Building the playground: what do we want out of this?

[Malenfant]

There's one important point you're missing there though - all the places on Earth that you mentioned are habitable. You still have a breathable atmosphere, pretty much wherever you go (some places (like the himalayas) need a bit of adaptation, but that's about it).

I'd like to live on the moon too, but I'm pretty sure I'd either go crazy from claustrophobia and stress or be dead within a year of going there. If however there was an earthlike planet to go to then I'd probably last a lot longer

. (of course, this neglects the fact that in reality most "earthlike" planets with life on them are probably going to be about as dangerous as a vacuum world - there'd be all sorts of risks from unknown local diseases, flora and fauna that would have no precedent elsewhere).


Sure, Australia was a penal colony, but the coastal regions are certainly fairly clement even if the interior of the continent is much more environmentallly hazardous (even today, most of the (non-native) Australians live on the coasts, and not many live in the interior). The population can grow there because it's still a fairly nice place to live (barring the fact that damn near all the wildlife is poisonous ). If however, we'd had the technology to ship everyone off to the moon instead of Australia, I'm not sure if it would have flourished.

Ditto for the New World colonists - the American continents are still fundamentally habitable. I doubt that the Founding Fathers would have wanted to set up shop on Venus if that was an option though .

 

[Tony Canopus]

I always thought anything over TL 9 can build some sort of Hab Pod environment to live in... I can only guess that they would be conditioned to pod life, or maybe dont know any other kind of life...

I'll be in my Pod...

 

[Klaus]

I'd think that the Himilayas at TL0 is about as or more challenging than a trace atmosphere at TL10. I know future history is not an 'exact science' but I'd hope for a Mars colony by the time we reach TL10, and that'd be only cuz it was there, not coz it was inviting or full of resources.

I'd only feel claustrophobic on the Moon if the domes were small (obviously not in a smelly tin can). If space travel is common then living in vacuum is routine, and moon cities aren't limited for space like a ship. Rocks can be cracked for oxygen and other chemicals. Careful husbanding of resources could eventually make soil out of crushed rock for the greenhouses etc.

Miners will take their families with them (how else are you born a Belter?), so they might set up roots, on a rockball. It might be in a well connected system, so when the mines run out it stays thriving as a trade hub. There alot of diverse reasons why stuff happens, even if there are guiding principles. 'Normal' is an abstract concept, after all.

And alot of Earth habitats were made clement by human hard work and trial and error, over millenia. It takes endeavours like irrigation to make land productive. True garden zones are rare. The Amazon rainforest has plenty of food for subsistence, but try to develop it and it turns to desert. A tropical planet might be just as inimical to development, even tho its UWP looks earthlike.

Belters live a kind of subsistence existence, like hight tech nomadic hunter gatherers, in a vacuum environment. Some of them might choose to settle down over time, like nomads thru history, and they might find fresh air and big open skies threatening, so choose rockballs.

Having said all this I agree with what you're saying. Most successfully settled worlds would probably be more earthlike. There'd only be a finite number of these tho, meaning those who came later to strike out on their own would be picking more and more marginal worlds. It depends on the frequency of earthlike worlds really. What we don't want is hi pop vac worlds next to empty ideal worlds; this is where the silliness arises.

In District 268 I was able to rationalise away Dawnworld, with its perfect yet empty UWP, as a place with incredibly savage wildlife, and some claim disputes. That can work once or twice, but I found too many of these irregularites in the Gateway domain.

The trick is to make sure it all makes sense while retaining diversity.

 

[Malenfant]

Yes - again, I'm not saying that uninhabitable worlds won't be settled, I'm just saying that they shouldn't have populations that are as large as those on earthlike worlds. I'm not against them having a few million people on them at most, but a few billion is silly IMO.

And at TL 0 the Himalayas (at least, the Tibetan Plateau) are quite habitable - ask any of the tribesmen who live there . The pressure isn't anywhere near low enough for them to worry about exploding or suffocating when they step out of their tents . But if hypothetically it was high enough for that to happen, I strongly doubt that anybody would want to live there, given that everywhere else around it would be habitable.

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Tony Canopus:
I always thought anything over TL 9 can build some sort of Hab Pod environment to live in... I can only guess that they would be conditioned to pod life, or maybe dont know any other kind of life...

Sure, but to be colonists, people would generally have to want to live in the pod environment in the first place. Moving from a habitable world to a dome city on a vacuume world is not going to be like a case of someone moving from New York to Chicago, where the environment you're going to is broadly similar to the the one that you left - it's more like going from New York to the Sahara Desert, where the environments are utterly different.

