Proposal: Hiver (and Solomani) border expansion history

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by M. Chester:
Why was Pink selected as a Color to represent the Federation Territory?

Dunno. For some reason, when I made the map blue just screamed "Solomani!" at me, and pink screamed "Hiver!" at me

Are you sure there are enough Federation Worlds? [/QB]

That's about how many there should be if you follow the borders shown on the Charted Space maps. I stuck as close as I could do it.

 

[Malenfant]

So, are we OK with my proposal that the Hivers not being in the Spica sector at -2204?

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
So, are we OK with my proposal that the Hivers not being in the Spica sector at -2204?

Grudgingly (though not muchly) I'm with you. The research you've done supports such and the CT maps showing otherwise may not be the best source of evidence of occupation given later detailing of Hiver activity. The biggest reason for any reluctance on my part is from not being able to do my own research, having parted with much of the relevant material. Besides we can allow it under some creative reconstruction on the border for this project.

 

[RainOfSteel]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by RainOfSteel:
I meant, if the Hiver border is over in Phlask -1800, and the Solomani contact the Hiver in -1802, then the Solomani have got scout starcraft ranging two and a half sectors trailing away from their home territory while simultaneously locked in a struggle to control the Second Imperium, which is off to coreward.

Or the Hivers could have sent scouts two and a half sectors to spinward when all they wanted to do was find out what was out there

.

Or perhaps both sides' scouting forces met halfway in Alpha Crucis.

Would it not be possible for the Hivers to be the ones initiating first contact? </font>[/QUOTE]Okay, then. The Solomani and Hivers run into each other, ta-da, somewhere in Spica, -1802!

The Solomani had J-2 when the first encountered the Vilani (I think), and J-3 whent they defeated them (I think). Had they gotten J-4 by the time of th meeting with the Hivers or the onset of the Long Night in the area (-1802/-1774)?

 

[Malenfant]

Yeah. I wasn't questioning the fact that they met in -1802 - just where the borders were

.

The Sollies definitely had J3 when they beat the Vilani and took over the First Imperium. I don't recall seeing any dates for when the Sollies invented J4 though.

 

[mike wightman]

The final TL of the ROM is one of those topics that can lead to... interesting discussions

I'd limit ROM to jump 3/TL12 going on TL13, but T4 has TL14 relic artifacts from the ROM. So you could go as high as jump 5.

(Which begs the question how come the dynamic scientists of Terra didn't push them up to TL 15 or 16 during the Long Night )

 

[Malenfant]

Do we even know when J4, J5 and J6 were even invented anywhere in the Traveller universe?!

 

[RainOfSteel]

Malenfant,

I phrased that poorly. I meant, the Hiver's and Sols run into each other in Spica in -1802, even though the Hiver borders were quite some distance away.


Sigg,

That's good for me, TL-12 maybe 13 on some gear.

As for why there was no scientific advancement during the Long Night, heh, your guess is as good as mine. Maybe their research capabilities were set back to TL-10/11; and their educational capabilities (which is one of the underpinnings of new frontier-expanding research) were realling hit hard by LN economic difficulties.

"Why?" it happened is open to interpretation. That it did happen, zero science advancement for nearly 1000 years, and little more for the next 700, seems to be well established.

But like I said, those TLs for the ROM (out Spica way, especially; which is where any such activities as long-range scouting would have had to have been mounted) are plenty good for me.

No doubt, on Terra, TL-13 was well established, and there were novelty examples of TL-14 (which may have survived until much later, as Terra was not hit *as badly* as everywhere else). But in Spica (or Alpha Crucis, anyway, as we haven't decided Solomani expansion yet), TLs would have been lower, along with the TL of scouting vessels.

 

[Malenfant]

I don't get that - why should a TL be significantly LOWER on a fronter than anywhere else? Did the European settlers of North America somehow forget how to invent fire and the wheel when they went over there? No, they didn't.

So why should the TL be lower in Spica or Alpha Crucis?

