Disasters and Rescues

[DaveChase]

Not wanting to bring an old thread to life completely (hence the new thread) but

Since the Japanese Earthquakes and the disasters that are taking place from it, along with the rest of the world attempting to help them,

How would such an even effect your Traveller universe if a vast majority of an important world had such a disaster?

Knowing that it takes a week for travel each away, and assume possibly another week of transit to jump space,
what kind of help would other worlds send?

(There is an older thread about disaster relief, like 2 years old I think )


(Note: I do not wish to digress into what we are doing here in RL, only what one might do in a Traveller setting. I wish for and pray for those in dire need and that Japan will be able to recover from this disaster. And hope that they will not suffer from an after quake before they do recover.)

Dave Chase

 

[Spinward Scout]

I would think any world with an Imperial presence (Navy base, Way Station, etc...) would have some contingency plan in place for most disasters. Even if it's just to send a ship off to get the word out to surrounding worlds and request help.

Evacuation would be difficult depending on the size of the disaster. Hospital ships and Evac ships are useless unless you can land and pick people up. And as you said, may take up two 2 weeks to even show up. By the time they get there, what help would they be? A person can only last about a week without drinkable water. Without electricity, say from a solar flare EMP burst that knocked out a planetary electrical grid, you can only use gravity-fed water utilities and hand pumps. A world like Rethe with a large population and no water except imported would take a huge hit in population before any help could show up.

Looking at modern disasters, the local government may end up overwhelmed and not be able to provide any real assistance.

Here's a thread I put up a while back about Planetary Disasters. There are several others.

http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=21181

There was a thread where we talked about Evac ships, but I can't find it.

 

[aramis]

Generally, in a case like Japan, the off-worlders would be sending new reactors, modular housing, water purification systems, rehabilitation techs, and trauma counselors.

The two-week delay being what it is, anything immediate either happens from in system, or is purely local - off-world help is too late to be timely.

In a case like a plague, it's much better. Medical and food, filter masks and sterilization gear.

 

[whartung]

I'd argue that the scope is simply to large to consider. A planet wide emergency simply doesn't make much sense.

I should say that a SUDDEN planet wide emergency doesn't make sense, outside of war of course.

I guess there's the ever popular rogue asteroid problem for systems without proper detection equipment. But, frankly, if the problem is "planet wide" then it's simply to big to be managed in any large scale way. There is too much energy involved, too quickly.

Otherwise it's not a planet wide disaster at the beginning and plans and processes can begin to manage and mitigate the problem before whatever it is becomes planet wide.

Considering that all of our natural disasters are localized, we have options to call upon the resources of the unaffected areas. If you have a natural disaster that affects, say, a small colony, it may not be planet wide, but it's affecting "everybody" and there are no external resources upon which to call.

The two week turnaround for outside help is the lowest possible number, and it's really not a realistic number for any real help. The only way that the two week number would be reasonable is if the system happened to have a handy neighbor that had enough supplies AND space lift capacity to respond immediately and effectively. Six to eight weeks I think is a more reasonable number before any real aid can start showing up. The comm times are simply too long as soon as you have to do any coordination across more than one system.

 

[Icosahedron]

There might be other dilemmas if the world is interdicted <thinks of own current game>.

 

[DaveChase]

I'd argue that the scope is simply to large to consider. A planet wide emergency simply doesn't make much sense.

I should say that a SUDDEN planet wide emergency doesn't make sense, outside of war of course.

I guess there's the ever popular rogue asteroid problem for systems without proper detection equipment. But, frankly, if the problem is "planet wide" then it's simply to big to be managed in any large scale way. There is too much energy involved, too quickly.

...

Here I would only concur if the planet with the disaster is a high population world.

But what about worlds with low population, or scattered major cities with little in between them for civilizations?
Or Colony worlds that are only a few decades along?

An natural disaster that hit one of those few population centers could be quite hard on the entire world, especially if it is the only space port or the captial of the world.


As for turn around of 2 weeks being to quick, I concur. 3 weeks is the fastest assuming that there was some ship(s ) on standby for such an event.

But depending on what military ships are in the area and what their missions are, I still could see some type of attempt to send some help even if it is man power as soon as possible.

