Frontiers

[Adam Dray]

I'm slowly developing a sector for home play, and I basically want it to be set in the OTU but be so far from the Imperium that imperial stuff matters not. Basically, there was imperial expansion into this sector a long time ago, and then economic and military pressures caused a slow withdrawal and general disinterest in it. There's a scout base at one of the systems in the subsector I'm writing up now, and an x-boat goes there, but the rest of the 34 systems barely have any imperial contact and tend to be self-sufficient or organized into little mutually-protective clusters for self-defense.

Where can I put this?

I know about the Foreven Sector. If I just wanted to develop a single subsector, I could probably grab one from Foreven and do that, but it looks like the sixteen subsectors are already pretty much taken and developed by others. Also, the names suck.

If I wanted to publish this, I'd basically need to get explicit permission (an exception) to publish outside Foreven, right? From Mongoose or from Marc.

So let's assume I'm just doing this for myself, not for publication. Where's a good place to tack on a complete frontier sector, way on the fringe of the empire?

 

[whulorigan]

I'm slowly developing a sector for home play, and I basically want it to be set in the OTU but be so far from the Imperium that imperial stuff matters not. Basically, there was imperial expansion into this sector a long time ago, and then economic and military pressures caused a slow withdrawal and general disinterest in it. There's a scout base at one of the systems in the subsector I'm writing up now, and an x-boat goes there, but the rest of the 34 systems barely have any imperial contact and tend to be self-sufficient or organized into little mutually-protective clusters for self-defense.

Where can I put this?

I know about the Foreven Sector. If I just wanted to develop a single subsector, I could probably grab one from Foreven and do that, but it looks like the sixteen subsectors are already pretty much taken and developed by others. Also, the names suck.

If I wanted to publish this, I'd basically need to get explicit permission (an exception) to publish outside Foreven, right? From Mongoose or from Marc.

So let's assume I'm just doing this for myself, not for publication. Where's a good place to tack on a complete frontier sector, way on the fringe of the empire?

Do you have a preference for Coreward/Spinward/Trailing/Rimward (or North/South )?

 

[Adam Dray]

No, don't care. (Should I?)

I guess I want mostly humans (Earth-descended) people, so that might influence that choice. So Rimward, probably Sol Empire? (I don't know my OTU very well, so I'm just poking around TravellerWiki.)

Also of interest: When? I suspect I want to be somewhere between Milieu 200 and Milieu 1100. Established empire in decline. Or maybe in the Long Night sometime.

 

[Adam Dray]

Probably for MTU, I won't be using canon Imperium at all (or even standard jump tech), but for convention play, it's probably easier for people to understand what's going on if they can relate somehow to canon.

 

[whulorigan]

If you look on TravellerMap , there are only 2 canonically-named rows of Sectors Rimward of the Solomani Sphere border, none of which have had a canonical treatment via T5SS or prior canon Traveller materials. If you want to avoid DGP, non-canon, and/or "fanon" materials in this general area, Rim Reach Sector is a good choice.

Go one more sector rimward from these, however, and you are even free to make up the sector & subsector names, as there is no canon on them at all

.

In a discussion in another thread ( [FONT=arial,helvetica]Exploration history - expanding boundaries[/FONT] ), I posted this concerning the location of the star Rigel ( Post #14 ) that is tangentially related to your question.

 

[Golan2072]

I'd say - re-write Canopus. Very little canon stuff out there, and it has a honest-to-goodness frontier on its rimward/spinward.

 

[aramis]

I'm slowly developing a sector for home play, and I basically want it to be set in the OTU but be so far from the Imperium that imperial stuff matters not. Basically, there was imperial expansion into this sector a long time ago, and then economic and military pressures caused a slow withdrawal and general disinterest in it. There's a scout base at one of the systems in the subsector I'm writing up now, and an x-boat goes there, but the rest of the 34 systems barely have any imperial contact and tend to be self-sufficient or organized into little mutually-protective clusters for self-defense.

Where can I put this?

I know about the Foreven Sector. If I just wanted to develop a single subsector, I could probably grab one from Foreven and do that, but it looks like the sixteen subsectors are already pretty much taken and developed by others. Also, the names suck.

If I wanted to publish this, I'd basically need to get explicit permission (an exception) to publish outside Foreven, right? From Mongoose or from Marc.