 

[RainOfSteel]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
I don't get that - why should a TL be significantly LOWER on a fronter than anywhere else? Did the European settlers of North America somehow forget how to invent fire and the wheel when they went over there? No, they didn't.

So why should the TL be lower in Spica or Alpha Crucis?

I would rather ask, how *wouldn't* the TL on the frontier be lower?

Every frontier in history has been less developed and less "advanced" than "back home". The difference between Sydney, Australia 1800 and London, England 1800 were, I think, pretty dramatic. And the difference between a colony in trailing Alpha Crucis and spinward Spica areas ca. -1805 would be remarkably behind Terra and her brightest daughters.


Further, every world is not going to have centers of research and education to support technological advancement. Underdeveloped frontier worlds (and they'd be *very* young indeed on the trailing half of Alpha Crucis by that point, less than 400 years, with each colony advancing at their own rate due to varying factors) aren't going to have the same capability to advance TL as teaming/burgeoning Terra, where a hundred thousand highly intelligent minds might, on any one day, be turned toward solving the same problem.

Anything colonized in Spica from around -1900 (maybe -1950) to -1774, is going to be a young dependent . . . .

Well, I guess that also depends on how, exactly, the colonization is carried out . . . is it old-fashioned low-tech colonists using low-tech easy to repair tools and equipment and self-replicating tools like horses . . . or is it a hitting a fly with a sledge hammer type where the colonists having pre-built housing and manufacturing set up for them, jobs and entertainment and tourism ready to go at start-up when the construction teams move out?

While Terra wouldn't be the only center from which "technology" would radiate outward, it would certainly be the heavy hitter in my mind. Most minor worlds, especially with Pop 6 or less (most of them), might not have little to no inherent techonological advancement capability, at least in the TL 6 to 8 or higher area.


Oh, and technologically speaking, it's quite easy to create fire.

Building long range TL-14 J-5 scout ships in a developed shipyard to go off and wind up running into some Hivers doing their own exploring is another matter entirely.

 

[Tony Canopus]

Distant Places would get new Technologies last, They might be advanced at the establishment, but in only a few years they would be behind the rest of the Main Government technologically speaking? Is that what you are saying, Rain?

 

[Malenfant]

Yeah, but on other planets I'd have thought it'd be best to give the colonists better tech to improve their chances of survival. Presumably this isn't Firefly, where they just dump people with a bunch of ranching equipment on planets that look suspiciously like Arisona or Texas

.

 

[Tony Canopus]

By "Distant Places" of course I mean planets.

 

[Klaus]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
Yeah, but on other planets I'd have thought it'd be best to give the colonists better tech to improve their chances of survival. Presumably this isn't Firefly, where they just dump people with a bunch of ranching equipment on planets that look suspiciously like Arisona or Texas

.

The approach to colonisiation would depend on the founders. Over 2-3000 years of history almost every apprach would have been used. So some worlds colonised with hi-tech start-ups and others settled with the lo-tech 'Firefly' method.

 

[Flynn]

I have to ask why colonists would be given the best tech available? That would seem to apply only in cultures where the tech required to support a colony is the cutting edge. I personally don't see small organizations (which I've always felt most of the OTU colonies seemed to be classified under, after a polity's original wave of expansion) expending tons of efforts to create colonies at anything much higher than TL 8-A. Of course, this is a personal perception, and others may vary.

I'd love to see some reasoning why colonies would be at the highest tech level available, when it appears cheaper to use a lower tech level source. (Presumably, it's easier to find lowest bidders because there's more markets that can compete... high TLs being rarers and all that jazz...) Remember, in Traveller, space exploration appears to be driven by economy, not curiosity. (Ships aren't cheap...)

Just my two cents, for what it's worth,
Flynn

 

[Malenfant]

I wouldn't have thought they'd be the highest TL available, but I also wouldn't imagine that they're more than a couple of TL below their parent society.

