Leading Edge of Exploration (or How Dumb Are Your Vilani?)

[G. Kashkanun Anderson]

Canon References (CT)
Library Data N-Z dates the following elements of Vegan history:
-6000 (roughly 1500BC) Vegans receive the jump drive from Vilani traders

It was the Geonee who gave the Vegans jump technology. This has been mentioned in a published source before. And although it conflicts with earlier statements about 'Vilani traders', it's worth noting that much (if not all) of those references are taken from POV-style references (i.e. it's Vilani-based databases that claim this, not third-person accounts). Geonee-Vegan first contact also makes much more sense from an astrographical standpoint.

In fact, from my research it's fairly obvious that 'Vilani traders' is little more than a euphemism for 'meddling Geonee'. Astrography and settlement/exploration potentialities point fairly strongly to Geonee/Suerrat contact quite a few years before the Vilani show up there, and we know that the Luriani received their jump drive from a non-Vilani source. But outside of the Geonee, the only remotely available jump-capable race anywhere near the Luriani at the time were the Bwaps, and trying to conjure a scenario where the Bwaps cough up a jump drive to some random race of aliens is obviously problematic on several levels.

- Shortly thereafter (presumably after 2096 but before the 1st Interstellar War in 2118 although AM6 doesn’t assign a year) Vilani colonies are discovered, and dealt with (whatever that means), on Nusku and Gashidda.

Occupation, mostly -- although once the locals in this neck of the woods got wind of what the Terrans were all about, it wasn't that difficult to coerce them into playing ball. These were not your typical Vilani colonies...

Assumptions
Scouting missions should be able to extend 15 or so parsecs (six months or 25 jumps at a overall rate of advance of 0.5-0.7 parsecs per jump depending of astrography) from the nearest Class B starport to the frontier for a TL9-A society or 25-30 parsecs (six months or 25 jumps at a rate of advance of approximately 1.2 parsecs per jump) for a TL-B society.

It seems to me you're assuming the Vilani were scouting their borders for the purpose of colonial expansion. This was largely true prior to, and during the first part of, the Consolidation Wars era, but by the time the Wars were over (and the Ziru Sirka was declared), the Vilani were 99% through with expansion for expansion's sake. And the Vilani that were swimming around the vicinity of Terra were always of the late Consolidation Wars stripe.

So long as any listening posts weren't picking up suspicious EM signals, and so long as the scouts reported back nothing but virgin wilderness for 3-6 weeks worth of jumps into the void, the Vilani would be willing to stay put.

- Were the Terrans somehow missed by Vilani scouts?

Actually, yes. The astrography of the region immediately around Terra is conveniently inconvenient for anybody who hasn't mastered jump-3 technology. You basically have just one roundabout route that will get you there from the early Vilani frontier (two if you are willing to accept BYOB Sirius as a jump point). It took, at a minimum, 8 jumps into raw wilderness in order to get to 5th Century AD Terra from Ziru Sirka space -- and that's if you knew the way in the first place.

- Were the Terrans observed, yet for some reason not contacted by the human empire which had already successfully integrated several other human minor races?

By the time the Ziru Sirka border crept up into striking range of Terra, the Vilani were absolutely convinced there was nothing going on beyond their borders worth paying attention to. And by the time the Terrans were firing up danger flares like recognisable EM patterns and the like, the Vilani were no longer looking.

- Were they contacted and given the jump drive by the Vilani and Solomani status as a major race in just revisionist history from the time of the Second Imperium?

No. It's pretty ironclad from a canonical standpoint that the Solomani invented the jump drive all on their little lonesomes.

- Did the First Imperium have a policy of just laying down colonies without exploring the subsector around the colony first?

Absolutely not. But keep in mind that Vilani space in the region of Terra was not colonized so much as it was co-opted. The first wave was under decidedly war-torn conditions, where any Vilani settlement was specifically along the lines of Niccolo Machiavelli's 'death by demographics' stratagem. The second wave was via a brief spark of dissidence that was quickly dealt with and (again) absorbed by the Ziru Sirka.

The Vilani never seemed interested in expanding into the rim for any reason other than threat elimination. Canon states, for instance, that Diaspora sector was largely ignored until the Solomani came around. It may be that the Consolidation Wars were such a traumatic experience for the regions that experienced it that they had still not recovered from it by the time the Terrans showed up 2,000 years later.

- Did the Vegans have absolutely no interest in exploring the space around them?

Remember that Vegans are not human. They do not have quite the same motives and ambitions that humans have. They are a thoughtful, long-lived and deliberate people. They are also described as feeling things with less 'depth' than humans; it's conceivable (likely?) that this quality extends to the trait of curiosity as well.

I don't see the Vegans being driven by population pressures towards expansion, and they really aren't that interested in knowing what colour the grass is on the other side of any hill. Also, as a jump-1 race, you are asking them to organise at least 6 deep-space jumps in order to pursue what is essentially for them a snipe hunt.

How have those who have done campaign or other work in this milieu dealt with it? Accepted it as written? Changed it? If so, how?

Why yes. Yes I have. I have been pondering the realpolitik of pre-Imperial Charted Space for about two years, and I have several maps of the period now to prove it.

Personally I think it would be intriguing if the Vilani were just making their first forays into the Solomani Rim when the Terrans discovered the jump drive. The Sol and Dingir subsector would then be a patchwork of colonies under the auspices of different Terran nations, or independent, at the outbreak of the first Interstellar war, making the `Terran Confederation’ more closely resemble its’ name. The Vegans might have been given the jump drive after the 1st war by the Vilani in hopes of creating a client state as a buffer against the warlike Terrans. Would this not have made this milieu a more interesting place to adventure?

Well, Vilani space was dull by design, but it was not always thus.