So let's assume I'm just doing this for myself, not for publication. Where's a good place to tack on a complete frontier sector, way on the fringe of the empire?

If it's in the OTU: you have two choices.
1) Commercial license from Marc.
2) Non-commercial for any non-mongoose edition under the FUP.

If it's not OTU, you don't need to worry about it - just use the TLL and OGL for either commercial or non-commercial for mongoose, or the FUP for non-commercial for non-mongoose editions.

 

[GypsyComet]

Also of interest: When? I suspect I want to be somewhere between Milieu 200 and Milieu 1100. Established empire in decline. Or maybe in the Long Night sometime.

Did you want a political frontier or an exploration frontier? They are very different.

Your initial post suggests either something out near Vanguard Reach or a sector like Crucis Margin. They occasionally do business with people claiming to be Imperials, but that's about it.

 

[Brian Smaller]

I went Rimward of the Solomani Sphere by about three sectors - Holowan. It is up on Traveller Map.

 

[Adam Dray]

I'd say - re-write Canopus. Very little canon stuff out there, and it has a honest-to-goodness frontier on its rimward/spinward.

Interesting. The rimward border has some interesting sites. Amderstun and Malorn look fun. I'm not sure why Holowun is fully populated when its neighbors are so unexplored.

 

[Adam Dray]

Did you want a political frontier or an exploration frontier? They are very different.

Can you explain what the differences are? I could guess, but I might be misunderstanding you.

I'm assuming that an exploration frontier is someplace no one has ever been
(i.e., the map is full of lots of "X" systems), where a political frontier is explored but not ruled by a major power.

 

[whulorigan]

Interesting. The rimward border has some interesting sites. Amderstun and Malorn look fun. I'm not sure why Holowun is fully populated when its neighbors are so unexplored.

I believe Holowon and Amderstun are the personal "Faraway Sectors" of Brian Smaller and 77topaz, respectively, that are being hosted on TravellerMap by inexorabletash. If canon material for those sectors get published thru T5SS, they will likely be overwritten (and/or moved to a different location on TravellerMap).

 

[whulorigan]

Can you explain what the differences are? ... where a political frontier is explored but not ruled by a major power.

I think by political frontier he means something like the Spinward Marches: Two powers (e.g. Zhodani Consulate and the Imperium) coming into astrographical contact with one another, with lots of unclaimed or contested space and client states around and in between.

 

[GypsyComet]

I think by political frontier he means something like the Spinward Marches: Two powers (e.g. Zhodani Consulate and the Imperium) coming into astrographical contact with one another, with lots of unclaimed or contested space and client states around and in between.

Which is to say, the original definition.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=frontier
The idea of a Trek-like Exploration Frontier is very North American, and relatively (2 centuries or so) recent.

 

[inexorabletash]

The idea of a Trek-like Exploration Frontier is very North American, and relatively (2 centuries or so) recent.

And, of course, romantic history written by the victors, who want you to forget that the land was indeed already occupied...

 

[inexorabletash]

I believe Holowon and Amderstun are the personal "Faraway Sectors" of Brian Smaller and 77topaz, respectively, that are being hosted on TravellerMap by inexorabletash. If canon material for those sectors get published thru T5SS, they will likely be overwritten (and/or moved to a different location on TravellerMap).

I may move them sooner. I'm still waffling.

 

[DonM]

And the "plans" for T5SS that I have from Marc are:

1) The Land Grant Sectors (Beyond/Vanguard Reaches in draft and up at travellermap.com, Far Frontiers and Theta Borealis in preparation)

2) The Vilani/Vargr Interface (Meshan, Mendan and Amdukan)

So no worries about the edges.

 

[aramis]

And, of course, romantic history written by the victors, who want you to forget that the land was indeed already occupied...

Actually, between the Roanoake landing (1580')s and the arrival of later colonists in Jamestown in 1609, a near-extinction level event reduced the populations of aboriginal peoples on the US East Coast 90%. Remains have been found, and evidence for both smallpox and one other childhood illness killing 90% of the population... A number of villages' remains have been found that simply ceased by 1609... The "5 civilized tribes" around the great lakes had a wave of deaths in the 1600's - ISTR reading 25% population losses.

