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>From: Onno Meyer <Onno.Meyer@arbi.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de>
>Subject: cherryhlist
>Date: Tue, 7 Sep 1993 11:08:02 +0200 (MET DST)

> 	Sounds a reasonable conclusion. Have you got an estimate for
> the length of a hani year?
>
I have no idea. I've heard somewhere that a new planes need decades,
but the manhendo'sat are just modifiying (sp?) existing designs.
It might depend on the risk they are willing to take. Jik knew the
limits of the short-jump, and that could indicate some testing.
 
> 	Hani society seems as unchanged from their pre-contact days as
> possible. We don't see any cities for example. Presumably the ship-yards,
> banks and so on are run by Immunes. Clans, while becoming more like
> companies, still mostly work on the basis of kinship-links. I'd say clans
> borrow money from their allies (ties of kinship again) if they can't
> afford a ship by themselves, or go to an Immune bank (if the kif can have
> banks, so can the hani :-)
> 
I don't think so.

Just assume a shipyard run by Immunes. Perhaps a thousand workers, and 
as many dependents. It would only make sense to protect the yard if
the producers of engines, computers and similar devices are immune, too.
That would give hundreds of immune clans of the same size. 
The hani would end up with everyone but the farmers and the merchanters
Immune, since the production of screws is as vital for a modern
society as dams or river crossins have been for a medevial one. If much
more than half of the population are immune (an estimate based on the 
current numbers), that would definitely change society.

I think Chanur (and all those spacer clans) are large merchant houses
who can _afford_ to live in the oldfashioned way, and run a farm out
of respect for a past the other hani left behind.

Of course I realize that the importance of the Han contradicts my
assumptions, but that could be an old-fashioned system that no
longer represents the real power distribution.

Onno Meyer