[TML] Speaking Of Pocket Empires, was Re: Imperial CR vs Local CRs

[Richard Aiken]

On Feb 8, 2008 2:53 AM, Jerry W Barrington <jursamaj at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I still don't like the hard sector/subsector boundaries.  I would replace
> them with the County/Duchy boundaries.

NOTE: I use Dukedom/Duke for the subsector level and Grand
Dukedom/Grand Duke for the sector level.

IMTU, the existence of these rectangular regions are unintended
artifacts of the IISS charting system.  Neither the First nor Second
Imperiums had them.  Even the Third Imperium never intended for them
to become official in any significant way.  But in Year 3 the Imperial
bureaucracy adopted the IISS subsector as the basis of their taxation
scheme.  With 2/3 of the Imperial taxes remaining within each
subsector and 2/3 of the amount that left still staying within the
sector, the growing Imperial infrastructure quickly came to reflect
these fiscal realities.  By the time the Empire expanded beyond Core
Sector, the terms had acquired a concrete reality that would not die.

Few of the PEs which became Counties were large enough to cross
subsector (let alone sector) boundaries, so they had little negative
impact on the scheme.  The dukedoms of Core Sector predated the
scheme, so they didn't originally match it very well.  But after a few
generations, most of the rough spots got ironed out by (mostly)
unconscious fiscal pressure.  And of course newly-annexed regions
could be very systematically "duked."

There remain oddities and exceptions, such as the various frontier
Districts (which are "administered" by the most influential
neighboring Duke).  After all, this IS an empire (and a young one at
that, being - IMTU - just two and a half centuries old).  But in the
main, the Dukedoms/Grand Dukedoms tend to follow the canon borders.

Of course, that doesn't mean that the Noble Houses whose members hold
these titles are restricted by the subsector/sector borders.  The
Major Houses hold thousands of different tax fiefs, ranging from
single-city Marquesates up to Archdukedoms, which are scattered far
and wide across the Empire.  Through marriage and adoption, the nobles
continually attempt to bring these closer together.  Meanwhile, the
Emperor grants new titles and re-grants lapsed/forfeited titles in as
scattered a fashion as possible, in order to limit the geographical
concentration of noble power.  It's an delicate dance, one performed
in slow motion, where each move takes a decade or two.  These
artificial borders are invoked by both dance partners; Major Houses
often say they are merely streamlining taxation by bringing "foreign"
fiefs under their sway, while the Emperor may give an escheated Major
House title to a locally-powerful Minor House for (ostensibly) the
same reason.

-- 
Richard Aiken

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