Endurance (Legend of the Galactic Heroes, book 3) by Yoshiki Tanaka

[james_davis_nicoll]

Endurance (Legend of the Galactic Heroes, book 3) by Yoshiki Tanaka

Comments

[rwpikul]

AIR, the reason that Iserlohn can block traffic is that the FTL system the setting uses relies on a 'connection web'. I'm not even sure if the maps of the web line up with the realspace locations of the various systems.

Iserlohn simply sits at a chokepoint. If you want to travel between two sizeable areas of the galaxy, you have to go through its system.

[(Anonymous)]

James, there's a game which you sold me back in the early 1980s, when you ran *Imperiums to Order*, which was (quite fittingly) called "Imperium" -- ... in fact, I still have it, around here somewhere.

If you look at a map of that game, you'll see the implied FTL would "explain" it: some sort of hyper-dimensional paths between certain systems, but not others. Some star systems thus, in spite of having no useful planets at all, become strategically vital for the same reason as this chokepoint with its fortress moon (and, in fact, the game has units, called "monitors", which serve that exact role).

FWIIW,

TSM_in_Toronto