Revising Turokan's Rim Expedition to be more OTU-compatible

[Maksim-Smelchak]

The wiki is a fan-managed resource, with many contributors. Not all of the material in an article is necessarily canon, even if the article is marked so, even if the original article was.

The Traveller RPG wiki is an FFE sanctioned and owned resource. I frequently speak with Mark Miller (MWM) and am able to establish canon as designated by MWM and review of articles using the canon formula set by Don and agreed to others like Rob. We don't have enough time to review every little detail, but we pick out key areas for review. That's part of the responsibility I inherited from Don. No one else took up the aegis.

I have even gone so far as to work with the community to put it all into writing here (...open to all):
http://wiki.travellerrpg.com/Canon

The wiki isn't a lone wolf or a rogue samurai AKA ronin. It a serious community resource that is getting better from day to day. Part of that improvement is because of contributions of community experts like Rob Eaglestone, Jae Campbell, Adie Stewart, and almost a sixth of the published authors who consult with me (...and others) or directly add text and contribute data. It doesn't happen in a vacuum as a rogue fan resource. It also coordinates with the Traveller Map and is a major development tool for Traveller, or the T5SS team. It's sanctioned.

We, at the wiki, combine both canon, and semi-canon designation marks (tags) where materials mix. Mark has specifically designated the wiki as a home of non-canon, semi-canon, canon, and everything in-between. For instance, Mark canonized Encyclopedia Dagudashaag previously and several other works. Canon is fluid. It's what Mark thinks and what is published unless otherwise de-canonized. Please see the definition above.

Not that canon really matters to most. Just enjoy the game. I do. Love the game and story.

Put it another way: the wiki is an unreliable witness.

I suppose you could say that ALL printed Traveller material is an unreliable witness.

The wiki is as reliable a witness as the Traveller community has. Eventually, we'll publish Don's timeline, which has a comprehensive listing, but until then, it's the best we have. There will always be disagreements.

The OTU is different than an IMTU or ATU. That's the nature of the beast.

I also consult with Rob's list of his take on canonized material. I pay attention.

...with the exception of Traveller5, GURPS: Sword Worlds, and Mongoose: Deneb Sector. And the Library Data and sophont profiles in the MT Imperial Encyclopedia.

Mark Miller has specifically de-canonized elements of all of those works. Some works might be better or worse resources, but, as Don wrote:

DON: "So, the moral is, don't throw rocks at other Traveller settings. We're all in the same tent, even if we imagine we're not."

We're all in the community together. My big mission, straight from FFE, is to be as inclusive as possible, intentionally finding solutions to not overwrite or exclude previous materials. That's straight from Mark Miller.

Long may the Third Imperium reign! Viva Strephon! And positive vibes to everyone!

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

 

[mmarquee]

More thoughts II (and wild speculation)

Zooming into the Orion OB1 sectors, this already have several 'long distance' routes crossing it, meeting in Pi-4 Orionis, could these routes be part of the Rim Expedition, well worn routes that are safer than jumping into totally unknown regions?

So starting in RimReach -> Tracerie -> Wrence -> Qona -> Qiask -> Lila -> Nievoak, then down to Pi-4 Orionis and then heading Trailing-ward via Alnilam -> O Orionis -> Unnamed -> Poinmaali and then onto the diagonal route.
Equally this could be the way back, via safer zones once pioneers have found different routes, as it would be several decades later.

 

[77topaz]

Zooming into the Orion OB1 sectors, this already have several 'long distance' routes crossing it, meeting in Pi-4 Orionis, could these routes be part of the Rim Expedition, well worn routes that are safer than jumping into totally unknown regions?

So starting in RimReach -> Tracerie -> Wrence -> Qona -> Qiask -> Lila -> Nievoak, then down to Pi-4 Orionis and then heading Trailing-ward via Alnilam -> O Orionis -> Unnamed -> Poinmaali and then onto the diagonal route.
Equally this could be the way back, via safer zones once pioneers have found different routes, as it would be several decades later.

That's an interesting idea. The thing is, the region the Fire Routes (the name of those long distance routes coloured orange on TravellerMap) pass through isn't really a "safer zone", but actually more of a dangerous/pioneer/frontier region - there are a lot fewer safe paths for spaceships to travel in the Orion OB1 Association than in an equivalent area in the surrounding sectors; the diagonal route of the Rim Expedition passes just coretrailward of the Association. Hence, I expect the Association would have been explored later/more slowly than the diagonal Rim Expedition.

