News of the Fifth Frontier War to Far Frontiers?

[jappel]

While I'm planning my new campaign in the Far Frontiers sector, starting in late 1107, I'm having trouble figuring out how long it would take for news of the outbreak of the Fifth Frontier War to reach this region - specifically, the various pro-Imperial client states in the area. It's fair to assume that the Zhodani would use their internal communications lines and I can make make a rough estimate for when their holdings in the coreward parts of the sector would get word. From their I'm sure they would notify some of their client states.

But for polities like the League of Suns, or the Biumvirate, I'm at something of a loss. It looks like most of the states between the Five Sisters subsector and Jungleblut, for example, are pro-Zhodani, especially the wonkin' big Avalar Consulate.

Am I right in thinking that the fastest way for news to travel would be via the Darrians through Foreven, eventually skirting the rimward edge of the Consulate, then reaching The Protectorate?

For that matter, the FASA material talks about Imperial scout and naval vessels in the region receiving service at League of Suns bases. How the heck do they get there?

Hoping those more familiar with this stellar region can enlighten me!

 

[Carlobrand]

I don't think that you need to be terribly precise about it. Far Frontiers is, what, 50-60 parsecs from Regina? That leaves a lot of different routes with a lot of different intervening factors.

The Imperium will have their own network of scouts and intelligence agents intent on monitoring the far borders of the Zhodani for their own reasons - and perhaps intent on occasional meddling of the sort that might discomfit the Zhodani and compel them to expend more resources and attention in that distant quarter and less here in the Marches. As the Imperium will put some effort into communications with their distant agents, the scout ships serving that network are likely to be jump-3 to jump-4. That network can serve as a channel for information from Imperial space to any local powers with shared interests.

Significant local governments with their eye on the Zhodani will also maintain intelligence networks back toward the Zhodani-Imperial border (and other Zhodani border areas) on the premise that a conflict here in the Marches (or elsewhere) might distract the Zhodani and make them somewhat more tractable locally. Those networks will tend to follow trade routes (cheaper for a smaller power to book passage or send a coded communication as stored data then to build a network of your own ships across 50 parsecs of space), but they'll be optimized, having planned out the quickest routes in advance. Significant news organizations will tend to trade information between themselves across similar networks. What those routes are depends on what your trade conventions are: some folk don't believe anything past jump-2 is profitable, others like megacorps running jump-3 and jump-4 trade routes.

At a rough estimate, the intelligence services of significant regional powers should have general news from their local Imperial contacts within about 5-6 months and confirmation from their own network a few weeks after that, with the info making it to the news databases shortly afterward.

Whether that news registers on the public consciousness is another matter. The events of a distant power many months travel away matter far less to the local traders and purveyors of gossip than events involving regions more familiar and important to them. The news could easily hit as a small blurb nestled in amongst larger news of more immediate and local concern on the local news feed, arousing little or no talk among the locals. Unless your players are part of that aforementioned intelligence network or are specifically watching for news of the Marches, they could easily miss mention of it.

 

[Enoki]

I generally calculate the travel of news, at least the significant news, at a rate of jump 4 to 6 per week. This assumes that any ship jumping will be carrying some amount of news / information aboard. If nothing else, the crew knows stuff they will spread at their next stop.

It moves like concentric rings on a pond too.

 

[Dragoner]

Took me about a minute to count a j4 route over avalar from the DC to Alenzi on travellermap.

 

[jappel]

Sure, it's easy to count out a route. I ran a double-blind game of Fifth Frontier War via e-mail a few years ago and got pretty good at it. (The players communicated via J4 couriers, all messages sent through me as the referee.)

But just assuming four parsecs/week assumes that there's a dedicated traffic path that's being serviced continually. Is it reasonable to assume that there's regular, dedicated traffic between Imperial-aligned states 50+ parsecs and the nearest Imperial world?

