On 13Aug2020 1940, Timothy Collinson - timothy.collinson at port.ac.uk
(via tml list) wrote:

 >I would also be really interested in - and keep thinking I might
possibly run at TravCon - an "OTU" (or CT if you like) that was *much*
more based on Dumarest than what we generally think of as OTU now.  Very
separate worlds, travel quite unusual, very little shared culture.

 >Of course, it would help if I could get on with reading the series...
not sure where I got to.  Perhaps it becomes more "what we know" in
later books.

Nope. The Brotherhood becomes more important, for a while anyway, so
both they and the Cyclan are 'galaxy' wide. However, when it comes to
serious multi-world polities, my recollection is that they actually
become less common as the series goes on. You could explain that as them
becoming rarer as you move away from the centre of human settlement and
activity and towards the galaxy's rim.

I always got the impression that there just weren't vast empires, and
that a half-dozen worlds in an empire that lasted for more than a few
generations was a large and enduring state. So it's a world like that of
the pre-classical and early classical Mediterranean - of independent
city-states. Distance and diversity have defeated attempts to make
larger empires that last beyond their creator's death, though the Cyclan
have their answer for this, of course.

Actually, there's another exception - commercial development of worlds
by off-world interests exists, so seems to be stable long-term. So
there's a certain level of shared commercial culture within regions, and
it seems relatively stable across the series. Therefore worlds that do
have off-world trade, and those that do that trade seem to have a fairly
universal shared culture, and traders mostly don't seem to feel any
allegiance to worlds, though presumably they intend to retire to either
'home' or a nice world that they've done business with. There's also
clearly enough off-world trade with worlds in the trade networks
recognise the currency of nearby worlds or have a common trade currency.

A 'hands-off' Imperium with distant centre and government in a Traveller
universe (where ships have more limited range than they do in Dumarest's
universe) would feel much the same to the average traveller, especially
as a tramp freighter's crew. So the Imperial setting from the late 70s
and early 80s when it was first introduced would probably feel not
unlike Dumarest. As time went on and the sub-sector nobility became a
thing that mattered this would change, of course.

--
Rupert Boleyn <xxxxxx@gmail.com>