A study of Dark Nebula sector TLs

[Maladominus]

I was glancing at the CT sector files for the Dark Nebula sector.

To begin with, I believe that these data come directly from either GDWs Atlas of the Imperium or from published sector data from DGP.

Now, the premise is that the 2 major powers of the Dark Nebula are the Aslan Hierate and the Solomani Confederation, plus a handful of smaller independent powers. The Ulahne worlds (aliens) are allied to the Aslans, and the Ormine worlds (reptile aliens) are a "protectorate" of the Solomani Confederation.

Now here is where the Dark Nebula stats look totally borked.

Aslan systems (Hierate/Tlaukhu): countless worlds at around Tech Level 11 to 14. The Nebula is the home sector of the Aslans from Kusyu, so this is understandable.

Solomani Human worlds: most worlds are ass-backwards at Tech Level 1 to 8. They are primitives. In many systems, they barely have iron age technology. And yet these settlers are the descendants of the original Terran settlers, most likely their ancestors colonized the sector during the Rule of Man and The Long Night.

Now one of the thing that GDW and DGP always pointed out was that the Aslan were prevented from expanding to Trailing or even dominating all of their home sector of Dark Nebula because "the human pests were already there". In fact, GDW even made a game about this. That game is called "Dark Nebula", supposedly where Solomani fleets and Aslan fleets skirmished and fought over the real-estate of the Dark Nebula sector.

WHAT????? How the hell can a bunch of primitive Tech Level 4 (median TL) human colonies stop a bunch of rich hi-tech Aslan worlds and warrior fleets? The Aslan worlds have the technology to build and support powerful TL 14 battle fleets. The human worlds barely have the tech level to create a sublight craft.

It puzzles me why the Aslan "land-loving expansionist warriors" have not already exterminated all these primitive land-squattering human settlers long ago! Maybe it's an honor thing.

I'm trying to see a logic in this huge difference in tech levels. The only thing I can think of is.... long ago, there were a BUNCH of hi-tech civilized and thriving Solomani colonies, but those were the ones that the Aslans defeated conquered and vassalized and integrated into their Hierate. Is this a plausible theory?

Is there another published (GDW) explanation I missed? If you are familiar with the Aslan histories or the history of Kusyu, I'd like to hear theories as to why this discrepancy exists.

 

[Maladominus]

I was glancing at the CT sector files for the Dark Nebula sector.

To begin with, I believe that these data come directly from either GDWs Atlas of the Imperium or from published sector data from DGP.

Now, the premise is that the 2 major powers of the Dark Nebula are the Aslan Hierate and the Solomani Confederation, plus a handful of smaller independent powers. The Ulahne worlds (aliens) are allied to the Aslans, and the Ormine worlds (reptile aliens) are a "protectorate" of the Solomani Confederation.

Now here is where the Dark Nebula stats look totally borked.

Aslan systems (Hierate/Tlaukhu): countless worlds at around Tech Level 11 to 14. The Nebula is the home sector of the Aslans from Kusyu, so this is understandable.

Solomani Human worlds: most worlds are ass-backwards at Tech Level 1 to 8. They are primitives. In many systems, they barely have iron age technology. And yet these settlers are the descendants of the original Terran settlers, most likely their ancestors colonized the sector during the Rule of Man and The Long Night.

Now one of the thing that GDW and DGP always pointed out was that the Aslan were prevented from expanding to Trailing or even dominating all of their home sector of Dark Nebula because "the human pests were already there". In fact, GDW even made a game about this. That game is called "Dark Nebula", supposedly where Solomani fleets and Aslan fleets skirmished and fought over the real-estate of the Dark Nebula sector.

WHAT????? How the hell can a bunch of primitive Tech Level 4 (median TL) human colonies stop a bunch of rich hi-tech Aslan worlds and warrior fleets? The Aslan worlds have the technology to build and support powerful TL 14 battle fleets. The human worlds barely have the tech level to create a sublight craft.

It puzzles me why the Aslan "land-loving expansionist warriors" have not already exterminated all these primitive land-squattering human settlers long ago! Maybe it's an honor thing.

I'm trying to see a logic in this huge difference in tech levels. The only thing I can think of is.... long ago, there were a BUNCH of hi-tech civilized and thriving Solomani colonies, but those were the ones that the Aslans defeated conquered and vassalized and integrated into their Hierate. Is this a plausible theory?

Is there another published (GDW) explanation I missed? If you are familiar with the Aslan histories or the history of Kusyu, I'd like to hear theories as to why this discrepancy exists.

 

[Whipsnade]

Originally posted by Maladominus:
To begin with, I believe that these data come directly from either GDWs Atlas of the Imperium or from published sector data from DGP.

Maladominus,

AotI has no UWPs in it. It does name hi-pop worlds, list port ratings, list military bases, and a few other things but there are no tech levels in it.

The DGP data set is hopelessly corrupt. The program that produced failed to implement the already-broken CT and MT sysgens correctly. So you have an imperfect application of a broken system.

As for the information you can derive from that data set, you are familiar with the phrase Garbage In, Garbage Out aren't you?

Now here is where the Dark Nebula stats look totally borked.

Dark Nebula is a wargame and its relationship to canon is debateable. Mr. Miller does insist that Traveller wargames are canon but features in those wargames have both troubling and downright canon breaking implications.

The jump lines in Imperium and Dark Nebula and the tech progression rolls in Dark Nebula led SJGames to ⌧ up an important part of GT:IW and the jump fuel rules in Fifth Frontier War explicitly model an Imperial Navy that does not use jump fuel regulators. There similar examples in Mayday, Striker, and other wargames too.

With regards to the Traveller wargames, you need to take their canonical infomration with a grain of salt.

How the hell can a bunch of primitive Tech Level 4 (median TL) human colonies stop a bunch of rich hi-tech Aslan worlds and warrior fleets? The Aslan worlds have the technology to build and support powerful TL 14 battle fleets. The human worlds barely have the tech level to create a sublight craft.

By ignoring bad UWPs from a corrupt data set for starters. And by ignoring information from a wargame too.

A wargame must be 'balanced' in play, that is both sides much have an equal chance of winning. (Just what 'winning' entails may different for both sides remember.) This need for play balance, along with the need for ease of play, means that wargames are poor historical models at best.

It puzzles me why the Aslan "land-loving expansionist warriors" have not already exterminated all these primitive land-squattering human settlers long ago! Maybe it's an honor thing.

Oddly enough it is an honor thing. In 380, the Third Imperium won a ritualised war with the Aslan in the region and established the Peace of Ftaharl. The borders of both the Heirate and Imperium were fixed and the territory between them became a neutral zone.

That could possibly explain the low TLs you've read. The human colonies in the region no longer need to defend themselves from the Aslan and have thus backslid.

Of course, the real reason for those TLs is that they were generated incorrctly.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[Whipsnade]

Originally posted by Maladominus:
To begin with, I believe that these data come directly from either GDWs Atlas of the Imperium or from published sector data from DGP.

Maladominus,

AotI has no UWPs in it. It does name hi-pop worlds, list port ratings, list military bases, and a few other things but there are no tech levels in it.

The DGP data set is hopelessly corrupt. The program that produced failed to implement the already-broken CT and MT sysgens correctly. So you have an imperfect application of a broken system.

As for the information you can derive from that data set, you are familiar with the phrase Garbage In, Garbage Out aren't you?

Now here is where the Dark Nebula stats look totally borked.

Dark Nebula is a wargame and its relationship to canon is debateable. Mr. Miller does insist that Traveller wargames are canon but features in those wargames have both troubling and downright canon breaking implications.

