Spica's Main

[Shadowdancer]

I've been looking at Klaus' notes, routes and groupings on Mal's sector map here. I'm drawn to the Indy trade worlds/smuggling route since it passes through the two ss I'll be working on.

Man, this is a massive Main. It stretches through five ss in moving from inside Sol territory in I and J ss to just short of the Hiver border in K ss. 35 systems in all, if I can count correctly.

Plus, there is a little J-2 shortcut through J ss which will save at least a month when traveling from one end of the Main to the other. The key to this shortcut is one isolated system in hex 1522. I've got an interesting idea for that system.

But the entire Main has a lot of potential. I think we need a good name for this Main. Any suggestions?

 

[Flynn]

Smuggler's Run?

Spica Line?

Trader's Main?

-Flynn

 

[Klaus]

Maybe it should be named after the scout that charted it.

Miller's Drift, for instance, or Kolhammer's Trail.

 

[Flynn]

Yeah, but it's hard to get all those flappy hand signs down in text...

If it were named by Hivers, perchance, would that add some flavor to the sector?

-Flynn

 

[The Hinterworlds Rambler]

Yes it would. And it would make sense. There is a precedent in the DGP writeup of the Hinterworlds (Challenge 39)... The Hivers were first to establish a steady trade Route (the one that feeds into the Breyerly Main)

The Hivers would seem more likely to initially extend the hand (limb?) than the Sols would, as they are presented. The other thing to consider is that the Hivers would probably use a human term anyway, in the same method as they name themselves... It may be the "Joe Blow Main" to humans, but among Hivers it would be the "Quarfulav Route" or something...

"Kulgmiak Way?"

I agree Flynn, and think we should make an effort to not make this too automatically humanocentric, it will add much to the project...

 

[Shadowdancer]

I agree as well. That's one of the reasons I started this thread. I think the name of that main should really reflect the sector since it is one of its dominate features. Since the Hivers were probably in the sector first, it's very likely they had a hand, er, flipper, in giving it a name.

 

[Malenfant]

I'm kinda wondering how neither major race has actually absorbed the main into their territory...

I agree that the Hivers would probably have got there and named it first though (Prt'Aow is out of the way at 2310. Dunno if any other minor races are on or near that main)

 

[Flynn]

We can place a minor race on each end of the main, to help provide some insight into possible road blocks to expansion in that direction.

Just a thought,
Flynn

 

[The Hinterworlds Rambler]

Shouldn't the culture on each non-aligned planet be a baiscally minor race unto itself? If they were human colonists cut off by The Long Night, wouldn't they develop their own methods of life after even a short time? I hold up Iceland as a Parable. The Sols and Hivers could be slow to take everything over because:

1. Money. Spica is the ass-end of space for Solomani, and is often last in line for economic boons... frontiers are like that. There is always a gap after initial investment in a colony, investors want to see if it works first...

2. Diversity. The Hivers need to tailor specific manipulations for individual non-aligned systems... which is not always a fast process... this could also spill over into economics, where you have thousands of Manipulators all drawing on Nest Credit for each's pet Manipulations.. . this could get veryexpensive and take some time.

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Baron Saarthuran von Gushiddan:
Shouldn't the culture on each non-aligned planet be a baiscally minor race unto itself? If they were human colonists cut off by The Long Night, wouldn't they develop their own methods of life after even a short time?

I don't think that's how the term is defined - a minor race is a race that is indigenous to a planet that hasn't developed jump drive. Minor Human Races are as above, but they're not technically indigenous to a planet since they were dumped there by Ancients and have genetic differences from others around them.

What you're describing is simply an isolated colony. The culture would have diverged, but a couple of thousand years isn't remotely long enough for them to have diverged genetically.

1. Money. Spica is the ass-end of space for Solomani, and is often last in line for economic boons... frontiers are like that.

Though the Hiver border could be quite lucrative to be near, if there's trade going across it.

 

[The Hinterworlds Rambler]

I mean diverge cultrally, not biologically, though that would happen quicker than we suspect. Gravity alone makes rapid changes in one generation to bone density and growth patterns, if the ancestors adapted and survived these changes, the end result could be dramatic...

I know what the term "Minor Race" means. I am speaking generally. Think of the diversity in different locations on Earth alone. We could look at the non-aligned systems as being "simply" isolated colonies, or worlds unto themselves... I think there should be room for both.

Yes, the Hiver border could be lucrative, but is it easy to manage*? