5, Feudal Technocracy.

For a planetary population of 9, there would be a 2.78 percent change of a Representative Democracy government and a 5.56 percent chance of a Feudal Technocracy government. There would be a 91.67 percent chance of a government type of Level 6 or higher.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

On the high end of law level, T5 rules specify that generated Law Levels above 18 are set to 18.

 

[sudnadja]

There is a 58.34 percent chance that a 2D6-7 roll will be either a positive number or zero. If the population exponent is 8 or greater, that means that the lowest government type that you will get is a Civil Service Bureaucracy, Type 8. Type 7 is Balkanization and Type 6 is Captive Government.▮For a population exponent of 8, there is a 83.34 percent chance that a planet will have a government type of 6 or higher. There would be a 2.78 percent chance of a government type of 3, Self-Perpetuating Oligarchy, a 5.56 percent chance of a government type of 4, Representative Democracy. and an 8.34 percent chance of a government type of 5, Feudal Technocracy.

For a planetary population of 9, there would be a 2.78 percent change of a Representative Democracy government and a 5.56 percent chance of a Feudal Technocracy government. There would be a 91.67 percent chance of a government type of Level 6 or higher.

To sum up the above expected based on probability and charted space (OTU, M1105, Official or InReview or Preserve):

Planetary Population 9:
Should have 2.78% Govt Type 4, actual: 5.6%
Should have 5.56% Govt Type 5, actual: 5.3%
In addition we have 5 govt type 3.

Planetary Population 8:
Should have 83.34% govt type 6 or higher, actual: 79.7%
Should have 2.78% govt type 3, actual: 5.8% (pretty far off)
Should have 5.56% govt type 4, actual: 5.53% (spot on)
Should have 8.34% govt type 5, actual: 8.8%
In addition, we have 2 govt type 2, 1 govt type 1 and 1 govt type 0 ("Beauniture", which I believe is a special case).

And to add, we have a single world with government type 4 and Population A, and 4.2% of population A worlds are government type 5, and only 3.2% are government type 6.

Testing out mathematica's random number generator of 2d6 for 2494 rolls (as there are 2494 population 8 worlds), 2.6% were 2, and 6.0% were 3. That makes me think that the random number generator (or dice) used to generate charted space was lower quality, or there was an intentional bias toward certain government types (or a bunch of worlds were placed and not generated randomly).

 

[kilemall]

Nusku (apparently located so close to Terra that it has a real-world star associated with it: 61 Cygni), democracy with tech 15, atmosphere 6, law level 3, hydrographics 9, and population between 3-4 billion. Pre-Rich.

It's interesting that a water world with such a low population can maintain its tech level, and how nice Nusku appears.

Nusku is a water world on Traveller Map?

That is an odd coincidence, I rolled Nusku as a water world but entirely through the RT-something Worldgen working backwards from the star.

 

[kilemall]

And I don't know why any of this is a surprise, the whole system is clearly designed to make high-pop core worlds various levels and styles of oppressive, and to make frontier worlds 'freer' but rougher.

 

[sudnadja]

And I don't know why any of this is a surprise, the whole system is clearly designed to make high-pop core worlds various levels and styles of oppressive, and to make frontier worlds 'freer' but rougher.

I don't think I claimed that it was a surprise anywhere, I'm just posting statistics as generated from travellermap data.

Do non-Core worlds get die modifiers to make them less populous (which would be strange in a way, the most populous Imperium Domain is the Domain of Sol)? I hadn't looked too hard at the distribution of high population worlds, but looking at it with a casual eye it seems that high pop worlds are distributed fairly evenly, so it's hard to define a region from that that would be called frontier.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

Do non-Core worlds get die modifiers to make them less populous (which would be strange in a way, the most populous Imperium Domain is the Domain of Sol)? I hadn't looked too hard at the distribution of high population worlds, but looking at it with a casual eye it seems that high pop worlds are distributed fairly evenly, so it's hard to define a region from that that would be called frontier.

I think most sectors had their own game designer/referee involved in their worldgen.

Nusku looks pretty blue on my map.

 

[Timerover51]

Now that I have actually crunched the numbers, the entire governmental type roll is heavily skewed against any form of democratic government. Once you hit a population exponent of 5, you have a better than 50 chance of not having any form of democratic government. Of the government types listed, out of 13, only 2 are democratic in nature

One of the other strange things is that it is possible for a population exponent of 3, population in the thousands, to be a government type 8, a Civil Service Bureaucracy. It is also possible for a population in the hundred of thousands, population exponent of 5, to have Government Type "0", or no government structures at all. I cannot see how that would work at all, as you would likely end up with a more "Balkanized" world, with various groups creating differing smaller government structures.

Then there is Government Type 13, Religious Dictatorship. That one I have real problems with, which cannot be discussed here.

