[TML] Mongoose Traveller Version 3 is up

[Richard Aiken]

On Dec 21, 2007 10:54 PM, Douglas Berry <penguin_boy at mindspring.com> wrote:
> I can see one problem with that.  The rules for building subsector
> forces worked on the assumption that the Unified Armies are built
> from the bottom up: a world builds a planetary defence force and
> commits a certain levy of troops to regiments in the local UA.  This
> is why you get oddities like Lanth Subsector needing constant help
> from it's neighbors.

That's okay.  I'm not talking about basing units only in the subsector
which generates them, but rather how many units a given subsector
could generate from it's own internal Imperial taxes.   You see, given
the realities of jump, I'm assuming that Imperial taxes don't go any
further "upstream" than absolutely required.  Instead, they get spent
as close to the source of the need as possible.

IMNewTU, the Imperial Navy is divided into "taxation marches" for
fiscal purposes.  Each of these is normally equal to a sector.  (Thus
the "Spinward Marches" are the IN marches which lie to spinward of
Rift Sector.)  Every Imperial tax fief within a given march keeps one
third of it's tax revenue for internal expenses (primarily supporting
it's unit of the Imperial Army Reserve plus supporting specific bits
of Imperial infrastructure assigned to the High Noble holding that
fief), sends one third to the next-higher High Noble and gives the
final third directly to the IN march.

In the past, each march sent one-third of these taxes on up to the
Imperial Admiralty Fleet - the old "Grand Fleet" - on Sylea, and spent
the rest on itself.  Nowadays, with the re-instatement of the Domain
as a functional level in the IN heirarchy, that "mailed off" one-third
from each march goes there instead.  Each Domain then sends one-third
of this total up to the Admiralty.

This means, of course, that the Admiraly only gets only one-third as
much money as once got.  This makes it more-or-less non-functional as
a fighting command.  In practice, the Domain of Sylea administration
has taken over most of the units of the "Grand Fleet," with the
Admiralty retaining direct command of only a few (mostly ceremonial)
units, such as the INS Sovereign (the much-retrofitted Civil-War-era
battlecruiser which functions as the personal yatch of the Emperor).

> The view I had of the Imperial Navy is a top-down organization.  The
> Admiralty decides what fleets go where solely on the basis of the
> long term needs of the Imperium. While every subsector has a numbered
> fleet, the composition of the fleet is directed from the top. So
> Lanth may have a weak army, but it has more BatRons than Deneb and a
> full two regiments of Imperial Marines, because the strategic need demands it.

<nods> Quite so.  My Admiralty *does* retain - at least in theory -
command of all IN units and formations.  In practice - due both to the
distances involved and Strephon's new reforms - effective command is
now vested in the Domain Archdukes.  The Admiralty has been
essentially reduced to an advisory role.  Note that it isn't
particularly *happy* about this developments.  What admiral would ever
admit he's so out of touch that his experience doesn't count for all
that much anymore?  But without a firm grip on the purse strings any
longer, there isn't much the Admiralty can do about it.

> I've always been a Weak Empire guy. Which is why I gave control of
> the "Imperial" Army to the local dukes! Bwahahaha!! For me, Imperial
> history has been far too sedate. Where are the rebellions and
> treasons? The plotting and posionings?

Oh!  They're all there (at least IMNewTU).  They just get covered up
as much as possible.  The Imperium's spin doctors must be superbly
skilled, in order to preserve the polite fiction of "Imperial unity."
:-)

-- 
Richard Aiken

"Never insult anyone by accident."  Robert A. Heinlein