> If almost no-one survives to the age of 45, then there's very little
> point of making a big thing about the retirement benefits. And yet
> they did. Therefore the 40 figure, though widely quoted, isn't up to
> much.
Nah, you've missed the point. If life expectancy *at birth* is 40 years, and half of all infants born die in their first year of life, then the average length of life for the survivors is 80 years! See? Check out the UN figures I posted a while ago if you want some hard data. Average life expectancy is a useful measure, but you have to be careful with it... in this case, for all their sins, the Roman Army did not recruit newborn babies; so the sprogs' life expectancy is irrelevant. Once you'd survived to enlisting age, you're already past the big glut of deaths (excepting those caused by being in the Army, naturally!).
> I'm interested in hearing what other RQers think about the ways of the
> Humakt cult. (I play in an RQ2 campaign, set mostly in Prax, fyi.)
Have you seen "Tales of the Reaching Moon" issue #5? There was an article in it called "A Matter of Honour" about just this kind of thing. As Tales #5 is the only issue to have been reprinted (to date), there's a chance your local Reaching Moon Megacorp rep will have spare copies. It's also got the RQ3 Humakt write-up, which has additional data on myth etc. that you may find useful, even in your RQ2-loyalist bunker. <g>
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