My copy of MT got sold accidentally with a box of old books. What were Strephon's proposed reforms? I'm working on the question of whether the rebellion would have occurred (ala Foundation psychohistorical inevitability) even if Strephon had not been assassinated. On a side note, do you think major historical trends can be avoided (ie was Strephon's assassination the product of historical forces, or was it an aberrant event that drastically changed history)? Obviously, SJG has an opinion on this, as they have published the alternate timeline. What do you think? But first remind me what the reforms were, because I need to know.
Strephon's Reforms
- Thread starter Mythmere
- Start date
Well, to be honest, I have been waiting for someone else to answer myself, since off the top of my head I can't come up with any specifics, and a have a fairly large amount of canon, including a bunch of MT stuff. The impression I have is that they were never detailed. The Idea behind Dullinor's motivations is that he felt the reforms would be insufficent, and his plan of doing away with the dual sovreignty system was the only way to save the Imperium.
If you want to see what a good set of reforms would have been, take a look at the Wounded Colosus time line. It has a whole chapter dedicated to how to reform the Imperium.
Well, my take is that it is a little bit of both. Taking the French Revolution as an example, you have a situation in which France would have gone through some form of significant structural change, but the way that change unfolded was very much driven by the individuals who were driving events and specific choices they made at the time.
My view is that based on what was going on in the 3I that regionalism would have become a significant danger to Imperial unity. Some form of reform of the system or dramatic advance in technology would have been required to avoid a crisis, but the Dullinor reforms would have been a disaster, and would have collapsed the system just as effectivly as the Rebellion time line did.
Just my thoughts,
Rob
Reforms
Stephon granted more power to the Domains. Tightened the hold of the Nobility over the Armed Forces. Introduced J-6 couriers to convey information from the Core and back. And, was thinking about introducing more Democracy and more forms of home rule.
Comment:
I think indeed, we would have seen a situation like the French Revolution with Dulinor. But, it would be the Secret societies in the Imperium would act as the Thermidor. As the rot had largely set in and nothing could prevent the disintegration of the Imperium. Some regions could escape the harshness of the change but others would fall apart. As the centre was no present.
While I do like playing in the CT/GT universe, I prefer a more dynamic mix whereby the politics is exposed. I guess that I will have to wait for GT Nobles to see what SJG has in store...
Stephon granted more power to the Domains. Tightened the hold of the Nobility over the Armed Forces. Introduced J-6 couriers to convey information from the Core and back. And, was thinking about introducing more Democracy and more forms of home rule.
Comment:
I think indeed, we would have seen a situation like the French Revolution with Dulinor. But, it would be the Secret societies in the Imperium would act as the Thermidor. As the rot had largely set in and nothing could prevent the disintegration of the Imperium. Some regions could escape the harshness of the change but others would fall apart. As the centre was no present.
While I do like playing in the CT/GT universe, I prefer a more dynamic mix whereby the politics is exposed. I guess that I will have to wait for GT Nobles to see what SJG has in store...
You and I think alike - that's why I wanted to see what the reforms looked like.
Carl Gustavson says the steps of a revolution are:
1 - "activity of writers in denouncing existent conditions...These men provide new goals for humanity..."
2 - "widespread public dissatisfaction manifests itself in riots, assassinations, and other acts of violence. The ruling group is intimidated into making repeated concessions until a real transfer of power occurs - the third stage."
3 - "By peaceful means, the reformers try to carry out their ideas. If the measures are of so drastic a nature as to split the nation,, the ability of the moderates to maintain control is lost, and the initiative now passes to the extremists."
4 - "the former ruling group, now out of power, and experiencing the disabilities of this position, attempts to regain control of the machinery of government: civil war follows. THe struggle entrenches the radicals in power, and in the fifth stage, they attempt to bring into realization their utopian dreams."
THe sixth stage is described as "the drift to normalcy, which is called the 'Thermidorean Reaction' in the French Revolution."
He also says, which is relevant, "The virtual collapse of an old regime permits peaceful accession to power of the reformers. Those who usually start the civil war are the former ruling classes, who have been deprived of more than they expected, and who now realize what loss of power really means."
Quotes from: Gustavson, A Preface to History, McGraw Hill, 1955.
Rather than a rebellion, the "Rebellion" might be better seen as the fall of an empire, with the best example being the USSR. Here is another quote:
"When we turn to the next more-profound level of causation, we confront factors that, although not immune to manipulation, were more difficult to cope with because they were either embedded in the system or lay outside the rulers’ control. Resolving them, where possible, could only have been accomplished by tampering with the system, which carried obvious risks. Among these, three stand out: economic stagnation, the aspirations of the national minorities, and intellectual dissent." my source here is from the web: source - Stanford?
