The Imperium that could have been.

I think that the 3rd Imperium's success lies in the Imperial Navy "It is the glue that holds the Imperium together, responsible for the defence of its borders and the enforcement of Imperial law." (pg 12 of the Third Imperium) and the Noblesse Oblige (pg 50 of the Third Imperium). Since there are lots of useless and useful nobles in Traveller I use the historical example of the Nobles of the Sword to explain it. It makes for a great setting that players and Referees can find lots of different worlds with danger and opportunity, yet have an overarching structure that allows for the travel between them.
 
Excellent reference.
Thanks. I came across the term in Dan Duncan's "Hero of Two Worlds-The Marquis de Lafayette in the Age of Revolution". Lafayette's father was a "noble of the sword" who died in battle when Lafayette was a child, not unusual in his family. This battlefield death was, "such a large proportion, of father to son, that it had become a kind of proverb in our province". His family had fought beside Joan of Arc, been in the crusades and even had a novelist in it, "the Madame de Lafayette". It is this kind of tradition I think that would make the 3rd Imperium work.
 
Thanks. I came across the term in Dan Duncan's "Hero of Two Worlds-The Marquis de Lafayette in the Age of Revolution". Lafayette's father was a "noble of the sword" who died in battle when Lafayette was a child, not unusual in his family. This battlefield death was, "such a large proportion, of father to son, that it had become a kind of proverb in our province". His family had fought beside Joan of Arc, been in the crusades and even had a novelist in it, "the Madame de Lafayette". It is this kind of tradition I think that would make the 3rd Imperium work.

That's an amazing example. Details like would add so much richness and depth to a society as old as the Imperium.
 
One reason for primogeniture is the realization that if everyone is special, then no one is special.

You can only have so many one percenters.

And the nobility's reliance on any number of underclass tiers, means the ratio has to be more like one in a million.
 
No, the main reason for the switch to primogeniture is because it maintains concentration of military power. If you split your realm into 4 smaller realms, each one is weaker than before until someone else comes along and conquers them and your family isn't in charge any more.

That's why primogeniture largely fades away once you aren't inheriting soldiers, but instead wealth.
 
No, the main reason for the switch to primogeniture is because it maintains concentration of military power. If you split your realm into 4 smaller realms, each one is weaker than before until someone else comes along and conquers them and your family isn't in charge any more.

That's why primogeniture largely fades away once you aren't inheriting soldiers, but instead wealth.

Exactly. Primogeniture kept the land concentrated under one person, and the land was the wealth, the military potential, and the power. In England the nobility preferred primogeniture. In France, they preferred dividing up the land between heirs. Over time, lands in France got divided into smaller and smaller pieces, while in England land, wealth, and power became more concentrated. Then there were powerful English landholders who could muster great wealth and military strength at the command of one man, while in France there were many small landholders who didn't have the wealth or power to do anything, and who had a hard time cooperating.

In Traveller terms,

The Imperium concentrates wealth and power under the Emperor, and maintains order and stability by (one can argue) delegating feudal administration and some wealth to selected nobles while reserving the lion's share of military power to the Iridium Throne.

The Aslan, being organized into prides and clans, may be facing issues inherent to having many smaller landholding clan leaders who may or may not cooperate well.

And of course, Vargr are going to Vargr.
 
Another point that has been mentioned before (I know by SigTrygg and some others) is that the original conceptual model of the "Imperium" at GDW was apparently more akin to the Late Roman Empire (ca late 4th Century onward):

(For example:
* - A "Senate" - note the missing Senator in A1-Kinunir;
* - Imperial government beginning at the Subsector (=Province) level overseen by a Duke (= Dux) who was the civilian leadership of the Provincial Imperial Forces;
* - A double-structured Navy (military) composed of:
1) Static home defenses (-Provincial/Subsector Navy-) under a "Dux"/Duke;
2) A mobile combat reaction/response force (-the Imperial Navy-) under a "Comes" / Titled Admiral;
* - A formerly strong empire now not as strong as before, with "barbarians" nipping at its borders (Zhodani, Aslan, Vargr - and a breakaway Solomani Confederation like the Gallo-British Roman Empire under Magnus Maximus (ca 383);
* - The granting of "extensive home rule" provisions to its Frontiers which must largely "look to their own defense"; etc.)


That being the case, consider:

One thing that is overlooked (or not known) by many is that in the very first edition of the Classic Traveller rules (Book 1 v.1977, but NOT later editions of CT - Book 1, v.1981; The Traveller Book/1982; Starter Traveller/1983, etc.) -

Character Social Standing 11-15 was originally Local Planetary Nobility explicitly. They were still called in general (as examples): "Knight", "Baron", "Marquis", "Count", and "Duke", respectively, but were not interstellar in scope. Soc=16 was noted as the rank of a King or Emperor that might encompass several worlds or a small interstellar pocket empire.​

That makes the idea of the star-spanning "Imperium" and its "Nobility" led by a distant "Emperor" and Subsector (Provincial) and Sector level Bureaucracies, Imperial Ministries, and a Subsector Governor of the level of "Duke" (= "Dux") chosen by higher levels of the government to oversee a Subsector somewhat more intriguing.

So what really are the "titles", "appointments", and "government positions" granted by the "Imperium"? Were they originally conceived as styled on NW European based titles of aristocracy, or were those "Nobles" merely local bigwigs (≈ Provincial/Local Chieftain / Regulus / Tywysog / Righ / Thane / Gravio, etc.) scraping for the real power in the Imperial system, which were ministerial appointments and positions within the bureaucracy?
 
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