Brainstorming thread: Sector History

[Klaus]

I the idea of a once hi-tech world brought low and now its popluated by semi-medieval kingdoms ruled by a techno-priesthood and rogue 'sorcerers' (psionicists?). The hi-tech artefacts could even be higher than TL15, and maybe some vestigial strategic defense capability that makes landings a bit more interesting..

Also, what about planets that want to secede from the Confed. There's some info about that happening close to the Imperium. A rebel planet under blockade would create some interesting scenarios.

 

[M. Chester]

What about a Cluster or Clusters caught in the middle of a Power Struggle of a non-violent nature, with the Federation and the Solomani trying to win over the population by cultural or economic influence?

 

[Klaus]

I think there's plenty of room for that kind of place in this project.

Maybe we need to slowdown for a little while while some of the others get back and add comments. I know there's a few people on holiday or with RL stuff to do. There's alot of good ideas going back and forth and we need to give time for everyone to look at them.

 

[Shadowdancer]

Here are some suggested dates for the expansion of Solomani colonists in Spica:

200: Solomani colonies founded in Gamma Quadrant of Spica, moving into ss I in the cluster along hexes 0122-0125 via the J-2 routes from Alpha Crucis, and into ss M in the main along hexes 0135-0136 via the J-1 main from Alpha Crucis.

425: Solomani colonies founded in Alpha Quadrant of Spica, moving into ss E in the cluster occupying hexes 0217, 0315, 0317, 0415 and 0416 via the J-2 route from Alpha Crucis.

640-650: Solomani colonies push into ss J from ss I, and into ss N from ss M.

700: Solomani colonies move into ss A in the cluster occupying hexes 0106-0109, hexes 0208-0210, and hex 0309 via the J-2 routes from Alpha Crucis. This entire cluster is colonized by 870.

760: Solomani colonies push into ss F from ss E and ss J.

870: Solomani expansion into Spica reaches current border.

 

[Malenfant]

EDIT: actually, I moved my reply to a new Colonisation History (Solomani) thread. So please pop over there if you want to discuss that

 

[RainOfSteel]

Wait!

The Darrians get contacted on -1551 and -1511? Which is it?

 

[Malenfant]

Gruffty - does that Timeline use the Proposed Hiver Expansion I suggested on this thread (and the map I made)? That has the Hivers moving into Spica between about 500 and 993 - very recently. Yes, it contradicts canon, but canon doesn't seem to make much sense on when the Hivers arrived at Spica.

 

[mike wightman]

The reference to sleeper ships in Hinterworlds states that:

Humaniti made its third major debut in the sector in the midst of the Long Night with the voyages of several Solomani sleeper ships (circa -700 Imperial)

I put forward the idea that if the solomani were sending sleeper ships to trailing c.-700 that some of them may have been sent into Spica as well, probably only into the top half of the sector though.

 

[mike wightman]

Sorry, no.

Nor do I know if these sleeper ships were STL or FTL.

I would assume FTL with colonists in cold berths, or else the STL ships would have to have been launched several centuries before -700.

 

[Malenfant]

-2400 Hivers discover the Prt' and foster them to civilisation, Hiver territory encompasses most of Extolian and Ricenden sectors, the coreward halves of Centrax and Wrenton sectors, and the spinward parts of Blaskon and Folgore sectors.

The problem here is that the Hivers can't have discovered the Prt' in -2400 - they're nowhere near Spica at that point. I'm proposing moving the discovery of the Prt' forward to when the Hivers are actually in Spica, which is probably after 700.

Did you see Paraquat's thread about Hiver colonisation of Spica? Is that in the timeline?

I'm not sure the Hivers should hit the Solomani border in 704 - after all, that's the year that the SAR is declared. It'd probably take a few years for word to get to Solomani space and for things to be set up so that they do actually know that they HAVE a border now. It looks from the map like the Hivers had already expanded to their current borders in Spica by that time, and the Solomani couldn't take that territory off them, which is why there's a bit of a bite out of the Solomani Sphere. I'd guess that the Hivers reached the current border in Spica around 650-700?