Replace 'Solomani' and 'Vegan' in that above paragraph with 'Suerrat', 'Loeskalth' and 'Geonee', and you pretty much have a good description of what I suspect Illelish Sector was like, circa -5400. Man, what a snake pit that place was -- and in tight quarters, too. The Spinward Marches have nothing on the 'fate of the galaxy'-style intrigues that I think were going on in there back in the day.

 

[rancke]

Actually, yes. The astrography of the region immediately around Terra is conveniently inconvenient for anybody who hasn't mastered jump-3 technology. You basically have just one roundabout route that will get you there from the early Vilani frontier (two if you are willing to accept BYOB Sirius as a jump point). It took, at a minimum, 8 jumps into raw wilderness in order to get to 5th Century AD Terra from Ziru Sirka space -- and that's if you knew the way in the first place.

Two reactions:

1) That's an interesting observation. I've never thought about that aspect of the astrography before.

2) Oh &%¤#"! Your mention of Sirius just made me realize that even if deep space jumps requires jump anchors, Sirius is still a back door to/from Terra even if you only have jump-2. You can jump to Sirius itself, and if you bring your own fuel, you can jump right on to Fenris/further into the Dingir subsector.


Hans

 

[Whipsnade]

Oh &%¤#"! Your mention of Sirius just made me realize that even if deep space jumps requires jump anchors, Sirius is still a back door to/from Terra even if you only have jump-2. You can jump to Sirius itself, and if you bring your own fuel, you can jump right on to Fenris/further into the Dingir subsector.

Hans,

You hadn't realized that before? Really?

That's one of the major reasons why the history of the Interstellar Wars written for GT:RoF and derived from the pre-Traveller wargame Imperium is so badly broken. And, at one remove, why GT:ISW brown dwarf boobery is equally as broken.

That's all it took? Someone pointing you to the map? Sheesh... I need to start slapping together more lousy maps with MSPaint...


Regards,
Bill

 

[G. Kashkanun Anderson]

For the record, I don't want anyone to take what I wrote as any endorsement (implied or otherwise) of the 'no deep space jumps' school of Traveller flamery. I have actually never had a problem with the concept empty-hex jumps myself.

But deep space jumps and/or no wilderness refueling stops do require greater logistical support than the ever-handy Gas Giant watering hole. I believe the early Vilani would take that into account when contemplating the limits of their buffer zones, and factor that into whatever auditing routines they put their exploration bureaux through.

2) Oh &%¤#"! Your mention of Sirius just made me realize that even if deep space jumps requires jump anchors, Sirius is still a back door to/from Terra even if you only have jump-2. You can jump to Sirius itself, and if you bring your own fuel, you can jump right on to Fenris/further into the Dingir subsector.

Fortunately, if my memory serves me right the Vilani never bothered to establish a presence in the Sirius system prior to the Interstellar Wars era. Knowing the late Imperial Vilani as we do, it's likely that social inertia slowed them down just enough to prevent them from making effective use of it before the Terrans got a good foothold in.

Because the Terrans, as I recall, were all too aware of how vulnerable they were from the vantage point of the Sirius-Fenris route.

 

[rancke]

That's all it took?

Yes, Bill, all it takes is a valid argument :devil:.



Hans

 

[rancke]

Fortunately, if my memory serves me right the Vilani never bothered to establish a presence in the Sirius system prior to the Interstellar Wars era. Knowing the late Imperial Vilani as we do, it's likely that social inertia slowed them down just enough to prevent them from making effective use of it before the Terrans got a good foothold in.

But the logistical problems of going in the back way just went down from huge to 'not much of a problem'. All it takes is a tanker element big enough to refuel the rest of the fleet. And there's nothing either the Terrans or the Vilani can do to prevent the other side from using Sirius as a stepping stone. The 'Imperium' game to the contrary notwithstanding, no matter how big a presence the Terrans have in Sirius, they're not going to be able to interdict the entire solar jump limit of Sirius. And that's what it would take.


Hans

 

[OIT]

Thank You

GKA,
Thak you for your well reasoned and intriguing reply.

It was the Geonee who gave the Vegans jump technology. This has been mentioned in a published source before. And although it conflicts with earlier statements about 'Vilani traders', it's worth noting that much (if not all) of those references are taken from POV-style references (i.e. it's Vilani-based databases that claim this, not third-person accounts). Geonee-Vegan first contact also makes much more sense from an astrographical standpoint..

I am not familiar with the source you reference, or missed the quote, but Geonee-Vegan interaction is certainly plausible.

Occupation, mostly -- although once the locals in this neck of the woods got wind of what the Terrans were all about, it wasn't that difficult to coerce them into playing ball. These were not your typical Vilani colonies...

In what way were the Vilani colonies in the Rim atypical? Not populated by Vilani, comprised of refugees or outcasts, or what?

I had always just assumed the Vilani presence in the Rim was part of the vanilla, er, Vilani Imperium, but you've opened my eyes to other possibilities. Thanks.

It seems to me you're assuming the Vilani were scouting their borders for the purpose of colonial expansion. This was largely true prior to, and during the first part of, the Consolidation Wars era, but by the time the Wars were over (and the Ziru Sirka was declared), the Vilani were 99% through with expansion for expansion's sake. And the Vilani that were swimming around the vicinity of Terra were always of the late Consolidation Wars stripe.

See below...

So long as any listening posts weren't picking up suspicious EM signals, and so long as the scouts reported back nothing but virgin wilderness for 3-6 weeks worth of jumps into the void, the Vilani would be willing to stay put.

Well, Nusku and Gashidda are within 3-6 jumps of Terra at J-2, but I could see them not exploring if they were refugee/outcast/penal/etc colonies.