Plus it depends on the world that is attempting to respond. A high pop world with lots of ship traffic might be better able to respond than say another colony world.

Dave Chase

 

[nats]

A planetary disaster is a great plot for a scenario in which the characters could get wrapped up in assisting. Wonder why its not been done before it seems so obvious.

 

[aramis]

I'd argue that the scope is simply to large to consider. A planet wide emergency simply doesn't make much sense.

I should say that a SUDDEN planet wide emergency doesn't make sense, outside of war of course.

Doesn't need to be planet wide to affect the whole of the population for many of the worlds listed.

 

[whartung]

If the population is small, or localized, then it's not a "planet wide disaster", it's a local disaster affecting a clustered population.

If my friends and I are off backpacking and get caught in a storm, MY world may be having a "disaster", but the planet itself is not. My local disaster can be mitigated with, ideally, a bit of shelter and a search and rescue team.

If Alpha Base on Gamma Hydra IV (a forward science research station running in a poisonous, high pressure atmosphere) suddenly loses power and some of the alien specimens break out of their cages, that's a local problem, even if they're the only people on the planet.

It's fair to argue that the high tech planets that have their populations running on grav fields in the atmospheres of planets that are basically not tolerant of Sapien life getting overrun by Virus and plunging the cities one by one in to the surface is a "planetary" disaster.

A planetary disaster, IMHO, is where you don't have any place to run, and you don't have the lift capacity to move the population locally. (Or if you do, you're certainly better prepared than I think most polities would be). By that criteria, Alpha Base may be a "planetary" disaster, but, it's certainly not what comes to mind. I view planets as being kind of big.

And, simply, anything that has that much power to affect that large of an area, that quickly, is just simply difficult to plan for properly. And the response times from outsystem would likely be too much to be of real help to the majority of the population.

"Yes, we need 40 billion boxes of Mac and Cheese and 40 billions gallons of water, and we'd like them distributed, safely, across the entire planet. Can we get that in a week please?"

Haiti showed the difficulties of a large scale event with limited port capacity. Despite the vast volume of aid available, the harbor was badly damaged, and the airport and airspace was simply "full", making mass deliveries very difficult. This was all exacerbated by being unable to easily get the cargo further in to the city since the infrastructure was destroyed.

Luckily, the Dominican Republic wasn't as affected and was able to work as a proxy staging and entry point for the country.

Haiti is a good example of a possible "planetary" emergency in terms of logistics, but even there the world was able to respond in hours and days, vs weeks that would be required for outsystem support.

 

[BlackBat242]

I'd argue that the scope is simply to large to consider. A planet wide emergency simply doesn't make much sense.

I should say that a SUDDEN planet wide emergency doesn't make sense, outside of war of course.

I guess there's the ever popular rogue asteroid problem for systems without proper detection equipment. But, frankly, if the problem is "planet wide" then it's simply to big to be managed in any large scale way. There is too much energy involved, too quickly.

Otherwise it's not a planet wide disaster at the beginning and plans and processes can begin to manage and mitigate the problem before whatever it is becomes planet wide.

Considering that all of our natural disasters are localized, we have options to call upon the resources of the unaffected areas. If you have a natural disaster that affects, say, a small colony, it may not be planet wide, but it's affecting "everybody" and there are no external resources upon which to call.

Look up "VEI 8 eruptions"... while such an eruption may well be predictable (by TL 12+) with a couple of years warning period, how do you prepare for a volcanic eruption that causes very severe changes in the global temperature?

The eruption of Toba in ~72,000 BC is widely accepted to have killed ~60% of the world-wide human population due to its effect on weather.

Tell me that a TL8 or less world could handle that on its own... I'll laugh.

 

[whartung]

Look up "VEI 8 eruptions"... while such an eruption may well be predictable (by TL 12+) with a couple of years warning period, how do you prepare for a volcanic eruption that causes very severe changes in the global temperature?

The eruption of Toba in ~72,000 BC is widely accepted to have killed ~60% of the world-wide human population due to its effect on weather.

Tell me that a TL8 or less world could handle that on its own... I'll laugh.

You don't prepare for it, you react to it.

