Beyond the Pony Express

[san*klass]

Returning to CT (using TTB) after a several decade break, I am finding a few questions that never occurred to me before, for which I cannot see an answer in TTB.

And this is one.

What happens to communications outside of the X-Boat network? Feri/Regina (for example) is on the X-Boat network, but how then do communications get from there to the small cluster of J-1 linked worlds which go Trailward from Feri?

Are Scout/Couriers used, and if so “in current IISS service” Scouts only, or demobbed ones also?

Or is it all wrapped up in the Mail contract for Subsidised ships? And if, so, then, given the limited trade opportunities between these seven worlds (using the “Passengers Available” and “Cargo Available” rules in TTB), is that 25kcr payment sufficient to maintain a 400t Fat Trader or 600t Liner?

Apologies if I have missed this, but I have read through TTB thoroughly and can’t see the answer anywhere.

 

[pendragonman]

I know of no official word, but I think how it works is detached duty scouts, and free traders carrying mail.

 

[creativehum]

Working from the Basic Classic Traveller rules works from the text and rules alone, I've always assumed it comes down to those mail contracts.

As san*klass points out many worlds will have limited trade opportunities. Traveling to those worlds won't often make sense for economic reasons.

What this means is, per the implied setting from the rules, many worlds are cut off from regular communication.

Isolation (economic, cultural, and in communication) has always been part of the implied setting per the Basic Classic Traveller rules (that is: Books 1-3, The Traveller Book Starter Traveller). But, that is per the rules.

How people imagine the Third Imperium was often not based on the rules but on the fluff text. For example, in this post I lay out how the text of The Traveller Book suggests that interstellar travel is common, easy, and frequent between worlds. The rules don't jibe with such a description of a setting, however. That doesn't mean that the Referee can't add details or change rules to create a more cosmopolitan, communication friendly setting. If that's what he wants, he should!

Additional Classic Traveller material, outside of the rules and specific to the Third Imperium, are such changes.

My only point is that the rules as written, viewed holistically, will not support such a setting out of the text.

 

[whulorigan]

What happens to communications outside of the X-Boat network? Feri/Regina (for example) is on the X-Boat network, but how then do communications get from there to the small cluster of J-1 linked worlds which go Trailward from Feri?

Are Scout/Couriers used, and if so “in current IISS service” Scouts only, or demobbed ones also?

Or is it all wrapped up in the Mail contract for Subsidised ships?

In the OTU, X-Mail off the X-Boat route would be carried by a Scout assigned to the Communications branch of the IISS, piloting a Type-S whose payload/mission section is configured for the Communications role (see Traders & Gunboats). A demobbed/detached duty Scout would likely not be used unless the Scout had been called up and reactivated for a specific mission.

But mail is also carried by government or corporate contract thru local Postal Unions, which generally send their communications via Subsidized Merchant with a Mail Contract.

Of course, anyone can privately contract with the Captain of a Free Trader to take a message somewhere, but that is a private matter and a potential gamble . . .

 

[Condottiere]

I think there two separate issues.

Official government news and orders have to reach all member worlds of the Imperium, so if the Scout Service is responsible for the official communications network, they have to arrange for the worlds not directly connected by X-Boats to get notified, and that's probably where the hundred tonne courier comes in.

To systems outside of the Imperium proper, they'd probably subcontract that to some private entity, except for diplomatic couriers.

 

[Whipsnade]

What happens to communications outside of the X-Boat network?

The answers to your "question" is both self evident and easy to find. There are a number of methods used including but not limited to IISS scout/couriers, mail contracts, postal unions, subsidized merchants, and the like.

Canonical support for those methods depends on what version of CT you look in.

If you limit your search Proto-CT - that is 4-4-4 or Books 1-4, Adventures 1-4, and Supplements 1-4 - mail contracts and subsidized merchants are explicitly listed in LBB:2.

In "Big" CT we're explicitly told scout/couriers carry mails off the X-boat routes in LBB:6 while postal unions are explained in S:11.

 

[mike wightman]

S7:

This system has three basic components: the express boat itself, the express boat
tender, and the scout/courier. Each performs a different purpose, and each has its
own niche to fill within the whole program.
When a message can no longer be forwarded by xboat along the major routes,
it is transferred to a scout/courier which then carries it to the specific world in
question. Main routes are plotted to come within several parsecs of every star
system in the Imperium, so the added transit time is rarely more than an extra three
or four weeks.

 

[McPerth]

The answers to your "question" is both self evident and easy to find. There are a number of methods used including but not limited to IISS scout/couriers, mail contracts, postal unions, subsidized merchants, and the like.

Canonical support for those methods depends on what version of CT you look in.

If you limit your search Proto-CT - that is 4-4-4 or Books 1-4, Adventures 1-4, and Supplements 1-4 - mail contracts and subsidized merchants are explicitly listed in LBB:2.

I'm with Whipsnade here (for a change ).

From the X-boat nodes, most of the mails is carried by tramp traders. Where the comercial value of the planet makes free traders too scarce, the subsized ones enter into play.

After all, why are those traders subsized if not to cover the worlds where no free trader would find busines possibilities enough to make it worthwile?

Remember they are assigned to a specific route for 70% of the time, and it's stated that not all the trips in the route are going to be profitable, just the full route itself must be.

Even so, they are probably visited less often tan other worlds, and news arriving them are probably already old in neighbouring systems...

As san*klass points out many worlds will have limited trade opportunities. Traveling to those worlds won't often make sense for economic reasons.

See that for speculative cargos those systems are as good as Mora or Rhylanor in CT LBB3 rules (and also in MP), so making them visited.

In LBB3, about 1 in 3 posible speculative cargos will sell well (postiive DMs) in any NI world (usually with limited trade value), so making them worthwile to visit, and if you get lucky, you may find a cargo that has good buying modifiers there (about 1 in 12 possibilities, but there are few that have bad ones in such a world).

As per MP, it will basically depend on TL and starport, as both Lo and Ni make cargoes more expendive (but if you can sell them on an industrial world, you compensate for it), but you have less cargoes there. Even so, you can find interesting possibilities even in Pop 2-3 world, and if its TL and Starport are decent, you can sell them on benefit in most worlds...

 

[BwapTED]

Jump-capable message torpedoes!

 

[kilemall]

Jump-capable message torpedoes!

That way be dragons!

 

[Ex_Pendable]

Due to infrequent contact with the destination world, your message has been sent via MASER. Expected delivery time is 4.7 years. Expected reply 9.4 years. Do you wish to wait for a response? (Yes/No)

 

[McPerth]

Even the less frequently visited world in the imperium will surely be patrolled by the Subsector, or even Imperial, Navy, even if just to make sure no safe haven for pirates to establish a base is left.

I guess those patrols may be used to take them the mail too, even if as a PR campaign for those navies (a campaign that will cost them nothing, OTOH).

Of course, those patrols (and so mail incoming andf outgoing) are likely to be irregular, but at least some contact will be kept with the rest of the Imperium.

 

[kilemall]

There is also the personally carried message rule, re: LBB2-81, page 9.

It's basically a roll of 9+ per port, 20-120 Cr payment (so 2d6x10 Cr).

So, that suggests a way you would expect to get messages through even without an official subsidized merchant mail route or scout/courier.