Sharrip (Spinward Marches 2325)

[rancke]

My attention was directed to Sharrip in another thread, and I've been puzzling over a couple of things.

Sharrip lies in the first fork after Mora in the exploration and trade links, one branch going spinward through Lunion to the Sword Worlds and the Darrian Confederation, the other going coreward to the Regina Cluster. It ought to have been accreting settlers since the 2nd Century. Despite this, and despite a size, atmosphere and hydrographics that falls just short of being Terran-prime, the population in 1105 is no more than 50! (Which, according to BtC, are the personnel of the Class C starport, so why is the Imperium counting them a sovereign population?)

I'd suggest that Sharrip is lacking in readily exploitable resources and that it used to be a lot less inviting, thus fending off settlers by being more than unusually unattractive. Which, even so, wouldn't be enough by itself to keep some people from settling there for the sheer pleasure of owning a planet of their own. But it's a start.

Suggestion:

Sharrip is a planet with very modest mineral wealth and a complete lack of indigenous life. The atmosphere originally consisted mostly of carbon dioxide and due to the greenhouse effect the temperatures were very high.

In 149 the planet is the subject of a terraforming project aimed at turning the atmosphere into a breathable one by seeding the planet with specially tailored plankton-like vegetation. By 1047 the project was far enough ahead that an unprotected human can breathe the air - it just isn't very pleasant - and the project advanced to the next stage, that of establishing plant life on land.
​

I have no explanation for why anyone would be running a starport on Sharrip itself and suggest that it is actually attached to the fuel refinery that I'm going to describe below.

Sharrip lies between Lunion and Strouden, two parsecs from each. J2+J2 is cheaper than the alternative J3+J1 route over Shirene and much cheaper than the other alternative, a five J1 route. There should be a steady stream of freighters and passenger liners going back and forth between those two worlds through the Sharrip system. Enough to make a fuel refinery in orbit around one of the outer gas giants financially viable. (As in 'license to print money' -- it's quite possible that there would be more than one refinery for the competition). If only one, it's probably run by a corporation backed by both Lunion and Strouden business interests.

Necessary changes to the UWP to reflect such a setup:

Sharrip itself would have a UWP of E575000-0, but the 'mainworld' would be the fuel station(s), or perhaps the gas giant they orbit. Population would be in the high hundreds or low thousands at a minimum, just to run the business. If extraneous settlers have accreted over the years, the size could be a lot more. Government would be type 6. Law level would be rolled for. Tech level would be 13.

Comments?


Hans

 

[GypsyComet]

People will live in amazingly bad places.

There are a lot of ways a 575 can be a hellhole. Simply being at one edge of the primary's goldilocks zone and having a faster than average diurnal cycle is enough to make the storms nasty. Add an unpleasant atmospheric taint (BtC says sulfur compounds, which also implies volcanic activity) and you get a recipe for being kept off the TAS Top Ten Vacation Spots list.

BtC says the world is "chilly", but active volcanics could still have the world looking like one of those big multi-layered jawbreakers after an hour: luridly colored snow, a nasty tendency to lure people into forgetting their filter masks (Human olfactory mechanisms overload on many sulfur compounds, so you stop smelling them after some period of exposure), and a lack of any interesting mineral or organic resources could certainly add up to "backwater".

 

[rancke]

There are a lot of ways a 575 can be a hellhole.

People will live in amazingly bad places.

I've reversed the two statements because that illustrates the problem. Even if Sharrip is a hellhole -- and I agree that that can easily be the case, even if the Traveller rules for Terran-prime and Terran-norm status ignores the possibility -- then there's a limit to how bad it can be if you can have a manned starport there. (It's actually easier to explain a completely empty world than one with 50 residents). Indeed, there's a limit to how bad it can be even if no one lives there. At the very least people can live in orbital habitats and use Sharrip for resource extraction. IMO you need something more than just being unattractive for a world in Sharrip's astrographical position to avoid accreting a population. You need something or someone actively preventing people from setting up shop. Just being a source of water and biomass is valuable.


Hans

 

[McPerth]

I'd suggest that Sharrip is lacking in readily exploitable resources and that it used to be a lot less inviting, thus fending off settlers by being more than unusually unattractive. Which, even so, wouldn't be enough by itself to keep some people from settling there for the sheer pleasure of owning a planet of their own. But it's a start.

Even if lacking mineral ressources, I guess such a world will be colonized as agricultural colony if it was posible, so something should have avoid this.