What do you consider the most likely forward-most scout bases for the VI in the Rim?

Actually, yes. The astrography of the region immediately around Terra is conveniently inconvenient for anybody who hasn't mastered jump-3 technology. You basically have just one roundabout route that will get you there from the early Vilani frontier (two if you are willing to accept BYOB Sirius as a jump point). It took, at a minimum, 8 jumps into raw wilderness in order to get to 5th Century AD Terra from Ziru Sirka space -- and that's if you knew the way in the first place.

True.

By the time the Ziru Sirka border crept up into striking range of Terra, the Vilani were absolutely convinced there was nothing going on beyond their borders worth paying attention to. And by the time the Terrans were firing up danger flares like recognisable EM patterns and the like, the Vilani were no longer looking.

I'm still not convinced they wouldn't have done SOME scouting...

Absolutely not. But keep in mind that Vilani space in the region of Terra was not colonized so much as it was co-opted. The first wave was under decidedly war-torn conditions, where any Vilani settlement was specifically along the lines of Niccolo Machiavelli's 'death by demographics' stratagem. The second wave was via a brief spark of dissidence that was quickly dealt with and (again) absorbed by the Ziru Sirka.

I'm not sure I understand your use of the word `co-opted' in this paragraph. Could you elaborate on how you see the VI expansion into the Rim taking place?

The Vilani never seemed interested in expanding into the rim for any reason other than threat elimination. Canon states, for instance, that Diaspora sector was largely ignored until the Solomani came around. It may be that the Consolidation Wars were such a traumatic experience for the regions that experienced it that they had still not recovered from it by the time the Terrans showed up 2,000 years later.

What threats? Renegade bands of human minor races from the Consolidation Wars? Refugee colonies from said wars that were now achieving an industrial base of their own and thus had to be conquered?

Remember that Vegans are not human. They do not have quite the same motives and ambitions that humans have. They are a thoughtful, long-lived and deliberate people. They are also described as feeling things with less 'depth' than humans; it's conceivable (likely?) that this quality extends to the trait of curiosity as well.

I don't see the Vegans being driven by population pressures towards expansion, and they really aren't that interested in knowing what colour the grass is on the other side of any hill. Also, as a jump-1 race, you are asking them to organise at least 6 deep-space jumps in order to pursue what is essentially for them a snipe hunt.

Certainly plausible. Perhaps they possess certain cultural traits which keep them close (within a few jumps) to Muan Gwi as well. This would help explain why they never seem to have become widely spread.

Why yes. Yes I have. I have been pondering the realpolitik of pre-Imperial Charted Space for about two years, and I have several maps of the period now to prove it.

Oh, do tell.....

Replace 'Solomani' and 'Vegan' in that above paragraph with 'Suerrat', 'Loeskalth' and 'Geonee', and you pretty much have a good description of what I suspect Illelish Sector was like, circa -5400. Man, what a snake pit that place was -- and in tight quarters, too. The Spinward Marches have nothing on the 'fate of the galaxy'-style intrigues that I think were going on in there back in the day.

Sounds like a good pocket empires setting.

 

[kafka47]

I'm still not convinced they wouldn't have done SOME scouting...

Nobody precludes any scouting...just what did they find? Just another Vilani colony that had reverted barbarism? Another destitute race of humaniti? A plague world? (Terra was especially infectious if one landed in the Western end of the Eurasian continent) Or maybe they responsible for the rise of the Mayans or the Toltecs. Again, one wants to avoid conspiracies.

But, did it ever get solved why the Easter Island Statues ended up in the planet of Easter in the Rim?

 

[rancke]

But, did it ever get solved why the Easter Island Statues ended up in the planet of Easter in the Rim?

Was it ever stated anywhere in canon that they did? IIRC Easter is named Easter because it looks like an Easter egg.


Hans

 

[G. Kashkanun Anderson]

I am not familiar with the source you reference, or missed the quote, but Geonee-Vegan interaction is certainly plausible.

Try this one:

Like most other subject races, the Vegans received the jump drive from others. Vilani influence was still far away when this happened, but traders from the powerful Geonee state to coreward passed the secret on about 1500 B.C.

And regarding the Geonee...

The Geonee were the greatest rival of the Vilani for over 3,500 years. They were the toughest opponent during the Consolidation Wars, but they were finally defeated...

Chew on that for a minute; I don't know how many people stop and think about the reality of that statement. That's a heck of a lot of history to gloss over; 3,500 years is as long as the Vilani and the Solomani have known each other. Nowadays the Geonee are 'reduced' to majority populations on a dozen-world reservation near their homeworld. Seriously, though... if they were always that way, or even two, three, or ten times as broadly established as they are today, is there any conceivable way that they could have gotten the Vilani to take them seriously for 3,500 years?

In what way were the Vilani colonies in the Rim atypical? Not populated by Vilani, comprised of refugees or outcasts, or what?

The original rimward edge of Vilani space was actually about a dozen parsecs or so further corward of the final boundary. About 500 years after the declaration of the Ziru Sirka, a dissident group of Vilani known as the Kimashargur fled Imperial space and attempted to set up a small polity of their own in what we now know as the rimward fringe of the Ziru Sirka. Worlds such as Dingir, as well as Gashidda and Nusku, were settled by this group. The Ziru Sirka came in barely a century later and forced them back into the Imperial fold.

Well, Nusku and Gashidda are within 3-6 jumps of Terra at J-2, but I could see them not exploring if they were refugee/outcast/penal/etc colonies.

What do you consider the most likely forward-most scout bases for the VI in the Rim?

There would have been forward bases in the early years of the Ziru Sirka, but by the time of first contact with Terra (about 1,500 years later) those posts would have evolved into full-fledged settlements. And remember that for all those 1,500 years there was never a hint that anything originating from beyond the rim needed to be looked into.

