Help with Twilight Peak Map!!

[Mithras]

Does anyone have a decent scan of the Twilight's Peak map?? The copy in my book is drawn on from my teenaged years, and my scan in the CD-ROM is awful, all white out, you can't see the hexes! I'd actually love a 'poster' version, as in the Traveller Map, but I can't seem to get all the right systems on my screen at once (grrrr!). I would have taken a screenshot.

I'd settle for a clean copy of the Twilight's Peak map, Hope someone can help here! Thanks.

 

[Golan2072]

I'll make you one using Paint Shop Pro 7 based on the A3: Twilight's Peak PDF.

 

[Tobias]

That'd be incredibly cool, Golan2072. If you do that, please post it in the art gallery - I plan on running Twilight's Peak in the forseeable future, as well.

 

[Golan2072]

Here you go, with MGT-style trade routes:



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

 

[Golan2072]

Better quality image file:



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

 

[Mithras]

Ah, fantastic, Omer, many thanks!

 

[Golan2072]

You're welcome

By the way, did you get my PM?

 

[Tobias]

Very nice, thanks!

 

[Golan2072]

You're welcome

 

[rancke]

I'll make one suggestion: Change the X-boat routes to make a little more sense.

Change the link from Jae Tellona to Risek to a link from Rhylanor to Risek.
Change the link from Risek to Dhian to a link from Risek to Inthe.

Now Risek gets the news in one week instead of two, Dhian gets the news in two weeks instead of three, and Inthe gets the news in two weeks instead of four, and the number of X-boats involved is exactly the same.

I would also consider eliminating the link from Rhylanor to Jae Tellonae completely. A jump-2 link should be serviced by a jump-2 courier, not an X-boat. Plus, the Navy must be running couriers between the naval bases at Rhylanor and Jae Tellona anyway, so why can't they bring the mail? Turf war with the Scouts? OK, that would work. But there might be enough regular freighters and liners between Rhylanor and Jae Tellona to make dedicated couriers of any kind redundant, though Jae Tellona's population is a bit low for that. But in that case, why does it rate an X-boat station in the first place (And a class A starport!!)? OTOH, perhaps the link is a boondoggle, put in place to increase the cash flow to X-boat manufacturers and kickbacks to Scout administrators.

The link from Risek to Dhian... well, if you can figure out why such a backwater world rates an X-boat link at all. If not, there's always the 'boondoggle' explanation to fall back on, I suppose.


Hans

 

[sfchbryan]

With Xboat routes, I always took the approach that the routes made sense when they were originally laid down. of course, that was also a few hundred years ago. Add in some power plays to either keep them that way or prevent them from moving because of something that made more sense for Capital/Core than the folks that actually depended upon them.

 

[rancke]

With Xboat routes, I always took the approach that the routes made sense when they were originally laid down. of course, that was also a few hundred years ago. Add in some power plays to either keep them that way or prevent them from moving because of something that made more sense for Capital/Core than the folks that actually depended upon them.

An X-boat connection between Rhylanor and Inthe is reasonable enough. Inthe is sufficiently prominent that no further explanation is necessary. And since there are 7 parsecs from Rhylanor to Inthe, an intermediate world is required. Chosing Risek over Zivije is a really peculiar choice, but you'll note that I didn't suggest changing that.

But I can't imagine any reason for using two links to get from Rhylanor to Risek and two links to get from Risek to Inthe that makes sense now or has ever made sense in the past.

It's all very well to say "Oh, it used to make sense," but for that to work you need an explanation that used to make sense.


Hans

 

[Tobias]

Jae Tellona is a colony of the most powerful of the various hereditary kingdoms on Risek. When the Scout Service evaluated the options for communications routes in the Rhylanor subsector, the king (who also happens to hold an Imperial baronship) pulled some strings to get a direct, one-week communications channel to his colony paid for by the Imperium.
(All just made up.)

 

[rancke]

Jae Tellona is a colony of the most powerful of the various hereditary kingdoms on Risek. When the Scout Service evaluated the options for communications routes in the Rhylanor subsector, the king (who also happens to hold an Imperial baronship) pulled some strings to get a direct, one-week communications channel to his colony paid for by the Imperium.
(All just made up.)

Too many implausibilities for me to swallow, even before dragging in evidence from Behind the Claw (Which I understand may be off limit for this campaign?)


Hans

 

[Tobias]

In BtC, Jae Tellona is an Imperial protectorate, which provides another good reason to channel news through it rather than directly between Risek and Rhylanor.

 

[rancke]

In BtC, Jae Tellona is an Imperial protectorate, which provides another good reason to channel news through it rather than directly between Risek and Rhylanor.

Not that I can see. You're not thinking of that foolish notion about controlling the flow of information, are you? All it takes is one regular civilian J4 passenger service between Rhylanor and Inthe and the news will overtake the X-boats. Jump-4 traffic isn't that much more expensive than jump-2 and jump-3 traffic. With 40 million people on Inthe and 8 billion on Rhylanor, there should be enough people willing to pay a 25% premium on their passage in order to halve the transit time to keep a small passenger service in business. Or have their companies or government agencies pay it for them.


Hans

 

[Tobias]

Not that I can see. You're not thinking of that foolish notion about controlling the flow of information, are you? All it takes is one regular civilian J4 passenger service between Rhylanor and Inthe and the news will overtake the X-boats.

Under this logic, there is no need for any X-boat service whatsoever.

 

[rancke]

Under this logic, there is no need for any X-boat service whatsoever.

That's very true. And there IS no need for a jump-4 X-boat service when the Imperial Navy has jump-6 couriers, as we know they do. The best explanation I can come up with (and I'm not claiming that it doesn't have its problems) is that the X-boats degenerated into a complete boondoggle when jump-5 was invented. The Navy kept it a military secret long enough that the Imperial Bureaucracy switched to using 'NavyNet' for its orders and reports (They kept sending duplicates by X-boat, though).

But if you do believe in a half-way relevant X-boat service, it should at the very least try to be as efficient as it can be with what it has to work with.


Hans

 

[Khan Trav]

Hans, your capacity for genius is as always balanced by your latent evil side. Your observations a out the viability of the xboat service reminds me of our postal service here in the USA. There are better ways but I don't see it going away anytime soon. Economic impact on the postal employee and their infrastructure perhaps?

 

[rancke]

Hans, your capacity for genius is as always balanced by your latent evil side. Your observations a out the viability of the xboat service reminds me of our postal service here in the USA. There are better ways but I don't see it going away anytime soon. Economic impact on the postal employee and their infrastructure perhaps?

For a countervailing example, the Pony Express was closed down as soon as a telegraph connection was established. The regular mail wasn't. That's because the purpose of the Pony Express was to get the news through FAST, so when the telegraph came along it became redundant, whereas the purpose of the regular mail was to get letters and packages through eventually, so it didn't become redundant.

Your postal service presumably serve its purpose well enough, if not as well as it could be doing. My claim is that the X-boats are largely redundant. Your postal service has not been superceded, for whatever reason. By all the logic of the ship construction rules and setting information, the X-boats HAVE been superceded. Canonically they convey information at an average rate of 2.6 parsecs per week, which means that they're not just being outperformed by Navy and megacorporate J5 and J6 ships, they must be being outperformed by civilian J4 and J3 shipping!!


Hans