CotI Spica Sector Project (CSSP)

[The Hinterworlds Rambler]

I agree, Hear Hear, Lord Mal!

The other thing that is of interest to the whol political structure is the abundance of independent systems and small governments Coreward in the Hinterworlds and Leonidae.. these will add spice...

 

[Flynn]

I would caution everyone to double-check the validity of your UWP data, etc. Most of the work out there may very well be HIWG, which carries some copyright issues with it should you decide to publish what you come up with.

Personally, I'd start with the files from the Missouri Archives, and go from there.

Hope this helps,
Flynn

 

[Malenfant]

I think that what Flynn says is all the more reason to start completely from scratch. Bluntly put, screw whatever anyone else has written - it just adds too many (probably conflicting) constraints over what we'd do here.

I think at most all we should retain here are existing political boundaries and any world locations from dot maps (those can be found in the Atlas of the Imperium, right? Do those show jump routes too?). UWPs and stellar data can be done from scratch.

I'm slowly working on a new more realistic UWP generation system, but I'm up to my eyeballs in work for the next few weeks so I may not have a lot of time to work on that.

What I'd suggest is that we start from the top and work down, as Morte suggested. Let's figure out the major political entities, economic and military powers, jump routes etc, and what the races that inhabit the sector are first. Then we can worry about putting the UWPs and stellar data in to fit around that.

 

[RainOfSteel]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
Actually, I'd rather make a whole new Spica sector from scratch (keeping the existing borders though),

<snip>

By "existing" borders, we're talking about the minimal to non-existant borders, with no Hive Federation or Solomani "space" at all, as shown on the CT:Black-Map . . . right? (The Solomani and Hive Federation would be just over the Sector edges, as shown.)
START EDIT-----------
Actually, Solomani space is 1/2 a Sector away across Alpha Crucis.
END EDIT-------------

The idea of contacting Marc and getting some kind of approval is interesting, but it awaits someone contacting Marc and getting his approval.

Other than that, I'm for junking old data and going with something new. A fann project for fanns.

This will require the use of a Sector Generator, though. Galactic 2.4 and H&E 2.0 Beta Sector Module lead the way. H&E 2.0 beta sticks to the rules as closely as can possibly be managed. Galactic 2.4 offers the options of using the author's "homebrew" UWP generation, and honestly, the UWPs that pop out of that system are a vast improvement over the standard. Worlds with High-Pop, High-Tech, and big Starport attributes occur (a lot more) with highly habitable attributes, and worlds with Low-Pop, Low-Tech, and small Starport attributes occur (a lot more) on less habitable worlds. Which is what you'd expect to happen. Exceptions can occur, but they are that, exceptions, and not the norm.

 

[RainOfSteel]

Originally posted by Morte:


<snip>

Get all that sorted then fit the UWPs and allegiance codes to it, not vice versa. Traveller has always done this the wrong way around. You guys don't have to stick to the canonical (and crap) bottom-up approach for the usual reasons of setting/designer inertia.

<Thunderous Applause!>

I can't agree more.

 

[RainOfSteel]

While these other considerations are simmering away . . .

Has anyone given any thought to the era?

993 or 1100 would be my choices. TNE and 1248 represent changes I'm not interested in (for this project, anyway). Same goes for M:0 or the Interstellar Wars (in Spica, anyway). 1116/Rebellion . . . maybe, if everyone else here wants to.

 

[Malenfant]

I dunno, to be honest I'd rather use good old fashioned dice and pen and paper to make the UWPs . I always found that more fun than clicking a button and having some usually buggy output thrown at you

(though Flynn's java conversion of my Stellar Generation system seems to be bug-free ). Plus it means one can keep an eye on what's being generated.

As for era, I'd vote for CT (1100ish) myself. Or 993, and then work forward to 1100 perheaps.

Re: borders. Yeah, I meant whatever was there. If there's nothing there then all the better

.

 

[The Hinterworlds Rambler]

I like the background presented by Lord Berka it is incomplete, but not bad.. it is also a good place to start, imho. Plus, it would shorten the time to the work on the next Sector...


I also vote 1100 (as it would help two of my games set in that year...)