 

[Klaus]

About the timeline. Is it all extrapolated from the canon and the way star routes wrok, or is there alsobrand new original material come up with here?

 

[Klaus]

I've been working backwards from what I want to end up with. Taking the indie smuggling station idea I thought would be nice on the central main.

I wanted it to be a converted industrial station with shipbuilding capacity. The indies wouldn't be able to build such a station themselves, too expensive. But taking over a derelict facility.

At the time of the first human exploration of the sector, a gas giant was found with copious amounts of easily obtainable substance, call it G for now (will come up with a good name later). G is an imporatant catalyst in j-drive manufacture, and is rare in nature. Synthesising it was v expensive, so a natural source was major find. A small mining comglomerate got hold of it, and kept its existance secret. Then it began selling cheap G on the market and in a short time had virtual control of interstellar travel. With the wealth this company built a huge station to cope with production, and shipyards to build the ships to carry it. The Corpies found this intolerable. (The Sol Sphere would have technically imperial at this time, yes?, but I'm unsure as to how much actual influence it would have). After some time (50-100yrs), a new process is developed (or perhaps leaked by the hivers or the imperium) that makes synthesised G v cheap. This bankrupts the G company. Also some Corps get wind of the stations location and attack it, killing the crew and taking all the hi cost gear, leaving a gutted shell. Over time it gets used variously as pirate haven or seeker base, as the sector is slowly settled. Eventually it becomes a ragtag port, with repair facilities and building capacity.
Here's my timeline.
Discovery of G gas giant - 550
Early production starts - 580
Company stranglehold of G market - 600
Large station built - 600-620
synthetic G process - 700
attack on station - 710
pirate base - 780 and 830
belter base - 850-900
port type C 900-920
port type B 920-970
port type A 970+

There's probably a large belter pop in the system. I'd envisaged lots of belts and one rocky planet with some low grade Ancients ruins. The Civil War would give the company opportunity to get entrenched. the sector would have been mostly uncharted at this time, so the bulk tanker traffic, probably running silent, might give rise to 'black ships' myths.

 

[Flynn]

Ah, shades of B5... I'm assuming that, IYTU, the ruins would eventually be found to possess some form of planetary defense weaponry that could be used to protect the station?

Just kidding. In all actuality, it sounds like a good idea, though I'm uncertain as to what G could be. We know that zuchai crystals, lanthanum and barium are the hardest components of Jump drives to find in the OTU. Perhaps the station's control came from readily available natural resources that could be used to manufacture intricate parts such as the jump drive governor or jump coils mentioned in some CT adventures. Making those parts cheap gave them the edge, and it's easier to explain that someone else found a better way to make them as the tech increased. After all, they may have led the market when the cutting edge was TL12, but at TL13+, other markets became open and created the competition.

I hope you find something useful in this suggestion,
Flynn

 

[Klaus]

I'm not actually that fussed as to what the crucial substance is. I framed it like that as something that was once really expensive but now is dirt cheap. Like salt, I suppose. Once it was more expensive than gold, now I can get buckets for pennies.

 

[Klaus]

Added an essay on the development of Free Trade Zones in the Solomani sphere. It's on my site.

 

[RainOfSteel]

I'm going to go ahead and take a stab at extending some of the Pran Seri history beyond their homeworld, colony info, etc.

I'll be using Galactic to come up with the Starsystems, and then modifying the mainworld UWPs to suit the necessities of the history.

Then, projecting into the future, I'll move onto the other starsystems in Spline(H)/Spica.

 

[Qstor2]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
I think Hiver explorers could have been venturing into Phlask at the time, so in both cases you'd have the scouts of each race initiating first contact with eachother. Which works out kinda nice

.

Berka on his site gives the idea that first contact is in the Syzygy subsector. Not sure if that's canon...although from what I've seen my guess is no.

http://zho.berka.com/data/CLASSIC/

Mike