General Size of polities

[mike wightman]

If the force levels used to conquer Terra at the end of the Rim War are any indication then 'police action' and 'counterinsurgency' against renegade high pop high TL worlds are going to require major Imperial force commitment.

You don't need an inter-empire war (Zho vs Imp, Imp vs Solies, Imp vs JP) to justify having large numbers of ex-service personnel to dispose of once the contagion - sorry - conflict is dealt with.

On the fringes of empire where such events may be more common place you are likely to have the scum and villainy of the core worlds who were drafted into the services (see Forbolden project for other ways the Imperium disperses its downtrodden core world masses) cast adrift from the service upon demobilisation and mustering out.

Ideal candidates to then move into mercenary units, local noble huscarl units, megacorp security, corsair bands or the general life of a Traveller with a lot more ambition...

 

[Condottiere]

Six months and a levee en masse is more than enough to acquire an army, especially if you have the luxury of allowing Darwinism to take it's course.

Supporting that military force interstellarly is another issue.

 

[Timerover51]

On Earth, 6 months travel round trip was about the limit of a stable empire. As it crossed that size, Rome cracked. Same for the Mongols.

I would echo that view.

 

[Quint]

Based on old threads here in the forums, when I built my latest take on a non-canon Imperium, I set the game on the furthest spinward reaches of the Imperium - in my setting about 120 parsecs from the capitol at Sylea, and a six-month trip by fast courier - or a year-and-half by bulk freighter (if one every cared to make the trip).


But my location is also specifically essentially a Hong Kong or Shanghai of the British Empire equivalent, part of the it, but incredibly separate. As opposed to say, India (which I would say is my Spinward Marches analog).

I also rebuilt the Imperial army along a regimental system (going whole -hog on British Empire comparisons in a lot of ways), with pretty much every Imperial world above a certain population and tech level having at least one regiment present, either being raised from it, or being garrisoned there.

The Imperium has a large standing army, mostly engaged in garrison, counter-insurgency, and police actions (per Bk4). That doesn't count the megacorp military forces that act a proxy for the Imperial military. As a result systems are mostly locally governed, with broad policy set by the Emperor, and really, nobody wants the anybody in a higher part of power structure to get involved in their affairs - so much work is spent making sure that there is no reason to.

Thus the counter-insurgency, police actions, and garrison duty...


D.