** ACTI Spoiler ** The B plot

Jonathan_S wrote:

munroburton wrote:
Speaking of nobles who were there and not seated...

125,000 people arrived at Manticore. After approximately five to seven decades, sixty percent of them were dead to the plague. Then those surviving "first shareholders" established the Star Kingdom, acquiring patents of nobility. Assuming 50,000 paired up and merged their holdings, that could be anywhere up to 25,000 titles.

From among those, the first fifty became seated peers. That initial House of Lords was almost certainly created out of the board of directors of the Manticore Colony, Ltd.

Though that 125,000 people was made up of "The total expedition consisted of ninety-three thousand adults and thirty-two
thousand minor children." [HoS] So the kids wouldn't have been investors; and there would have been young adult children who wouldn't have been (significant) investors themselves (with the best will in the world a 20 year old college student simply hasn't had time to earn enough wealth to be noticeable to the bottom line of a colony expedition like that -- they'd be along because their parents invested enough to bring the whole family along)

And I suspect (though this is pure speculation on my part) that only one title would be created per family -- even if both parents had contributed significantly to earning the money they invested. (Though you might also be right that the individuals got to decide whether they'd like separate titles based on their individual contributions or a merged family title based on their combined -- though the former might be tricky if they pair involved start disputing how the family investment should be apportioned to each adult; would the colony have the records to even let a court wort that out?)

And then there were probably some colonists that were recruited for their specific skills; important enough that they wouldn't be required to pay there way.

Still we can knock 25% off your number immediately for the minor children. And probably knock another sizable chunk on for the young adults, crew, and other recruited non-investors on the original journey.

So with all that I'd bet the total number of titles was quite a bit lower than 25,000; maybe even below 10,000. (But way, way, more than 50)

After 70 years, they're not going to be children anymore. They're going to be adults who have inherited their deceased parents' investments and quite possibly gone on to pass on that inheritance to their own children. The total number of "First Shareholders" alive at the time of the conversion into a constitutional monarchy and aristocracy may be even higher than 50,000 depending how many children each coupling produced in that time and how that first generation of settlers handled inheritances.

munroburton wrote:After 70 years, they're not going to be children anymore. They're going to be adults who have inherited their deceased parents' investments and quite possibly gone on to pass on that inheritance to their own children. The total number of "First Shareholders" alive at the time of the conversion into a constitutional monarchy and aristocracy may be even higher than 50,000 depending how many children each coupling produced in that time and how that first generation of settlers handled inheritances.

My assumption is that the patents of nobility wouldn't have multiplied; that they'd go just to the original investor or that investor's senior surviving heir. (And that unlike however their personal fortunes were distributed by their will and inheritance laws that the rules for inheriting a title would have been uniformly laid down in the new Constitution)

Now, whether or not multiple adult members of a family each qualify as investors in their own rights might be tricky to work out.

But, I don't think it likely any of the minor children who traveled on Jason would have counted in their own right, regardless of how old they were once the new Constitution was enacted. And I certainly don't think children born after arrival could in any way be considered colony investors.

My assumption is that people who'd arrived as minor children, or were later born in the Manticore system, would only be ennobled by the Constitution if they were the senior surviving heir of one of those original investors.
So I don't think it would matter how much the first generation of settlers multiplied or set their personal inheritance up.

Hence my assumption that the number of original nobles established by the Constitution is well below 25,000, much less 50,000. However we're all speculating with very little data and RFC could throw any number of spanners into the works to mess up our guestimates.

Jonathan_S wrote:

munroburton wrote:After 70 years, they're not going to be children anymore. They're going to be adults who have inherited their deceased parents' investments and quite possibly gone on to pass on that inheritance to their own children. The total number of "First Shareholders" alive at the time of the conversion into a constitutional monarchy and aristocracy may be even higher than 50,000 depending how many children each coupling produced in that time and how that first generation of settlers handled inheritances.

My assumption is that the patents of nobility wouldn't have multiplied; that they'd go just to the original investor or that investor's senior surviving heir. (And that unlike however their personal fortunes were distributed by their will and inheritance laws that the rules for inheriting a title would have been uniformly laid down in the new Constitution)

Now, whether or not multiple adult members of a family each qualify as investors in their own rights might be tricky to work out.

But, I don't think it likely any of the minor children who traveled on Jason would have counted in their own right, regardless of how old they were once the new Constitution was enacted. And I certainly don't think children born after arrival could in any way be considered colony investors.

My assumption is that people who'd arrived as minor children, or were later born in the Manticore system, would only be ennobled by the Constitution if they were the senior surviving heir of one of those original investors.
So I don't think it would matter how much the first generation of settlers multiplied or set their personal inheritance up.

Hence my assumption that the number of original nobles established by the Constitution is well below 25,000, much less 50,000. However we're all speculating with very little data and RFC could throw any number of spanners into the works to mess up our guestimates.

But there were no patents of nobility until fifty-five years after landing. My guess is that inheritance up to that point was a mess. Even had there been a general convention, the decision could have been entirely up to the holder of the shares in question. Some people decided to split everything equally, some went for primogeniture, some gave most to their favourite child and some cut children they were disappointed with out of their wills. This causes a lot of time-consuming disputes for planetary administration to resolve(which explains why Elizabeth I was considered a pre-emient jurist).

