'Imperial Culture' (non-canonista)

[doulos05]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

"You never noticed the game rule that is the draft?"

No. That sounds like a meta-issue from description though.

No, it's pretty clear that your choices, should you fail to get into your chosen profession, are "get drafted" or "become a drifter". The rule's name is "The Draft", the result is being forced to join a branch of the military (or possibly civil service, but generally you end up in the military), and the only way to avoid it is to become a vagabond. It behaves like a draft (assignment in a draft is "random", though it's weighted towards the neediest services) and the consequences of avoiding it are that you have to become the equivalent of a hobo. The only thing missing is the legal fallout of "dodging" the draft later on in life (i.e. when you're a PC). It's present in every life-paths style variant of Traveller under the same name.

[Hans Rancke-Madsen]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

Tradition, maybe? ...

In which case it would be one world out of the Imperium's 11,000. An atypical world. Scarcely enough to make the Imperial marine the Imperium-wide poster boy for Imperial service.


Hans

[Hans Rancke-Madsen]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

"You never noticed the game rule that is the draft?"

No. That sounds like a meta-issue from description though.

Exactly my point. The draft in character generation makes very little sense as an accurate reflection of the setting (and I refrained from saying 'no sense' and 'any setting' only to avoid digression), so I've come up with a tentative meta-game explanation (Which has some iffy points itself, but it's the best I've been able to come up with, and a lot better than nothing).


Hans

[Hans Rancke-Madsen]

Originally Posted by doulos05

The only thing missing is the legal fallout of "dodging" the draft later on in life (i.e. when you're a PC). It's present in every life-paths style variant of Traveller under the same name.

Another thing missing is the huge number of careers (i.e. all of them) where an actual Imperial draft makes little or no sense.


Hans

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by Voltron64

To the people of the Third Imperium, an Imperial Marine clad in Battledress with cutlass in one hand and plasma gun or a gauss rifle in the other is as quintessential and iconic an image to them as a Knight in Shining Armor.

Originally Posted by Hans Rancke-Madsen

In which case it would be one world out of the Imperium's 11,000. An atypical world. Scarcely enough to make the Imperial marine the Imperium-wide poster boy for Imperial service.

There are other quintessential and iconic images than poster boys for the Imperial Service. For a start, poster boys for the Imperial Marines Corps. US marines do a pretty strong line in iconic images despites being drastically outnumbered by federal civil servants.

[Hans Rancke-Madsen]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

There are other quintessential and iconic images than poster boys for the Imperial Service. For a start, poster boys for the Imperial Marines Corps. US marines do a pretty strong line in iconic images despites being drastically outnumbered by federal civil servants.

But what I was questioning was whether an Imperial marine in full battle armor carrying a lethal weapon would be as quintessential and iconic an image to all the people of the Third Imperium as a Knight in Shining Armor.

To some? Possibly. To most? That I doubt.


Hans

[Voltron64]

Originally Posted by Hans Rancke-Madsen

But what I was questioning was whether an Imperial marine in full battle armor carrying a lethal weapon would be as quintessential and iconic an image to all the people of the Third Imperium as a Knight in Shining Armor.

To some? Possibly. To most? That I doubt.


Hans

Probably to a significant amount at least.

I also think it should be stated that In-Universe, the concept of a Battledress Marine goes back to the dawn of the Imperium and probably as far back to the 2nd Imperium or even the Interstellar Wars.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Hans Rancke-Madsen

But what I was questioning was whether an Imperial marine in full battle armor carrying a lethal weapon would be as quintessential and iconic an image to all the people of the Third Imperium as a Knight in Shining Armor.

To some? Possibly. To most? That I doubt.


Hans

The main picture I had of knights when I was young was Ivanhoe, and Otto of the Silver Hand. Most of the knights in those were thugs. And that was Romantic literature.

[jason taylor]

Gungnir Highport:

Jointly built and maintained by a number of powers in the area as well as the SWC. It is a free harbor designed to ensure that import/export not interfered with to much by the turbulent planetary politics of Gungnir. With this in mind, policing is provided by off-world mercenaries as well as the Confederation Police and the constabularies of the different powers with extra-territorial rights over sections of the Highport. It is fabled, like similar starports on several Balkanized worlds as a center of diplomacy and espionage though that function has the competition of Greve Henrik II university which in any case owns considerable interests on the station. The Imperium maintains a full embassy on Gungnir Highport, both to protect it's citizens and keep an eye on local politics and trade. A few corporations also maintain extraterritorial privileges over sections including both Gremstaatbetrif and Fortarn. The central government is the Ferbundberg which handles such things as extradition negotiations and municipal infrastructure and other common interests.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by Hans Rancke-Madsen

But what I was questioning was whether an Imperial marine in full battle armor carrying a lethal weapon would be as quintessential and iconic an image to all the people of the Third Imperium as a Knight in Shining Armor.

To some? Possibly. To most? That I doubt.

But the knight in shining armour is itself not a global image. It's unfamiliar in the far East and most of Africa, alien in India and Pakistan, hostile in the Near East…. An image doesn't have to be as iconic and quintessential as that. Besides, the worlds of the Imperium share a thousand years of Imperial history with Imperial marines in it, mostly on their side.