In general people that end up working for the government, any government, are not competent by commercial standards.

The reasons are many, but those that dominate are called policy and disincentive. The first makes sure that nothing unexpected is done, so everything takes a very long time when compared to the commercial sector because in commerce ''time is money'', your or your employer's money, while in the government time is someone else's money. The second is a disincentive to innovate for many reasons that books have been written about. Innovative people tend to ''upset the applecart'' because they have an innate sense for doing things better, which not what the governments are about.

Failure to understand this is primarily why the OTU is so problematic. This is because we know very little about the governing and 'commercial' cultures of the various major races in Traveller.

And, like the underlying race culture, these cultural traits generally do not change much over time. Take a deeper cultural look at Japan for example.

I do echo the sentiment of this discussion about history. The start of the Second World War in Europe is particularly astounding when one thinks about it. But the one in Pacific is not less so by much.

I'll point out one highly improbable correlation of events, that if written into the Traveller canon would be unbelievable.

A major regional state assaults another major regional state which used to be the dominant culture in the region. Two military officers from a third state aspiring to become dominant in the region are witnessing the invasion and notice new technology being used. The technology is relatively simple, but would significantly enhance their own military's capability to operate in the region. They estimate it would take no more than six months for the industry in their country to produce an improved version. It takes eight years and commencement of warfare in another region to get this done.

The nature of the region's Terrain requires an innovative doctrine and technology to achieve tactical success. While the force organisation in question thinks about this, a commercial engineer produces the basic model for use in civilian application while unaware of the military's need.
Two generals sitting in a restaurant see the civilian technology on the cover of the magazine. They contact the engineer, but are then denied funding to produce a military version. The civilian engineer then gifts the design to the military, and even returns most of the funding that was provided as part of the initial expression of interest by the military. Despite this, the military still takes five years to put the design into production.

Two years after the war, some veterans write up a report proposing a new design based on assessment of captured enemy technology which would offer disruptive combat capabilities, and significantly reduce casualties. The report is archived. Instead the military continues to produce the incrementally improved versions of the pre-war donated technology for the next five decades.

Other such examples abound.

Unfortunatelly IMHO there is an overemphasis in Traveller on technology, but culture is relatively underdeveloped, perhaps because the US culture Marc is immersed in is so malleable.

Greg C