Empress Wave Resources

[tjoneslo]

A little clarification please because I am receiving two conflicting views. How long after the Empress Wave passes a world are its effects still felt given there is a count of psionic people present? One thought said up to three years after the passing of the Wave. A second said that it took up to eleven years for a world to normalize.

This question has not been directly answered by the information available. The wavefront (and peak effects) take approximately 30 days to pass over a given system. The implication is there are some direct residual effects still occurring for several months afterwards. That is people still being directly affected by the wave. The recovery time for the effect on every person is decades.

Think of it like an earthquake. The ground shakes, everything falls down. There are a few localized aftershocks. But on a timescale of weeks rather than minutes. And now all the everythings are still fallen down and need to be rebuilt.

Next, there is a mottled opinion base of how much personal and structural (planetside vaults, bulk hauler starships with psi-shielding, etc.), protection psionics sophonts need to weather the Wave.

The implication I've gotten is there isn't any shielding that will stop the effects of the wave. More to the point, no one has tested it well enough to say for sure. Like the Zhodani, a technology advance, scientifically curious who've known about this for a thousand years don't have the answer to this question.

Well, maybe there's some Ancient's technology but then you are having magic vs magic handwaves.

I saw on the wiki a reference of utilizing CABAl technology on succeptible starship traveller. Thoughts? Obviously not every world threatened by the Empress Wave will have access to such tech.

Not familiar with the CABAI references to comment.

Lastly, since the Zhodani are aware of the Empress Wave, how far is the Tavrchedl' willing to go to "enhance everyone's calm" even for the suspicious races outside the Consulate? Cover-up anyone?

The implication from the TNE writeup's is the Zhodani are going for the "Ignorace is bliss" approach and hiding all evidence of the wave. I speculate this is because the Zhodani leadership can not conceive of a plan to deal with the wave that doesn't induce widespread panic. The existing canon implies the Tavrchedl' are able to deal with small scale events; a single person here, a small group there. The problem is if you are for so very long use to dealing with a calm, rational group of people, the thought of having them suddenly all panic is a disaster. So the Zhodani are stuck between the "mass panic at the news" and unknown but horrific results of the wave.

I one of the people proposing the Zhodani load everyone onto massive transport ships, jump through the wave and back again a month later. But the Tavrchedl' are not an unlimited resource. And in a society where mind-to-mind contact is common and expected, fear and panic spread like a wildfire plague. Especially among the nobility.

So how do you deal with a Consolate wide apocalypse when, if you tell a group of ministers about the problem and solution, you may create a planetary wide panic attack.

 

[McPerth]

Simply put, no matter how well organized, moving the required 4 parsecs means needing about 4 tons of ship per person. (note that that's 4 to a stateroom... because the needed supporting tonnage — drives, fuel, controls, crew SR — is about 3.5x the tonnage of the payload.)

Ok, I didn't realize it was a 3+ parsec-deep wavefront. This means that a shelter-in-place would require keeping everyone shielded for 10-13 years! Still might be easier than shipping them to another world, though.

(bold is mine)

Were is this 3 parsec deep wavefront described?

All infromation about the Wave I've read is in this formun, not having any TNE book where it is described, but

This question has not been directly answered by the information available. The wavefront (and peak effects) take approximately 30 days to pass over a given system. The implication is there are some direct residual effects still occurring for several months afterwards. That is people still being directly affected by the wave. The recovery time for the effect on every person is decades.

(bold is mine)

As he wave travels at ligtspeed (or a Little faster), and lasts about 30 days, this will give us quete a smaller wavefront than 3 parsecs (just about 30+ light days)...

Also, see that not all the population must be moved, but mostly key individuals (most of the nobles/intendents) and, if posible, younger ones (as they are those who have higher PSI potential, and so ,the most affected.

As for the rest, giving them fast drug will reduce the effects to "only" about 12 hours effect, greatly reducing it (at least for humans). This will greatly alleviate the situation, allowing for the returning Nobles/intendants. and so the Tavrchedl' to control the situation (if someone has the capacity to treat those mass mental problems, it's them), helped, if needed, by armed forces and warbots.

As the Wave only affects a few systems at once, a specially built fleet to follow it and keeping doing this in the affectes systems in succession could be quite useful and keep Zhodani society escencially unchanged (albeit with some damages). I guess specially dedicated Tavrchedl' would be formed to work with taht fleet as disaster relieveing units.

After all, they had decades to preapre for it, and Zhodani are long term planners...

 

[aramis]

Checking the conversation with Marc, Don and Andrea via email...
It travels at 1 Pc/week.

That makes it 30 Pc wide. Marc made that change to ensure you cannot jump across the boundary.

 

[McPerth]

Checking the conversation with Marc, Don and Andrea via email...
It travels at 1 Pc/week.

That makes it 30 Pc wide. Marc made that change to ensure you cannot jump across the boundary.