My suggestions here:

1. (Borrowing from 2300AD) Life in Sharrip has a biochemistry incompatible with humankind (in 2300AD it would be dextro-aminoacids). Developing agricultura there would need to clear some patches from this life (that is quite resistent) and full terraforming of those patches, something the Scouts (and some ecologist groups, as Pan-Galactic Friends of Life, from Nomads in the World Ocean) are reluctant to allow. Not enough to interdict the world, but enough to discourage any such terraforming.
2. Taint comes from very high CO₂ content, making water quite acidic. Not enough to qualify as corrosive atmosphere, but enough to make it irritant and unpleasant, mostly when it rains or there is fog, and to avoid crops to be easily grown.
3. Due to blooming producer (plant) land lack of consumer (animal) life, taint comes from very high O₂ content, far above human tolerance levels. This abundance of O₂ also makes fire an extreme hazard (even spontaneous ignitions are not unheard of), that produce the CO₂ needed by the plants to grow, and makes very hazardous any colonization attempt.

See that while options 2 and 3 are mutually exclusive, they are both compatible with option 1. In any case, the population might include some ressearch base.

Sharrip itself would have a UWP of E575000-0, but the 'mainworld' would be the fuel station(s), or perhaps the gas giant they orbit. Population would be in the high hundreds or low thousands at a minimum, just to run the business. If extraneous settlers have accreted over the years, the size could be a lot more. Government would be type 6. Law level would be rolled for. Tech level would be 13.

Government could also be 1 if the fuel station(s) is (are) private venture(s).

 

[rancke]

Government could also be 1 if the fuel station(s) is (are) private venture(s).

It's true that Traveller writers have ignored the actual definitions of Type 1 government for 30 years, but I prefer not to do so myself. A type 1 government is (supposedly) one where the world is run as a company, with part or all of the population being the stockholders. That would make it a real not-a-type-6 government. A world that is run by someone appointed by a company based outside the system would be a type 6 government, imposed from the outside.


Hans

 

[atpollard]

It's true that Traveller writers have ignored the actual definitions of Type 1 government for 30 years, but I prefer not to do so myself. A type 1 government is (supposedly) one where the world is run as a company, with part or all of the population being the stockholders. That would make it a real not-a-type-6 government. A world that is run by someone appointed by a company based outside the system would be a type 6 government, imposed from the outside.


Hans

Then Type 1 would actually mesh in a quite interesting way with your Refinery ... the Businessmen who set up the lucrative (and exclusive) refueling center in an otherwise uninhabitable system are the Citizen-stockholders. So citizenship is open to anyone who can afford the corporate buy-in (currently 1/50 of a 5 Billion Credit Starport) and get approved by the majority of stockholders.

That tends to put a damper on immigration.

 

[rancke]

Then Type 1 would actually mesh in a quite interesting way with your Refinery ... the Businessmen who set up the lucrative (and exclusive) refueling center in an otherwise uninhabitable system are the Citizen-stockholders. So citizenship is open to anyone who can afford the corporate buy-in (currently 1/50 of a 5 Billion Credit Starport) and get approved by the majority of stockholders.

That tends to put a damper on immigration.

Interesting idea. But keep in mind that it's not a question of justifying a canonical government type of 1 by whatever stretch of imagination that won't break your suspension of disbelief. The canonical government type is 0, so a type 1 is every bit as much a change as a type 6.


Hans

 

[maksimsmelchak]

Suggestion:

Sharrip is a planet with very modest mineral wealth and a complete lack of indigenous life. The atmosphere originally consisted mostly of carbon dioxide and due to the greenhouse effect the temperatures were very high.

In 149 the planet is the subject of a terraforming project aimed at turning the atmosphere into a breathable one by seeding the planet with specially tailored plankton-like vegetation. By 1047 the project was far enough ahead that an unprotected human can breathe the air - it just isn't very pleasant - and the project advanced to the next stage, that of establishing plant life on land.
​

I have no explanation for why anyone would be running a starport on Sharrip itself and suggest that it is actually attached to the fuel refinery that I'm going to describe below.

Sharrip lies between Lunion and Strouden, two parsecs from each. J2+J2 is cheaper than the alternative J3+J1 route over Shirene and much cheaper than the other alternative, a five J1 route. There should be a steady stream of freighters and passenger liners going back and forth between those two worlds through the Sharrip system. Enough to make a fuel refinery in orbit around one of the outer gas giants financially viable. (As in 'license to print money' -- it's quite possible that there would be more than one refinery for the competition). If only one, it's probably run by a corporation backed by both Lunion and Strouden business interests.

Necessary changes to the UWP to reflect such a setup:

Sharrip itself would have a UWP of E575000-0, but the 'mainworld' would be the fuel station(s), or perhaps the gas giant they orbit. Population would be in the high hundreds or low thousands at a minimum, just to run the business. If extraneous settlers have accreted over the years, the size could be a lot more. Government would be type 6. Law level would be rolled for. Tech level would be 13.

Comments?

Hans

Hans,

I stopped trying to make sense of these things. Much of it simply doesn't compute.

