Best Books on the Third Imperium

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

But those would be planetary nobles (or elites in a non-aristocratic governmental system).

Imperial Nobles would be less than 1% of the 1% nobles.

So taking your planet of 1 billion, there would be 10 million planetary nobles/elites (Bill Gates, the Pope, Queen Elizabeth etc.); so there is likely about 100,000 Imperial Nobles. Still a very high number, but less than 1% of those willb e more than Knights, so you might have a couple hundred Barons and above. Still a huge number, but there are not a lot of Pop 9 worlds in most subsectors.

Guess where the Baron of Outer Nowhere comes from?

 

[GypsyComet]

The system described in Nobles produces far too few nobles to be believable anyway, so I was just glossing over that.

How thick on the ground do you want nobles to be? While the Landed are a relatively small group (only a few dozen per subsector, tops, aside from Knights), the other types, and specifically the Honor nobles, can occur in much higher numbers.

Just as an example, nobles in France were 1% of the population around the time of the Revolution. That means a planet with 1 billion people could be expected to have about 10,000,000 nobles. That's way more than described in Nobles. In Hungary, aristocrats made up 5 percent of the population (in Castile, it might have been as high as 10 percent). Wiki says that nobles in Europe were probably about 2 percent of the 18th century European population. That's a lot more than 1 baron per world.

It's unrealistic to think that nobles would have any effect on a system as large and complicated as the Third Imperium if they number only in the thousands (which is the implication of the numbers in Nobles, if you extrapolate for 11,000 planets). That doesn't even begin to consider the major legitimacy questions that would arise if imperial citizens rarely ever interacted with or even saw the aristocracy. No one wants to be ruled (or influenced or dominated by) by a class that is almost a myth. Plus, it undermines the symbolic effect of their so-called unifying influence on imperial culture.

The Landed (i.e. the Duke OF Regina) number only in the thousands, with the Landed Knights being an order of magnitude above that since every world has one. The Ceremonial/Bureaucratic/Working-but-not-Landed Nobles are probably similar in number and a completely (or almost completely) different group.

The wildcards are the Honor nobility. They are not tied to a world or a job, nor are they limited by available positions. Just because a world has one Knight Resident, another running the starport, and a third running the local MoJ office doesn't mean there isn't a meeting of the other forty that live locally at the TAS Bar ever other Wednesday. As RTT pointed out, there are also the nobles who spring from the planetary social system who have no Imperial standing but plenty of clout on their homeworld. Not all worlds will have local nobles by that name, but the Aristoi tend to pop up regardless of social model.

It is worth pointing out that even 1% would mean that a core sector like Ilelish is going to have billions of nobles for its three-quarters of a trillion residents. It is also worth pointing out that the French Revolution took place for some strong reasons. 1% of "that kind" of nobility may be too many.

 

[GypsyComet]

As far as I understand the system (partially from GT)

That is the structure that is being changed, as seen in the data on Traveller Map. There is a column in the new format UWP that shows which Landed titles are associated with each system, using the Soc digits. Only barren and interdicted worlds are lacking a Knight. A world has to have some potential to warrant a Baron or Baronet. Meeting some or all of that potential gets a world higher Titled nobles. Sometimes they replace the Barons, and sometimes they don't. Dukes are different, as you note.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

As far as I understand the system (partially from GT):

Each of the 11.000 systems has a noblething assigned. It may not live "on world" and may even be responsible for more than one world but it is there.

1)Typical worlds have a baron
2) Important worlds have a marquis
3) Clusters of unimportant worlds are ruled viscount
4) Clusters of important worlds are ruled count

5) In addition there is a duke per subsector with one of them being "primus inter pares" and also running the sector.

Wether a world has a baron AND a viscount/count is a matter to debate. IMTU I have that level as an "overwatch/tax collection" level but one could argue that the equivalent to Cuba, the Bahams and Haithi are rules by one noble (a viscount) with no baron etc.

The dukes IMTU are always "extras" so there is a Baron Regina and there is a Duke Regina. They may (and often will) be the same person or at least the same genetically instable breeding pond<<<extended family but that is not required

These nobles are fixed to a location and will have land. Their title is typically hereditary

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In addition you have the noble "functionary" that have a noble title due to the needs of their job. I.e the "Commander 1st Fleet" or "Head Tax Collector of Bla Sector" is a baron. Those often have a title "for life" and get a fixed sum "for representation" instead of land. IF they perform extremly valuable service the title may change to hereditary but even than they will likely remain landless.

Imperial Knights and Baronets are not landed as far as I know. The way the title is described and from the description in the "Grand Tour" adventure series at least knights do not get a regular payment either.

Do they have Squires?

 

[F33D]

The problem with a planet like Naboo is for one, if a planet was water all the way through, at some point when the pressure builds up enough, the water solidifies into an ice that you can't pilot a submarine through any more than you can go through solid rock.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_VII maybe? Don't know myself...

It is not that kind of ice which I am talking about. This kind of ice can exist at room temperature under high water pressure, basically the water molecules get so squeezed together they cannot move or flow like a liquid, they become solid,

As far as we've tested, H2O doesn't do that at room temp no matter what pressure (at least that would be encountered somewhere like Naboo). Read what DOES happen at those pressures by following the links.

 

[Condottiere]

The simplest method is that every system with one or more suns is entitled to a hereditary baron, each planet to a baronet.

 

[jscott991]

The simplest method is that every system with one or more suns is entitled to a hereditary baron, each planet to a baronet.

There wouldn't be nearly enough nobles in the Empire to make any kind of political system work if trillions of people are governed by tens of thousands of nobles.

 

[Condottiere]

Actual day to day governance would depend on local custom, and at least half the baronetcies would likely remain unfilled, but the lesser nobility represent the interests of their bailiwicks at subsector, sector, domain and imperial levels, as an interface between their constituents and the throne and it's direct representatives.

Despite the title, this makes them more like planetary and system viceroys, backed by the local aristocracy, in whatever form that aristocracy would take, whether tech priests worshipping the Machine God, representative democracy, or actual landed nobility.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Actual day to day governance would depend on local custom, and at least half the baronetcies would likely remain unfilled, but the lesser nobility represent the interests of their bailiwicks at subsector, sector, domain and imperial levels, as an interface between their constituents and the throne and it's direct representatives.

Despite the title, this makes them more like planetary and system viceroys, backed by the local aristocracy, in whatever form that aristocracy would take, whether tech priests worshipping the Machine God, representative democracy, or actual landed nobility.

Here is my idea:
A knight is assigned a light fighter and patrols the system looking for bad guys to fight.
A baron governs a star system and mainworld
A count governs a subsector
A duke governs a sector
An archduke governs a domain

 

[Condottiere]

Technically, it should be a marquise that governs a subsector, and a count a cluster of systems.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Technically, it should be a marquise that governs a subsector, and a count a cluster of systems.

Isn't that French "the marquise de Laffette"

 

[Condottiere]

Looks like I used the feminine form.

Margrave might be more suitable.