Proto Regina
- Thread starter san*klass
- Start date
Have you thought about forward IISS bases and caches, points they can result and receive new briefings & report results at without having to travel all the way back to Regina? Possibly located at some promising systems the 3I would be interested in claiming?
Care to share it or at least the results from it? It would be fascinating to compare and contrast the "official" version with a "proto" version.
What about T5's NILs? Native intelligent life? The idea of "minority-majority" worlds where a relatively small number of humans rules and/or controls a relatively larger number indigenous sophonts is one I've been mulling over ever since T5 came out.
GypsyComet
SOC-14 1K
The Marches started out a bit sparse for NIL, followed by over-compensation in BtC. Marc has since added the Amindii on Regina itself, and in a Milieu 100 Regina Subsector they are going to dominate the numbers. It is unclear to me whether proto-Regina is a development of Canon or a departure from it, however.
Don's combing of sources produced the following list for Regina Subsector:
Irklan (Human culture), Menorb (Spinward Marches 1803)
Amindii ("Grasshoppers"), Regina (Spinward Marches 1910)
Zhurphani, Yori (Spinward Marches 2110)
(unnamed Droyne?), Yorbund (Spinward Marches 2303) (abandoned outpost)
Ursty, Yurst (Spinward Marches 2309)
The new, or newly discovered, Irklan settlement could be a plot point in the right Milieu, while the dead outpost of Yorbund is a mystery. That leaves three living NILs in the subsector. A bit above average in the broad scheme of things, but fantastic for a struggling colonial game with neighbors to deal with.
The Zhurphani are from an obscure fanzine source (though the author is one I would be inclined to trust), while the Ursty are one of BtC's additions. The Amindii are covered in the recent Imperiallines (though they first appeared in CT art), while the Irklan and the outpost on Yorbund have CT sources.
The Marches were sparse and BtC did overcompensate due in part to it's authors' cinematic writing style. BtC was first decanonized and then made moot by T5's fundamental retcon. S:3, SMC, BtC, and all the rest are now moot.
You've mentioned the Amindii on Regina. There are now hundreds of others like the Amindii across Charted Space because there are now rules to create and place the Amindii and those hundreds of others. Scroll through Traveller Map. There are more changes resulting from the T5SS project than just fixing stars and atmospheres.
I think san*klass project is meant to be more of a departure from the OTU and less a departure from the rules. We've rules for NILs now and using them quickly produces something very different from the pre-T5 OTU.
Very much so, that's why I asked. Having "powerful" Hi-Pop world actually being a relatively small number of human colonists holding down a "minority-majority" NIL population makes for a far more complex setting.
Hi Hi I by
If there is a way that enables me to share an Excel spreadsheet here, then please let me know and I will gladly share.
I am toying with having native, non humanoid, sophants on a couple of the "zero Pop" worlds - hence my comments about it being zero Pop (officially). But I haven't designed any sophants yet - thats for another day.
I also haven't yet tied down the other possibilities of (officially) but it will certainly involve secrets and dirty tricks!!
I just wanted initially to write the spreadsheet, see how it runs, and if the results come out they way I have been brain storming.
If there is a way that enables me to share an Excel spreadsheet here, then please let me know and I will gladly share.
I am toying with having native, non humanoid, sophants on a couple of the "zero Pop" worlds - hence my comments about it being zero Pop (officially). But I haven't designed any sophants yet - thats for another day.
I also haven't yet tied down the other possibilities of (officially) but it will certainly involve secrets and dirty tricks!!
I just wanted initially to write the spreadsheet, see how it runs, and if the results come out they way I have been brain storming.
Thats a great idea and maybe I need to next expand on the No Mans land that I imagine Jewel subsector being. Giving the Players the opportunity to investigate lost and devastated colonies and Scout caches and forward bases, while avoiding Zho scouts caches and forward bases sounds like fun.
GypsyComet
SOC-14 1K
T5 hung those rules out there, but Agent of the Imperium cemented the change more than T5SS does. It makes clear that the setting is Star Wars diverse. What we see in the T5SS revisions to the big map are usually the significant or interesting NIL instead of every last, because documenting every last is counter-productive.
