Interstellar Migration

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by rancke:
I don't have the books here, but I think they'd be quite cheap if you can amortize it over Traveller's standard 40 years. I don't think they'd be competetive if you first have to get them installed in a ship and only have a limited time to evacuate people.

According to High Guard, an Emergency Low Berth costs 100,000 Cr, and a normal one costs 50,000 Cr. I don't think people are really going to be bothering with mortgages and stuff like that when planetary disaster is imminent.

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />And how much would it cost to revive the occupant?

Nothing.</font>[/QUOTE]Employment rates for the medics? Beds for patients to recover their strength on?

I don't have my books here, so I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure Fast Drug cost Cr900 and the antidote Cr1200 (or vice versa).

You'd be wrong (at least according to book 2) - it's 2000 Cr for the Fast Drug, 900 for the antidote.

And you don't need to use the antidote, you can just let the evacuees sleep it off.

If you want a few thousand people to be taking up space for 8.5 weeks sleeping, perhaps. I suspect you'd want them to be up and running and out of your storage area more quickly than that though.

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Would it be cheaper to churn out fast drug than to install low berths?

That would be my guess, yes.</font>[/QUOTE]It would appear to be vastly cheaper to use Fast Drug. Which again makes me wonder why Low Berths even exist as a viable transport option. Just give people Fast Drug at the start of the trip, stick them on a bed, then wake them up with the antidote at the other end.

 

[robject]

Originally posted by BrennanHawkwood:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by womble:
Far trader said:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />
"...the ships could continue to operate for decades.
"

Oooh. An entire 'gypsy' fleet. Tootling round looking for somewhere to settle, getting more and more desperate and broken-down... Target for slaver-pirates and just plain old scrap-value pirates... </font>[/QUOTE]Add in remnants of the original world's jump capable merchant and military fleets and you could have quite the caravan. A little like Battlestar Galactica only better prepared.

I would imagine that if there is no Imperial FEMA-like agency, that the Imperium would definately become involved once a caravan like that started wandering around in its borders. </font>[/QUOTE]Actually, coupled with Daryen's mention of Winston and Entrope, this could well make for interesting side-effects.

For instance, suppose they were able to build those 1500 megaton-hull ships at TL 16?

 

[Spinward Scout]

<<<What low berths do you propose to keep them in? The ones you installed on your emergency rescue ships has to be emptied so that the ships can go back for another load.>>>

Hans: That's if there's time for another load. If this is an emergency situation, then there may not be time. You would definitely need more than one ship. Going back for another load may not be an option. Then again, it may also be the only option for some...

Robject: what do you mean specifically about them being built at TL16?

Later,

Scout

 

[etherflyer]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
It would appear to be vastly cheaper to use Fast Drug. Which again makes me wonder why Low Berths even exist as a viable transport option. Just give people Fast Drug at the start of the trip, stick them on a bed, then wake them up with the antidote at the other end.

Bedsores. Fast drug may slow your metabolism, but it won't change the physics of things like blood pooling.

 

[robject]

Originally posted by Sir Dameon Toth:

Robject: what do you mean specifically about them being built at TL16?

Hm, after re-reading all the posts, this is kind of a bunny trail, but an interesting one for those who are into alternate Traveller universes.

Assume Daryen's specific example of Entrope -> Winston; assume 10 billion people still. Assume further that we're talking about the Maghiz; even though Entrope is outside of the effects of it, they are in a symbiotic relationship with the rest of the Darrian worlds, and perhaps they won't be able to survive on Entrope; hence the evacuation.

As I said, industry, research, and trade is tightly symbiotic in the pre-Maghiz Darrian worlds. Thus I will assume Entrope can and will build TL 16 hulls.

1500 of them. At a million tons each.

That would be an amazing alternate Traveller universe. I can't begin to imagine how much power that would give the Classic-Era Darrians.

 

[rancke]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
According to High Guard, an Emergency Low Berth costs 100,000 Cr, and a normal one costs 50,000 Cr. I don't think people are really going to be bothering with mortgages and stuff like that when planetary disaster is imminent.

That was my point. It may be cheap if you're prepared for it, but unless all your ships are already stuffed to capacity with emergency low berths, it will be too expensive (and take too long to implement) to use in an actual emergency.

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />I don't have my books here, so I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure Fast Drug cost Cr900 and the antidote Cr1200 (or vice versa).

You'd be wrong (at least according to book 2) - it's 2000 Cr for the Fast Drug, 900 for the antidote. </font>[/QUOTE]What edition? My Book 2 (1st Ed.) says Cr200 for the Fast Drug and Cr900 for the antidote. The Traveller Book (the one-volume compilation) also says Cr200.

