CotI Spica Sector Project (CSSP)

[BrennanHawkwood]

I would lean toward 993, though consideration should be given for the effect of the Solomani Rim War, especially if this project decides to start with the big picture and work its way down to the details.

Spica is (as far as sectors go) very close to front. I would think that could have a huge impact on the politics and events of the time. IIRC at that point the Rim War has been ongoing for about 3-4 years at that point and the 3I has just managed to stop the Solomani advance into the Old Expanses (which appears to border diagonally on Spica).

This could produce a bunch of cool adventure opportunities (especially military and espionage style) but could also overshadow just about everything. Depends on how much of an impact one thinks a major interstellar war will have on a not-necisarily friendly border only a sector away from one of the major war zones.

 

[RainOfSteel]

Originally posted by 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?)

1115 has some significant differences. Most of all in the changes made by Strephon, who has enacted reforms to give power back to the Archdukes. Somewhere between 1105 and 1115, this is started.

Prior to Strephon's reforms, the Archdukes have no meaningful power.

Things Archdukes Can Do
</font>

• Create and Invest Knights and Baronets (non-Ruling Nobles).</font>
• Entertain foreign dignitaries who cannot travel all the way to Capital/Core in the Emperor's stead.</font>
• Maintain Hereditary Lands and Income (1)</font>

Things Archdukes Can't Do
</font>

• Collect Taxes</font>
• Give Orders to the Imperial Navy</font>
• Give Orders to the Imperial Bureacracy</font>
• Give Orders to a Sector Duke or Nobility under the Sector Duke</font>

(1) An Archduke's hereditary fief is one world. They are not without wealth, but as they collect no taxes, they are paupers in comparison to Sector Dukes, Dukes, and Marquis' over High-Pop worlds.


Strephon's reforms changed the "climate" of the power structure in the Imperium. It put Archdukes "back" into the power structure they'd been ripped out of many centuries before.

Because the structure of the IN is radically different, we can also assume the IN went through radical structural reorganization, as well. So the whole tenor of the IN and its roles would have changed.

 

[Malenfant]

So what can Archdukes do after the reforms? All of the above now?

 

[RainOfSteel]

Malenfant,

AFAIK, yes. They get all their old powers back.

Basically, after the Civil War, "the Emperors" thought the Archdukes were too powerful, and so "stripped" them of their powers.

Strephon actually took a lot of flak for giving the Archdukes their powers back. There were many critics who felt it was far too risky. Strephon felt he trusted all his Archdukes, unfortunately . . .

It's what allowed Dulinor to organize the military in his Domain under himself with loyalty to him first.

This is all found in CT:Supplement 11: Library Data N-Z

 

[RainOfSteel]

Or rather, the section on Domains and the role of the Archdukes is found in Supplement 11.

Rebellion Era reforms, etc., are found in other products.

 

[Malenfant]

Well, if Spica was in its real location on the Charted Space map, it would be 80.4 pc from Sol: 36.6 pc directly coreward, and 35.15 pc to trailing (and 62.33 pc directly "above" Sol too, but that doesn't mean anything in the 2D Traveller universe). (See my Near Star Mapping page for how I figure this out). If we just ignore the up/down s-component and place Spica at its x- and y-co=ordinates, then I think that'd locate it roughly in subsector O of the Old Expanses sector. Which is obviously a problem given that it wouldn't be located in the sector that it gives its name to

.

Instead, on the OTU Charted Space map Spica is about 25 pc coreward and 60 pc trailing of Sol - 65 pc in a straight line on the map from Sol.

Spica's not too bad as real stars go - other real stars are in completely the wrong direction relative to Sol, and it totally breaks down nearer Terra).

There are a few named stars near Spica - h Virginis is a K0 III Giant about 3 pc from Spica, 69 Virginis is a K1 III Giant that is 7 pc from Spica, and there are loads of F and G V stars in the area too (and undoubtedly there are also many more K and M V stars that we can't see from here)


So I guess we'll have to figure out what do to with all this realworld info - ignore it all, place everything relative to Spica at its existing ingame location, or something else...?