To Enoki's point specifically, the problem with that method is that the shortest path goes through a fairly large pro-Zhodani state, and the path around swings pretty wide to either rimward or coreward. I'm assuming that the pro-Zhos won't allow Imperial courier vessels through, or that the Imperium will choose to bypass that state, but of course that could be a bad assumption. Still, we've got plenty of real-world examples of supply & communication lines through hostile areas being problematic, so I don't think it's an unreasonable assumption.

On the gripping hand, I see there's a Scout Way Station at Lelaek (Far Frontiers 2336). Anyone know if that's an Imperial station? Since it sits between two pro-Imperial states (the League of Suns and Trelyn Domain) it seems plausible.

To Carlobrand's point - I'm less interested in the immediate impact to the sophont on the street than in how the war between the two titans affects relations between their client states. That's going to be part of the background of the campaign, and the characters are likely to get caught up in the various machinations - or at least, be impacted by them.

 

[Vargas]

If the Imperium wants to avoid Zhodani entanglements it would probably use merchant shipping as couriers, possibly without the merchants being witting. Jump speed would be lower but that's a trade off.

 

[Carlobrand]

And if the Imperium is maintaining communication links with agents or embassies in distant regions on its own resources, then a network of long-range scouts skirting the Zho border can be maintained without resort to formal scout bases; my guesstimate included the need to go "around the horn" and skirt a few unfriendlies along the way.

...To Carlobrand's point - I'm less interested in the immediate impact to the sophont on the street than in how the war between the two titans affects relations between their client states. That's going to be part of the background of the campaign, and the characters are likely to get caught up in the various machinations - or at least, be impacted by them.

Which is why a guesstimate is adequate: the distances involved are too great for the war to have much immediate local effect. The war could well be over before news of it reached the Far Frontier region; news of how it's trending would be far more important than news that it had started.

Zho forces are too far away to be immediately impacted by losses on the Spinward front; only a long drawn-out conflict necessitating the redistribution of forces to replace losses could impact them, and such orders would not reach them until months into the war. On the other side, the local pro-Imperial states are way too far away to expect any kind of support from the Imperials. So, the start of a distant war would not immediately represent any sort of change in opportunities or advantages for either side. Both sides would adopt a wait-and-see attitude, their decisions based more on local tensions and opportunities.

 

[GypsyComet]

I doubt the mixed client states of Far Frontiers need much excuse to have "diplomatic incidents", so the need to know of a formal start of hostilities sixty parsecs away is really not major.

Also, the Zhodani themselves might step up border patrols in the region during the FFW, but a two-front war is not in their interest. The Zhodani book from Mongoose also has a few things to say about the motivations of the Consulate with regards to the Frontier Wars that have not appeared previously. In light of those motivations, conflict on another front is of no interest. The Zhodani like nice, stable neighbors, even if they don't necessarily see brain to brain.

 

[jappel]

Taking another look at things (including some old Traveller Chronicles that arrived recently), I think having the Scout Way Station at Lelaek be the hub for Imperial logistics in the region (with diplomatic representation in the League of Suns and Trelyn Domain) will make things the most interesting (cue evil laugh).

GC, I see your points about the Zhodani wanting the area kept stable. Their wishes aren't always in line with the pro-Zhodani states, of course (take the Descarothe Hegemony for example). Which makes me wonder if the Imerpials would be the ones interested in stirring up trouble, if they can do so on the cheap, and perhaps in a deniable fashion, with an eye to trying to divert Zhodani resources to the region. Cue the PCs, stage right, as they look for work... They don't even have to know that what they're doing (part of the time anyway) is part of the Great Game being played out.

There's some mention on the Traveller Wikia site about changes in the Mnemosyne Principality, going from a pro-Zhodani state to a pro-Imperial one during the late stages of the war, or just afterward. I haven't located a citation for that yet, though I'm still parsing the integrated timeline. Whether that's canon or not, that's the kind of thing that I'll have going on in the background.