This sounds more like the genesis of the Traveller rebellion. Indeed, more from that site:
"The instant the politicians of the non-Russian republics sensed the center wobbling, they began to clamor for national rights. Georgia, Lithuania, and Estonia declared their independence in March 1991; Latvia, in May; Russia, Uzbekistan, and Moldova, in June. Ukraine, the largest and most populous of the non-Russian republics, and Belorussia declared themselves sovereign states in July 1991, a decision that was ratified on December 1 by more than 90 percent of Ukraine’s population. In a desperate attempt to preserve the union, Gorbachev drafted a new constitutional charter that would have maintained the substance of the old imperial arrangement while making some formal concessions to the subject nations, but he was overtaken by events."
This casts Strephon in a new light, certainly, and permits interpolation of several news feeds and events for quite a while prior to the actual beginning of the rebellion.
You also ought to read Charles Tilly's book on Revolutions. WHich talks about social change, in terms of groups of individuals behaving in a certain way to obtain advantage. These block slide against one another to eventually create the dynamic we call history. So that history is not so much a struggle but a compromise between contending classes. These groups behave in a dynamic similar to a lava lamp, oszing up and combining with the ruling group causing downward pressure on some and upward pressure from below creating dynamics that related to previous historical bargins and new conditions wrought by politics, economics and culture.
The Imperium is such a case, as it has reached the natural limits of expansion, war has not really effected its borders so it turns inward. The Reforms proposed by Stephon come too little and too late. As Trotsky said the Revolution tends to carve up the middle ground where just everyone seems to want to stand.
The Imperium is such a case, as it has reached the natural limits of expansion, war has not really effected its borders so it turns inward. The Reforms proposed by Stephon come too little and too late. As Trotsky said the Revolution tends to carve up the middle ground where just everyone seems to want to stand.
Thanks. Kafka47. I'm not familiar with Tilly's book, but I will look for it in the library (though without heading to a University library, scholarly works aren't easy to find here in the suburbs).
I think based on what I've read here, if the reforms proposed increased self-rule for the provinces and increased military power to the nobles, I can see the shape of the rebellion as it would have been brewing in 1115 to 1117. As rumors of the proposed reforms (and their rough drafts) leak out, the democratic reformers will be enraged that the Imperium plans to remain a feudal system. The "home rule" reformers will be enraged that home rule is being gutted by keeping military power out of the hands of local or regional congresses. Nobles will be horrified that Strephon plans to "steal" most functions of government from the nobility and hand them over to the planets. No one is ever happy with a compromise (good point, Kafka47 and Trotsky).
Ominously, lots of the Imperial Naval officers are nobles who expected comfortable knightly fiefs upon retirement and influential governmental posts.
Ominously, many colonial fleets are more loyal to the subsector duke than to the Imperium.
The list of "ominouslies" goes on and on.
I think based on what I've read here, if the reforms proposed increased self-rule for the provinces and increased military power to the nobles, I can see the shape of the rebellion as it would have been brewing in 1115 to 1117. As rumors of the proposed reforms (and their rough drafts) leak out, the democratic reformers will be enraged that the Imperium plans to remain a feudal system. The "home rule" reformers will be enraged that home rule is being gutted by keeping military power out of the hands of local or regional congresses. Nobles will be horrified that Strephon plans to "steal" most functions of government from the nobility and hand them over to the planets. No one is ever happy with a compromise (good point, Kafka47 and Trotsky).
Ominously, lots of the Imperial Naval officers are nobles who expected comfortable knightly fiefs upon retirement and influential governmental posts.
Ominously, many colonial fleets are more loyal to the subsector duke than to the Imperium.
The list of "ominouslies" goes on and on.
Hans,
The above mentioned reforms are extrapolations from various CT, TNE, MT source. We know about the couriers because of the message about the assassination and the blurb in fighting ships, I believe. Introducing more democracy was the prime fight with the Ing Giver and something that Norris accounted for in the Regency Sourcebook. Giving more control of the armed forces by the Nobility is directly a result of FFW, where Norris was given a warrant and free licence after the war to sack Admiral Sanch. and the fact the nobles are very much aligned with Sector Admirals in MT.
I am pretty sure that GT as a variant has not strayed to far from the GDW line. So if its there chances are it was repeated or thought of that way in the original GDW line.