The jump lines in Imperium and Dark Nebula and the tech progression rolls in Dark Nebula led SJGames to ⌧ up an important part of GT:IW and the jump fuel rules in Fifth Frontier War explicitly model an Imperial Navy that does not use jump fuel regulators. There similar examples in Mayday, Striker, and other wargames too.

With regards to the Traveller wargames, you need to take their canonical infomration with a grain of salt.

How the hell can a bunch of primitive Tech Level 4 (median TL) human colonies stop a bunch of rich hi-tech Aslan worlds and warrior fleets? The Aslan worlds have the technology to build and support powerful TL 14 battle fleets. The human worlds barely have the tech level to create a sublight craft.

By ignoring bad UWPs from a corrupt data set for starters. And by ignoring information from a wargame too.

A wargame must be 'balanced' in play, that is both sides much have an equal chance of winning. (Just what 'winning' entails may different for both sides remember.) This need for play balance, along with the need for ease of play, means that wargames are poor historical models at best.

It puzzles me why the Aslan "land-loving expansionist warriors" have not already exterminated all these primitive land-squattering human settlers long ago! Maybe it's an honor thing.

Oddly enough it is an honor thing. In 380, the Third Imperium won a ritualised war with the Aslan in the region and established the Peace of Ftaharl. The borders of both the Heirate and Imperium were fixed and the territory between them became a neutral zone.

That could possibly explain the low TLs you've read. The human colonies in the region no longer need to defend themselves from the Aslan and have thus backslid.

Of course, the real reason for those TLs is that they were generated incorrctly.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[Maladominus]

Thanks for the input Bill.

As I suspected, the UWP data is from one of the DGP Traveller's Digest publishes. I had no idea about its inaccuracy, however, but I'm not surprised at what you said.

One of the few DGP Digests I have is the issue with the Magyar sector data. And I was horrified to find out that DGP (claiming that their material is canonical and "licensed" by GDW, and that DGP was given free reign to publish much of MegaTraveller) ⌧ed up the Magyar subsector names completely. They ⌧ed it up because they made up a completely different set of subsector names, which contradicts the subsector names that GDW already listed in the 100% OFFICIAL Supplement 10, The Solomani Rim, which clearly names the subsectors that border the Solomani Rim sector. The original LBB Solomani Rim, as you recall, was one of the earliest LBBs... probably around 1981 or so. So DGP should have done their homework and corroborated already published subsector/sector names that GDW published eons ago.

As I currently run a Solomani Rim campaign, I have to do extra work to extract and make sense of sector data from neighhboring "adventure sectors" such as Magyar, Dark Nebula and Diaspora.

The borders of both the Heirate and Imperium were fixed and the territory between them became a neutral zone. That could possibly explain the low TLs you've read. The human colonies in the region no longer need to defend themselves from the Aslan and have thus backslid.

This is a good handwave and I'll go along with it. Essentially, the remaining Solomani/Human colonies in the Dark Nebula sector are nothing more than a worthless "buffer zone" between the more important worlds of the Hierate and the Solomani Confederation.

This is a perfect analogy with the southern-Lebanese "neutral zone" between Israel and Lebanon. The strip of land itself is considered a worthless "no man's land", and is seen as the place where bombardments, artillery shellings, and skirmishes will erupt if the two nations begin hostilities or break a truce. No one in their right mind really wants to live in a "neutral zone" area. And no sane government is going to invest a lot of money into developing that region.

 

[Maladominus]

Thanks for the input Bill.

As I suspected, the UWP data is from one of the DGP Traveller's Digest publishes. I had no idea about its inaccuracy, however, but I'm not surprised at what you said.

One of the few DGP Digests I have is the issue with the Magyar sector data. And I was horrified to find out that DGP (claiming that their material is canonical and "licensed" by GDW, and that DGP was given free reign to publish much of MegaTraveller) ⌧ed up the Magyar subsector names completely. They ⌧ed it up because they made up a completely different set of subsector names, which contradicts the subsector names that GDW already listed in the 100% OFFICIAL Supplement 10, The Solomani Rim, which clearly names the subsectors that border the Solomani Rim sector. The original LBB Solomani Rim, as you recall, was one of the earliest LBBs... probably around 1981 or so. So DGP should have done their homework and corroborated already published subsector/sector names that GDW published eons ago.

