Re: Communication and Travel

At 16:33 6/12/98, Niall Gilsenan wrote:
>I really hope we are not getting into all this again...Keep the
politics
>offline.

Ah, but communication, travel and war are the concerns of politics. :)
And
I don't think John and Los were stating political views, merely citing a
well-known example.

>We were talking about how communications would be dealt with in over
>Interstellar distances in FT.	Which brings up the question, how long
would
>it take for a major power to react to an invasion. Or for that matter
even
[...]
>the message?  Perhaps evry system has at least a courier boat insystem?

If the empire in question has the economic power to do so, most likely
it
does. This was the method in the 'classic' Traveller universe: a network
of
fast X-boats that travelled regular routes that had at least one stop in
any Imperial-controlled sector, and more stops in sectors of higher
importance. According to my copy of the Traveller Book, a message sent
by
this 'pony express' method took 44 weeks to go from core to periphery of
the Empire.

Something else the book pointed out: the Imperium took pains to
cultivate a
proper culture of feudalistic honor in its governors and fleet officers.
This loyalty is ultimately what made the Empire a cohesive one, even
when
communication lines were so long.

This could be the basis of interesting law (and scenarios) as well.
Would
at least one child of every planetary governor have to be educated on
the
home world to make him or her eligible to take their parent's place? Or
would governorship automatically be someone from the core worlds if no
heriditary system existed?

------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
Jim 'Jiji' Foster / jfoster@kansas.net / Jiji @ AnimeMUCK / TIP #28 /
PPIG #42

"The wisest and best of men, nay, the wisest and best of their actions,
may
be rendered ridiculous by a person whose first object in life is a joke.
"
    - Jane Austen, _Pride & Predjudice_