 

[Hal]

Originally posted by RainOfSteel:
RE: Sector Data Quality & Canonicity


What I think we need to do is hammer out what, exactly, we're going to do in regards to "following the rules".

I say we our doing this for ourselves. If we do high quality work, and the data looks good, then others will use it because it's good. Will everyone use it? Probably not. If a later "canon" Spica emerges w/out regard to what we have done . . . I say we steel ourselves to it now and go our own way, adhering to the published rules of Traveller where we all agree those rules make sense, and in our own rules (like Malenfant's Stellar Generation rules) when the published rules make no sense.

In the end, an interesting place to adventure is what we're looking for, not something that can be stamped "according to Hoyle". And in that event that a canon Spica is produced, it will likely be done w/out regard to what we've done, so we're not working for official publication . . . or, are we?

Now, we can, of course, follow every rule.

Which way will we go? OTU-Rules (such as they are) and officialdom; or plausibile house-rules and better looking star systems?

A narrow path between? Use strict rules except in a few cases (like the Stellar Data . . . as if I weren't hinting too strongly).

For what it is worth - I am SERIOUSLY considering scrapping everything in the Spinward Marches Campaign book regards to star types and such - and work off of the original SPINWARD MARCHES SUPPLEMENT book. From there, generate worlds according to GURPS FIRST IN (I know, many of you are not enamoured of that system generation, but I rather like it for reasons pertaining to astrogrhapics and battles that are in a wide playing field )

After having to deal with inconsistencies and outright broken generation of data from THE SPINWARD MARCHES CAMPAIGN, I've said to myself "To hell with it". I can only suggest that the same concept be applied here as well. In a nutshell? Build something you can be proud of and let the rest of the universe (ie the OTU grogonards who whine "But that's not what the rules say in...") go hang itself.

 

[The Hinterworlds Rambler]

Easiest would be to use the established position and UWPs, and to focus more on political development and history...

I have been pouring over Galactic 2.4... what would be considered a "silly" combo of UWP stats? Is it mostly the "intangibles" like Government and Law Level? Do you have a specific example?

 

[Malenfant]

Baron - things like this (taken from the galactic .sec file linked to from the first page of this thread):

1502 C326522-B Ni 314 Na M4 IV

This has an M4 IV (subgiant) primary. There's no such thing as an M subgiant (it's specified in the book 6 rules too).


Most stars have at least one white dwarf companion. This is wholly unrealistic, and is a flaw of the Book 6 system.


0130 C445433-5 Ni 920 So G1 III

This world orbits a G1 III giant, but a star this massive (10+ solar masses) would be too massive to even have planets.


1629 B25A765-D Wa 414 Hv G3 D

A waterworld orbiting a white dwarf?!


2523 C8964S5-7 Ni 914 Hv M5 D M9 D

A habitable world orbiting a white dwarf?!!


2134 C867604-9 Ag Ni Ri 724 Hv A3 V

A an agricultural, earth-like world orbiting an A V star? These are barely old enough to have finished forming planets, if they have any. Habitable worlds around them would be ridiculously unlikely, if they're even possible.

 

[robject]

Originally posted by Malenfant:

2134 C867604-9 Ag Ni Ri 724 Hv A3 V

A an agricultural, earth-like world orbiting an A V star? These are barely old enough to have finished forming planets, if they have any. Habitable worlds around them would be ridiculously unlikely, if they're even possible.

Are the Hivers big on terraforming?

 

[Malenfant]

Well, even if they were, why would they want to go to the hassle of terraforming in such a hostile system? It'd be a young system, and there'd be all sorts of leftover debris flying around to wreck things.

Besides, wouldn't they be more into Guaranforming?

 

[The Hinterworlds Rambler]

What about an extensive Hiver Research facility? It could be hazardous to Navigate the system, etc. But it could fit, considering Hiver Curiosity...

Perhaps a world where the processes of Plantary development and evolution even are sped up for some reason? (Ancients?) maybe its a large Petri Dish...