Nonetheless, yours is an interesting suggestion - I had already planned for several of the Fire Routes to link up with the diagonal route of the Rim Expedition, and some of them could have been explored by the same pioneers. A path similar to yours could indeed be traced out using the Fire Routes, going Nievoak -> Alnitak -> Mintaka -> Pi-4 Orionis -> Alnilam -> O Orionis -> 25 Orionis -> Femengaal.

 

[mmarquee]

Musings after poking around in the data in TravellerMap ...

BTW - If these needs to be taken elsewhere, then let my know.

I've had a quick play with the data that is held in the TravellerMap git repo. It is possible to pick up 2 routes (I am assuming one out, one back). These are basically parallel route, offset by about a sector, hence the 2 sectors width on each diagonal.

These start in Darret and Ataurre, and then there is a gap in data between these and the data and routes in Binaurre and Grevanne.

If the routes through Darret, Ataurre and Lancask are removed, and the one through Muarne bends Spinward to head towards RimReach. This could be one of the legs, and the would join with the more Trailing route through Grevanne, and the more Spinward route would go off through Koirtura to join with a fire route through Nievoak, etc, and then off back to RimReach.

It might be (just an idea) that there is a rift or void (or several) that forces these routes to be offset so much, or a conscious decision to explore more on the return route.

As an experiment I have gone through the RimReach data and cleared all the other routes and borders, so it is clearer where the RimRoute goes, as far as Quavas (13,-14) and Indierri (14,-14). I have left a small border, just to break the monotony (the Dresean Triclic Unio, as it was small and has a cool name)

The next stage would be to 'cleanup' the actual UWP data, to remove the allegiances, and maybe replace with place holders. Not sure about that though.

It would still require the generation of maybe 11 full sectors to fill in the gaps, which is a lot of work to do and check (that is almost as many as the Hiver Federation).

 

[mmarquee]

Sorry I meant Rim Route data rather than RimReach data in the 3rd from last paragraph.

 

[mmarquee]

Yet another update rambling

Actually there is not a gap between the M1105 data and the Rim Route data, there are 4 sectors that are duplicated and have different names Suar, Tushile, Charbreyne and Vortaana as opposed to Uaftdual, Orand, Koirtrua and Ultret in M1105 data.

This reduces the amount of data to generate at the start of the route to just those sectors that are necessary to get the route back to RimReach sector.

 

[BRJN]

It might be (just an idea) that there is a rift or void (or several) that forces these routes to be offset so much, or a conscious decision to explore more on the return route.

Lewis and Clark (1805) split up and looked for other passes through the Rocky Mountains, on their way back.
If there is something like the J-3 gap of Solomani Rim Sector along the expedition route, the leaders will make a note to look for an easier way around - or locate at least one end - on the return voyage.

Every so often on the way out, somebody should be dropped off in a quiet system and given a really good telescope, to rough-draft map the area nearby. Make sure to send them a ride (and pick up the data) if you return home on a parallel route.

 

[mmarquee]

Lewis and Clarke (or Burke and Wills)

Both Lewis and Clarke, and Burke and Wills had false paths, double backs and random wanderings, so that is a good analog of the Rim Route (to me)

I've sketched (over the Rim Route data in TravellerMap) what I am think of - the 2 routes are parallel, but need to stray from the route that is in the data to bend round to point at Solomani space, rather than carry on into Hiver and then Imperial Space.

At one point the most Spinward route is only 2 subsectors from one of the OB-1 routes, so I've joined them up, as this is at least a known route, maybe this is the out route, and the other is the return route.

I've uploaded the image, and this might be a link to it.

UPDATE: Having looked the maps of L&C/B&H, I would like to add a 'wrong' route where the way was blocked for some reason, by maybe that makes more sense around a Rift or void, which is much further out than I've really looked yet.

 

[mmarquee]

Even more waffle

When I put in the sectors up to the first rift on the route, they don't match up, so I have moved the sectors up a couple of coordinates, so that the rift that start in the Qwii and Wratwani sectors more or less matches up with the macro view of the rift.

This leaves 4 'spare' sectors to play with. so I've moved Vradt to be the Wrence sector, and mapped horizontal route through it.

The other unused sectors I could place in likely gaps, once they have been cleaned of any allegiances, that way I'm not throwing an data away, even if I am moving it around.

Once I've cleanup the data - removing routes, allegiances and borders from the data, then I'll try and get a PR for TravellerMap done.