And that process was accelerated by the plague. Shifting to a hereditary system with primogeniture principles may have been one way of imposing order upon that mess. My view is by that time, any confirmed divisions would be irreversible and ends up grandfathered in as part of the First Shareholders.

I think it would have been politically and socially toxic to deprive incumbent second, third and so forth offspring of their holdings. It's bad enough news for a forthcoming generation whose second, third and so forth offsprings watch their future inheritances consolidate to their eldest sibling without doing it to people who have possessed their inheritance for potentially decades.

HoS states that "the original colonists, concerned about retaining control of their own colony, adopted a radically new constitution before opening their doors to immigration." They created a three-class social system with the aim of bringing millions of new colonists in. These originals almost certainly put themselves in the top of those classes before they opened up.

I don't think it's stated anywhere in relation to the Manticore Colony, Ltd. but most shareholder arrangements require as high as a 75% majority, if not unanimity, for things like winding up a company, passing a new constitution and issuing more shares.

munroburton wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:My assumption is that the patents of nobility wouldn't have multiplied; that they'd go just to the original investor or that investor's senior surviving heir. (And that unlike however their personal fortunes were distributed by their will and inheritance laws that the rules for inheriting a title would have been uniformly laid down in the new Constitution)

Now, whether or not multiple adult members of a family each qualify as investors in their own rights might be tricky to work out.

But, I don't think it likely any of the minor children who traveled on Jason would have counted in their own right, regardless of how old they were once the new Constitution was enacted. And I certainly don't think children born after arrival could in any way be considered colony investors.

My assumption is that people who'd arrived as minor children, or were later born in the Manticore system, would only be ennobled by the Constitution if they were the senior surviving heir of one of those original investors.
So I don't think it would matter how much the first generation of settlers multiplied or set their personal inheritance up.

Hence my assumption that the number of original nobles established by the Constitution is well below 25,000, much less 50,000. However we're all speculating with very little data and RFC could throw any number of spanners into the works to mess up our guestimates.

But there were no patents of nobility until fifty-five years after landing. My guess is that inheritance up to that point was a mess. Even had there been a general convention, the decision could have been entirely up to the holder of the shares in question. Some people decided to split everything equally, some went for primogeniture, some gave most to their favourite child and some cut children they were disappointed with out of their wills. This causes a lot of time-consuming disputes for planetary administration to resolve(which explains why Elizabeth I was considered a pre-emient jurist).

And that process was accelerated by the plague. Shifting to a hereditary system with primogeniture principles may have been one way of imposing order upon that mess. My view is by that time, any confirmed divisions would be irreversible and ends up grandfathered in as part of the First Shareholders.

I think it would have been politically and socially toxic to deprive incumbent second, third and so forth offspring of their holdings. It's bad enough news for a forthcoming generation whose second, third and so forth offsprings watch their future inheritances consolidate to their eldest sibling without doing it to people who have possessed their inheritance for potentially decades.

You don't need to disposes people of their holdings just because you gave a title only the the eldest sibling.

Okay, doing it that way might lead to some slightly odd situations. For example an investor who put in enough money to later be ranked a Duke who chose to split their holdings equally among all their offspring leading to a newly created Dukedom that's smaller than a Barony of a much smaller investor who happened to pass all holdings to a single heir. But that seems better than creating titles for every pre-Constitutional inheritor of a colonial investor.


But I guess they could do it your way instead. Though presumably if they took that route an investment worthy of a Dukedom which had been split too many ways would result in each holder getting a lesser title, one worthy of their fraction of the original investment, rather than creating a bunch of extra Dukes and Duchesses.

But I assume there was some minimum threshold to be considered an investor. I can't see someone who put in less than the cost of travel counting -- on the other hand if you're the adult offspring of an investor and coming along on their dime there's no point in leaving your money back on Earth -- so you'd sink that into the trip in order to get whatever currency or supplies will be created in the new colony. But would adding your few hundred dollars get you ranked an investor? What about a child who converted in the contents of their piggy bank?
If there is such a threshold then what happens if, prior to the Constitution, a holding has been split so many ways that nobody still holds a share worth more that that threshold?
Does none of the holders get any title? Forfeiting the one that the original investment should have garnered? But if all get a title then that's unfair to people who didn't originally meet the threshold, but contributed more than the percent of any one holder of that original qualifying investment.


And then how would setting the House of Lords to the first 50 investors work with this title splitting? What if one of them had already split their holdings 15 ways? Does that lucky decisions result in their family holding 30% of the seats in Lords? That can't possibly work!
Do they all get titles but only one get picked to get a seat?


This all seems messier than simply retroactively applying the new rules of primogeniture for titles to figure out the one person to be assigned the newly created title, but allowing that title's associated lands and holdings to be whatever portion of the original holdings that that heir held at the time of the title's creation.

munroburton wrote:But there were no patents of nobility until fifty-five years after landing.

