[OT]Things such as the market-forces-hostile "per Jump" instead of "per parsec" passage rates for non-megacorp merchantmen, the IN turning a blind eye toward the blatant economy-of-scale piracy euphemistically known as "Tradewar," and the continued existence of agencies such as Tukera's Vemene notwithstanding, I suppose. And of course, the whole secret J-6 courier network.
Rules for Low Berth Passenger Survival...
- Thread starter GoblynByte
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[OT]Things such as the market-forces-hostile "per Jump" instead of "per parsec" passage rates for non-megacorp merchantmen, the IN turning a blind eye toward the blatant economy-of-scale piracy euphemistically known as "Tradewar," and the continued existence of agencies such as Tukera's Vemene notwithstanding, I suppose. And of course, the whole secret J-6 courier network.
That makes sense if one considers the expansion of the 3I, insofar as some worlds are drawn in voluntarily. Which planet would do that if they thought the 3I was going to get into regime change? As long as they pay their taxes (the 30%) and permit the SPA to do their job and run the port, and as long as they don't interfere with free trade, then the 3I leaves them along. That would sound might attractive to a lot of governments, especially if the 3I already dominates their trade and security and local space.
That is a game artifact not a setting feature. There are several canonical examples of PCs being asked for lower and offered higher rates (One of them involves makeshift accomodations in the cargo hold
).The one example we know of involves a subsector company waging trade war against a megacorporate subsidiary and winning. Doesn't seem much like favoring the megacorporations.
Why is the existence of a company security force evidence that the 3I favors that company? I thought every company over a certain size had one?
Canonically employed to provide one favored duke with advanced notice over everyone else, including the megacorporations. (No, I'm not saying that makes sense, but it's not evidence that the 3I favors megacorporations).
Hans
Hans, the very fact that they're allowed to go to war with each other says a frightfully large amount about their role... and that the government isn't of them, but by them, de facto if not de fide.
The Article on the megacorporations notes a huge percentage of ownership is the high nobility, and each other. This reinforces that the sector governments are STRONGLY tied to the nobles and vice versa, and as we know, the high nobles are the sector and subsector governments. And the Imperial family owns a notable percentage of each of them on their own...
It's an implication writ large... The Nobles and the Megacorps are, while not one in the same, so intertwined as to be inseparable from each other without major trauma to all around.
The Imperial Family owns some 8% of LSP... if we assume LSP only makes Cr1 per month per citizen as an average... the emperor is probably getting 1% all himself, if not more - so let's figure that. 5 Sisters Subsector alone is 1.8e12 people... and thus would be some Cr18e9 to the Emperor. (And we know that LSP is active there.)
The revenue flows are huge. Of necessity. And that's just ONE subsector.
The First Imperium didn't fall - it just allowed the second to think it had! (Nasiraaka, Sharushid, Makidhadrun, and Zirunkariish are still active, unbroken lineage, in the late 3I... and beyond. And were the government of the 1I...)
The Article on the megacorporations notes a huge percentage of ownership is the high nobility, and each other. This reinforces that the sector governments are STRONGLY tied to the nobles and vice versa, and as we know, the high nobles are the sector and subsector governments. And the Imperial family owns a notable percentage of each of them on their own...
It's an implication writ large... The Nobles and the Megacorps are, while not one in the same, so intertwined as to be inseparable from each other without major trauma to all around.
The Imperial Family owns some 8% of LSP... if we assume LSP only makes Cr1 per month per citizen as an average... the emperor is probably getting 1% all himself, if not more - so let's figure that. 5 Sisters Subsector alone is 1.8e12 people... and thus would be some Cr18e9 to the Emperor. (And we know that LSP is active there.)
The revenue flows are huge. Of necessity. And that's just ONE subsector.
The First Imperium didn't fall - it just allowed the second to think it had! (Nasiraaka, Sharushid, Makidhadrun, and Zirunkariish are still active, unbroken lineage, in the late 3I... and beyond. And were the government of the 1I...)
And the fact that small companies are allowed to fight megacorporate subsidiaries (and win) says something altogether different.
It's not an unreasonable assumption, which is probably why people keep clinging to it, but most of the available evidence contradicts it. The fact is that the Imperium -- presumably in the persons of the dukes -- limits the ability of the megacorporations to impose on member worlds and nations.
While we know that some nobles own stock in the megacorporations, we don't know that all nobles own stock in the megacorporations. And we most especially don't know that any of them own stock in all of them. It doesn't help Tukera activities in the Duchy of Regina that Norris has stock in Sternmetal [not canon]. There may even be a provision that high dukes are allowed to hold megacorporate stock only by express permission from the emperor. Or perhaps megacorporations are so big that helping Ekatur earning an extra trillion on Roup wouldn't affect Norris' Tukera dividends enough to be worth risking getting the boot by Strephon for abusing his powers to help Ekatur.
