[TML] A Plague of Spacemen

[Leon Wu]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: tml-bounces at travellercentral.com [mailto:tml-
> bounces at travellercentral.com] On Behalf Of royce at efn.org
> Sent: Friday, October 05, 2007 6:24 PM
> To: tml at travellercentral.com
> Subject: [TML] A Plague of Spacemen
> 
> Hi, All,
>    Spacemen visiting a remote & isolated TL5-6 world is pretty cool.
But
> what about cases like Ruie, where the world in question is right along
> a trade route?  A more frequently visited balkanized world might enjoy
> a coterie of spaceman advisors in each major nation.  Further, in
> addition to their Spitfires & Stukas, which they can produce
> themselves, perhaps the major powers would keep small fleets of ship's
> boats.  "Borduria has bought two more ship's boats?!  We must do the
> same to maintain our lead!  Send for the economics minister and for my
> favorite offworlder," declares the prime minister of Syldavia.
>    A middle-aged, divorced former merchant, scout or naval character,
> might find a comfortable job on such a world -- not unlike many expats
> in real life.  Just a thought.
>    Also, how does the Imperium view meddling spacemen?  If a
patrolling
> naval vessel jumped in & observed the meddling, would the captain
> arrest the spacemen in question?  Or would the captain merely be
mildly
> curious as to why said spacemen are wasting their time & risking their
> valuable freighter?  "Whatever are they doing that for?  Well, no
> matter.  Let's complete our sweep and plot course for the next world."
>    Just curious.
> Asher

Interesting question, I guess it would depend on a myriad of factors. If
the merchant was violating the imperial rules of war then he'd have some
highly imperial marines knocking on his door (with an FGMP) pretty damn
fast. Otherwise I guess it'd depend on whether the planet's on a border
and could cause diplomatic problems, or if the captain of the ship
didn't like the merchant in question, or if the local noble had given
standing orders, or the merchants aiding a country in genocidal acts, or
if it was a Sunday and a full moon, or... 

I think the one thing we've established is that there's no universal
rules in the Imperium...

Leon