There weren't patents of nobility, but there were land ownerships. The investors in the MCT did divide some lands on the three planets and some other resources in the system among themselves. They knew fairly well what existed on the system because of the Franchot et Fils expedition that surveyed the system before the MCT was even formed.

So the Constitutional Convention simply had to follow the land titles and possible divisions. Rank them in three groups, making the largest or most valuable of them of them duchies, the middle ones earldoms, the smallest baronies, with all the rest becoming Crown Reserve. At this time, there appear to be no Grand Dukes yet.

Interestingly, what was previously property and could be sold becomes divisions of the polity and can't be sold. The investors exchanged something that showed up in their balance sheet until sold for the title and, probably, income from taxes and resource extraction in their territory.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Interestingly, what was previously property and could be sold becomes divisions of the polity and can't be sold. The investors exchanged something that showed up in their balance sheet until sold for the title and, probably, income from taxes and resource extraction in their territory.

It also seems quite like that they'd want to give some flexibility to the 1st generation of nobles to adjust how much of their holdings would get locked up with the title and how much would remain simply normal property of the family.
(And also have at least a temporarily mechanism to add to their noble holdings; as opposed to just acquiring additional property not linked to their title)

This whole nobility thing is a bit of a surprise and probably would work better if all involved had some time to make adjustments

Jonathan_S wrote:You don't need to disposes people of their holdings just because you gave a title only the the eldest sibling.

Okay, doing it that way might lead to some slightly odd situations. For example an investor who put in enough money to later be ranked a Duke who chose to split their holdings equally among all their offspring leading to a newly created Dukedom that's smaller than a Barony of a much smaller investor who happened to pass all holdings to a single heir. But that seems better than creating titles for every pre-Constitutional inheritor of a colonial investor.

That could explain why and how there are so many Baronies and Earldoms among the first fifty. The first Baron High Ridge, for example, might have been the primary living heir of a district-level investor whose holdings had been equally split after two generations, with that Baron being the hypothetical senior grandchild of the Duke-sized investor.

There are also references to those Earldoms and Baronies being part of duchies. White Haven was inside a Duchy of High Sligo, for example. How that works with the Alexanders being first shareholders, I don't know. We've never met a Duke/Duchess High Sligo.

Then there's this:

The old colonial territorial and administrative districts were also transformed at the time the Constitution was ratified. The existing geographically defined units were retained, but they became duchies, rather than the previous “districts” and the senior noble in each county became its hereditary governor. This created some problems, since the senior peer in one existing “duchy” might be an earl or even a baron, rather than a duke. The constitutional solution adopted was to create the title of “Magister,” which applies to the senior peer (and governor) of any duchy, regardless of his hereditary rank. Although one Magister may take precedence over another when seated in the House of Lords, all magisters are equal before the law when acting as the administrators of their duchies.

So the Earls/Countesses of White Haven may have acted as the Magisters of High Sligo since the beginning. It's nowhere in textev, but I would guess that first Baron High Ridge had the Magisterial claim to whatever district he and his cousins split up between them.

Those district Magisters may have numbered fifty or so in the beginning, providing the embryonic House of Lords rather than the MC Ltd Board of Directors.

Jonathan_S wrote:This whole nobility thing is a bit of a surprise and probably would work better if all involved had some time to make adjustments

Since these were the same people actually writing the Constitution in the first place, it goes without saying.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:This whole nobility thing is a bit of a surprise and probably would work better if all involved had some time to make adjustments

Since these were the same people actually writing the Constitution in the first place, it goes without saying.

I will point out that the original nobles were INVESTORS in the Manticore colony. We don't know how many of the 125000 were investors (plus families) and how many were just passengers. Note that the Constitutional provision that the Winton heir had to marry a member of the Commons (i.e., not noble) - this suggests that a significant part of the population at the time weren't closely related to the investors. I suspect that, when the House of Lords (with its limited membership) was formed, there were less than 200 tiles in play.

Robert_A_Woodward wrote:
I will point out that the original nobles were INVESTORS in the Manticore colony. We don't know how many of the 125000 were investors (plus families) and how many were just passengers. Note that the Constitutional provision that the Winton heir had to marry a member of the Commons (i.e., not noble) - this suggests that a significant part of the population at the time weren't closely related to the investors. I suspect that, when the House of Lords (with its limited membership) was formed, there were less than 200 tiles in play.

There also were several additional sources of populace other than the passengers on the Jason. The Manticorian Trust had already established a basic colony and had the 4 Frigates for local defense prior to the arrival of the Jason - most of those people who built and manned the basic infrastructure probably had already brought their families to Manticore and became citizens of Manticore after Landing. Ditto for the Instant Fleet purchased to deal with the Free Brotherhood. The lure for trained crews had to include citizenship - and most likely included the crew's families (how else do you retain someone when they are a year's travel from home?)

Then you had the Plague which winnowed the populace.

After that, there was the specialists which were brought in to fight the plague - once again, many probably brought their families and settled (probably on Gryphon or Sphinx to protect the families), followed finally by the waves of people recruited and supplemented to replace the plague losses.

So there are several large sources of populace even before the plague that hadn't invested a cent in the original Trust.