General Sargasso's of Space

[Graham2001]

Note: I have also posted a version of this to the TML.

Something that is harder to fit into the standard Traveller Universe (Unless you head far to Spinward) is the idea of a 'Sargasso of Space' a location where for whatever reason lost spacecraft conglomerate in large numbers.

The oldest version I encountered was in the novel entitled 'Sargasso of Space' by Andre Norton, in that case the Sargasso was on the surface of a planet the ships being drawn there by a Forerunner (Ancients) device that was being controlled by pirates.

The next was in a 1980s book called 'Space Wreck', this time the Sargasso was in orbit around a planet, the exact cause of the conglomeration of spacecraft was never explained in the story. A view of the orbiting armada of derelicts (Including the space shuttle 'Columbia' and if you look carefully 2001's 'Discovery'...) was created for the book by artist Peter Elson (Linked below).

http://www.peterelson.co.uk/gallery/image.php?cat=11&id=155

The third version and probably the easiest to work into a Traveller scenario or campaign appears in the Sequoya Series by Sabrina Chase. This is a deep space Sargasso that like the one created by Andre Norton is due to a still functioning Ancient device which draws ships out of Jumpspace into it's vicinity.

In the series the characters are fleeing pirates when this happens, they find themselves stuck in deep space with a fried jump drive but a functioning real space drive and follow an automated distress signal to the Sargasso where they manage to find enough parts to fix the drive and make a single jump to safety. They however are comparatively lucky, many of the ships they find have suffered serious damage when pulled out of jumpspace and even in the case of the ship whose distress call they followed they find that the survivors had died long before.

In the novel (Which uses a different jump drive system to Traveller) the heroes mark the co-ordinates of the Sargasso and go back to salvage cargoes and more intact ships which they sell on the black market.

Uses of this concept in Traveller would best be supported in regions 'Out the back of The Beyond' or possibly in the Spinward Marches in the 'Abyss Rift' created by Michael R. Mikesh, the tricky part of making it work is of course the Traveller Jump drive, in the case of deep space Sargassos fuel would be needed for the trip out and the trip back.

 

[kilemall]

I recall several Trek episodes that involved Space Sargassos, usually some energy draining or alternate dimension trap.

 

[Lycanorukke]

The method which comes to mind is as expected Gramps - but it was not designed to catch ships.

You have the ancient 'pocket universes' where the pinched off part of the universe (usually a star and a planet) to act as tele-portals and power supplies for thier ships (Secret of the Ancients adventure). So while the solar system is 'gone', the gravity shadow still remains in J space as the pocket universe is still 'attached' to our universe. So if you jump line happens to intersect where the pocket universe star was, you get forced out of jump in deep space with no fuel source to return. Hitting the 100D of a invisible small star would be difficult if you didn't know where it was, so on the odd ocassion a ship get unlucky and hit the 100D, gets percipiated violently (possibly breaking the J-drive) and is 'lost'.

GM fiat allows you do pop them down where you like. Now if a ship is lucky enough to have a still operational J-drive, fuel, and is clever enough to map the co-ordinates - it's looting time. Assuming of course other lost ship crews dont hijack them first for food, fuel and fun.

 

[Thot]

(Wait, the TML ist still alive?)


A nebula with a transdimensional component that draws unsuspecting ships that cross it out of jump space somewhere in deep space.


A star with irregular solar flares that wreck ships' electronics, stranding them in the system.

A black hole whose gravity (relatively) close to its event horizon forbids any escape.

 

[aramis]

(Wait, the TML ist still alive?)

More of a case of undeath, rather than life...
In all seriousness, yes. The TML still exists.

 

[Barrel]

I recall several Trek episodes that involved Space Sargassos, usually some energy draining or alternate dimension trap.

Yes, one from the Animated Series where Kirk has to cooperate with Klingons, and one from Voyager.

 

[Carlobrand]

It might be a plot device to draw on to save your players in one of those deadly misjump situations. Misjumped ships are never seen again because instead of precipitating into normal space, they precipitate into an alternate space: a starless near-black void with scattered dead ships with dry tanks and the skeletal and mummified remains of their crews, some decidedly alien, atmospheres depleted of oxygen and heavy with CO2, some ships there so long that even their atmospheres have leeched out, their interiors in vacuum. Some derelicts contain occupied low berths with mummified crews, the berths powered by radioisotope generators that are now inert (or perhaps nearly inert, keeping a few high-priority berths powered when hundreds of others went dark). Some speak to innovative and desperate measures to survive: collections of RTGs salvaged from other ships and put to use for power, evidence that some ships jury-rigged crematoria to break down bodies for their hydrogen content while their fusion plants still had power and heat to do so. Some have weapons damage, suggesting they were crippled by some other surviving ship that robbed them of fuel and supplies.