 

[welsh]

It is also possible for a population in the hundred of thousands, population exponent of 5, to have Government Type "0", or no government structures at all. I cannot see how that would work at all....

You would have to assume that population was widely scattered. Earth with a population that size could well have zero government, if the population was scattered with no sizeable clusters. This wouldn't even qualify as Balkanized.

Incidentally, I'm not in the least surprised that democracies are rare in the Imperium, given that the Imperium itself is antidemocratic.

 

[kilemall]

Do non-Core worlds get die modifiers to make them less populous (which would be strange in a way, the most populous Imperium Domain is the Domain of Sol)? I hadn't looked too hard at the distribution of high population worlds, but looking at it with a casual eye it seems that high pop worlds are distributed fairly evenly, so it's hard to define a region from that that would be called frontier.

That's because rolling a subsector straight up as presented in most rules will have a mix of worlds, which is fine for a sandbox.

If you are building a coherent logical environment though, you would have some sort of pop or starport modifier for frontier vs. core.

The Worldgen system I use has an input for new areas vs. older vs. 1000+ year areas. Gives a definite feel to areas.

 

[mike wightman]

I agree - random is for sandbox. For a pre-defined intersteller government such things as government and law level will be modified - but then the rules say you can do this.

IMTU as you get closer to the core Imperial sectors you get more worlds that are directly ruled by the Imperium.

 

[aramis]

Now that I have actually crunched the numbers, the entire governmental type roll is heavily skewed against any form of democratic government. Once you hit a population exponent of 5, you have a better than 50 chance of not having any form of democratic government. Of the government types listed, out of 13, only 2 are democratic in nature

One of the other strange things is that it is possible for a population exponent of 3, population in the thousands, to be a government type 8, a Civil Service Bureaucracy. It is also possible for a population in the hundred of thousands, population exponent of 5, to have Government Type "0", or no government structures at all. I cannot see how that would work at all, as you would likely end up with a more "Balkanized" world, with various groups creating differing smaller government structures.

Then there is Government Type 13, Religious Dictatorship. That one I have real problems with, which cannot be discussed here.

Hundreds of thousands...
let's use a size 5 70% hydro
Sphere area 8.04e8
land area 2.4e8
persons 5e5
482.4 square km per person. Simply put, you can have a culture where no organization above the individual village exists. 188 square miles each person.

Since a government is generally considered (connotation, not denotation) to be above the village/neighborhood level...

you could easily have villages on many different islands with no commonality other thal local elders make the rules.

 

[Timerover51]

Hundreds of thousands...
let's use a size 5 70% hydro
Sphere area 8.04e8
land area 2.4e8
persons 5e5
482.4 square km per person. Simply put, you can have a culture where no organization above the individual village exists. 188 square miles each person.

Since a government is generally considered (connotation, not denotation) to be above the village/neighborhood level...

you could easily have villages on many different islands with no commonality other thal local elders make the rules.

I understand your point. Much of what is called Oceania functioned at that level for a long time and some of it still does. The variety of government of the Greek City-States would also be a good example, along with the City-States of Renaissance Italy. However, as a world government it lacking, would it not be called Balkanized?

Basically, where would the cut-off be between government "0", no government, and government "7", Balkanized?

 

[khadaji2002]

Balkanize:

1 :to break up (a region, a group, etc.) into smaller and often hostile units

So the difference between '0' (no government above the village level, villages are not hostile/too far apart to maintain hostilities) and '7' (population is broken up into smaller, often hostile, groups) is that the latter would have two or more groups that are often at war with each other, while the former would see little if any conflict between the various population groups. I picture the '0' world as being sparsely populated and spread out, avoiding serious conflict; whereas the '7' world has groups that are closer together and/or far more eager to have what their neighbors have and are willing to fight for those resources.

 

[Timerover51]

Balkanize:

1 :to break up (a region, a group, etc.) into smaller and often hostile units

So the difference between '0' (no government above the village level, villages are not hostile/too far apart to maintain hostilities) and '7' (population is broken up into smaller, often hostile, groups) is that the latter would have two or more groups that are often at war with each other, while the former would see little if any conflict between the various population groups. I picture the '0' world as being sparsely populated and spread out, avoiding serious conflict; whereas the '7' world has groups that are closer together and/or far more eager to have what their neighbors have and are willing to fight for those resources.

That sounds like a reasonable distinction. Government Zero means widely spread out in smaller groups of varying type with limited interaction between groups, while Government 7 means something like the Greek or Italian City-States with their nearly constant bickering, or the actual Balkans following the loss of control by the Ottoman Empire, with the population concentrated in a smaller area or perhaps near a limited resource.

That gives quite a bit of data to work on for World-Building as well.