As I currently run a Solomani Rim campaign, I have to do extra work to extract and make sense of sector data from neighhboring "adventure sectors" such as Magyar, Dark Nebula and Diaspora.

The borders of both the Heirate and Imperium were fixed and the territory between them became a neutral zone. That could possibly explain the low TLs you've read. The human colonies in the region no longer need to defend themselves from the Aslan and have thus backslid.

This is a good handwave and I'll go along with it. Essentially, the remaining Solomani/Human colonies in the Dark Nebula sector are nothing more than a worthless "buffer zone" between the more important worlds of the Hierate and the Solomani Confederation.

This is a perfect analogy with the southern-Lebanese "neutral zone" between Israel and Lebanon. The strip of land itself is considered a worthless "no man's land", and is seen as the place where bombardments, artillery shellings, and skirmishes will erupt if the two nations begin hostilities or break a truce. No one in their right mind really wants to live in a "neutral zone" area. And no sane government is going to invest a lot of money into developing that region.

 

[Flynn]

So long as you aren't trying to publish your work, you can do anything you want to the Dark Nebula, including regenerating the data to fit your own needs.

If you do, I would suggest either writing your own program to do it, doing it by hand or using the GEnie/Sunbane Sector Regenerator:
http://www.downport.com/amv/software/Genie.html

Watch out, though, as the Regenerator sometimes creates unusual and invalid combinations, such as a world size of B that I got once. Personally, I wrote my own app and used it instead.

Best of luck,
Flynn

 

[Flynn]

So long as you aren't trying to publish your work, you can do anything you want to the Dark Nebula, including regenerating the data to fit your own needs.

If you do, I would suggest either writing your own program to do it, doing it by hand or using the GEnie/Sunbane Sector Regenerator:
http://www.downport.com/amv/software/Genie.html

Watch out, though, as the Regenerator sometimes creates unusual and invalid combinations, such as a world size of B that I got once. Personally, I wrote my own app and used it instead.

Best of luck,
Flynn

 

[Maladominus]

Thanks Flynn. I am tempted to re-write some of the UWP data for the Dark Nebula sector (for my own campaign use). I might wait until I can use an executable copy of Mickazoid's sector mapmaker.

I have obtained previous Genie and .sec files for all sectors that I'm interested in. It's just a matter of tweaking some of the UWP stats, and then plugging them back to a sector map generator. So far, Mickazoid's project looks the most promising!

 

[Maladominus]

Thanks Flynn. I am tempted to re-write some of the UWP data for the Dark Nebula sector (for my own campaign use). I might wait until I can use an executable copy of Mickazoid's sector mapmaker.

I have obtained previous Genie and .sec files for all sectors that I'm interested in. It's just a matter of tweaking some of the UWP stats, and then plugging them back to a sector map generator. So far, Mickazoid's project looks the most promising!

 

[Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen]

I'm sure that most of the conflicting data you are mentioning is simply disinformation being generated by SolSec

 

[Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen]

I'm sure that most of the conflicting data you are mentioning is simply disinformation being generated by SolSec

 

[Plankowner]

As a retcon for the Subsector names, I think someone here mentioned that you will have 2 probably 3 names for each of the SubSectors. There will be the IMPERIAL name, the ASLAN name and maybe the SOLOMANI name. The Solomani and Imperial names could be the same, but maybe not...

 

[Plankowner]

As a retcon for the Subsector names, I think someone here mentioned that you will have 2 probably 3 names for each of the SubSectors. There will be the IMPERIAL name, the ASLAN name and maybe the SOLOMANI name. The Solomani and Imperial names could be the same, but maybe not...