This is clearly a powerful event, but the danger is long term. Months to years, not days. Not short term.

Short term, those who survived the initial event can (ideally) leverage the resources from the areas not immediately impacted. Lift capacity can be used to move the populations to safer areas, while analysis can begin and outsystem resources mustered if necessary and long term evacuation were called for. Perhaps a long term food relief effort is a better idea than evacuating the planet population. Populations not affected by the initial event, but in the danger zone of rapid climate change would need to be moved off world.

But the point is, that even with an event of this magnitude, there's time available to make decisions and marshal resources. It's a localized event (a big one), with global, long term ramifications. But likely the several months of lag time for outsystem relief to be organized is less of an issue after the immediate event.

So, yea, on a planetary scale, it's a calamity, but because it's on a planetary scale, there's actually time to respond to it and, ideally, get the people accommodated or out of harms way.

The amount of energy necessary as input to an event that's even BIGGER is so devastating it's simply not worth planning for (beyond, say, having a good life insurance policy...).

 

[McPerth]

A planetary disaster is a great plot for a scenario in which the characters could get wrapped up in assisting. Wonder why its not been done before it seems so obvious.

See critical vector AZ (JTAS 20). They try to avoid a planetary wide disaster when a large metor thratens a small colony. If they fail, you have it...

A planetary disaster, IMHO, is where you don't have any place to run, and you don't have the lift capacity to move the population locally. (Or if you do, you're certainly better prepared than I think most polities would be). By that criteria, Alpha Base may be a "planetary" disaster, but, it's certainly not what comes to mind. I view planets as being kind of big.

And, simply, anything that has that much power to affect that large of an area, that quickly, is just simply difficult to plan for properly. And the response times from outsystem would likely be too much to be of real help to the majority of the population.

"Yes, we need 40 billion boxes of Mac and Cheese and 40 billions gallons of water, and we'd like them distributed, safely, across the entire planet. Can we get that in a week please?"

Haiti showed the difficulties of a large scale event with limited port capacity. Despite the vast volume of aid available, the harbor was badly damaged, and the airport and airspace was simply "full", making mass deliveries very difficult. This was all exacerbated by being unable to easily get the cargo further in to the city since the infrastructure was destroyed.

Luckily, the Dominican Republic wasn't as affected and was able to work as a proxy staging and entry point for the country.

Haiti is a good example of a possible "planetary" emergency in terms of logistics, but even there the world was able to respond in hours and days, vs weeks that would be required for outsystem support.

Darrian Maghiz (-924 imperial) comes to mind...

And in this case it affected even more than a planet (or system) and help was difficult by the same magnitude. The darrians never forgave the zhodani for not helping when they found it out.

 

[Blue Ghost]

A planetary disaster is a great plot for a scenario in which the characters could get wrapped up in assisting. Wonder why its not been done before it seems so obvious.

The second Traveller computer game actually had a planetary disaster. It was an ancient city with a device that "went wrong" for lack of a better term, and started churning out purple/pink ooze that was threatening to cover the planet. I thought it was pretty ridiculous myself, but I bought the game without knowing the plot.

I think Somalia is another example of a "disaster" gone wrong, though in this case it's a matter of the local ecosystem not being able to sustain the population when the weather doesn't cooperate for the agribusiness. The result is starvation, factionalization and internecine warfare. Anybody who's old enough will remember our efforts to "deliver food" to those in need, and how well that went over. Remember "Black Hawk Down"?

I think also a limited meteor shower, that is a bombardment of a planet with large meteors that take out a few cities, is worthy of a planet wide disaster. And even given the turnaround time, repercussions would be felt for months.

I'll also take the time to plug my monster thread :devil:, as this is the perfect opportunity to help bolster the Space Monster phenomenon; spores taking out crops or equipment. Or even a good old fashioned Japanese Kaiju that rampages through a couple of cities :rofl: would be worthy of Imperial relief. I hope that doesn't sound like I'm making light of Japan or any disaster or relief effort thereof, but it would make for an interesting game session.

I also recall "Star Wars; Rebellion" had as an event a planetary wide earthquake or power failure that could effect your strategy. We know that earthquakes are pretty much local, but perhaps on a world that was still considerably active there might be something like a planet wide earthquake. On a water world a tsunami or mega-tsunami would be a real hazard.

