On 20 Apr 2016 at 16:39, Bruce  Johnson wrote:

> oBTrav, since the entire economic system of the OTU is pretty much
> based on this model (fer gawdsakes the ONLY thing covered by `law
> level´ is just how big of a gun you can carry in public) I´d
> expect it to translate right on over, so there are probably a crapton
> of worlds that are essentially mined-out toxic dumps. After all when
> corporations can have military divisions, the concept of rule of law
> was gone a long long time ago; Ol´ Cleon 1 built his empire on
> economic warfare and genocide, and the 3I took it´s cue from that.
> This is what `Rule of Man´ entails.

Law Level does also cover the rate of police harrasment of off-worlders. It's darkly
amusing that Traveller links these, given that the US experience is that they're not
linked at all.

> The member worlds have nominal autonomy, but since the 3I controls the
> `space between the worlds´ any place that gets out of line can be
> Shock Doctrine´d into submission tout suite.

Or just trade embargoed into submission. Even if the world is self-sufficient the local
elites will be missing their luxuries pretty quick.