As a proportion of the human race, I strongly doubt even in the far future that most people would happily give up their lifestyle on a habitable earthlike world and swap it for the lifestyle of living on a low g, vacuum-baked rockball. Some people would, sure - but the majority wouldn't. So to reflect that I think it's OK to say that there should be pop 8 or 9+ (billions of people) remaining on the earthlike worlds and pop 6- (millions or less) people on the nonhabitable ones.

Don't forget, a few million people is still a lot of folks. That's plenty of room there for just about any adventure you can think of on such a world.

 

[Klaus]

yes you're absolutely right! was enjoying this discussion so much I'd forgotten what started it

still think there could be one hi pop vac world or iceball in the sector, obviously with specific and sensible reason why it should be so. tho it would probably be a harsh dictatorship (N Korea?)

 

[Malenfant]

still think there could be one hi pop vac world or iceball in the sector, obviously with specific and sensible reason why it should be so.

If the reason is logical and sensible, then sure - there can always be the odd exception. I just wouldn't want to see lots of them, because that really does seem rather unlikely.

 

[Klaus]

How many unique/bizarre worlds do you think we can get away with here?

 

[teinedraig]

Look at some of the sci fi books around and at some of the adaptions that have been in those. From the equivalent of belters in the Sean Williams books (title escapes me) who live in their suites in space through to the genetically adapted workers who live in the orbital stations and who have been genetically adapted in the Asher books (Line of Polity).

I think these give you some idea of how humanity might adapt and change to suit their environment, either over time, through no choice or through choice. I lived for awhile in outback australia and there are people out there who didn't like the coast becuase it was too green. An example of an adaption of perception.

Given this Solmani space then I would expect a lot more variation in what is being done, more use of genetic and other technologies to push the boundaries and more acceptance of this.

 

[Malenfant]

I thought Sollies were big on racial purity... so why would they tinker around with their genetics to make people "less human"? (Transhumanism doesn't seem to exist in Traveller, and genetic engineering - beyond Ancient tinkering - has never really been a Big Thing in Traveller either).

Also, yes, I realise that people can choose to live in less clement environments. But I'll bet you that most of the people in Australia are on the coasts, and only a minority choose to be in the outback. It just proves my point again - the majority of people would be found (and would want to live in) comfortable habitable environments, and a minority would be hardy enough to want to live elsewhere.

As for wacky worlds - a handful in the sector, I'd say. Exceptions should be... well, exceptional.

 

[teinedraig]

Racial purity does not always mean genetic conformity. From the Library Data :

Much more recently, the Confederation Ministry of Genetics ( GenAssist ) and other similar organisations have modified human genes, usually to assist in the colonisation of various worlds. Typical adaptive modifications allow humans to withstand toxic atmospheres, extremes of gravity and temperature, and to perform specific utilitarian functions. Examples include the Izirl (with enhanced hearing) and the Wuans (with distinct genotypes such as Worker and Executive).

Also

Their most distinctive trait is their love of independence, which affects them on many levels. Fundamentally, the Solomani idealise self-reliance. Their cultural heroes typically solve their problems without seeking outside help, encouraging resourcefulness and innovation. Secondly, independence often manifests as non-conformity, the major reason why efforts to unify the Confederation 's disparate cultures has borne little fruit. Thirdly, independence means risk-taking and the love of a challenge; many Solomani make a free-lance living, side-stepping the rigorous economic regulation imposed by the Solomani Party . Finally, although their history contains political tyranny, popular uprisings calling for independence and an end to oppression often occur. The typical Vilani accepts authority; in contrast, the Solomani believe they have the right to challenge it.

As to where sentient races live - yes, the bulk will move to the 'good' worlds but many will start as splinter cultures (for various reasons - religion, political, life style, ...). You could borrow from Gordon R Dickson and have worlds like the Dorsai or Exotics.

Population densities are often governed by proximity to resources, hence the split between coastal and inland australia. Also, inland australia is dominated by agriculture and mining while the coast is dominated by manufactoring and other high resource industries.

 

[Klaus]

That's how I'd figured it. The Sol Party wants to be in total control, but often isn't, and its heavy handed methods would put poeple off. It could be that the CF is split politically, with the Sol Party with the majority, but also a significant minority anxious about or in downright opposition to Sol Party aims. A native Solomani sentient rights movement seems natural, a combination of peaceful protest (often crushed) and covert direct action. What about rebellious worlds: could be interesting to have planet under CF blockade, until it changes its ways.

Query: is SolSec part of the Sol party, or does that have its own secret police wing? I ask this coz in the'Broadside of a Barn' epic adventures SolSec is described as being 'not monsters' when confronted by a rather nasty political regime. They don't sound like post-Nazi's to me. Maybe the party would have its own security force, of a much more sinister nature...

