First, well thought out and well organized. It does raise, and attempt to
answer, several good points. If anybody else reading this hasn't read it,
skip to the bottom and grab the PDF.
Of course, these points only needed to be raised because the 3I was
expanded in a different direction than initially presented. The initial
presentation was similar to the Roman empire in its later decay - central
power played its lethal games of petty politics, frontier governors
routinely lied in reports, and every province was ripe for rebellion
(internal from regional disputes, and external from disputes with the
central government) - oh, and trade was fairly hard on the body. Building a
government that is benevolent, yet still in the background, from that basis
is an incredibly difficult task, and this context makes it very clear why
GDW whipped out the Rebellion. There were too many plot holes in regards to
the Imperium and something needed to get reset without contradicting
previously written material.

But that's what we have.

My argument is with your conclusion, specifically that the Imperium must,
as an autocratic state, be engaged in political warfare with democratic
worlds by censoring the idea of a self-policing democracy and by covertly
supporting the creation of autocratic governments on those worlds. It
logically extends from your argument that a benevolent Imperium is, by
modern standards, impossible. Perfectly fine for a Dark Imperium.

However, I believe that the Imperium can maintain roughly the canon level
of "benevolence", given your base arguments, by instead utilizing
propaganda and misdirection (a very compassionate form of cynical
manipulation). After all, Censorship is hard. It needs active
collaborators, a budget, and everybody knows it's there. Even one based on
a passive principle, such as "everyone knows X", requires the above if the
survival of a political system depends on everybody knowing X. In regards
to your Dark Imperium, making sure that everybody knows that a democracy
unregulated by an autocratic will fail also requires the suppression of
self-regulating democracies.

The Propaganda Imperium (I'll call it the PI) instead utilizes as its basis
a self-perpetuating "everybody knows X", namely that Real Power is Local
Power. People can point out the communication loops inherent in the jump
drive to prove this, and then point out the distance between them and
Capitol. In combination with this, propaganda (via presumably the only real
Imperium-wide news service, TNS) paints the public picture of the Emperor,
ignoring all political power, as a figurehead, a political God figure -
distant, unresponsive, the source of political moral authority. In other
words, a day-to-day non-entity, albeit one with a living canon and a
very big gun.

The primary outlet for the democracy/autocracy war is already present
in canon - the Imperial Rules of War. Combine this with the fact that
Government Code 6 (Captive) exists, and it shows that worlds can form
their own multi-stellar pocket empires inside the Imperium, as long as
they don't lay claim to space. So rather than face democratic worlds
rising up and having to suppress them, the Imperium merely has to make
sure that, when Democrats and Autocrats go to war, they don't step out
of bounds (in fact, based on how badly fearful politicians overreact,
the Imperium could make the quiet claim that they are safeguarding
democracy against the planet-killing villany of the Autocrats). This
also plays into the Propaganda - The Imperium Is Above the Politics of
Planets.
Propaganda is also cheaper than Censorship. Sure, eventually people
recognize it, and some question the system, but guess what? (ERROR:
BRAIN NOT BRAINING, MUST CONTINUE SOMETIME)

On Sat, May 12, 2018, 10:54 AM Jim Vassilakos <xxxxxx@gmail.com>
wrote:

> I'll try to get to all these questions, but in the meantime, I'll show you
> guys something I recently wrote for Traveller (with the help of the TML,
> actually). Be forewarned, however, it's political, so a lot of you may not
> like it. It was one of those things I just had to get off my chest, and I
> don't know my history (or my politics) as well as I probably should, so if
> anyone has comments, negative or otherwise, you know how to reach me. (now
> donning asbestos vacc suit)

> https://www.sendspace.com/file/zhpux2

> Jeff, if you're still semi-interested in publishing this (or just part of
> it) in FT, please feel free. This is a re-edit/expansion of what I sent
> you
> some years back. Let me know if you want the ODT files.

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