I've dug out the Zhurphani source, and while it does have a map of Yori (I think someone was looking for one recently?) the description of the Zhurphani places them in the Cantina in the modern Milieu. Thoroughly culturally subsumed, they are just Imperials now. But in a Milieu 100 setting, that process will have just started. Again, an opportunity to explore first contact and its consequences.
The File Library? There's even a specific Spreadsheet forum in the File Library.
If you aren't comfortable with sharing a spreadsheet you're still polishing process, how about sharing some of the results instead? The Regina subsector only has 32 systems and you don't need to list all of them. What does Regina itself look like? Roup? Yres? Dentus? How have the "odd" worlds been changed? How have the "normal" worlds been changed? How have those changes effected "tertiary" stuff like bases and trade routes?
Many years ago I applied the "Terra prime" classification from A:4 Leviathan to the Glisten subsector with the idea of creating what I called an "empty" setting. The idea was that large populations would only exist in "shirtsleeve" conditions regardless of tech level. If people couldn't live on a world in their shirtsleeves, that world or system would only host outposts holding a few hundreds or thousands.
Applying T-prime certainly gave me an empty subsector. Only four worlds out of 29 were left: Bendor, Marastan, Windsor, and Wurzburg. That's a very different subsector from the OTU's subsector and your subsector should be very different too.
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The rules arrived in T5. All AotI did was slap the Fish of Realitytm in our collective face.
Guildman right? That AD&D mag with less than a dozen issues spread across a decade? Let me guess, one of the "busier" HWIG alumni slipped in a Traveller article?
They're just Imperials now because under the scales, gills, feathers, pointed ears, or whatnot they're really just humans. The Zhurphani aren't aliens. They're Halloween costumes.
First contact between species which, in the end, might as well be the same species.
That's great, thank you, I'll post the spreadsheet there on Monday evening (UK time). I am away from home (and laptop) until then.
Your project sounds similar to mine. But my restrictions were less stringent. I just assumed either a livable environment with locally produced survival gear, or preferably shirt sleeves. I just assumed that fewer would live in a dangerous environment, but they would need at least the Tech to provide for their needs,so they are self sufficient. But lower Pop leads to less trade and so more basic Starports. Some worlds stayed basically the same, some changed a bit and some changed totally. I had four mainworlds hit zero Pop, so X Starport. But as already mentioned that zero Pop is the official line, hiding the whole truth!!
I am using TTB rules, but 77or 83 assumptions. I want to plan out Trade/Jump routes next and some native alien sophonts.
Please, there's no hurry. The spreadsheet itself isn't truly necessary because the spreadsheet's results are what I'm most interested in!
Indigenous tech level, that it local tech capabilities, is the sticking point. It's a cart/horse or chicken/egg sort of thing. Use enough tech and enough people can live anywhere but enough people are needed to build/maintain that tech in the first place. That means you're looking bootstrap problem. You need tech for people to live there but you need people living there for the tech to exist/work.
That's why I went with the outpost, mining camp, research station model for worlds which didn't meet Leviathan's Terra Prime and Terra Norm classifications. The tech needs of such small populations can be met by imports and, because the population is small, those imports are more easily paid for.
Sneaky.
Will the trade routes be essentially random as with the CT77 table? Or will there be some underlying rationale?
Please, there's no hurry. The spreadsheet itself isn't truly necessary because the spreadsheet's results are what I'm most interested in!
Indigenous tech level, that it local tech capabilities, is the sticking point. It's a cart/horse or chicken/egg sort of thing. Use enough tech and enough people can live anywhere but enough people are needed to build/maintain that tech in the first place. That means you're looking bootstrap problem. You need tech for people to live there but you need people living there for the tech to exist/work.
That's why I went with the outpost, mining camp, research station model for worlds which didn't meet Leviathan's Terra Prime and Terra Norm classifications. The tech needs of such small populations can be met by imports and, because the population is small, those imports are more easily paid for.
Sneaky.
Will the trade routes be essentially random as with the CT77 table? Or will there be some underlying rationale?
Agree totally, and so tried to work with Pop assumptions that reflected support (survival and life support manufacture and maintenance) crews etc. But self reliant also means less external trade, so less and smaller ships (small ship universe), so lower level starports.
No Pop worlds will be sentient natives and a few things that TPTB want to stay secret. Move along, no Pop no Starport - nothing to see........!!