 

[Tony Canopus]

why not a few billion on a Vacc world? if there was some reaon for them to be there, i dont see what the problem would be with that. That's what Arcologies are for. If its a low tech situation, why wouldn't they all live underground in some Ancient site, or long forgotten alien habitat that they adapted to? I think sometimes you guys are trying to hard to make everything make sense. There is "Fiction" in Science Fiction, y'know.

 

[Malenfant]

I'm one of those people who think that if a setting isn't consistent and doesn't make sense, then it's not worth the paper it's written on. Frankly, a lot of Traveller stuff is very inconsistent and nonsensical.

The "Fiction" part of Science Fiction doesn't have to be wacky and illogical to be good, IMO.

 

[Tony Canopus]

And I am one of those people that believes that "consistency" means an unrealistic sameness to things. I am not suggesting every world be "wacky" but some should. Star Systems are not Strip Malls.

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Tony Canopus:
I am not suggesting every world be "wacky" but some should. Star Systems are not Strip Malls.

I'm not suggesting that there shouldn't be any 'wacky' worlds at all, just that they should be exceptional.

And while star systems are not all the same, they generally conform to the same sort of layout and structure (eg icy worlds are only found beyond the frost line, high density worlds are only within the frost line, etc). Conforming to the laws of physics tends to do that

.

As it stands there are far too many randomly generated UWPs that have tiny worlds that have thick atmospheres that they can't hold on to without being ridiculously dense (Enos is a tiny rockball in the Sword Worlds that needed to have a density about 4.5 times higher than that of the Earth in order to retain its atmosphere - and that's just one of many many worlds like that), or some other nonsensical physical UWP. The revised stellar generation system did away with habitable worlds orbiting red giants and white dwarfs at least, but there's still a way to go to get things realistic.

 

[Flynn]

As a gamer, I've had limited problems playing in an inconsistent, nonsensical Traveller universe. The aesthetic side of me says, "Yeah, that could be better," but it doesn't make the game unplayable or even unenjoyable to me.

Guess I'm weird like that.

-Flynn

 

[RainOfSteel]

There is a difference between consistency as: "consistently workable under known physical laws and principles (yes, we don't know them all yet)," and, consistency as: "everything is consistently the same."

In order to have an interstellar adventure game, we give up some of our physical law consistency. Hyperspace Jumps, gravity control, reactionless thrusters (in some versions of Traveller), fusion plants that use enough hydrogen in a week to melt down a small city, etc.

We pick and chose where we violate the known laws of physics to facilate our adventures. Everywhere else, we try and adhere to reasonable extrapolations of possible future technologies from what we know . . . ta-da, not today, but what we knew in 1975 (ok, when exactly to project forward from is a topic of hot debate).

Now, in any particular world, the GM is free to come up with whatever whacko collection of unbelieveabilties as will make the gaming group happy.

However, in a random generation system, used to create large numbers of star systems with physical world stats and social/people stats filled in for the benefit of the GM, the GM should not be faced with results from the system and worlds therein that require checking SAN points with the doorman wearing a nametag bearing the inscription, "Mr. Cthulu."

If the GM wishes to modify the results to taste, now that is another story entirely, and an equally reasonable one.

 

[Malenfant]

We pick and chose where we violate the known laws of physics to facilate our adventures. Everywhere else, we try and adhere to reasonable extrapolations of possible future technologies from what we know . . . ta-da, not today, but what we knew in 1975 (ok, when exactly to project forward from is a topic of hot debate).

The problem is that it's nigh impossible to put one's mind back to whatever we knew in the late 1970s. Most of what we thought we knew in the 1970s (especially regarding astronomy, planetary science, and biology) has been totally and utterly rewritten by discoveries made since then.

I think it's unreasonable to expect people to think in 1970s terms when playing or writing things for this game. There are certain axioms - the big clunky computers, jump tapes, etc - that can be stuck to as part of the setting, but expecting everyone to think about everything in 1970s terms is liable to only cause headaches.

Thing is, having realistic stars and planets actually doesn't affect the setting that much, if at all. You can still run the same adventures whether you're on an earthlike planet with 20 big moons orbiting a blue supergiant or an earthlike planet with two big moons orbiting a yellow main sequence star. Hence I don't really understand why some people seem to be obsessed with sticking to the nonsensical UWPs. The advantage of making things realistic is that it adds greatly to the credibility of the game given that people are going to look at it with current knowledge in mind, not 1970s knowledge.

 

[RainOfSteel]

Malenfant,

I did mention it was a topic for hot debate.