Re: Communication and Travel

Chris Klug wrote:
> Could you illustrate some of those problems?

Quotes from SPACE SKIMMER by David Gerrolds:

No matter how great the speed of the starcruisers were,
the distances of the galaxy were greater.
...
 For every ship travelling towards the galactic west,
there was another headed for the galactic east; and the
rate of man's outward growth was twice as fast as
anyone could travel.  Thus the Empire grew.
 Even so, there were places where the Empire was only
a dim legend.  The further it reached, the more tenuous
was its control.  There were vast undeveloped areas
within its sphere, areas that had simply been overlooked
in man's headlong rush outward.  Communications
followed trade routes, and there were backwaters in that
flow of information.
  News travelled by the Empire Mercantile Fleets, synthesized
as Oracle Tabs (note: Oracle Tabs are sort of a high tech
floppy disk).  Or by independant traders, synthesized as rumor.
It leapfrogged from planet to planet, not according to any
kind of system, but by the degree of mercantile importance
in which any planet was held by its immediate neighbors.
...
  by the time any part of the human race received news
from the opposite side of the Empire, it was no longer
news, but history.
  The Empire's communications were the best possible, but
they weren't good enough.
  CONTROL DEPENDS UPON COMMUNICATION.
  Weak communication means weak control, eventually no control
at all.
...
 The Empire had always been unwieldy and unmanageable.	By the
year 970 H.C. it was not so much an empire as a loosely organized
confederation.	Lip service was paid to the idea of a unified
central government for all the races of man, but the Empire was
only as strong as its local representative.
  Where that represenative was only one agent with an Oracle
machine and a twice-yearly visit from a trading ship, the Empire
was a distant myth.  Where that representative was an Imperial
Fleet, the Empire was law.  And there were all the possible
variations in between.	Some were just, some weren't.
...
 The Empire maintained few fleets of its own - and these stayed
close to home.	Instead, "letters of marque" were issued.
 Member planets and systems often had their own armadas to police
their own territories.	Often those territories consisted of as
much volume as those armadas could effectively patrol.	Armed
with letters of marque, these fleets were automatically acting
in the name of the Empire.  As agents of such, their duties were
whatever their admirals wanted them to be.  In return, the badge
of the Empire made them - and their control - legal.
 The local governments controlled the fleets, and in so doing, they
wielded the real power.  Some were just, some weren't.	The Empire
didn't care - as long as they paid their taxes.
 In return they received the benefits of Empire.
 In addition to the implied legality of their regimes, they were
automatically privy to the vast scientific and cultural library
represented
by the sum total of humanity.
...
 One way to control an empire is to control the pulsing of its
lifeblood - its interstellar commerce.
 Indeed, it was the *only* way to control the recalcitrant
government of a far distant planet - threaten to cut it off from
its interstellar brothers, especially those beyond its immediate
reach.	Expel it from the Empire altogether -
 - at which point it becomes fair prey to any armada bearing the
Empire insignia.  After all, wasn't it a matter of restoring order?
And weren't the armadas legal representives of the Empire itself?