Re: Terraforming the Solar System
 

What jobs are democratic? Most people have bosses, and many jobs in the U.S. are at will employment.

Re: Terraforming the Solar System
 

Traveller adventures tend to reflect the attitudes of 20th/21st century Westerners. There's a perfectly simple metagame reason for that, of course; they're written by 20th/21st Century Westerners. When such adventures call for breaking rules, the rules tend to either reflect Western rules or be explained in terms of differences from Western rules.

However, I was trying to come up with an in-game explanation.
Certainly not. But the attitudes they are not paragons of tend to be 20th Century democratic ideals.

The militaries of present-day Western democracies are definitely not democracies, but it's my impression that they promote democratic ideals.

That's just the point I was making. The Imperium is autocratic (or hierarchical, if you prefer), but that's because "everybody knows" that democracy can't work at interstellar distances. So the Imperium can afford to support democratic ideals, because no one is going to expect them to follow through as regards its own institutions.


Hans

Re: Terraforming the Solar System
 

It wasn't GURPS Traveller so no. And I'm not sure "Don't double cross people I people I like" really counts as a moral code.

Re: Terraforming the Solar System
 

Very few, but most jobs are pretty limited hours and you're basically free to do whatever while not on the job.

Then again, Traveller is a setting where you can get drafted by pirates (fail to enlist in anything, roll for the draft, wind up in 'other').

Re: Terraforming the Solar System
 

I agree with you about most people having a boss, but that doesn't address the point I was trying to make.
The military is NOT at will employment. Flyn can quit his job any time he likes. An enlisted man can't do that. If Flyn breaks a formal contract with an employer, there's a small chance of a lawsuit. If an enlisted man breaks his contract, he may be tried by a military court and sentenced to time in a military prison and given a dishonorable discharge.

The legal rules are different for the military. Check out the UCMJ. The military can actually imprison you for not doing your duty. Under some circumstances, you might actually be killed. It's not ILLEGAL for Flyn to ignore his boss's directives. It is illegal for a soldier to disobey a lawful order.

Hierarchy is expressed differently, and is supported by both custom and law. The hierachy is more rigidly defined than in most jobs. People are required to wear uniforms that signal their place in the hierarchy.

The military claims much more say over your personal life than most employers. Inspections of you home and vehicle, rules about marriage and family arrangements, the way your wear your hair, tattoos,etc are all covered in the UCMJ. Until recently, even your sexual orientation was a legal matter. Expressions of individuality are limited not just by workplace rules or customs, but by actual laws.

Have you ever been confined to quarters by your boss, Flyn? Denied a weekend pass? Subjected to group punishment? Smoked because somebody stole Top's favorite coffee mug and hid it in the bottom of a porta-john?






If you don't know anyone who was in the military,and this all seems alien to you, I can suggest some reading.

Re: Terraforming the Solar System
 

I was drafted for Other. Then I enlisted for a term in Army, and was held over for another year on top of that. Now I am finishing another term in Other. I keep trying for psionics, but the dice haven't yet blessed me with powers.

Re: Terraforming the Solar System
 

If your Imperium looks like, that, that's cool. I don't see much evidence of 'democratic' ideals being especially important in the 31, at least not in canon materials. Sure, some worlds have democratic governments, but that's really not very common. I'm pretty sure feudal technocracy is more common than democracy.

Re: Terraforming the Solar System
 

I can't speak for the 'West' (I don't think it exists as a valid category, BTW).

I can tell you that very little in my US Army experience leads me to believe that the Army promotes democratic ideals. It promotes hierarchy, tradition, group identity, obedience, and honor.

American soldiers do not use battlecries like ''For Human Rights and Representative Democracy!' I've heard people scream stuff, but it was generally unprintable or else some variation on 'kill those guys!" Sometimes people call on God for help. Nobody ever called on Congress, at least not to my knowledge.

Cadences were an important tool of indoctrination. We sang a truckload of cadences about burning, stabbing, shooting, and maiming other human beings. One is about children covered in burning napalm. About the only cadence that had anything to do with 'democracy' says that 'freedom isn't free.' There were no cadences about majoritarian rule, due process, parliamentary procedures, etc.

Re: Terraforming the Solar System
 

We want want to start a new thread for this tangent, and the let this thread die.

Something like 'political/social ideals and reality in the Third Imperium'?

Re: Terraforming the Solar System
 

In any case I'm not talking about planetary cultures. I'm talking about Imperial culture.


Hans