I can't find any price in Megatraveller, TNE or T4. GT says Cr1,500 (fie!) and T20 says Cr2,000.


Hans

 

[mike wightman]

The FFE Books 0-8 compilation has it as 2000Cr, 2nd edition book 2 has it as 2000Cr, Starter edition doesn't include drugs that I can find, MT has a cost of 200Cr in the later printings and the errata.

Traveller consistency strikes again

 

[rancke]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
The FFE Books 0-8 compilation has it as 2000Cr, 2nd edition book 2 has it as 2000Cr, Starter edition doesn't include drugs that I can find, MT has a cost of 200Cr in the later printings and the errata.

Traveller consistency strikes again

It sounds like Cr2,000 is the price to go with. Which knocks 'Fast Passage' on the head and relegates Fast Drug to the emergency kits, which is fine by me.

It also means that the eight doses of Fast Drug that I put in each emergency medical kit aboard the ship in an adventure I submitted to JTAS some months ago are worth far more than I thought .

Ah well...


Hans

 

[daryen]

Originally posted by robject:
As I said, industry, research, and trade is tightly symbiotic in the pre-Maghiz Darrian worlds. Thus I will assume Entrope can and will build TL 16 hulls.

1500 of them. At a million tons each.

But, if Entrope has enough sustainable technology to build 1,500,000,000 dtons of starships, then they would easily have the technology to sustain on-world, negating the need to evacuate.

As an aside, the various sources I have access to are somewhat ambiguous as to whether the pre-Maghiz colony survived the Maghiz, or they died out and a new colony was established after they regained jump. IMTU, the colony survives, but its population is comparatively small until after the recovery.

That would be an amazing alternate Traveller universe. I can't begin to imagine how much power that would give the Classic-Era Darrians.

If Entrope was a hi-pop industrial world pre-Maghiz, then the Maghiz would have been (in the greater scope of things) irrelevant. Entrope would have had the technological and industrial base to bootstrap Darrian and Mire back up. While Darrian would be a long term recovery project, Mire would likely be a very quick recovery. Probably within a decade at most.

Also, don't forget that with a quick recovery and with a "free" five hundred year buildup, the Darrians had the potential to be significantly bigger in size. They likely would have expanded out, very slowly of course, to control a good nine subsectors centered on Darrian.

The biggest effects of that are twofold. First, it is likely the Zhodani wouldn't control anything past the world Cronor, and possibly not even have a permanent foothold in the Marches. Second, and more important for many readers, there would be no Sword Worlds.

Yes, the settlers that eventually formed the Sword Worlds would settle somewhere. But with the power the Darrians would have, it is pretty much guaranteed to not be in the Marches.

[Edit] Wow. Just thinking about what an interstellar society, pretty much uniformly at TL17 (at least) with a population base of at least 100 billion could do boggles the mind.

 

[mike wightman]

Then look at Vincennes in the Deneb sector. It was pushing towards TL17 in the MT era which gives it a much higher tech base than Darrian's TL? in the MT era.
In the new era it is described as "TL17 just add water", has a population of 20-29 billion, and is an industrial world.

 

[daryen]

The big difference I was looking at was that the hypothetical Darrian population has a huge amount of resources to draw on, vast areas to expand into, and pretty much all of their worlds are TL 17. (Well, except for Rorre. ) All at the time when the troopship Gram is starting to poke around the area.

Whereas Vincennes is submerged into the greater context of their interstellar surroundings. (For example, consider the whole reason why they aren't TL17.)

That said, I am of the opinion that it is Vincennes that is fuels the Regency's super-high-tech industries. Darrian provides much theory and ancient practical examples, and Mora tries to catch up, but it is Vincennes that is the TL G engine of the Regency.

I could easily see big problems if there were to ever be internal dissension in the Regency. Particularly if Mora and Vincennes were on different sides ...

 

[mike wightman]

Hmm, might be just the thing to push Vincennes up to full TL17.

It is an interesting what if, though, for the Darrians to have recovered from the disaster faster thanks to their colony worlds that survived.
What would their attitude have been to Imperial expansion if they themselves had established colonies and a commonwealth with the other "minor" human races in the Marches.
I doubt there would have been much enmity between a "Darrian Commonwealth" and the Zhodani next door.

 

[daryen]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
I doubt there would have been much enmity between a "Darrian Commonwealth" and the Zhodani next door.