Just like Bases I am toying with a mixture of rules and my decisions to place Trade routes. I'll go with the table first then adjust as makes sense to me.
And lower level trade/starports means less money/opportunities to import the tech you might need. That's the vicious circle we both keep talking about.
People in those "We need technology to breath" systems are going to be there because a government, corporation, or organization wants people to be there and will thus subsidize and/or otherwise support their presence.
An airless/water-free "Sutter's Mill" in this setting won't grow into an airless/water-free "California" and "McMurdo Station" is going to remain a science station.
Which folds neatly into the changes in jump cassette rules between CT77 and CT81. In the former, you can buy cassettes only for systems on trade/comm routes. In the latter, you can buy cassettes for all systems within 6 parsecs.
In CT77 those secrets TPTB want to keep are easier to keep because, without that million credit Generate program, you literally "Can't there from here".
I'm familiar with proto Traveller, at least I think I am, in that it's just the basic books.
But I don't know what it means to "apply porto principles" to a subsector like Regina.
What exactly did you do to the subsector to proto-tize it? What changes were made?
For me reading the various blogs and threads on COTI, Proto Traveller is, to me anyway, not just the 4-4-4. It is lower end of high tech, small ship, wild frontier, Bk1 simplified Character generation, darker smaller, less confident and powerful Imperium.
I have tried to adjust the subsector to fit such a setting and atmosphere.
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GypsyComet
SOC-14 1K
None of which need matter in the context of THIS game. The Zhurphani are really obscure, as already noted, so the write-up we have is not particularly binding. It does state that the culture on Yori is a hybrid of the pre-existing Zhurph and the Human colonial culture (ie. early Imperial), but doesn't describe that further aside from some religious and governmental notes.
It also notes that the Zhurph are not actually native, which is an obvious "secret" for PCs and/or the political types to discover and react to. Regardless of the stated results a thousand years later, this stuff feeds the Referee's ability to make the campaign feel more alive.
The last of the listed NILs, the Ursty of Yurst, are less useful. Deep ocean dwellers under a tainted atmosphere with little to trade and no interest in doing so...
So we go from too compatible to so alien there are no hooks at all. That leaves the Amindii as pretty likely to see interesting screen time.
Then there's the placement. All of the NILs and wannabees are at the coreward and rimward edges of the subsector. In Milieu 100, there is no overpopulated Roup, no dagger at Efate, no insular dictatorship at Algine. Not even the Octagon Society, which is still two centuries away. Beck's World is still identified as the Frisini System.
Just a vague shadow left behind in some places by the Zhodani, and the hazardous belts of Shionthy.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Don't know if you saw this when I originally posted it:
There are no differences in the text of S:3 first printing vs 2nd printing that I can find - there may be UPP changes but that will take longer to check.
All of this is cribbed from CT sources.
There are no differences in the text of S:3 first printing vs 2nd printing that I can find - there may be UPP changes but that will take longer to check.
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Thank you for sharing that on this thread. I recall reading it a few months back, and it was one of my inspirations.
creativehum
SOC-14 1K
Mike, thanks for checking that. Appreciated it. It's what I had assumed would be found.
San*klass, on the matter of population numbers (and other UWP numbers):
Something to remember about the UWP is that in their original use in the game they were a tool for the Referee, not an in-fiction catalogue of planetary data by the imperial scout service. The point of rolling, as the rules state, was to act as a "prod to the imagination." Thus, the string of numbers was there's to act as an inspiration to the Referee to be interpreted as he or she saw fit.
If there was a low pop number with a high tech worldmn or some set of conditions that didn't make sense to the Referee at first blush his or her imagination was set free to conjure whatever kind of setting did make sense or seemed cool. Thus the low pop could mean (as others here have suggested) a low human pop world but a large pop of indiginious life forms living under colonial rule or whatever. Thus, a high pop world on an inhospitable world might be a society of ancient robots going about their daily lives. It was up to the Referee to decide what the numbers meant.
It sounds like you are already feeling free with these numbers. Which is great. But keep in mind, if you wish, you can go with the early, original use of the numbers, which is only as a tool for you to interpret as you wish. In this way they don't have to be secrets the Imperium is keeping, but merely notations for you to use as you see fit as you build your setting.
