On Sat, Jul 5, 2014 at 6:06 PM, Rouven Weinbach <weinbach@13mann.de> wrote:

<snip> For the non-aligned worlds in the Marches it must have been like living
next to a non-expansionist Third Reich.

IMTU, I compare them to a Soviet Union wherein the institutional practice of mind-editing via telepathy actually allows a version of communism to *work.*

Of course, since Soviet-style Communism was essentially just facism with different buzzwords, this is a distinction without a difference. So the snipped part of your description works just fine for me.

<snip> the Consulate existed for hundreds of years and it
never threatened the autonomy of the Marches. The Imperium is an empire
and needs to grow. It eventually will want to absorb all worlds in the
Marches, and if we go by Julius Cesar ("First in a village rather than
second in Rome.") this should at least bother many of the ruling classes
in the Marches.

That actually isn't much of an issue IMTU, at least not often. Not only does my Imperium allow a very high degree of local autonomy - so long as you pay your 3% Defense Tax, don't practice chattel slavery and avoid using nukes - it doesn't often even impose an outside ruler on native populations. It's much more common for my Imperium to encourage the locals themselves to "nominate" candidate High Noble families from amongst their own population. My Imperium even works well with (small "d") democrats, by granting the necessary High Noble titles to the *office* of planetary President/Premier/Prime Minister/etc, rather than to an individual directly.

The only significant "village vs Rome" difficulty which my Imperium encounters concerns already-established pocket empires. A unified polity composed of several systems may exhibit reluctance to disband into individual systems in order to join the Empire in the usual manner. Which is where my Imperium brings in the concept of the County. IMTU, a County - held by a Count - is an administrative level lying between the Duchy/Dukedom (subsector) and - usually - the Grand Duchy/Dukedom (sector). While it may physically occupy territory in two or more Duchies, each County is independent of any of those subsector's Dukes. The number of worlds in Counties can vary from two or three up to about a dozen . . . and if you research their individual histories IMTU, almost all started out as independent pocket empires. Quite often, these pocket empires were established with Imperial approval and even outright support, as counterweights to local anti-Imperial polities. The fact that they survived (if in a somewhat less grand form) and the original opposing polities did not demonstrates the general effectiveness of the tactic.

Psi helmets are mostly a waste of money, even in the Marches. Only the
Zhodani ruling class (say, the top 10%) are psionics and they probably
leave Paradise (eh....the Consulate) even less often than the average
Zhodani. So yes, on rare occasions (maybe rich worlds) you will find a
few psi-helmets but they are just as rare as the hazards of you being
molested by a psion. Or in terms of demand and supply: If you are not
regularly subject to psionics powers, or don't remember, or live to
tell, then why bother buying a helmet?

Because of Imperial propaganda.

The truth - politically speaking - doesn't really matter. All that matters is what the relevant population *believes* to be true. If you can convince said population that your opponent is capable of turning their own minds against them if they don't actively protect themselves - and you then provide said population with the psi shields "necessary" for that protection at cost - your battle to absorb said population into your own state is that much easier to win.

And the best part, from the Empire's POV?

The Zhondani can't effectively combat such propaganda. How can they prove that they *aren't* reading/re-writing everyone's mind?

Richard Aiken

"Never insult anyone by accident." Robert A. Heinlein