1 Pc/week, and lasting about 30 days makes it just over 4 Pc wide, not 30...

So, you could still jump across it, with J4 ships (remember that the wave would have travelled another Pc while you're in jump, so you "win" this week for jumping it).

Even so, talking from what I've read in this board, this is a major change, and it wil advance at about 52 Pcyear, so reaching the Imperium quite sooner.

Marc tells us in the Audience hall that it was inside the Zhodani Consulate by he Rebellion times (1116 to 1122), ravelling at about 52 Pc/year, it would cross the Consulate (and so reach the 3I Behind the Claw zone) in about 3-4 years after it entered the Consulate, so about 1120-1126), Vland about 1-2 years after and Core in less tan 1 year more, quite sooner than 1201, as he says in the same sentence...

 

[lostscout5]

 

[tjoneslo]

Checking the conversation with Marc, Don and Andrea via email...
It travels at 1 Pc/week.

That makes it 30 Pc wide. Marc made that change to ensure you cannot jump across the boundary.

Well, that's another major, order of magnitude change to the speed of the wave. The chart in the wiki was updated, per the request of Don, to match the pace of the wave as written in the Mongoose Zhodani book which said the pace was 1 Parsec per year. All the outcomes I've been writing about have been assuming this slower rate. Or light speed.

 

[The Pakkrat]

That speed and Wave thickness certainly messes with the illustrated story I've been posting in the Gallery, but I'm not really worried about too exacting of details. With the thickness added to a world's psionics' recovery time, it sounds like the Empress Wave has long-term after effects.

I am more attentive to the Empress Wave as it passes through the Vargr Extents, Enclaves and later the Splinters. I am curious about psionic Vargr and the societies that will have to deal with their stricken conditions.

Some might suggest Low Berths for psionic sophonts attempting to sleep through the Empress Wave in hopes that being on ice will prevent, hinder or cloud the psionic mind from being struck full-force by "Yonder Chilling Thought".

I know that the Vargr do not have even a fraction the number of psionics that the Zhodani Consulate has to care for and whether the various states even notice the odd psion here or there going mad. Are there any other correspondents out there that have speculations on the Empress Wave as it pertains to the Vargr, (Extents, Enclaves, Imperium, Splinters, et al)?

Not one to leave the dogs out in the dark, this is the Pakkrat for Net-7 News.

 

[jcrocker]

Checking the conversation with Marc, Don and Andrea via email...
It travels at 1 Pc/week.

That makes it 30 Pc wide. Marc made that change to ensure you cannot jump across the boundary.

Didn't the Agent do just that in the novel? Or am I remembering that wrong?

 

[aramis]

Well, that's another major, order of magnitude change to the speed of the wave. The chart in the wiki was updated, per the request of Don, to match the pace of the wave as written in the Mongoose Zhodani book which said the pace was 1 Parsec per year. All the outcomes I've been writing about have been assuming this slower rate. Or light speed.

My email collection predate that being sent by don. Good.

Note that upping it to 1 Pc/year makes it able to actually hit charted space; it has been progressing across the Core Expeditions for quite a while. At 1Pc a year, hitting Atlas Space is 3000 years.

30 days at 1 Pc/year makes it a quarter light year across...

easily jumped across... but incapable of crossing the Atlas space before 1900

 

[aramis]

Didn't the Agent do just that in the novel? Or am I remembering that wrong?

I'd need to reread it to check. Searching iBooks reveals no "empress wave" - there's one "wave" reference to Black Fleets...

 

[inexorabletash]

but incapable of crossing the Atlas space before 1900

https://travellermap.com?ew=1900 shows it well past Charted Space by 1900.

Depends on what the fixed points are, of course. The ones I'm using are from Marc.

 

[mike wightman]

I'd need to reread it to check. Searching iBooks reveals no "empress wave" - there's one "wave" reference to Black Fleets...

You need to stop relying on technology:

“Elsewhere in the Consulate are the abbeys that try to divine the
future: The Quixitlatl Path. Some of their psions can see the future.
Different people see different aspects but they agree in general. The
Wave. The Great Break. The Black Fleets.
“They only look; we are doing something. Our dancers bend
reality to change those predicted futures. To divert the Wave. To
avoid the chaos of the Break. To repel the Black Fleets. The dancers
brought you here. When you arrived, it was clear that you are part of
the second path.

 

[tjoneslo]

https://travellermap.com?ew=1900 shows it well past Charted Space by 1900.

Depends on what the fixed points are, of course. The ones I'm using are from Marc.

The one fixed point I know about is the one mention in Survival Margin (p.7). Th conversation I had with Don was almost exactly a year ago:

From Don:

"Project Longbow reports stations Herod and Raphael silent, and presumed destroyed; incoming [wave] approaching at variable +1C arriving at Meridian 78, Prime Radial in 90 years."

We're changing that to 1 parsec. Prime Radial is on line with Reference (Core 0140), and 78 parsecs coreward of that, 90 years after 1115-324.