Likewise, smallpox, polio, measles, mumps and influenza rampaged through South America after the initial landings, resulting in at least a 50% drop in population within 20 years... essentially collapsing the remains of the Aztec and Inca empires.

The survey data which lead to the Roanoke landing had hundreds of native villages; the survey 30 years later showed only dozens. Sufficiently different as to lead to accusations of misfeasance. Only in the looking back knowing about the lack of immunity and the much more severe reactions in the Eastern US aboriginal peoples does it make sense. Largely settled, these folk had strong trade networks... and so exposure to the Roanoke colony's settlers could have resulted in a widespread epidemic running for hundreds of miles. Tests on the few remains in the Roanoke colony excavations have shown that there was a rather nasty strain of influenza - it's theorized that influenza resulted in an epidemic leading to a colony vs aboriginals fight ("their arrival brought death... chase them out" mindset - too little, too late) coupled with a bad winter and low productivity from the colony... A closely related strain of influenza was nasty in Europe as well.

So, when the majority of colonies landed, much of that land was not actually populated. And native villages disappear in a decade when depopulated. (early-mid 20th C white settlements take about 5 decades - based upon the abandoned cities from 1964 in Alaska - none are particularly recognizable now.)

 

[Adam Dray]

In the OTU, is the thematic expectation that space is full of sophonts who have explored every bit of it, and the Imperium is just reaching out to meet them?

I would think that the whole Grandfather plotline suggests that the major races are a rarity and that the galaxy is mostly empty and unexplored. There might be minor races here and there, but a lot of them might not be starfaring yet.

Note the argument that the scale of time is quite large compared to the 5000-10000-year span of an empire, so it's not implausible that they've come and gone while we were lower primates, or while dinosaurs roamed the earth. Even a 100,000-year shift means totally missing each other.

 

[whulorigan]

In the OTU, is the thematic expectation that space is full of sophonts who have explored every bit of it, and the Imperium is just reaching out to meet them?

I would think that the whole Grandfather plotline suggests that the major races are a rarity and that the galaxy is mostly empty and unexplored. There might be minor races here and there, but a lot of them might not be starfaring yet.

Note the argument that the scale of time is quite large compared to the 5000-10000-year span of an empire, so it's not implausible that they've come and gone while we were lower primates, or while dinosaurs roamed the earth. Even a 100,000-year shift means totally missing each other.

To the best of my knowledge, the canonical ruling for the OTU from Marc Miller is that there are EXACTLY 6 major races (the first of which were the Droyne by way of the Ancients) - i.e. Grandfather/Yaskoydray is the first to have discovered the principles of the Jump Drive and its higher-order spin-offs.

It is also OTU-canon that there have been a number of starfaring races over the past several billion years (many of which have since died out); they just did not have the Jump Drive (i.e. they used generation ships, or sleeper ships, or relativistic vessels, or exotic propulsion, or they were long-lived enough that the interstellar-travel timeframes did not matter to them). One rather extensive example of these near Charted Space are the Kursae (in the T5 Core Book - ca 200,000 years ago).

In the T5 material (on the Disc, I believe), there is a galactic map with some enigmatic suggestions of regions of the Galaxy inhabited by heretofore unknown sophonts:

Essaray (SRAL) - Very Far to Trailing of Charted Space
Dhushis Khurisi - on the opposite side of the Galaxy
The Abyssals - Very Far to Spinward of Charted Space in the next Rimward Arm
The Denizens - Very Far to Spinward of Charted Space
The Core Sophonts - Galactic Core region
Scattered Hydrogen Societies - throughout the Galaxy [ in Gas Giants (?) ]
Plasple [ Plasma-based life (?) ]

NOTE: The items in [ brackets ] are my best-guesses based on carefully looking over the "Secret Appendix to the Second Survey" on the T5 Disc, which is "redacted" (i.e. has crossed-out info) for public consumption.
​

There is also "The Barren Arm" (The Scotum Crux Arm - Far to Trailing and one Arm Coreward) that apparently has a dearth of life (or at least sapient life).


EDIT: Also, if you have the Hardcover-T5 BBB, on the inside cover there is a map of Charted Space. Some major polities, societies and groups are noted on this map by symbols. If you look closely, in the Theta Borealis Sector, there is a spiral-symbol that is noted as "The Enigma of Theta Borealis". I have no idea what that means.