Since the Darrian resentment of the Zhodani was based on the Zhodani's lack of assistance after the Maghiz, they would have probably kept their friendly relations.

In all likely hood the "Darrian Commonwealth" would have been the buffer state between the Imperium and the Consulate that the Zhodani always wanted.

Granted, the Commonwealth would have been bigger than the Zhodani envisioned, but it would have worked out for both of them just fine. I doubt the Commonwealth would have gotten much bigger than the nine subsectors I mentioned earlier.

(This all, of course, assumes that the "known" Darrian "character" had not changed. Had they let their power go to their heads, they could have easily burnt themselves out, carving a devistated path along the way. I chose to believe that would not have happened.)

 

[Straybow]

Yep, my LBB2 says 200 for Fast drug. As for bedsores, why does the passenger cabin have to be 1G? Set to, say, 0.1G and ill effects are largely negated. TL12 accelleration couch cushion materials probably prevent pressure points as well.

 

[rancke]

Originally posted by robject:
Assume Daryen's specific example of Entrope -> Winston; assume 10 billion people still. Assume further that we're talking about the Maghiz; even though Entrope is outside of the effects of it, they are in a symbiotic relationship with the rest of the Darrian worlds, and perhaps they won't be able to survive on Entrope; hence the evacuation.

Canon warning: I assume that the OTU and the GTU are identical until around 1116. Hence I maintain that GT material pertains to the pre-1116 OTU.

The pre-Maghiz Darrians didn't colonize their surrounding worlds as such (except for Rorre), they established research facilities. Of course, in time a permanent outpost will often evolve into a colony. At the time of the Magihz many of the populations of the outer worlds were viable, but none of them were capable of holding on to their technology. That's why it took so long for any of them to get back into space.

As I said, industry, research, and trade is tightly symbiotic in the pre-Maghiz Darrian worlds. Thus I will assume Entrope can and will build TL 16 hulls.

See the sidebar about the Darrian Astrography Service in GT:Humaniti. The service controlled all Darrian starships at the time and there were a lot fewer ships than Darrian could have supported. The text doesn't say so straight out, but IMO there was no trade as such between the Darrian outposts, only supply runs. Also, I think the biggest off-Darrian populations were in the low tens of thousands (on Mire and perhaps a few other places).


Hans

 

[robject]

Your population figures make sense.

 

[jappel]

I just came across this thread and thought I'd throw in my Cr 2.

First, IMHO the best answer is to have large dispersed-structure jump carriers which transport a large number of smaller ships, or even modules. On the small scale you could utilize modular cutters to handle the surface to orbit duties; once in orbit, detach module for placement onto the jump carrier, pick up a fresh module and return for more passengers. Figure 5 tons per 30-ton cutter module for an on-board power plant and fuel; that leaves room for 50 low berths, or 25 emergency low berths holding 100 people. Not neccessarily efficient, but possibly workable and something a sector fleet might keep a stash of in case of an emergency.

(For that matter, I think I'm going to make such a 30-ton "life pod" a standard feature on liners IMTU.)

Jump tugs are canonical; my memory is fuzzy on the sizes of the modules, but a few 1000-ton modules packed with low berths would certainly be plausible for colonization runs, bulk troop transports and the like. For a truly massive evacuation, these could be built in orbit if local resources and infrastructure permit or brought in from out-system, then filled in orbit and queued up for the jump tugs or a larger carrier.

It would also be possible to have smaller self-propelled "lifeships" that would only need surface-to-orbit capability.

In any case, it's a matter of applying the same thinking behind containerization and LASH shipping. Treat the evacuees as a sensitive, perishable cargo; then your limiting factor becomes the containers, since you can use any cargo-capable ship to move them between systems. If the world was near but not on a J-1 main, you could use the high-jump ships to ferry containers to the main, where even the lowliest Type A free trader could pick up some of the load.

Forking waaaay back to some of the early posts, I was reminded of some conversations with a former colleague some years ago. One of his prior jobs had involved planning for the US military for the evacuation of non-combatants and dependents from Korea in the event of a hot war there. One of the things they discovered was that there simply wouldn't be time to do more than the most cursory identity checks on the people during the loading - anything more than "you've got the right color ID card" would simply take too long, given the number of people to be evacuated and the time they were expected to accomplish the evacuation in. In the end, the overriding concern was to get the people off the pennisula and if there were some "stowaways", well, that was certainly the lesser evil. One could assume something similar would occur in a truly urgent planetary evacuation.

In any case, this is a neat scenario; consider it stolen for use in my campaign.

John