Perhaps they would have kept up regular patrols a few parsecs into the barren worlds at the start of the Ziru Sirka, when they were still a vigorous Imperium. But they were nothing of the sort by the time the Terrans were becoming a technologically feasible threat; if anything, they were studiously anti-curious about whatever went on beyond their borders.

I'm still not convinced they wouldn't have done SOME scouting...

They did; I never said that they didn't. Well, come to think of it, maybe I do mean that... arguably, what they were doing was reconnaissance, a very specific kind of scouting. The Vilani that reached the rim were not of the stripe that were interested in colonial expansion; what they were doing in those first few years of the Ziru Sirka were checking out the local astrography of the neighbourhood, for the purpose of determining the most efficient buffer zone.

Now, it just so happens that the region of space rimward of Diaspora Sector tends to get sparser and sparser the further you go. By the time you get to within striking distance of Terra the astrography becomes challenging enough that the reconnaissance expeditions likely wouldn't feel a need to go too deeply into the void in order to confirm that they were safe from intrusion.

I'm not sure I understand your use of the word `co-opted' in this paragraph. Could you elaborate on how you see the VI expansion into the Rim taking place?

See above. Plus (and I'm going to drift into IMTU territory here) my charts strongly indicate that everything rimward of Core Sector was previously-staked territory by the time the Vilani decided to 'consolidate' it. Indeed, the only starfaring races ever mentioned as having been violently subjugated by the Vilani exist in these rimward regions.

What threats? Renegade bands of human minor races from the Consolidation Wars? Refugee colonies from said wars that were now achieving an industrial base of their own and thus had to be conquered?

The Consolidation Wars era lasted 1,400 years. I find the traditional Vilani accounts that this entire period essentially consisted of them cleaning up the margins around their fringes to be extremely unlikely. I strongly suspect that the Consolidation Wars were a bit more epic than that. But the Vilani aren't interested in epic accounts that don't include them -- or worse yet, put them in a decidedly poor light.

Remember the horrifying lengths that the Vilani went to in order to subjugate the Vegans. Or what they were prepared to do, if they ever managed to break through the Terran defensive perimeter. Now scale that up into a 1,400-year interracial struggle raging back and forth across a dozen sectors of human space. Consider how underpopulated and unloved Diaspora Sector was supposed to be at the time of first contact with Terra. Also remember how deeply the Geonee (and, to a lesser extent, the Suerrat) loathe the Vilani to this day.

Certainly plausible. Perhaps they possess certain cultural traits which keep them close (within a few jumps) to Muan Gwi as well. This would help explain why they never seem to have become widely spread.

They are a conservative, even plodding, people; it's one of the few psychological advantages they had in their relationship with the Vilani. Canon states that they only settled the jump-1 region immediately around their homeworld, and then remained satisfied with consolidating that accomplishment.

Nobody precludes any scouting...just what did they find? Just another Vilani colony that had reverted barbarism? Another destitute race of humaniti? A plague world? (Terra was especially infectious if one landed in the Western end of the Eurasian continent) Or maybe they responsible for the rise of the Mayans or the Toltecs. Again, one wants to avoid conspiracies.

It would be very un-Vilani to discover a world full of technologically-backward minor race humans and just leave them alone after that, especially on a planet as resource-rich and human-optimal as Terra. In nearly every other case where minor humans have been found (the Azhanti being the exception to the rule), the Vilani gradually but firmly embraced them into the Imperial fold. The Azhanti, apparently, were saved by virtue of being the inhabitants of a smelly, inhospitable, worthless rock.

 

[G. Kashkanun Anderson]

But the logistical problems of going in the back way just went down from huge to 'not much of a problem'. All it takes is a tanker element big enough to refuel the rest of the fleet. And there's nothing either the Terrans or the Vilani can do to prevent the other side from using Sirius as a stepping stone. The 'Imperium' game to the contrary notwithstanding, no matter how big a presence the Terrans have in Sirius, they're not going to be able to interdict the entire solar jump limit of Sirius. And that's what it would take.

Heh. It turns out that's what happened, too. The Third Interstellar War (aka 'The Siege of Terra') opened with a massive Imperial attack on Procyon. The Fourth kicked off with another Imperial raid on the planet. Sirius was clearly the jumping-off point for these expeditions.

Of course, the entire purpose of the Procyon colony was to serve as forward support for the Terran Navy's 'Keep the Imperials from Messing Around with Sirius' patrols. I sure hope some Admirals got sacked over both those incidents.

 

[OIT]

Interesting Discussion

Ah, GURPS. That explains why I haven't seen this before.

Chew on that for a minute; I don't know how many people stop and think about the reality of that statement. That's a heck of a lot of history to gloss over; 3,500 years is as long as the Vilani and the Solomani have known each other. Nowadays the Geonee are 'reduced' to majority populations on a dozen-world reservation near their homeworld. Seriously, though... if they were always that way, or even two, three, or ten times as broadly established as they are today, is there any conceivable way that they could have gotten the Vilani to take them seriously for 3,500 years?

Yes, I think it makes sense that the Consolidation Wars were very serious, empire-threatening, and very nasty given what you've told me about their length and their effect on the Geonee.

The original rimward edge of Vilani space was actually about a dozen parsecs or so further corward of the final boundary. About 500 years after the declaration of the Ziru Sirka, a dissident group of Vilani known as the Kimashargur fled Imperial space and attempted to set up a small polity of their own in what we now know as the rimward fringe of the Ziru Sirka. Worlds such as Dingir, as well as Gashidda and Nusku, were settled by this group. The Ziru Sirka came in barely a century later and forced them back into the Imperial fold.