What makes you think that assumption is sound?
The largest population in Five Sisters is Mirriam's 500 million, so my guess is that your figure is three orders of magnitude too high.
Meanwhile, if Mora taxes it's citizens 10% of their pci, it winds up with 22 trillion CrImps. What's that in your notation? 22e12?
Hans
Hans, I took the total pop directly from sup 3's text, not the UWPs.
However, I may have mistaken a decimal for a place value. Still, the Imperial family owns 5% plus of almost all megacorps. 5% of the profits of the imperium, essentially, lines the imperial family's pockets.
The nobility as a whole knows that they serve at the emperor's pleasure (and can be turned out if they manage to earn his displeasure)... and that displeasure can be triggered by "Dividends reduced by the actions of Duke Sum Bodi of Nowh' Ere." At which point, his grace better have a DAMNED good reason for what he did. Strephon, as painted in Survival Margin, is actually a pretty reasonable, if wishy-washy, kind of guy, so, as long as the dividend dip is explained by his grace before the dividend is calculated...
The thing is, it's a power-web. The nobles have a lot of investment. And the megacorps are likely to want it kept that way.
As for the Cr1 per person, it's a throwaway reference in one of the adventures, but I don't recall which one. Note that of the 13 canonical megacorps, we have explicit references to at least 6 of them operating in the marches: Nasiraaka, Instellarms, LSP, Sternmetal Horizons, Tukera, Hortalez et Cie. Sternmetal has only 2% imperial family ownership... but is 29% owned by Hortalez et Cie...
Hell, here's a handy table. It reveals the true shadow government of the late 3I...
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)Look at hortalez et cie...
However, I may have mistaken a decimal for a place value. Still, the Imperial family owns 5% plus of almost all megacorps. 5% of the profits of the imperium, essentially, lines the imperial family's pockets.
The nobility as a whole knows that they serve at the emperor's pleasure (and can be turned out if they manage to earn his displeasure)... and that displeasure can be triggered by "Dividends reduced by the actions of Duke Sum Bodi of Nowh' Ere." At which point, his grace better have a DAMNED good reason for what he did. Strephon, as painted in Survival Margin, is actually a pretty reasonable, if wishy-washy, kind of guy, so, as long as the dividend dip is explained by his grace before the dividend is calculated...
The thing is, it's a power-web. The nobles have a lot of investment. And the megacorps are likely to want it kept that way.
As for the Cr1 per person, it's a throwaway reference in one of the adventures, but I don't recall which one. Note that of the 13 canonical megacorps, we have explicit references to at least 6 of them operating in the marches: Nasiraaka, Instellarms, LSP, Sternmetal Horizons, Tukera, Hortalez et Cie. Sternmetal has only 2% imperial family ownership... but is 29% owned by Hortalez et Cie...
Hell, here's a handy table. It reveals the true shadow government of the late 3I...
| IF | Nob | FF | Pvt | Oth | OMC | Ant | DTC | GP | GSb | HeC | Ich | Ins | LSP | Mak | Mur | Nas | Sha | SuS | SMH | Tuk | Zir | ||
| Ant | Antares Holdings | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Mur | Murdoch Holdins | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Ich | Ichiban Interstellar | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| DTC | Delgado Trading | 5 | 27 | 47 | 21 | ||||||||||||||||||
| GP | General Products | 5 | 35 | 12 | 10 | 12 | 26 | ||||||||||||||||
| GSb | GSbAG | 4 | 44 | (in Nob) | 4 | 16 | 13 | 19 | |||||||||||||||
| HeC | Hortalez Et Cie | 5 | 74 | 6 | 15 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Ins | Instellarms | 8 | 6 | 5 | 30 | 5 | 6 | 32 | 8 | ||||||||||||||
| LSP | Ling Standard Producs | 8 | 8 | 27 | 23 | 26 | 8 | ||||||||||||||||
| Mak | Makhidkarun | 5 | 28 | 14 | 25 | 28 | |||||||||||||||||
| Nas | Naasirka | 4 | 23 | 13 | 11 | 24 | 14 | 11 | |||||||||||||||
| SuS | SuSAG | 2.5 | 52 | 7 | 6 | 23 | 9 | ||||||||||||||||
| Sha | Sharurshid | 3 | 46 | 10 | 14 | 14 | 13 | ||||||||||||||||
| SMH | Sternmetal Horizons | 2 | 18 | 32 | 19 | 29 | |||||||||||||||||
| Tuk | Tukera Lines | 3 | 29 | 31 | 28 | 9 | |||||||||||||||||
| Zir | Zirunkariish | 18 | 12 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 17 | ||||||||||||||||
| OMC | Other Megacorps |
The Emperor owns a slice of the Imperium's interstellar traffic, yes. But interstellar traffic appears to be relatively limited. Which may be why he appears to be more willing to piss off the corporations than the member worlds. Or perhaps he believes in the values the Imperium stands for? Whatever the explanation, the evidence shows that the Imperium is perfectly willing to protect member worlds against the corporations.