 

[mmarquee]

Changes made

Well, I think I am done with a wash through the data.

a) Removed all non-Rim Route routes
b) Added colours for the 2 routes.
c) Removed the vast majority of the allegiances
d) Removed borders of the removed allegiances
e) Swapped a few sectors around, so the edge of the first rift matches the data
f) Moved unused sectors to fill in Wrence and Qiask sectors
g) Added a few astrogation features
h) Looked at some of the high tech worlds and downgraded a few (have not done them all)
i) Added macro label for the route
j) Added macro indicator for the route (like the Core Missions)

Anyone who wants to have a look these changes are in github (https://github.com/mmarquee/travellermap/tree/rim-route-musings). I haven't done a PR yet as there are other PRs already in place and this is a rather large one, so I want it to be as clean as possible).

It very possible that the PR won't get accepted, and I'll have to make more changes.

 

[Kilgs]

I'm dang glad for this thread as it's introduced me to the Muarne Sector which looks like tons of fun!

 

[mmarquee]

Update

I am still waiting for the large backlog of PRs to be worked through, and tinkering with the data to try and fit with what I think it could be.

 

[77topaz]

I am still waiting for the large backlog of PRs to be worked through, and tinkering with the data to try and fit with what I think it could be.

This sounds exciting! I know I haven't been active here in the past two months, but that's been because a) me being busy in real life and b) the long queue of Traveller Map pull requests still waiting to be accepted discouraged me from submitting any more data updates (I have about four PRs already in the queue, if I remember correctly).

Anyway, you may find it useful to know that I have a list of several more of the Fire Routes in the Orion OB1 Association, which I just realised I never actually published on Explorer Base:

• Fire Route 1: Geerphli - 42 Orionis - Pi-6 Orionis - Hatsya - 82 G. Orionis - +4/+13
• Fire Route 2: Nievoak - Alnitak - Mintaka - Pi-4 Orionis - Omega Orionis - Theta-2 Orionis
• Fire Route 3: Charbreyne - 96 G. Orionis (/Nievoak) - Alnitak (FR2)
• Fire Route 4: Binaurie - 96 G. Orionis (/25 Orionis) - Phi-1 Orionis - Mintaka - Pi-4 Orionis (FR2)
• Fire Route 5: Femengaal - 25 Orionis - O Orionis (/Phi-1 Orionis) - Alnilam - Pi-4 Orionis (FR2) - Sigma Orionis - Hatsya (FR1) - Psi Orionis - +2/+11

The (FR2) brackets refer to intersections with other fire routes, the numbers with slashes refer to currently unnamed sectors in trailing/rimward coordinates and the (/Sector) brackets refer to places where I hadn't precisely decided where a route would pass through yet.

EDIT: I've now also added this information to Explorer Base.

 

[gchuck]

Phlange & Uroac sectors

My current campaign is set in the Storr sector, and the players are getting ready to move into Phlange.

Any chance that a 'dot' map, or, perhaps a 'fleshed' out sector map of either of these two exists somewhere in 'explorer base'?

I'd rather like to avoid building a bunch of subsectors from scratch!

 

[Maksim-Smelchak]

This sounds exciting! I know I haven't been active here in the past two months, but that's been because a) me being busy in real life and b) the long queue of Traveller Map pull requests still waiting to be accepted discouraged me from submitting any more data updates (I have about four PRs already in the queue, if I remember correctly).

Thank you!

Shalom,
M.

 

[77topaz]

My current campaign is set in the Storr sector, and the players are getting ready to move into Phlange.

Any chance that a 'dot' map, or, perhaps a 'fleshed' out sector map of either of these two exists somewhere in 'explorer base'?

I'd rather like to avoid building a bunch of subsectors from scratch!

There is already data for Storr on Traveller Map, and I think Phlange may be one of the sectors mmarquee is working on (it's a bit hard to tell when all the data is just Github documents, but once Joshua Bell starts working on Traveller Map again and accepts the current pull requests, we'll be able to see it on the site).

 

[gchuck]

Uroac/Urok

There is already data for Storr on Traveller Map, and I think Phlange may be one of the sectors mmarquee is working on (it's a bit hard to tell when all the data is just Github documents, but once Joshua Bell starts working on Traveller Map again and accepts the current pull requests, we'll be able to see it on the site).

Went and looked at the 'github' listings just now.

Uroac is on the Traveller map, is that the same as Urok in github?

 

[77topaz]

No, Urok is the name of another sector further along the Rim Route.

 

[ovka]

Just a quick question regarding this. If the goal of the Solomani Perseus Project is to explore the Perseus spiral arm of the galaxy, why would they go rim/trailing instead of more or less straight rimward? Wouldn't that be a shorter distance? Wouldn't rim/spinward be shorter to the next spiral arm than rim/trailing?


Cheers,

Baron Ovka