*** May I have your permission to update the Traveller Wiki file for this world with your writing? ***

Thank you!

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

 

[flykiller]

there's no need to puzzle over anything. long ago someone came up with a "planet generating system", they rolled the dice, that's what came up, there was nothing intended or intentional or regular or "canonical" about it, that's just what came up, they wrote it down and published it. that's it. that's all there is to it.

the ball is now in your court. do something with it.

all the comments here are fine suggestions for building on the original stats - I especially like the one regarding weather and storms. personally I might change a planetary stat or two - "hey, the first single scout flew in, spent a day "surveying" the place, wrote down some numbers, and that's been the official line ever since. but the real story is ...." etc. the idea is to make it a world instead of just a place.

but the real point is to make it game-relevant. why would an adventure team care about this place or think about it? how would they interact with it when they arrived? what role will it play in achieving their goals? then you have not just a world but part of an adventure.

 

[atpollard]

Interesting idea. But keep in mind that it's not a question of justifying a canonical government type of 1 by whatever stretch of imagination that won't break your suspension of disbelief. The canonical government type is 0, so a type 1 is every bit as much a change as a type 6.


Hans

Isn't type 0 "family ties"?
Then one family owns the refinery and you need to marry into citizenship.

 

[rancke]

there's no need to puzzle over anything. long ago someone came up with a "planet generating system", they rolled the dice, that's what came up, there was nothing intended or intentional or regular or "canonical" about it, that's just what came up, they wrote it down and published it. that's it. that's all there is to it.

Someone rolled up a UWP and published it without vetting it (This was, IMO, a Bad Thing to do, but that's what happened and that's what we have to deal with now). And while there is nothing intended or intentional or regular about it, it is most definitely canon. And until and unless Marc Miller or someone authorized my him officially states that it is no longer canon, it will remain canon. Useless canon¹, alas, but canon nontheless.

¹ Useless to me, at least.​

the ball is now in your court. do something with it.

That's precisely what I'm trying to do. And I'm inviting anyone who share my interest in developing the Third Imperium setting to share in the endeavor.

But the real point is to make it game-relevant. why would an adventure team care about this place or think about it? how would they interact with it when they arrived? what role will it play in achieving their goals? then you have not just a world but part of an adventure.

In my experience a finely crafted piece of background material quite often engenders adventure ideas by itself without any need to force it. And if not, chrome is useful too by adding artistic verisimilitude to and otherwise bland and unconvincing setting.


Hans

 

[flykiller]

Someone rolled up a UWP and published it without vetting it

yep. rolled dice, published a map, walked away. can't blame 'em, 440 systems is a lot of fine crafting ....

it is most definitely canon.

canon is helpful as long as it engenders adventure ideas. it never was meant to be anything else. the moment canon ceases to be helpful, chuck it overboard. otherwise ...

without any need to force it.

... it becomes it's own forcing.

 

[McPerth]

That's precisely what I'm trying to do. And I'm inviting anyone who share my interest in developing the Third Imperium setting to share in the endeavor.

And that's what I tried in post #4.

 

[Travellerspud]

....owned by a Noble, and inhabited by his descendants and hirelings?

 

[flykiller]

I'd suggest that Sharrip is lacking in readily exploitable resources and that it used to be a lot less inviting, thus fending off settlers by being more than unusually unattractive.

checked out sharrip during lunch. it's exactly midway between lunion/strouden. perhaps there are legal disputes or treaty ambiguities as to which of these advanced worlds controls it. sounds like an adventure hook ....

 

[epicenter00]

I'd suggest that Sharrip is lacking in readily exploitable resources and that it used to be a lot less inviting

Perhaps it is the opposite ... perhaps it was once much more inviting.

Maybe the world at one point had a pretty pleasant atmosphere and some sort of readily exploitable natural resources.

However, the world is a victim of the "tragedy of the commons" - being at the crossroads of a number of more populated, powerful worlds, and possessing readily exploitable resources, the powerful nobles of the nearby worlds could never come to an agreement to curb they were doing for a more reasonable system of exploitation. It's not a common condition - most Imperial nobles can come to an agreement, on the other hand, it isn't unheard of for this to happen, either.

It became a resource-grab, with world-backed industrial combines basically in a race to take more from Sharrip than the other guys before it ran out. As the resources ran out, the groups resorted to ever more destructive methods to get at what was left; it wouldn't be worth it to start using these methods from the beginning, but various concerns already had the transport and processing infrastructure in place, so more costly methods could squeeze a few more decades of use from that infrastructure, making it profitable. Without any kind of regulation they were free to use the full range of all of the Imperium's technologies, low to high, without any regard of what would happen later; the lower TL concerns using more "dirty" technologies to try and match the productivity of higher TL concerns.

