On 31/8/25 01:30, Jim Vassilakos - jim.vassilakos at gmail.com (via tml
list) wrote:
> We've assumed a wet navy w/ the same stipulation, don't let it
> interfere with your job. However, given that we're talking about the
> far future, I'd imagine there are a wide assortment of other
> intoxicants, most of which are probably officially off-limits. This
> could set up the basis for how the organization got going in the first
> place. Or maybe in its distant history, the IN was dry and became wet
> after those in charge figured out that keeping it dry was only fueling
> a culture of rules breaking.
That'd do it - plus the higher-ups (at the time) would be concerned
about that attitude to rules _spreading_ to less important things, like WMD.
>
> Also, I've heard of this phenomenon in business where sometimes a
> union is actually captured by a corporation, and this prevents an
> alternate union from forming. Maybe the Compact could be explained as
> something similar, an organization that pretends to be criminal and
> which actually does break the official rules but only within certain
> limits. In the meantime, it stamps out any rivals, such as street
> gangs and so forth, pretending to be allies while actually ratting
> them out, planting evidence, or possibly even doing a hit on very rare
> occasions.
>
> Let me know your thoughts.
Especially doable for the SFNS/IN, given (as at the Solomani Rim War) it
had been kicking around for 1600-odd years - the Compact being, at least
initially, a "military spacers union" that got captured/co-opted by the
SFNS/IN, to keep a lid on the aforementioned rules breaking.  That's
still a heck of a lot of time for the two institutions, and the
relationship between them, to evolve.
>
> My general inclination is to try to use what the player gives me, but
> I don't want to go down a road that seems absurd.

_Unlike_ the TC in the IW period, the 3I _isn't_ the United Space of
America.  "Absurd" by which standards?

A bit of deliberate culture shock may help drive that point home.

By contrast, golden-age-of-piracy pirate ships tended to have both a
captain, who had absolute authority _in_ battle, and a quartermaster,
who (IIRC) could dismiss the captain when out of battle.  There was
significantly less principal-agent problem there, compared to merchant
and naval ships.

Alex