A faint infrared source suggests a brown dwarf at the center of the void. A faint background radiation of radio and infrared suggests this universe is small, consisting only of that brown dwarf and scattered photons. If there are solid bodies, they're not visible and they contained nothing that would have saved these ships.

Crew's challenge now is to fix the ship and find a way out, and simultaneously to search the derelicts for anything of value that might make the trip worth the effort, if they can manage to survive: skeletons of unknown species, valuable cargoes from the derelicts, unusual technology. They have to do that while conserving their own fuel, for there is no obvious source of hydrogen. Food is not a problem: most of the derelict crews died before their emergency rations gave out, when fuel ran out and power for life support failed. Water is not a problem while power remains to purify it, but there's little to be found on the derelicts as most cracked their drinking water for fuel at the end. The crew's hope is to find something among the scattered cargoes that might be turned into a fuel or a way of powering the jump drive, something the other ships either didn't think to use or were too damaged to benefit from.

 

[aramis]

It might be a plot device to draw on to save your players in one of those deadly misjump situations. Misjumped ships are never seen again because instead of precipitating into normal space, they precipitate into an alternate space: a starless near-black void with scattered dead ships with dry tanks and the skeletal and mummified remains of their crews, some decidedly alien, atmospheres depleted of oxygen and heavy with CO2, some ships there so long that even their atmospheres have leeched out, their interiors in vacuum. Some derelicts contain occupied low berths with mummified crews, the berths powered by radioisotope generators that are now inert (or perhaps nearly inert, keeping a few high-priority berths powered when hundreds of others went dark). Some speak to innovative and desperate measures to survive: collections of RTGs salvaged from other ships and put to use for power, evidence that some ships jury-rigged crematoria to break down bodies for their hydrogen content while their fusion plants still had power and heat to do so. Some have weapons damage, suggesting they were crippled by some other surviving ship that robbed them of fuel and supplies.

A faint infrared source suggests a brown dwarf at the center of the void. A faint background radiation of radio and infrared suggests this universe is small, consisting only of that brown dwarf and scattered photons. If there are solid bodies, they're not visible and they contained nothing that would have saved these ships.

Crew's challenge now is to fix the ship and find a way out, and simultaneously to search the derelicts for anything of value that might make the trip worth the effort, if they can manage to survive: skeletons of unknown species, valuable cargoes from the derelicts, unusual technology. They have to do that while conserving their own fuel, for there is no obvious source of hydrogen. Food is not a problem: most of the derelict crews died before their emergency rations gave out, when fuel ran out and power for life support failed. Water is not a problem while power remains to purify it, but there's little to be found on the derelicts as most cracked their drinking water for fuel at the end. The crew's hope is to find something among the scattered cargoes that might be turned into a fuel or a way of powering the jump drive, something the other ships either didn't think to use or were too damaged to benefit from.

Pretty close to the WEG Star Wars "Otherspace" modules' premise.

Except that there is also a psychotic xenophobic species resident there... and they don't know how to escape the pocket/alternate plane... but want to, so as to kill everyone that is not one of them.

 

[Silverhawk]

Reminds me of He Fell into a Dark Hole by Jerry Pournelle

 

[Keklas Rekobah]

Many years ago, I read a story in Analog that featured pirates using a small black hole to 'pluck' starships out of hyperspace. The BH had been sprayed with the exhaust of an ion-propulsion engine for months (?) to give it an electrical charge. A mega-ton magnetic grapple was used to position the BH directly into the real-space path of a starship, and the gravity of the BH caused a premature precipitation of the starship from hyperspace.

This, of course, would require some means of detecting when and where a starship might be passing the vicinity of the BH -- something prohibited in Traveller canon.

Perhaps if the pirates knew in advance that a vessel was jumping through their region of space, they could instead use some kind of handwavium-powered gravimetric implosion device that would send a shock wave through the quantum mumble-jumble and force the vessel out of J-space. Unfortunately, the flyback pulse would overload the J-drive and render the vessel unable to jump again.

...

As for the Sargasso, it seems to me that there is a "Calibration Point" somewhere in the earlier charts of the Spinward Marches that makes astrogation through that part of space a rather tricky affair. This could be similar to the Sargasso as presented in the Star Trek animated series -- a semi-pocket universe that requires tremendous amounts of energy to escape.

