On Tue, Aug 26, 2014 at 10:30:30AM -0400, Jeffrey Schwartz wrote:
> CT says everyone must do at least 4 years service to the Imperium.
> Universal Service...

Wow, having never played CT I never knew that!  That's a pretty major
difference in the setting indeed.  4 years service is probably (even
in the Traveller setting) around 10% of an average healthy working
lifespan.  So the Imperium essentially collects an additional tax of
at least 10% in drafted services from every member world.

Presumably the vast majority of these people work for the Imperium on
their homeworld, or the passenger traffic from Imperial service alone
would be millions of people per week for any pop-9 world.

Either way, it's very definitely a hallmark of a Big Imperium setting.
It implies worlds politically and economically tied to the central
polity and each other a great deal more than I would have expected
from what I read in later work.

- Tim