Lastly, a caldera is like a Volcano many times fold. When one of those errupts (none in recent history, thank goodness) that wreaks havoc with all kinds of effects.

My two credits.

 

[nats]

I suppose the planetary disasters I had in mind were Planetary War (players help with lifting off refugees) , a Virus (players help transport and administer medicines), or a Fusion Power Station explosion (players help with transportation of specialists).

Although another possibility that would be great would be two solar systems colliding (possibly due to age old solar experimentation by the ancients gone wrong) resulting in massive environmental changes to an inhabited colony world in which the players need to save the colony.

Another possibility is a pending supernova of course which the bow wave would cast similar effects on a world to a giant tidal wave in which half of the worlds population is wiped out and half need rescuing somehow.

Or even better the creation if a mini black hole from a gas giant again due to science experimentation gone wrong which would result in massive gravity changes in the whole system, asteroids going amok, navigation hazards, etc.

And finally there is the creation of a new worm hole within a system that results in the invasion of a planet colony by a host of evil aliens from another dimension....

 

[aramis]

Or even better the creation if a mini black hole from a gas giant again due to science experimentation gone wrong which would result in massive gravity changes in the whole system, asteroids going amok, navigation hazards, etc.

Unless you import mass from jumpspace, no, it wouldn't. The net mass (and thus net gravitational effect at range) would not change. You'd simply have continuing gravity gradients until you hit the event horizon... which would be a few dozen meters across, if that. It would slowly gain mass from infalling energy, but it would not start significantly perturbing other orbits until it had gained significant mass.

 

[Icosahedron]

Well, there would be some significant changes in gravitational potential as the planet collapsed from an extended source to a point source, particularly if the infall was assymetric. This would release gravitational waves, but even so, the effects would be negligible. You might get some seizmic effects on a closely orbiting satellite, or it could possibly convert a ring into a meteor shower, but you're right, there would be no system-wide cataclysm.

 

[McPerth]

I don't know if IRIS can be considered canon, but in its presentation it seems 3I autorities may be concerned (even if only as a teoretical possibility) on planet whide disasters.

IRIS directives forbide the High Regent to be ever present even in the same planet the Emperor is, just to avoid losing both in such a disaster.

I cannot imagine what disaster could be that, as the only two I can recall in OTU are the ones I said before, and I don't think they can be expected in this case.

On 'critical vector' the players are supposed to have a chance to stop the meteor, and its ship, as powerful as it can seem in traveller character terms, whould surely be dwarfed by the Imperial Escort Squadron.

Knowing about the history of the Maghiz, and, assuming imperial seccurity services are at least as paranoid as our bodyguard services nowdays, I don't think they whould ever let the Emperor be at a system where a minimally dangerous experiment was run (of course they may miscalculate that...)

Anyway, the IRIS directives explicity forbid that, just in case...

 

[FreeTrav]

I won't swear to it, because if there ever was any documentation, I can't find it, but I believe that IRIS was declared non-canonical - a "variant" published in JTAS (or was it DGP's house Traveller mag?).

That said, they did put in an appearance in some of the MegaTraveller storytelling...

 

[rancke]

I won't swear to it, because if there ever was any documentation, I can't find it, but I believe that IRIS was declared non-canonical - a "variant" published in JTAS (or was it DGP's house Traveller mag?).

The article was marked as a variant from the beginning.

That said, they did put in an appearance in some of the MegaTraveller storytelling...

That they did. And then, in Survival Margin, it was revealed that Strephon had never heard of any such institution and was rather comtemptuous of the notion. My take is that it was a scam invented by a high-ranking intelligence puke (the guy who later turned up as Margaret's new intelligence director in Arrival Vengeance).

(I'm tempted to claim that it was actually made clear somewhere that whatshisname was behind it, but as I can't remember where I got that notion, I won't).


Hans

 

[McPerth]

Yes, it was published in challenge (I cannot find it and don't remember if it was issue 32 or 33) as a MT variant, but the usual references about it on latter TAS news made me think it was made official (by that time I've never heard about traveller canon).