Hans
Hans
And yet, several canonical adventures show that it DOES NOT protect the member worlds from Megacorporations.
The Megacorps themselves also would know better than to get too aggressive - because that would result in no market to profit from.
The ones that come to mind are mission on mithril (but noting that it's an imperial megacorp acting outside the imperium, so only vaguely relevant), a Dagger at Efate, The Werewolf Disease, the amber zone set on Cocta (Sternmetal smuggles in military weapons in violation of local laws, while using PC's as disposable and deniable assets)...
Lots of megacorp malfeasance in the various amber zone adventures.
What the 3I seems to protect the worlds from is being rendered non-viable markets.
I'm going to stick my neck out a bit and merely rely on my memory instead of verifying.
Hans
It's completely irrelevant. There are no megacorporations involved. Mission on Mithril is the port warden of Mithril co-opting a group of PCs to do a bit of survey work.
Terrorists, not corporations.
Any evidence of the Imperium being complicit in any of this?
Of course. Big Business is a grateful Bad Guy plot element. But is there any mention of the Imperium being complicit in any of it?
Why would the Imperium need to do that? You'd think any trade corporation would be interested in doing it on its own.
Hans
This is a pretty important point. It goes to explaining why the nobility has survived as long as it has, why it's not so easy for newcomers to break into it, and why it's not so easy to dispose of people in high positions. The MCorps want to preserve markets, so keep an eye on each other so that one isn't ruining it for others, the nobility want to preserve or improve dividends, so look to balance the structure, and the 3I government wants to ensure internal dissension is minimised between world governments and them.
I reckon the important point is not that it does it really well, but that it does do it, and to the point where for more than a thousand years the different factors have been balanced to the point that the fabric of the Imperium is intact. If balance was not maintained, how could it last that long?
Nothing of the kind. The major industrial concerns have been pressuring the Imperium to open Marastan and yet LSP is using a local political entity for a proxy, and its contribution is limited to a single battalion to avoid triggering Imperial intervention.
II is about organizing a revolution against a government that is owned by a megacorporation.
III is about offworld interests using a local group as a proxy.
XIII is about a planetary government planning to invite in offworlders and an opposition trying to stop them.
Hans
Is there anything written in canon about trigger points for 3I intervention in local politics to offset outside (as in off that world) interference? Sort of like the 3I trying to preserve a level playing field between the MCorps so that hundreds of dirty little corp wars don't get played out across the Imperium?
No, but it sounds like a good plot hook.
There's a library data entry in Imperial Encyclopedia, p. 28:
"B. Excessive interplanetary influence is even more vague. Historically, the Imperium has tolerated the use of force as a necessary outlet for built-up political and social pressures. In such cases, a short war is deemed preferable to continuing tension, sabotage, political agitation, etc. However, attempts by extraplanetary forces, such as offworld governments or large commercial interests, to seize control of a world's affairs are beyond the scope of the "safety valve" rationale.
"Assistance" is tolerated so long as it is deemed appropriate to the level of legitimate interest in the affairs of the world held by the extraplanetary organization. For example, the Imperium has often tolerated the provision by megacorporations of training cadre, arms, equipment, etc., on a limited scale, and even of training fully equipped striker units to local governments. However, when it has appeared that the primary burden for the conduct of the war has been carried by an extraplanetary power, the Imperium has intervened, claiming the power is using the misfortune of a local dispute as a pretext for aggression."
"Assistance" is tolerated so long as it is deemed appropriate to the level of legitimate interest in the affairs of the world held by the extraplanetary organization. For example, the Imperium has often tolerated the provision by megacorporations of training cadre, arms, equipment, etc., on a limited scale, and even of training fully equipped striker units to local governments. However, when it has appeared that the primary burden for the conduct of the war has been carried by an extraplanetary power, the Imperium has intervened, claiming the power is using the misfortune of a local dispute as a pretext for aggression."
This is an expansion of a shorter entry in LDNZ.
Hans
That's it! Of course, "the primary burden for the conduct of the war" will be a point which, by 1100, will have a lot of legal decisions and precedent to clarify it, as that is the lynchpin statement around which a lot of extraplanetary influence will take place.
This, however, is also the legal and procedural crevice into which PCs can be poured as those supporting one side in a domestic conflict (deniable and disposable) or if if the group are playing nobles or officials then they could be scrutinising and investigating this sort of thing.
