How often does inter system war actually happen?

Megacorportions are the power behind the throne of the Imperium. They exploit the resources, operate the refineries and factories, transport the goods to market. They conduct exploration - to find new markets and resources - they conduct research and development - to stay ahead of the competition, they found colonies, buy and sell whole worlds, and pay their taxes...

Bit of a tangent;

One of the JTAS articles I wanted to write but didn't have the time to before submissions closed was one about the 14th Imperial Megacorporation:
... The Imperium itself.

When Cleon did his thing, Zhunastu Industries started to become inseparable from the bureaucracy and politics of the Imperium, and there's a real argument to be made that Zhunastu Industries BECAME the Third Imperium. A weird, bizarre chimera made out of the corpse of the Sylean Federation and ZhuInd.

But I digress.

[Edit: I'm obviously not saying the Imperium is literally a Megacorporation, but looking at it through that lens is actually a very helpful exercise, and can shine new light on certain aspects of it. It's an interesting thought exercise, and I'd have framed the article as an university lecture, like Don McKinney did at the chapter heads in his Traveller Integrated Timeline]
 
It gets a bit tricker when looking at all-out warfare. Multi-system entities are verbotten in the Imperium, so even if you smashed your neighbor you are very limited in what you can do with them once you have conquered them. I'm sure the Imperium would take a very dim view of a group of planets that are all "very friendly" with a single entity that managed to overwhelm each of them and install pupped governments. That's a back-door empire, and the Imperium could not allow such a thing to exist if it hoped to keep its' confederation of planets working smoothly.
My solution to this is, any mil-spec ships above the "cruiser-class", are required to be crewed by the Imperial Navy, regardless of who actually owns them. This keeps the "Fleet Assets" under the control of the Emperor, even if the ships are "owned" by someone else.
 
New question spawned. For our historians of the 3I and other polities.

Are there any systems claimed by two different Governments?

I did a quick scan of balkanized worlds but did not spot any that have two different System governments claiming sovereignty over the physical assets of the system. Brought to mind by @Sigtrygg 's comment about raiding the other portion of a system.
None that I can think of. There are some mentions of worlds being colonized by other worlds, and I think a colonial government would be allowable to be controlled from the mother world. But at some point there would have to be a severance of that.

I'm sure there are a few daughter planets that have very cozy relationships with other worlds, but none apparently are stupid enough to formalize that relationship to the level that would get Imperial attention.
 
My solution to this is, any mil-spec ships above the "cruiser-class", are required to be crewed by the Imperial Navy, regardless of who actually owns them. This keeps the "Fleet Assets" under the control of the Emperor, even if the ships are "owned" by someone else.
We know from existing literature that the Imperium encourages worlds to build up navies that it can tap in times of war. And that some older model ships are seconded/thirded to worlds to act as reserves. A single world has no real need for a capital ship above a cruiser unless they are just looking to show off their wealth. So it makes sense you'd see nearly all capital-class ships being Imperial Navy rather than planetary navy.
 
ehh, a pop B world has enough economic importance, it should be making capital ships to defend itself. if the imperium goes to war, or someone gets a little headstrong, pop 9+ planets are the only ones that matter to the war effort. they would know this. it would be kind of like telling a member of the UN not to have its own military because the UN has other members like the US that should protect it - they won't care, they'll do it themselves.
 
Not really. If you're one of those worlds, you are focused on you, not on the 3I. Sure, you supply trade, manpower, and industry to the 3I, but.. its yours. You know full well that YOU are the lifeblood of the 3I. You don't want some uppity subsector duke trying to make a play on your resources via some other local world. You don't want some two bit sector duke trying to scare you into doing their bidding. If 3I is going to go to war with someone, well, good for them. That doesn't mean you're going to sacrifice your young men and women to a draft if you don't agree with the war. You'll absolutely continue trade, but war? Not JUST because the 3I said so. They need to show it wasn't them being idiots, that they have your world's best interest at heart - not just them showing up with a big stick and saying 'yup, you're part of the war now'.
 
ehh, a pop B world has enough economic importance, it should be making capital ships to defend itself. if the imperium goes to war, or someone gets a little headstrong, pop 9+ planets are the only ones that matter to the war effort. they would know this. it would be kind of like telling a member of the UN not to have its own military because the UN has other members like the US that should protect it - they won't care, they'll do it themselves.
These would be Capital Ship class Monitors. The Imperium wouldn't care, since they cannot be jumped to other systems, but the Imperium would be pleased, since in a war, it would need to deploy less forces to that system. Retired Battle Riders are often given to Planetary Navies.
 