So, I'm envisioning a small group of exiles-by-choice flying as far from their home polity as possible and setting up shop on the best world they can find (Dingir) somewhere in the 500-1000AD timeframe.

A few generations later, the Ziru Sirka, having learned of the Vegans having jump drive, enter the Rim after a long journey from Diaspora sector to `consolidate' the Vegans. From the Vegans, they learn of the existence of a small settlement of Kimashargur on Dingir.

Had the settlers been Geonee, they might have been `eliminated', but as Vilani the Imperial Navy does not have that option. Therefore, the Navy, and by extension the Ziru Sirka as a whole, had no choice but to `expand' into the Dingir subsector despite its' enormous distance (over one year from Magumbo in Diaspora to Dingir at J-2 by my calculations).

Because of the distances and time lag in communications to the empire proper, Dingir would have been considered a desolate outback post in the middle of nowhere, similar to Imperial China's view on Hainan island (which was called `the end of the world'). These distances certainly help explain the lack of support from the Imperium proper during the Interstellar wars.

Also, because of its' remoteness, backwardness, a lack of opportunity for advancement, perhaps the Dingir subsector was used as a dumping ground for less than impressive officials/naval officers, once again similar to Hainan island under the Song and Ming dynasties (although I don't want to carry the analogy too far).

There would have been forward bases in the early years of the Ziru Sirka, but by the time of first contact with Terra (about 1,500 years later) those posts would have evolved into full-fledged settlements. And remember that for all those 1,500 years there was never a hint that anything originating from beyond the rim needed to be looked into.

This brings up an interesting question about the growth and development of the Kimashargur settlements. It may have been impractical to have removed the colonies, but the Ziru Surka probably had no interest in seeing them grow. In addition, the populace of said colonies may have harbored some degree of resentment to the Ziru Surka.

Would the social policies of the provincial government have been geared to retard the growth of the colonies in Dingir space - the government being more interested in control and stability than development?

They did; I never said that they didn't. Well, come to think of it, maybe I do mean that... arguably, what they were doing was reconnaissance, a very specific kind of scouting. The Vilani that reached the rim were not of the stripe that were interested in colonial expansion; what they were doing in those first few years of the Ziru Sirka were checking out the local astrography of the neighbourhood, for the purpose of determining the most efficient buffer zone.

If the Imperial Navy units watching over the Kimashargur colonies were primarily in place to maintain control of those colonies and were commanded by something less than the empire's best and brightest, then it is possible they would not have scouted.

OTOH, isn't it plausible to expect they would have scouted out a certain number of jumps to make sure they had found all the Kimashargur settlements? Terra may be inconvenient to get to, but it is certainly not impossible. there are two acceptable J-2 routes, even if one does accept the `no jumping into an empty hex' nonsense (which I find thoroughly ridiculous).

See above. Plus (and I'm going to drift into IMTU territory here) my charts strongly indicate that everything rimward of Core Sector was previously-staked territory by the time the Vilani decided to 'consolidate' it. Indeed, the only starfaring races ever mentioned as having been violently subjugated by the Vilani exist in these rimward regions.

...and the only thing driving the Vilani rimward was the perceived need to absorb Vega and the Kimashargur settlements. Hence, Diaspora would have been a sparsely populated wilderness between the Imperium proper and the outposts of control over the Vegans and Kimashargur.

BTW, which worlds do you consider to have been settled by the Vilani other than Dingir, Gashidda, and Nusku. What do you consider the likely population of those worlds at time of Terran contact?

The Consolidation Wars era lasted 1,400 years. I find the traditional Vilani accounts that this entire period essentially consisted of them cleaning up the margins around their fringes to be extremely unlikely. I strongly suspect that the Consolidation Wars were a bit more epic than that. But the Vilani aren't interested in epic accounts that don't include them -- or worse yet, put them in a decidedly poor light.

Remember the horrifying lengths that the Vilani went to in order to subjugate the Vegans. Or what they were prepared to do, if they ever managed to break through the Terran defensive perimeter. Now scale that up into a 1,400-year interracial struggle raging back and forth across a dozen sectors of human space. Consider how underpopulated and unloved Diaspora Sector was supposed to be at the time of first contact with Terra. Also remember how deeply the Geonee (and, to a lesser extent, the Suerrat) loathe the Vilani to this day.

Concur. This hints to possible ethnic cleansing of other races' colonies which the Vilani found inconvenient to administer.

They are a conservative, even plodding, people; it's one of the few psychological advantages they had in their relationship with the Vilani. Canon states that they only settled the jump-1 region immediately around their homeworld, and then remained satisfied with consolidating that accomplishment.

Perhaps they colonized during their 500 or so years as an independent interstellar polity, but were forbidden further colonization by the Vilani once they had been absorbed by the Ziru Surka.

It would be very un-Vilani to discover a world full of technologically-backward minor race humans and just leave them alone after that, especially on a planet as resource-rich and human-optimal as Terra. In nearly every other case where minor humans have been found (the Azhanti being the exception to the rule), the Vilani gradually but firmly embraced them into the Imperial fold. The Azhanti, apparently, were saved by virtue of being the inhabitants of a smelly, inhospitable, worthless rock.

Agree. As technologically backward and culturally fragmented as Terra was, it would still have been a prize world for its' climate and agricultural resources, at a minimum.

 

[rancke]

Agree. As technologically backward and culturally fragmented as Terra was, it would still have been a prize world for its' climate and agricultural resources, at a minimum.

"If we open up contact, sooner or later the locals are going to get their hands on jump technology, and we really don't want a world with several billion barbarians getting jump technology. Just erase all references and leve them alone. On their own they're going to be TL3 for millenia." -- Unknown Vilani bureaucrat


Hans

 

[kafka47]

Was it ever stated anywhere in canon that they did? IIRC Easter is named Easter because it looks like an Easter egg.


