There is one minor nibbling issue with Marc's assignment of nobility based upon certain "set in amber" aspects of any given world...
Worlds that have actual nobility on them, qualify as "Imperial" worlds - worlds without noble representation qualify as what precisely? If you take a hard look at what worlds have what Nobility, the cutoff seems to be worlds with a pop 5 or Pop 6 rating. This in turn implies to me - based on T5 rules, that worlds without a Baron or higher representative, are in fact, either "resource harvesting worlds" or they are "colonies" striving to reach a status where they meet the requirements of being represented in a Moot.
This coupled with the Ministries listed in GURPS TRAVELLER: NOBLES - gives me a working framework that makes sense for me. If a Megacorporation or a series of corporations want to set up a resource gathering business model - that's fine. If they want to be high control rating worlds - that's fine. But technically, they're not sovereign worlds with sovereign governments. They're outposts, they're' colonies hopefully maturing, they're way-stop locations much as towns may have sprung up on the Silk Trade route. Once I took that view, things started to fall into place for me.
And in a way, I think this is exactly the point. There is the "theory" of the way things are supposed to work (or at least how they are advertised as working, and in fact may at one time actually have worked long ago, but times have changed), and then there is reality. Or put another way, the reality shows us how the theory can be abused.
This in turn implies to me - based on T5 rules, that worlds without a Baron or higher representative, are in fact, either "resource harvesting worlds" or they are "colonies" striving to reach a status where they meet the requirements of being represented in a Moot.
Both, I believe, are precisely true.
This coupled with the Ministries listed in GURPS TRAVELLER: NOBLES - gives me a working framework that makes sense for me. If a Megacorporation or a series of corporations want to set up a resource gathering business model - that's fine. If they want to be high control rating worlds - that's fine. But technically, they're not sovereign worlds with sovereign governments.
Or, to put a finer lens on the situation: In many cases (especially in the older Imperial Core Worlds), Imperial Nobles
ALSO ARE the
"local" Sovereign Leaders. When a local world's "sovereign" government is any of the following types:
1 - Company/Corporate
3 - Self-Perpetuating Oligarchy
5 - Feudal Technocracy
6 - Captive/Colony
8 - Civil Service Bureaucracy
9 - Impersonal Bureaucracy
A - Charismatic Dictator
B - Non-Charismatic Leader
C - Charismatic Oligarchy
there is always the possibility that the "local leaders" have either currently (or in past generations for heritable government positions) been granted Imperial Noble Patents by the Emperor (or entered into such positions through marriages), and therefore the local leaders occupy BOTH positions -
Imperial Noble for the World AND local governor/administrator/prime-bureaucrat/king, etc., as separate jobs that just "happen" to inhere in the same person. (In fact, this is likely a way that local leaders were initially co-opted to join the Imperium in the first place).
(And most Megacorporate leaders/directors at the Domain/Imperium-level are also Imperial Nobles as well).
