Tom Barclay <
xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:
The general observation that, as population densities exist, government types are more insulated from the people and are less democratic or responsive seems to be a rough generality in the real world
I don't think that's the case. Some of the most densely-populated places on the planet include Tokyo, Delhi, Mexico City, Sao Paulo, Mumbai, Osaka-Kyoto and New York, none of which are particularly "undemocratic."
Degrees of, yes. And on a 2D6 - 7 + gov't type for law and a 2D6 - 7 + pop, you're average density 8-10 is going to be higher than 7 (8-10) which in some ways is how some parts of those countries function. And law, by that logic, would be about the same. For Pop-8, you can expect the majority of variance (over 2/3rds) to fall within the range of 5.6 - 10.4. For Pop 9, range for most is 6.6 - 11.4. Pop 10, 7.6 - 12.4.
Japan does have a lot of law and surveillance (Tokyo and several other metropolitan places for certain). The same government has reigned for almost long enough to be called a self-perpetuating oligarchy or an impersonal bureaucracy. As far as the major indicator of law in the Travellerverse (firearms possession), they'd be at least a Law 7 or 8 which is consistent.
There certainly is not an even treatment of all residents in Japan (including immigrants). Similarly, there are issues of caste in Delhi that see democratic divide. And in Sao Paulo (Those in favelas get far less attention than those in rich neighborhoods). Mexico also has issues and not every citizen gets equal democratic attention. Look at the ongoing insurgencies in several places in Mexico that stem partly from that.
For law and order, which naturally derive from government in Traveller, we'd see similar numbers to what was quoted above on average. The variation might be further because mechanically if you vary much in the roll for government, then roll with that outcome into law level, you get a stacked variance. Japan has high law levels by traveller standards (Osaka-Kyoto, Tokyo and other places). New York has more gun ownership, but generally has a fairly high incidence of police presence (they've been pushing that for a long time now).
And for every case we could find of population density that does vary towards less authoritarian examples or particular aspects that are less authoritarian, I am certain I can find more examples that are not. Just counting the Islamic world and China and let's throw in the Russians and their various republics... not much democracy there. Lots of law.
Traveller also, as pointed out by others, represents the representation of those characteristics that impact travellers. Well, if you travel to Japan, to Mexico, or to other places, you may be subject to much more intrusion than you would be in less regulated countries. I had a friend travelling in Mexico and the police pulled over their bus and had a chat with them. They got to their resort and found out the same police had robbed everyone on the prior night's trip and made them walk into town half naked. That's a sign of corruption, but its also something that happens when you have a lot of police and a high law level (as Traveller's bribery rules will attest).
Again, I have said it is possible to have other results than the most authoritarian. Most large governments that are less obnoxious are simply large and faceless (so effectively impersonal bureaucracies). That's the most likely face most Travellers will encounter and they may well find that as foreigners, the rules for locals are very different. (Never saw that covered in any Traveller extended descriptions - they do generate some notions of legal extensiveness and regionality, but not the notion of different for Travellers than citizens.)
and in our game. The dice conventions ensure variations exist. If you use extended legal, government, etc codes, you can get variances by what sections of government or legal codes as far as the rating goes.
There is little if anything in the world generation rules which connect population ~density~ with governmental interference (which is better measured by Law Level rather than Government type). Population is generated without any modifiers for spatial area; a Size 1 world and Size A world are equally likely to have Pop A (and no matter an Atmosphere or Hydrography which might further restrict the "livable space").
That's true. But aggregate population is used. That's more problematic I think but it is what is used.
Extended generation systems do tend to put sizable percentages of the population in highly populated cities (UWP, UWP-1, UWP-2 sizes) and those could well be pretty dense, but there is some inference in that.
The primary relevant substance baked into the world generation rules is that higher Pop worlds will tend to have higher Law Levels.
That only comes through partially as an output of government type though.
Sure, it may be challenging to open-carry a firearm--or make non-permitted renovations to your house--in a high Pop jurisdiction but few people living in Tokyo or Delhi or Mexico City or Sao Paulo or New York would tell you, in a unguarded moment, that they're living under an authoritarian regime.
Japan, culturally, is probably more restrictive by far than their law and their law for firearms, for trying to start a business if you are a foreigner, of trying to become a landed immigrant or citizen.... restrictive.
I'm sure some folks in Russia would justify their country as democratic (because it might be on the lower, most commonly contacted, levels). In Traveller, however, it wouldn't count as that because of the visitor-centric view of the UWP.
In other words, this particular game mechanic seems to be largely divorced from real-world empirics. If anything, it reflects 1970s-era U.S. Midwestern suburban / rural (mis)perceptions of "the big city" (with a bit of similarly Midwestern Cold War era view of the rest of the world thrown in).
I don't see it as that, but there may be that in there. It is a general truisim in most places I have travelled or read about that places closer to larger cities do have more laws and more law enforcement - things that would not bother anyone in the rural or small town areas are matters of legal process in cities.
And in any case, if things get bad enough, we'll have government type "Matrix" where we're all just the batteries in a power system for our overlord AI masters....
Yes, but before we get there we'll have the ~Wall-E~ highly-immersive distraction, grav-chair-and-Slurpee government type. . . .
That's what they tried first in the Matrix. That was the first version. The humans were never happy. So finally the machines gave them misery.
David
--
"Why, here on Odin there hadn't been an election in the past six centuries that hadn't been utterly fraudulent. Nobody voted except the nonworkers, whose votes were bought and sold wholesale, by gangster bosses to pressure groups, and no decent person would be caught within a hundred yards of a polling place on an election day." - Emperor Paul XXII (H. Beam Piper), "Ministry of Disturbance"
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