Watching Downton Abbey has me thinking...
How much of this can I apply to Traveller?
The GURPS status nut is a rough one to crack.
The servants have a clear pecking order, and it's enforced outside the service quarters.
But it's entire encapsulated in status 0-2.
Nobility is simpler, but it starts at 2... But a knight will still outrank the head butler. Both are status 2.
The head butler of a Status 5 count will be of higher status than one of a Status 3 baron, both will still be status 2.
Then there's the matter of other things.
This has come up before in speculating about social status.
What comes with the higher status?
Because a Baron can dispense justice. A noble is tried under different rules and uses different courts than commoners.
Different laws apply as well!
Does a baron have to buy legal enforcement powers and legal immunity as well?
While a landed noble will have an estate that belongs to the title and can't be sold for personal needs, such estates generate wealth that can. Does that wealth come with the social status or does our noble have to purchase the correct level of wealth?
There's much to consider.
Social status is an often powerful but ill-defined thing. That "Status" is often who can get things DONE. A "Fixer" was well regarded by most smart folks. The Spec4 Mafia when I was in the Army was "low on the totem pole" but any 1SGT that wanted something done fast and under the table knew who to speak to. The "Mafia" carefully never was disrespectful of the leadership but could "Obey" but be totally unproductive, even counter productive while "Following Orders".
ReplyDeleteThe Knight that dissed the Butler could find themselves in that same situation. Mutual respect and appreciation even in "Royal Situations" got far better responses.
For a extreme version of disrespect from "Our betters" look to the French Revolution where decades of wastrel spending of the Royality and open disrespect to the pheasants resulted in chaos and Madam Guillotine.
Historically, for legal matters, a landed noble with low justice (the ability to fine and imprison) probably doesn't need to select any legal skills for cases on his/her own land. Questionable in issues of high justice (capital crimes and the execution thereof) on cases on his/her own land, questionability goes down as noble's rank and power climbs. Baron, not so much. Duke? Probably.
ReplyDeleteNow factor in law level and the higher more strict law levels probably increase the amount of basic legal education said noble in question gets.
Though I can easily see assigning anyone above Captain in any armed forces an auto law enforcement and legal understanding due to it all being involved in Imperial powers, though local laws maybe not so much.
This is, of course, from my understanding of the old-school Third Imperium, where officers of ships and local and interstellar nobles had to maintain the powers of the Imperium on far away places like the Spinward Marches. My understanding of how the 'background' of said Imperium was that it was much like the British Empire before the age of the telegraph or radio, so about 1840's BE or so. Some steam engines, fast packets, but sail still predominated and someone in command out on the edge of the Empire, either a landed noble or a military officer or both, was basically THE representative of the Crown.
I don't know what other editions besides LBB and The Traveller Book set up as the framework, but I assume that the Rebellion also set up local warlords and nobles and officers-in-charge as the local 'King.'
The stated model for the 3rd Imperium was Rome, but it ended up being very British in flavour.
DeleteNobles have a lot of autonomy because you can't wait a year for an X-Boat to go to Core and back for every little matter.
Traveller is very odd in its legality. The individual worlds are entirely self governed. The space between them is The Empire's. From looking at world stats, the Imperium allows some really horrid conditions.