On Tue, 11 Aug 2020 23:51:58 +0000 (UTC), Phil Pugliese wrote:

>I've always felt a little ambivalent about that esp cuz', canonically, it's
>indicated in the earliest sector supp 'Spinward Marches' that some systems
>are "owned" by others.I've always reconciled it as, "Well, it was a
>multi-system polity when it joined the 3I so it's Imperial Charter grants
>it an exception", or "Well, the system was nearby, uninhabited & unclaimed,
>so they just went ahead & colonized it".

I'll note that even in the earliest days, there was no way to generate a
system with this characteristic; any such would have been by referee/author
fiat (although there was a strong implication that fiat had to be used in
the case of GOV 6, 'Captive Government', whose original definition
explicitly had the local government answerable to an outside entity. Later
on, this was also permitted to be used as 'military rule', which would
include local armed forces staging a coup d'etat).

>    On Tuesday, August 11, 2020, 04:35:22 PM MST, Jeff Zeitlin <xxxxxx@freelancetraveller.com> wrote:
>
> Canonically, they don't exist. However, I seem to recall that such things
>as postal unions and customs unions are permissible within the Imperial
>framework, and the Imperium allows its member worlds almost total autonomy
>provided that they (a) pay their taxes, (b) don't eff with trade*, and (c)
>no you may NOT have nukes, those are MINE.

[...]

®Traveller is a registered trademark of
Far Future Enterprises, 1977-2020. Use of
the trademark in this notice and in the
referenced materials is not intended to
infringe or devalue the trademark.

--
Jeff Zeitlin, Editor
Freelance Traveller
    The Electronic Fan-Supported Traveller® Resource
xxxxxx@freelancetraveller.com
http://www.freelancetraveller.com

Freelance Traveller extends its thanks to the following
enterprises for hosting services:

onCloud/CyberWeb Enterprises (http://www.oncloud.io)
The Traveller Downport (http://www.downport.com)