Not really. If you're one of those worlds, you are focused on you, not on the 3I. Sure, you supply trade, manpower, and industry to the 3I, but.. its yours. You know full well that YOU are the lifeblood of the 3I. You don't want some uppity subsector duke trying to make a play on your resources via some other local world. You don't want some two bit sector duke trying to scare you into doing their bidding. If 3I is going to go to war with someone, well, good for them. That doesn't mean you're going to sacrifice your young men and women to a draft if you don't agree with the war. You'll absolutely continue trade, but war? Not JUST because the 3I said so. They need to show it wasn't them being idiots, that they have your world's best interest at heart - not just them showing up with a big stick and saying 'yup, you're part of the war now'.
Technically this would be a Violation of Imperial Law.

Fifth Frontier War pg. 34

"Recruitment to what is formally known as the Unified
Armies of the Imperium is undertaken by individual
member worlds, other than for certain specialist
and elite formations. Member worlds with sufficient
populations are required to provide a regiment of three
to five battalions for Imperial service, which includes
providing Imperial-standard equipment if this is different
from what the world uses for its own forces. Regiments
may be raised specially or seconded from the world’s
own armed forces. The latter approach, with units
rotated through Imperial service, allows an army to
retain current operational experience even in peacetime."
 
Technically this would be a Violation of Imperial Law.

Fifth Frontier War pg. 34

"Recruitment to what is formally known as the Unified
Armies of the Imperium is undertaken by individual
member worlds, other than for certain specialist
and elite formations. Member worlds with sufficient
populations are required to provide a regiment of three
to five battalions for Imperial service, which includes
providing Imperial-standard equipment if this is different
from what the world uses for its own forces. Regiments
may be raised specially or seconded from the world’s
own armed forces. The latter approach, with units
rotated through Imperial service, allows an army to
retain current operational experience even in peacetime."

I meant beyond that through a draft. They'll meet their minimum requirements - they won't want to be strong armed into doing more.
 
I meant beyond that through a draft. They'll meet their minimum requirements - they won't want to be strong armed into doing more.
Does the Third Imperium have a draft?

I know that it is in the Character Creation rules, but I have never seen it in the Third Imperium materials.
 
I would find it hilarious if they're ripping off the Imperial Guard.

It's obviously a levy, though even in Forty Kay it tends to be tuned to population size and gross domestic product.

Each planet tending to flavour their military with a specialization.
 
LBB:4 was written before they thought about tiers of service and TL.

By LBB:5 there were planetary, subsector, and Imperial.

This should have been back ported to Mercenary.
 
FFW doesn't have rules for scrubbing the planet then moving on. It's not something the Imperium or the Zhodani do. The Aslan are unlikely to do so since they want the real estate.
Would the Vargr?
Would the K'kree?
Would the Hivers?
K'kree might, if it was an actual OG G'naak world. Otherwise none of the above, nor any other major power would IMTU. At least not if it was a medium or high population world. Destroying an outpost of thousands or tens of thousands of people for alleged reasons of military necessity, possibly, although that would still be considered an atrocity.
But destroying an an entire world's population is a.) so callous that most societies would not want it on their conscience; and b.) I don't see how it could be deemed militarily necessary. If you have a planet at your mercy to the degree that you could do that, you can either force them to surrender, or even if they don't, you can destroy relevant military/industrial and command targets with relative precision.

I don't see it happening except for ideological reasons, and with the possible exception of the K'kree, none of the major powers IMTU are so xenophobic that they would consider whole populations of sophonts to be threats to be destroyed.
 
Ever read the Dave Nilsen interview opus?

In it he mentions the three part campaign he had in mind concerning the Hivers - it had the title The Belly of the Beast.

many moons ago Hiver explorers discovered humanity, in order to study them they kidnapped/manipulated humans into setting up colony worlds with the Federation. This would allow the Hivers to study humans. When Solomani and Imperial explorers eventually contacted the Hivers in 2716AD the Hivers were nervous that the experimental human colonies would be seen in a negative light. At some point between the fall of the Rule of Man and the expansion of the Third Imperium the Hivers decided to remove the human experiment - they scrubbed their worlds.
Apparently during the Belly of the beast the uncivilised Ithklur would reveal this...
 
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