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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DrZombie" data-source="post: 3286499" data-attributes="member: 15640">Nobs and NobilityThere is a huge gap between commoners and nobility. Not only by status, but also by the scale of power. Only very rarely does a commoner get elevated to higher nobility. When it happens, though, it gets plastered across the media, so all commoners see that they are treated fairly and just, if only they make a decent effort.Old Nobility As a rule, old nobility is rich. Hugely rich. The higher in rank, the richer. The archdukes have several systems as their personal fief, and they have invested well in the last few hundred years, creating a massive fortune. They have their fingers in every pie, every huge company. The heridatary system makes sure that, while commoners can get rich in a certain niche (media, or industry), only the nobles have relatives and connections across the boards and across the stars, in the military, science, church and bureaucracy. Some have formed vast merchant families, others own shipyards and interstellar companys, interstellar banking. They know the people, and they have the means to crush almost any commoner company. They are involved in multisided power struggles as they each try to increase their political and financial power at the cost of others. Open warfare is heavily frowned upon, but occasionally happens. Personal duels are fashionable amongst the younger generation. The various barons gather in sociopolitical alliances, trying to take control of the Moot or find enough consensus to have their agenda approved.Children are raised mostly by private tutors, or they go to boarding schools that cater only to a very select clientele. Marriage are allways arranged to the beterment of the family, and seldom match romantic interest. It is one of the ways a commoner can have a noble title, but he will never have the respect that comes with it. His children might have, and his grandchildren certainly will.New nobles New nobles are a different lot. They are mostly former Navy Officers who got elevated t noble rank and given a fief in the newly conquered space. Instead of ending their career in the Navy they have been entrusted with a domain to run and to represent in the moot. They are the head of new noble families. While they have the same political power, they lack the funds of their siblings. Most planets are of low technology level, and those that are not are very rarely peacefully conquered. Although in theory the military rule is only temporarily, history shows that a cunning governor can amass the necessary power to become the only viable candidate for representing the world, or the system, at the assembly.Most of their effort is spent trying to get interplanetary trade going, either for agricultural product or rare timbers for low-tech worlds, to sophisticated compounds or rare chemicals on heavy-industry mining planets. Most try to raise their children as a true noble should, bot many lack the funds to do so adequately.The first second-generation 'new nobles' are reaching adult age. Some were born and raised in the outer rim, some had to move from comfortable inner-rim planets to 'the wildernis' at an older age, and some were from Naval families that went planetside when their parent got promoted.</blockquote>

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