So... that moves the point to Lishun 0102, and then we advance 90 years. That's two sectors plus 10, so Gzaefueg 0102, plus 10... so Kharrthon 0132 as of 1115-324?

My Response:

That sounds about right.

So it hits the outer edge of Gzaefueng in 1115+8 or 1123.

40 years later (1163) it's coming through Zhodane and the last of the Vargr Extents, and 40 years after that (1203) it hits the outer edges of the (now long dead) Third Imperium, including Vland, Deneb, and the Spinward Marches.

 

[Whipsnade]

I'd need to reread it to check. Searching iBooks reveals no "empress wave" - there's one "wave" reference to Black Fleets...

Re-read the Coreward of the Imperium chapter, Wil. It's all there, even the one month thick bit. (Check over your iBooks program too. It should have picked up the chapter.)

It's troubling on a lot of other levels too.

ISS Talon is on a twenty year survey mission coreward of the Imperium. It learns of a Human settled world with a population in the billions plus "rudimentary" interstellar trade from a "local trader" and decides a visit is in order. Once they orbit Beauniture they realize something horrible has occurred.

Page 46 and 47, Captain Tryan is briefing the newly "awakened" Agent:

"And they supposedly knew what was coming. They had warning, but just couldn't do anything about it."

"Warning?"

"Bear with me please. They trade with other worlds, mostly coreward from here. Those worlds experienced the same thing. There's a wave, literally a wave of insanity emanating from the core. It's about a month thick: it starts low, rises in intensity to peak at the half-point, and then subsides."

Beauniture had warning about the Wave and it's effects. The Core Route means the Consulate had the same warning for centuries.

Centuries and yet nothing.

 

[mike wightman]

My conjecture is still that it is the wavefront for a reality manipulation war.

Marc's wave is not the TNE Empress Wave, that much is certain (or rather it is his version of it for his TU).

The Empress Wave in TNE was a light speed wavefront designed to do metagame stuff - another conjecture of mine is that if GDW had survived they would have used the Empress Wave to introduce a greater emphasis on psionics and extradimensional entitles (as Dave Nilsen mentions in his extensive interview), and that if the Traveller fan base didn't take to it they could have it disappear or be neutralised before it got to the Regency and ruined the setting.

 

[Whipsnade]

My conjecture is still that it is the wavefront for a reality manipulation war.

I've often thought of it as a reality "quake"

Marc's wave is not the TNE Empress Wave, that much is certain (or rather it is his version of it for his TU).

Agreed.

The Empress Wave in TNE was a light speed wavefront designed to do metagame stuff ...

Again, agreed. The TNE is both a metagame mechanism and a place holder.

Once they decided that the Real Strephon was the real Strephon and not Pugachev 5700, they needed a sufficiently important reason for Strephon to leave Capital secretly. Enter the Wave. Leaving their metagame mechanism threatening and vague then would allow them to settle the details at some later date.

... another conjecture of mine is that if GDW had survived they would have used the Empress Wave to introduce a greater emphasis on psionics and extradimensional entitles (as Dave Nilsen mentions in his extensive interview)...

Perhaps the most fascinating part of a fascinating interview.

... and that if the Traveller fan base didn't take to it they could have it disappear or be neutralised before it got to the Regency and ruined the setting.

Exactly. Leaving the Wave "vague", keeping it as simply a place holder, would allow them to tailor it for a better fit at a later date. Now, over two decades later, we're all lucky enough to be watching Mr. Miller doing exactly that.

 

[jcrocker]

I'd need to reread it to check. Searching iBooks reveals no "empress wave" - there's one "wave" reference to Black Fleets...

Ah, found it, page 170. When all the 'points of light' in jumpspace turn blue when Enna is having a quiet read in the turret during jump, the word 'wave' isn't mentioned.

Well, it's his book and his Traveller, if he wants to grant himself exceptions to the rules, fair enough.

 

[MJD]

Toning down the Empress Wave was exactly what I did with the 1248 setting. I kept the psionics-related disruption in the Zhodani Consulate because that had gone into print as canon, but the Wave ceased to be a game-changer in my version.

I always disliked the Wave as being too contrived - it was there to cause metagame effects and to explain Strephon's absence from Capital, as noted elsewhere. Given the chance for a retcon on the Wave, my preference would have been to remove it from the setting entirely.

Marc's new vision has gone the other way and turned it up to 11.

This new version of the Empress Wave isn't the one in TNE or the mildly amended one from 1248. Trying to make it fit with things that happened in those settings, which were based on the TNE-derived version of the Wave will be, err, tricky.

 

[aramis]

1248 is, as far as I can tell, OTU canon. It's on the list of canon sources Marc suggested I get familiar with.

 

[MJD]

1248 was accepted and published as canon.

However, this current take on the Wave makes the 1248 background as written totally impossible. You can't have what I wrote with the Wave as currently detailed moving through the area I was writing about.

I don't know how the PTB intend to handle this.