The above mentioned reforms are extrapolations from various CT, TNE, MT source. We know about the couriers because of the message about the assassination and the blurb in fighting ships, I believe. Introducing more democracy was the prime fight with the Ing Giver and something that Norris accounted for in the Regency Sourcebook. Giving more control of the armed forces by the Nobility is directly a result of FFW, where Norris was given a warrant and free licence after the war to sack Admiral Sanch. and the fact the nobles are very much aligned with Sector Admirals in MT.
I am pretty sure that GT as a variant has not strayed to far from the GDW line. So if its there chances are it was repeated or thought of that way in the original GDW line.
Ah, I see. Unfortunately the whole business with the Imperiallines setup and the information lag is (IMO) full of inconsistencies. We know from Fighting Ships that the IN had jump-6 couriers as early as 1106-7, and personally I think they would have had jump-6 couriers as soon after 1000 as was feasible. (For that matter, I think they would have had jump-5 couriers as soon after 700 as was feasible. Indeed, my explanation for why the X-boats were never upgraded from jump-4 is that the Imperial bureaucracy began using the "NavyNet" for official messages, so there was no urgent need.)
The point is that at least a couple of hundred movers and shakers -- sector and subsector dukes, fleet and sector admirals, megacorporate managers, etc. -- would get the news of the assasination by jump-6. I just don't believe that number of people would be able to keep it a secret.
Hans
A rebel/terrorist group operating in the Spinward Marches supported clandestinly by the Zhodani. I think they are covered in most detail in Adventure 8-Broadswaord (the rebels in that adventure make a point of distancing themselves from the group in the backgroud, but are also being supported by the Zho/Sword Worlds alliance, p. 6-7), but they pop up in TAS news items and other places as well.
Well, I checked Library Data, A-M and the Imperial Encyclopedia from MT and couldn't find anything more then I already posted. I know they are present in the Fifth Frontier War (they have counters to represent their forces), but not sure if they are covered anywhere in any real detial.
Anyone else out there have more info?
Anyone else out there have more info?
Tom Schoene
SOC-12
Do a google search on "Ine Givar" (spelling counts) and you'll get a bunch of hits.
I believe GDW deliberately left the exact nature of the Ine Givar's beef with the Imperium indeterminate. Others have elaborated on them later. Andrew Moffat-Valance wrote an article about them for Pyramid; if you have a subscription, you can find it at http://www.sjgames.com/pyramid/login/article.cgi?320 . It is echoed on JTAS Online at http://jtas.sjgames.com/login/article.cgi?6 .
A search of the JTAS archives listed 14 other articles where the Ine Givar is mentioned.
Hans
"I believe GDW deliberately left the exact nature of the Ine Givar's beef with the Imperium indeterminate."
I agree. I think part of this was to allow GMs to use them at their own discresion. There is enough info so that players know they are a factor, but not really what motivates them. If a GM needs an excuse to slow down an adventure group, an Ine Givar bomb at the spaceport could serve to delay them as needed (not that I would ever do such a thing to a group of players).
I agree. I think part of this was to allow GMs to use them at their own discresion. There is enough info so that players know they are a factor, but not really what motivates them. If a GM needs an excuse to slow down an adventure group, an Ine Givar bomb at the spaceport could serve to delay them as needed (not that I would ever do such a thing to a group of players).
Here's another intersting tidbit.
Strephon (b. 1049)
Forty-third and current emperor of the Imperium; eldest son of Emperor Paulo III (981 to 1071). Born 1049.
Coronation 1071. Strephon has been criticised for starting to reverse the post Civil War policy of reducing the power of the archdukes. The most controversial such move was the appointment of Dulinor as Archduke Ilelish, who is considered to have an excessively strong power base. The Emperor has also shown considerable interest in the latest technological developments, particularly in the field of pseudo biological robots.
Source: http://www.mu.org/~joe/traveller/library/library_data.html
Strephon (b. 1049)
Forty-third and current emperor of the Imperium; eldest son of Emperor Paulo III (981 to 1071). Born 1049.
Coronation 1071. Strephon has been criticised for starting to reverse the post Civil War policy of reducing the power of the archdukes. The most controversial such move was the appointment of Dulinor as Archduke Ilelish, who is considered to have an excessively strong power base. The Emperor has also shown considerable interest in the latest technological developments, particularly in the field of pseudo biological robots.
Source: http://www.mu.org/~joe/traveller/library/library_data.html