 

[RainOfSteel]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
Yeah, but on other planets I'd have thought it'd be best to give the colonists better tech to improve their chances of survival. Presumably this isn't Firefly, where they just dump people with a bunch of ranching equipment on planets that look suspiciously like Arisona or Texas

.

It depends. How much does it cost to launch a colony operation? We're undoubtedly talking about several jumps. Plus all cargo.

If the colonists have tons of money to back them, then it goes your way . . .

But, well, this is a SF game, and there is a massive tradition in SF of colonization occuring on shoestring budgets with less than ideal tech along to help out.

Just take a look at Peter F. Hamilton's The Reality Dysfunction. Massively super high tech society dumps colonists on hot-house zone of primitive world. Support personnel at the starport and riverport steal half the goods belonging to the colonists. The colonists board riverboats and are shipped, literally, up the river, and when the colonists arrive at their "land", it's virgin jungle and they won't be doing traditional agriculture like was advertised back home (but will be instead supporting a river based trade already in place). The colonists are free (on their own time and money) to file lawsuits, but it would go hard to complete it, since they'll have to pay to get back down river (very expensive, by chance). There is no one to "pay" for all the high tech gear that would make colonization a snap, so there isn't any. The Megacorp sponsoring the colonist's interstellar journey wants a profitiable planet in the next couple of hundred years, and doesn't care about the people it's dumping.

RAH: Time Enough For Love & Farmer in the Sky also have similar "less than ideal" colonization efforts.

TEfL has a horses and log cabins approach . . . or, well, gene-mod mules who are smart enough (IQ 80-90) to talk to help out in the effort on their own. But to go the other way, at the end of the book, the main characters wind up "settling" a world, and they have huge wealth on their side. They show up, and have mansions built for themselves with the most advanced medical support available built in. However, as Lazarus Long puts it, "It's like hitting a fly with a sledgehammer," or words to that effect. Certainly not an adventure, and not very interesting.

 

[Malenfant]

To an extent, it might depend on who's doing the colonising. If a government is behind it (assuming they're a decent sort of government) then they probably wouldn't want to scrimp on their colonies for fear of backlash at home if anyone finds out that they took shortcuts. (they'll probably take some as it is by equipping colonists with stuff made by the lowest bidder. But dropping them off on a planet with barely enough to survive ain't gonna win them votes at home).

Corporations might scrimp more because they don't have to anyone but their shareholders and are generally driven by profit... but that said they're not going to just throw their money away by sending colonists out unprepared.

Even if things are done by the lowest bidder though, the colony's TL should still be fairly close to the original TL.

I read the Reality Dysfunction a while back so I know what you mean. I'm not suggesting something like that would never happen, but I'd have thought there'd be "Showcase" colonies that get a lot of money and resources flung at them so the government/corp looks good at home, and less showy ones that get more of a raw deal. Plus of course it depends on the purpose of the colony - I'm assuming "colony" here means a relatively pleasant place that people would want to go to start families and stuff, rather than research bases or mining outposts.

 

[Shadowdancer]

I would think, generally speaking in regard to your "average" colony, the mission would need to keep costs low. The best way is to take as little as possible, since it costs so much to transport over large distances.

If you take very little, you have to be able to make and repair almost everything. It's generally easier to build and maintain lower TL items than higher TL items.

Also, once on the frontier, there is not going to be much R&D, so the colony's TL is likely not going to keep pace with the homeworld and core systems. And it will be difficult for people on the colony to buy new, higher tech items.

 

[Klaus]

Look at Australia compared to Victorian London. If we say London circa 1900 was cusping TL5, then Adelaide at the same time might only be TL3. And thats on a low tech world.

A colony might have higher tech in some areas, such as biological research and medicine, but lower tech solutions will be used for other things. A colony won't start up with cement factories and ATV production lines, so initial dwellings would be built with local wood and transport by geneered mules or some such; either way, self-replicating resources would be prefered in the early days, rather than shippin entire factories out.

There's also the chance a colony might have no backing corp or government. It may be rather grim and non prosperous, but people might still want to live there (Christmas Island springs to mind...)