 

[Timerover51]

Many years ago, I read a story in Analog that featured pirates using a small black hole to 'pluck' starships out of hyperspace. The BH had been sprayed with the exhaust of an ion-propulsion engine for months (?) to give it an electrical charge. A mega-ton magnetic grapple was used to position the BH directly into the real-space path of a starship, and the gravity of the BH caused a premature precipitation of the starship from hyperspace.

This, of course, would require some means of detecting when and where a starship might be passing the vicinity of the BH -- something prohibited in Traveller canon.

That sounds like one of Larry Niven's Beowolf Shafer stories, with the pirates located out near Pluto.

Edit Note: The Sargasso of Space, by Edmond Hamilton, a short story, appeared in Astounding Stories for September 1931. It can be found on Project Gutenberg.

 

[Graham2001]

That sounds like one of Larry Niven's Beowolf Shafer stories, with the pirates located out near Pluto.

Edit Note: The Sargasso of Space, by Edmond Hamilton, a short story, appeared in Astounding Stories for September 1931. It can be found on Project Gutenberg.

If I remember correctly the Niven story was called "Borderlands of Sol".

The Edmond Hamilton story is indeed on Project Gutenberg, here is the link.

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/28832

 

[mike wightman]

I'm surprised no one has brought up the deadspace phenomena:

http://wiki.travellerrpg.com/Deadspace

 

[BlackBat242]

I recall several Trek episodes that involved Space Sargassos, usually some energy draining or alternate dimension trap.

Yes, one from the Animated Series where Kirk has to cooperate with Klingons, and one from Voyager.

Yes - Time Trap.

"The Time Trap" is the twelfth episode of the first season of the American animated science fiction television series Star Trek.

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/The_Time_Trap_(episode)

 

[kilemall]

Yes - Time Trap.



http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/The_Time_Trap_(episode)

The whole Trek franchise has more then that.

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Booby_Trap_(episode)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Void_(Star_Trek:_Voyager)

I suspect there is at least one more.

 

[GypsyComet]

-on the surface of a planet
-in orbit around a planet
-deep space

With the scenario from Kinunir as justification, we call the first a junkyard.

I've run the second, placed in the Droyne-occupied system in Trojan Reach, as a misjump magnet.

I've run a variation of the third, as well. Another misjump result with the sargasso in an odd pocket of J-Space. It was also multiversal, as we used it as an excuse to bring in characters from completely different games. The look on one player's face when a 40k transplant explained that his ship now probably has a case of Grots (ie. Ork Fungus) was priceless.

 

[Barrel]

Many years ago, I read a story in Analog that featured pirates using a small black hole to 'pluck' starships out of hyperspace. The BH had been sprayed with the exhaust of an ion-propulsion engine for months (?) to give it an electrical charge. A mega-ton magnetic grapple was used to position the BH directly into the real-space path of a starship, and the gravity of the BH caused a premature precipitation of the starship from hyperspace.

This, of course, would require some means of detecting when and where a starship might be passing the vicinity of the BH -- something prohibited in Traveller canon.

Perhaps if the pirates knew in advance that a vessel was jumping through their region of space, they could instead use some kind of handwavium-powered gravimetric implosion device that would send a shock wave through the quantum mumble-jumble and force the vessel out of J-space. Unfortunately, the flyback pulse would overload the J-drive and render the vessel unable to jump again.

...

As for the Sargasso, it seems to me that there is a "Calibration Point" somewhere in the earlier charts of the Spinward Marches that makes astrogation through that part of space a rather tricky affair. This could be similar to the Sargasso as presented in the Star Trek animated series -- a semi-pocket universe that requires tremendous amounts of energy to escape.

That story sounds like a Larry Niven Beowolf Schafer short story--"The Borderland of Sol" I think.

 

[CraigD6]

Another version

It could also be similar to the Space 1999 episode Dragons Domain. Whilst the effects are a bit poor (!!) the concept is clever and could be made quite chilling.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon's_Domain

Visually this has a scene with various spacecraft drifting close together in deep space which gives a Sargasso effect.

http://catacombs.space1999.net/main/epguide/t23dd.html

 

[sfchbryan]

Galaxy of the Lost by Gregory Kern

AKA E.C. Tubbs.

I turned this into an adventure I ran at Travellercon a few years ago.

 

[Keklas Rekobah]

That sounds like one of Larry Niven's Beowolf Shafer stories, with the pirates located out near Pluto.

Edit Note: The Sargasso of Space, by Edmond Hamilton, a short story, appeared in Astounding Stories for September 1931. It can be found on Project Gutenberg.

Yes, "Borderlands of Sol" is the title. Graham2001 was right. It took a while to find a dead-tree copy of 'Analog' from January 1975, but it was worth the effort.