 

[RainOfSteel]

Originally posted by Baron Saarthuran von Gushiddan:
I like the background presented by Lord Berka it is incomplete,

<snip>

Background?

Berka posted a link a few posts ago, but there is no "background" there that I could locate. Just some nice maps and a few misc. links (like to Allegiance Codes and Subsector Names).

I must be entirely missing what you saw. Help.

 

[Flynn]

It actually appears that the only canonical data to be released for Spica sector lies within the Atlas of the Imperium (which is very limited and so not as limiting), the Contact: Prt' article in Challenge 26, and some minor references to two individual worlds:

Prt'aow (2340 Spica) - Prt' homeworld
Juess (0917 Spica) - Book 8: Robots

Hope this helps,
Flynn

BTW, the link to the T20 Conversion of the Prt' can be found here:
http://www.travellerrpg.com/cgi-bin/Trav/CotI/Discuss/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=10;t=000019#000000

 

[Morte]

There's some relevant stuff in the GURPS Alien module on Hivers, for 1120. I will not go into whether that is canon...

I'd say 1115, so users can decide whether to have the rebelllion or not, using the border drawn in the GURPS books. It's more interesting than that 1116 page, it's got a big salient between the Sollies and the Hive with indies in the middle.

 

[RainOfSteel]

I'll go with 1115, that way, we can have a point closest to a major divergence in timelines and game systems.

 

[Flynn]

Morte,

Even if you guys don't include the GT information, you might want to make sure that it is not invalidated by what you create, if you can. I believe that's the approach that Hunter is taking regarding the "forbidden canon" of DGP in QLI products.

-Flynn

 

[The Hinterworlds Rambler]

The thing that may be really cool about this politically, is that Spica's three way fringe of Sols, Hivers, and Independents makes it a hotbed for weirdoes (I am speaking generally, Lords...) from all of those governments... going to live out on the fringes... hmm perhaps "sent to Spica" could sort of be synonymous with "sent to Siberia"?

Star Patterns Trading, Evidently is one of Five Hiver Megacorporations, this one seems to primarily deal with import and export to the rest of known space... worlds like "IIIIII" I guess would be huge "warehouse worlds'?

1100 may be better in that case, simply because it is a lot more "neutral" than 1115... you'd have a bit more time to make a decision as a Referee as to how you want to handle the whole Rebellion concept, if at all...

Notes on the Presented Data snippets...
I like the concept of the "Xoar" though I find it dubious that they can somehow launch themselves naturally into space...

I also like the idea of the "Space Jihadists" in the al Ajib subsector...

Why is DGP forbidden to QLI? Copyright Issues? Does that mean no Cytrialian Unity? No Gnivii? no Jenda?

 

[Malenfant]

DGP is "forbidden" to every Traveller publisher due to legal issues between Robert (?) Sanger (who owns the DGP IP) and MWM.

The rest of us of course can still use it for whatever we want in our own games, if we are lucky enough to have access to any of that material. I suspect it's out of bounds for a public project like this though, but I'm not actually sure...

 

[The Hinterworlds Rambler]

Does this Sanger still have an active role in Traveller?

 

[clementk]

DGP as "fuzzy canon" / Roger Sanger has already been discussed here and on the TML (i.e. do a search on them for more detailed info). Best not to use it in this case either IMO.

http://www.downport.com/traveller/tml/tml-faq.html#Q5.12-DGP

Starting from mostly scratch is fine with me. I'm partial to the 993 period at the moment but somewhere between 1105-1120 is okay as well.

Casey

 

[jappel]

I'm starting to get really interested in this project, the more we've discussed it!

Edit: I've posted a poll in the Surveys forum here regarding which era people prefer.

John

 

[Malenfant]

To me, there's no difference between CT Golden Age (1110) and CT Pre-Rebellion (1115). Or is the only difference whether the 5th Frontier War is still going on? (and is that even relevant for Spica anyway?)

 

[Burocrate]

Just bounced over from the "Which era in Spica?" poll and noted that Rim War 990s is currently at 50%. I choose this myself because I would like to see more quality support for what I consider the T20 default setting. After looking over the discussions on these boards all I can say is well done and thanks to all of you who put in so much of your time and energy to create more game content for everyone to enjoy.