These days, the world is a wasted hulk of itself. Not only are the economically feasible materials gone, scavengers have even scavenged what all these mining concerns have left behind. There's still a certain transient population of scavengers and so on still salvaging the world (by now they're probably dismantling buildings for their metal).

Otherwise, there's an atmospheric taint from the lasting effects of higher-than-our-Earth-but-low-by-Imperial-Standards resource exploitation: Like there's a near microscopically fine dust of carbon nanotubes and similar carcinogens on the world from mining works and so on which are, even now, slowly eroding away from various unrecycable facilities on the world. By the Traveller TL12 era, cancer isn't anything that medical technology can't cure, but it's expensive, painful, and unsightly to have these lumps on the skin, the persistent cough, and so on until you can get treatment, which is a running expense. The dust is everywhere, carried on the jet stream from decaying orbital elevators, it's in the water and the soil; for short-term visits, you can do something with little more than a filter mask, but you can't live on the planet long term without basically wearing a sealed environment suit so these nano-scale particles don't work their way into your skin and body and cause lesions and tumors.

There's a few guys and gals who operate the downport (from a nice, safe, sealed dome), the last remnant of the once-teeming Imperial presence on the world, who staff the gargantuan C-class starport, used for industrial movement of materials from the world's surface to orbit, and to service those prime movers; most of it is now cracked concrete foundations, stripped bare by scavengers.

There's also a small population of people who operate the program to clean up the world - cleaning it up could be done in a few decades using expensive technology. Here, nobody wants to use anything like that here (there's always plenty of other planets!), so it's being done in a slow but inexpensive method (probably involving microorganisms or altered plants) that is almost completely passive, but it'll take a few centuries before the world is truly habitable again.

The remaining population on the world serves the scavengers who don't spend enough time on the world to be considered part of the population. The scavengers mostly just carve up scrap metal which they sell (I'd imagine some megacorp occasionally sends some titanic hauler to collect tons of it, making it profitable - barely). However, all scavengers also make finds of machinery every so often. Enormous TL14 fusion-powered drill machines, transport vehicles, and son are occasionally found, sometimes in sealed condition, lost in the mad rush to mine the world. These can be salvaged/retrieved and sold for a pretty penny. The thing that might attract players is that occasionally TL15 machinery can be found from a few of the really high-tech concerns who bought such extravagant machinery to get a leg-up on their rivals. While it's not as glamorous Ancient devices or TL16 Darrian tech or whatever, TL15 is still very high tech and machinery and parts from such devices can fetch high prices on many parts of the Imperium.

 

[flykiller]

These days, the world is a wasted hulk of itself.

excellent vision.

in the ancient world you can see the ruins of civilizations hundreds and thousands of years old. great cities were built on the ruins of old. the catacombs of rome and paris are famous. walls were built, crumbled, rebuilt again, left to fall. in spain one can still see the great roman aquaduct, still standing, still capable of bearing water. surely in the imperium similar ruins abound - abandoned cities, abandoned ports, abandoned factories.

 

[salochin999]

My general take is a planet with any kind of decent atmosphere but a low population has to have a very low pull factor and a strong push factor.

My first thought in cases where nothing jumps out of the world stats is a tide locked world with a narrow strip of land between too hot and too cold where the only reasons to live there are
- truck stop system
- valuable resource
- people trying to get away from the crowded worlds

If there's little liveable land, the taint is bad enough to need domed living and there's no valuable resources then that would probably be enough to cover two of those options so that leaves truck stop - a refueling stop on a trade route between other places.

However a population of 50 seems low even just for the star port.

.

The next bit would partly depend on personal ideas about trade routes but imtu

1) Sharrip is on the J1 route to Strouden and Mora

2) Sharrip is on the J2 route to Strouden but not the J2 route to Mora

3) imtu the main routes to Strouden would go via Shirene

which points at Sharrip being a bypassed truck stop system i.e. in the past when J1 and J2 trade was more common the system was much busier.

.

So my take (1) would be a ghost town - n landing pads at the star port but only 1 or 2 maintained, one working spotel and 2-3 ruined ones, empty warehouses etc, dome cracked, need protection from atmosphere except inside the star port buildings - everything creaking.

.

Govt is Imperial Knight and his extended and very inbred family who run the star port - a highly deranged and unusual bunch.

Empty buildings that used to house the once larger staff.

Either the other inhabitants left as the trade dried up or the family's craziness got them to leave.

.

take 2 would be a mix of this and the idea already mentioned of something messing up the atmosphere

so still tide locked with small ish population living on a narrow strip of land but something happened that drove the rest of the population away

i take "taint" to mean almost anything so for example the orbit changed and it got hotter or something so everyone except the crazy family gradually left