Hans

In the Rim, Hans, I think you are getting it confused with Pasques in the Marches.

It would be very un-Vilani to discover a world full of technologically-backward minor race humans and just leave them alone after that, especially on a planet as resource-rich and human-optimal as Terra. In nearly every other case where minor humans have been found (the Azhanti being the exception to the rule), the Vilani gradually but firmly embraced them into the Imperial fold. The Azhanti, apparently, were saved by virtue of being the inhabitants of a smelly, inhospitable, worthless rock.

Resource rich? You are judging from our standards. Food would be useless to the Vilani as it does not possess the left hook DNA or whatever else the Shuggi needed. Population being 1 billion...not when they visited. Optimal. Yes. But so are countless others but to get there was the major pain, as you pointed out Astrography conspires. Combined with my theory of Aussies adrift.

"If we open up contact, sooner or later the locals are going to get their hands on jump technology, and we really don't want a world with several billion barbarians getting jump technology. Just erase all references and leve them alone. On their own they're going to be TL3 for millenia." -- Unknown Vilani bureaucrat


Hans

Jump Drive tech would not be the overiding concern. Remember, this was a reconnaisance mission in circa 500AD. The Vilani would have met countless civilizations that plateaued just there. So, yes, some bureaucrat probably filed a report and that collected dust at the AAB until some hapless trigger event. Plus, the Vilani accustomed to First Contact but not really having the same perspective on History as Terrans would have seen technological progress in a different light.

I would even venture to say that the Vilani view of history would be a non scientific and non linear view whereby interaction with the environment becomes more important. Having witnessed on hundreds of worlds humans struggling against hostile biospheres would have provide the reasoning. Their contact would have shocked this worldview somewhat but then History is written by the Victors. So I could see the Vilani mythologizing history rather than recounting strict events.

The other factor that you are ignoring is the different cultural notions of frontier. For Americans and maybe the West as a whole views a frontier as something waiting to be opened. Other traditions notably the Islamic is better translated as badlands or unruly territory. Therefore, it would be clear that the Vilani might have a similar outlook. I like the idea of the buffer zone to protect against dissents leaking back. Also, the Vegans being neutralized as a threat started by Genoese agents...that would account for the retarded but rapid advancement of the Vegans.

 

[Sturn]

When I started working on my Terran Dawn campaign, I ran into the contradictions throughout various sources about jumping into empty spaces. This was important for the era and setting due to the important stepping stone used at the start of the Interstellar Wars (from Terra to Barnard). Gurps IW put a brown dwarf in the empty space. Earilier sources (iirc) didn't mention a brown dwarf, but they also didn't state one wasn't used.

This created questions of:

1. Why isn't brown dwarf jumping a common practice in the 3rd Imperium?
2. Deep space jumps seem to be fine in the 3rd Imperium, why weren't they more common during the 2nd Imperium or before?

For my setting I came up with a simple solution based upon the past debates at CotI over this controversial subject (not my creation, I 90% stole it iirc):

At TL 12 and lower, jumps into empty space are impossilble or extremely dangerous. Perhaps an automatic misjump when trying to jump into an area without a large gravity "target". At later TL's, the chance of misjumping when trying to enter deep space becomes increasingly less to the point it is negligible by TL 15.

So my answers became:

1. It's no longer needed, you can jump into deep space just fine as long as you bring along the supplies.
2. Because back at TL 12 or lower, it was down-right dangerous and/or impossible.

 

[aramis]

In the Rim, Hans, I think you are getting it confused with Pasques in the Marches.



Resource rich? You are judging from our standards. Food would be useless to the Vilani as it does not possess the left hook DNA or whatever else the Shuggi needed.

The shugilli are needed only for their ethnic cuisines. Vilani are not bilogically adapted for the foods of vland, but culturally and technologically adapted. Once they realize they can eat the local foodstuffs, they will.

Now, some human minors ARE adapted.

 

[OIT]

For my setting I came up with a simple solution based upon the past debates at CotI over this controversial subject (not my creation, I 90% stole it iirc):

At TL 12 and lower, jumps into empty space are impossilble or extremely dangerous. Perhaps an automatic misjump when trying to jump into an area without a large gravity "target". At later TL's, the chance of misjumping when trying to enter deep space becomes increasingly less to the point it is negligible by TL 15.

If that works for you, then go for it. Personally, I would rather discard `canon' I don't like than try to rationalize it, but YMMV.

 

[rancke]

In the Rim, Hans, I think you are getting it confused with Pasques in the Marches.

I don't think so. It may not have been stated explicitly anywhere, but Easter has a type E atmosphere, so it would look like an egg with bands across.


Hans

 

[G. Kashkanun Anderson]

So, I'm envisioning a small group of exiles-by-choice flying as far from their home polity as possible and setting up shop on the best world they can find (Dingir) somewhere in the 500-1000AD timeframe.

A few generations later, the Ziru Sirka, having learned of the Vegans having jump drive, enter the Rim after a long journey from Diaspora sector to `consolidate' the Vegans. From the Vegans, they learn of the existence of a small settlement of Kimashargur on Dingir.

Had the settlers been Geonee, they might have been `eliminated', but as Vilani the Imperial Navy does not have that option. Therefore, the Navy, and by extension the Ziru Sirka as a whole, had no choice but to `expand' into the Dingir subsector despite its' enormous distance (over one year from Magumbo in Diaspora to Dingir at J-2 by my calculations).

Not quite; you're getting your chronology mixed up a little bit here. The Kimashargur settlements were established after the Consolidation Wars were over, about 500 years into the Pax Vilanica. The Geonee as a threat were long gone by this time, and the Vegans had been under the boot for at least 600-700 years.