 

[Malenfant]

Again though, we're getting into explaining dodgy UWPs by making exceptions for them - net result is that we end up with a universe full of weird, contrived exceptions just for the sake of it. I'd want to avoid doing that.

Besides, it's not like the Spica UWPs in the .sec files are even officially sanctioned anyway (is it?), and the presence of M IV stars means that whatever system was used to make them is broken anyway.

I'd much prefer to have realistic UWPs here. If nothing else, just as an experiment to see how a sector would turn out if it was based on realistic stars and systems rather than broken UWPs.

 

[clementk]

There seems to be at least one CT era reference to this sector. Is there any chance Spica is in the AotI? I know it's not the most useful source but OTOH it would provide the hex locations of worlds without detailing too many in either name or UWP from what I've heard. Anyone have it handy?

Just wondering if it might be a good compromise source to start from. It'd be close to (if not the original source of) whatever's followed since but still likely give enough wiggle space for creativity.

I take it Spica is close enough to the big states to have been surveyed? I'd still like to see a "There be Stars Here Somewhere" area ala some of the CT Alien Modules but I don't think this sector is a good candidate for even a subsector like that.

GURPS First In and some sort of modified CT/etc. UWP gen is fine with me though I wouldn't mind some oddballs thrown in for good measure afterwards.

Casey

 

[Flynn]

Spica is indeed in the Atlas of the Imperium.

-Flynn

 

[clementk]

Originally posted by Gruffty:
http://maps.travellercentral.com/

The site seems to imply that the stats are canon, but there's no reference to a book/manual.

from
http://maps.travellercentral.com/sec//ii.spica_sec.html
</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">#Source: names from Core [http://members.nova.org/~sol/core/]
#Uwps from Missouri Archives, apparently from original sources.</pre>[/QUOTE]

The Core site file seems to have moved around to
http://111george.com/core/astrogat/iI.htm

IIRC that page has already been mentioned in this thread or the one that lead to it.

Casey

 

[Malenfant]

I'll dig out my UWP stats program when I get home and run it on the GENII data for the Spica sector.

The stellar data definitely needs to be regenerated (at the very least because it contains stars that are impossible, like M IV subgiants) - the stats program will see if there are any dodgy repeating UWPs and so on (some of the sectors have problems with too many 100 (size/atm/hyd) worlds or cyclic UWP sequences that keep showing up several times).

Personally I think it'd be more fun to generate new UWPs from scratch, but that's just me. We could just as easily call it an "alternate Spica" and thus divorce it from anything that anyone has written before.

Oh yeah: IIRC = If I Recall Correctly
(similarly: AFAIK = As Far As I Know)

 

[The Hinterworlds Rambler]

What if we went subsector by subsector, and alter where it needs altering, or just redo subsectors that are lame?

Lord Berka, your most excellent atlas at the Zhodani Base is based on Galactic, yes?

 

[Malenfant]

Well, let me ask this - why do we need to stick to whatever's been published anyway? So little has been done for Spica in canonical terms anyway that we could easily get away with rebooting everything and redesigning the whole shebang - UWPs, stellar data, history, etc - from scratch. It can still conform to general canon, but we don't need to be constrained by existing data.

That'd be a much more interesting project too, I think. Traveller's been hamstrung by this dependence on old, conflicting material and on computer files of dubious canonicity for too long I think. Why don't we see what happens if we ignore all that and design a sector based on what we know today? I don't mean that just in the sense of astronomy, I mean that the old CT data wasn't designed with a fully interactive Imperium in mind - it's just a load of randomised UWPs thrown together and not even checked for validity. Now that we've had 25 years of game development, we have a much better picture of how the various states and empires should interact, how trading should work to be more sensible, and so on.

Why don't we use all this in our favour and put something together that can showcase this knowledge base, rather than doing the same old thing that everyone does when they embark on something like this, of going back to the old data?

 

[Hal]

I'm with Gruffty on this one. Toss out the old stuff - and best of all,

include your revision for star generation in the source material if you intend to turn this into a PDF document or publish it as a book.