What I envision happening regarding the rise and fall of the Kimashargur is that they emerged out of residual memes left over from whatever cultural remnants the Geonee and Vegans left behind throughout the Rim. The resultant dissident groups were tolerated by the mainstream Vilani for a time, but the frictions and ultimate crackdown that ensued caused the Kimashargur to flee Ziru Sirka space entirely.

Now, these groups just didn't have the resources (nor, being ultimately Vilani, the imagination) to pull a full-on "Battlestar Galactica" scenario, so they wound up setting up shop just a dozen or so parsecs off the Imperial rim. Sort of like how when your kid gets mad at you and runs away from home, but really just ends up camping in the back yard.

The Ziru Sirka took a century to get around to doing anything about it because, being Vilani, it takes forever for them to complete the whole "consensus, plan, consensus, action, consensus, report" process that characterises every important project that they take on. But remember also that, being Vilani too, even the Kimashargur aren't going to be advancing as rapidly and chaotically as a Solomani-style colonisation effort would.

Because of the distances and time lag in communications to the empire proper, Dingir would have been considered a desolate outback post in the middle of nowhere, similar to Imperial China's view on Hainan island (which was called `the end of the world'). These distances certainly help explain the lack of support from the Imperium proper during the Interstellar wars.

Yes. But also remember that the Ziru Sirka of the Interstellar Wars era was already a fractured, geriatric mess of an empire. The social factors of the day had created a situation where local administrators felt the need to rely as much on their own resources as possible before crawling to their higher-ups for extra considerations. The reason that the Terrans always ended up only fighting local forces in the first few Interstellar Wars is simply because the local Ziru Sirka potentates never dared ask for anything more. If they'd had, then things might have turned out very different.

And then there's the Vargr. We humans like to play up the Solomani angle of the fall of the Ziru Sirka. But the Vargr had already been in contact with the Vilani for perhaps 700-800 years prior to that, and had been causing serious, debilitating pain along the Coreward provinces for at least a couple of centuries. Makhidkarun (arguably the most ruthless of the Bureaux) was taking the brunt of this action pretty much entirely on its own; in fact, by the time the Rule of Man was established almost nothing of Makhidkarun space was held in undisputed human hands.

Also, because of its' remoteness, backwardness, a lack of opportunity for advancement, perhaps the Dingir subsector was used as a dumping ground for less than impressive officials/naval officers, once again similar to Hainan island under the Song and Ming dynasties (although I don't want to carry the analogy too far).

I think so, too. I think it's even canon, in fact.

This brings up an interesting question about the growth and development of the Kimashargur settlements. It may have been impractical to have removed the colonies, but the Ziru Surka probably had no interest in seeing them grow. In addition, the populace of said colonies may have harbored some degree of resentment to the Ziru Surka.

Would the social policies of the provincial government have been geared to retard the growth of the colonies in Dingir space - the government being more interested in control and stability than development?

The Vilani are always more interested in control and stability over development. This is because they are the quintessential long-ball players. The Vilani are willing to accept -- even gladly accept -- that a plan they are putting into place may take generations to achieve fruition. They are supremely confident of their administrative abilities; development will come, even if they (or even their grandchildren) will not live to enjoy it.

And as far as they're concerned, it's the stability -- brought about by their control of all the variables -- that makes this possible. Instability then is intolerable because it almost certainly will result in something bad... and most certainly will damage any chances for proper development.

If the Imperial Navy units watching over the Kimashargur colonies were primarily in place to maintain control of those colonies and were commanded by something less than the empire's best and brightest, then it is possible they would not have scouted.

OTOH, isn't it plausible to expect they would have scouted out a certain number of jumps to make sure they had found all the Kimashargur settlements? Terra may be inconvenient to get to, but it is certainly not impossible. there are two acceptable J-2 routes, even if one does accept the `no jumping into an empty hex' nonsense (which I find thoroughly ridiculous).

Sirius isn't an empty hex jump; it's a star with no locally accessible fuel supply. The next jump out from there is Procyon, which is clearly an inhospitable hole. Junction (the next jump-2 port) isn't that much better, I think.

I'm not saying that it wouldn't have been possible for the Ziru Sirka reconnaissance expeditions to make it to Terra if they'd wanted to. They clearly could have. I'm just trying to point out that the idea that the Vilani stopped just short of discovering Terra is plausible enough to fit the "suspension of disbelief" principle of good fiction (or game design, for that matter).

...and the only thing driving the Vilani rimward was the perceived need to absorb Vega and the Kimashargur settlements. Hence, Diaspora would have been a sparsely populated wilderness between the Imperium proper and the outposts of control over the Vegans and Kimashargur.

Sparsely populated... and maybe just a little bit more radioactive than usual, too. It would be interesting to see if Diaspora Sector had been, by chance, rolled up with a little higher incidence of tainted atmosphere worlds than your average sector.

BTW, which worlds do you consider to have been settled by the Vilani other than Dingir, Gashidda, and Nusku. What do you consider the likely population of those worlds at time of Terran contact?

As I understand it, most of the habitable worlds in Albadawi and Dingir Subsectors (the two subsectors spinward of Terra) were settled by Kimashargur populations. There's a fairly significant jump gap rimward and spinward of these provinces; even accounting for deep space jumps, it likely would have been too resource-costly for even Kimashargur Vilani to contemplate moving out across it. The subsectors to coreward of Albadawi and Dingir were settled after the Kimashargur war, as demographic backfill.

The Vilani are also less inclined to settle the inhospitable worlds, being that they can have their pick of any place they want. The only seriously high population worlds are going to be places like Dingir, and even that's going to be just a few billion, at most. In this region of space, anything over 10 million is going to be regarded as well-settled.

Concur. This hints to possible ethnic cleansing of other races' colonies which the Vilani found inconvenient to administer.

In my mind, the Vilani didn't set out to commit genocide on a galactic scale. But something along those lines is going to be inevitable after even a few decades of incessant warfare, and after 1,000 years or more, can you imagine what it must have been like?

For the record, I can't imagine they were the only ones doing it, once the rubber really hit the road. I think the Suerrat have largely clean hands, but the Geonee probably got more than a few good licks in against their enemies before being erased from history. And of course, honourable mention should go to the long-gone Loeskalth, whom the Vilani recall to this day with considerable revulsion.

Perhaps they colonized during their 500 or so years as an independent interstellar polity, but were forbidden further colonization by the Vilani once they had been absorbed by the Ziru Surka.

They weren't just forbidden from colonisation; they were forcibly retracted from a great many colonies they had already set up. The pre-Imperial Vilani were demographic disasters to almost everyone that they met... with the possible exceptions of the Bwaps and Yileans.

 

[OIT]

Not quite; you're getting your chronology mixed up a little bit here. The Kimashargur settlements were established after the Consolidation Wars were over, about 500 years into the Pax Vilanica. The Geonee as a threat were long gone by this time, and the Vegans had been under the boot for at least 600-700 years.

All right, so the settlement of Dingir would have been 1000-1200AD rather than 500-1000AD and Vegan exploration and colonization would have halted around 500-600AD.

Now, these groups just didn't have the resources (nor, being ultimately Vilani, the imagination) to pull a full-on "Battlestar Galactica" scenario, so they wound up setting up shop just a dozen or so parsecs off the Imperial rim. Sort of like how when your kid gets mad at you and runs away from home, but really just ends up camping in the back yard.

I agree they would have mostly likely been what Pocket Empires would call a `low effort' colonization.

Regarding the distance, they may have only gone a dozen parsecs past the last Imperial outpost, but I think the true `edge of civilization' would have had to have still been deep in the Diaspora sector.

Sirius isn't an empty hex jump; it's a star with no locally accessible fuel supply. The next jump out from there is Procyon, which is clearly an inhospitable hole. Junction (the next jump-2 port) isn't that much better, I think.

Sirius is only really relevant if jumps into empty hexes are disallowed.

I think jumps into empty hexes are fine, but if they are disallowed then Sirius becomes an important alternate route into the sol subsector cluster.

I'm not saying that it wouldn't have been possible for the Ziru Sirka reconnaissance expeditions to make it to Terra if they'd wanted to. They clearly could have. I'm just trying to point out that the idea that the Vilani stopped just short of discovering Terra is plausible enough to fit the "suspension of disbelief" principle of good fiction (or game design, for that matter).

This is where our opinions diverge for reasons elaborated below. Although it could be that our disbelif suspenders are just calibrated differently.

As I understand it, most of the habitable worlds in Albadawi and Dingir Subsectors (the two subsectors spinward of Terra) were settled by Kimashargur populations. There's a fairly significant jump gap rimward and spinward of these provinces; even accounting for deep space jumps, it likely would have been too resource-costly for even Kimashargur Vilani to contemplate moving out across it. The subsectors to coreward of Albadawi and Dingir were settled after the Kimashargur war, as demographic backfill.

See below.

The Vilani are also less inclined to settle the inhospitable worlds, being that they can have their pick of any place they want. The only seriously high population worlds are going to be places like Dingir, and even that's going to be just a few billion, at most. In this region of space, anything over 10 million is going to be regarded as well-settled.

Great minds think alike Yesterday I did some `back of the envelope' math based on Dingir being settled at 1100AD and came up with colony population of 1-4 billion at 2100AD for Dingir and 6-10 million for Gashidda, give or take an order of magnitude.

The point is, considering Vilani conservatism and the lack of population pressure on Dingir (which is a huge world even if it is 90% water), what was the impetus for the Vilani to colonize, even sparsely, most of the others worlds in two subsectors? A few outposts to support communication (Shulgi and Shigiili for example) between populated worlds I can understand, but that's about it.

Additionally, consider that for each world in the Albadawi and Dingir subsectors settled by the Vilani, the plausibility that they would not have scouted Terra goes down incrementally. If Vilani presence past Vega is limited to one or two worlds, then maybe I can concede Terra not having been discovered. However, if Vilani presence in the rimward half of the Solomani Rim includes worlds like:

Meshan - 2 jumps from Terra if DS jumps allowed
Shuruppak - 2 jumps from Terra if DS jumps allowed
Markhashi - 2 jumps from Terra if DS jumps allowed (4 jumps otherwise)
Iilike - 2-3 jumps from Terra if DS allowed (4 jumps otherwise)
Shulmik - 2 jumps from Terrs if DS allowed (4 jumps otherwise)

Nusku - 3 jumps from Terra regardless of DS jumping policy

then my belief suspenders snap. To wit: If a given polity has expanded to over a dozen worlds in an area over the last thousand years, is it at all plausible that they would not have scouted two, three, or four jumps past their established colonies?

In my mind, the Vilani didn't set out to commit genocide on a galactic scale. But something along those lines is going to be inevitable after even a few decades of incessant warfare, and after 1,000 years or more, can you imagine what it must have been like?

Agree. It may not have even been the Vilani that used the first WMD, but, given the intensity and duration of the conflict, at some point `counter value' (i.e. populations)targeting became acceptable to both sides.

They weren't just forbidden from colonisation; they were forcibly retracted from a great many colonies they had already set up. The pre-Imperial Vilani were demographic disasters to almost everyone that they met... with the possible exceptions of the Bwaps and Yileans.

Makes sense.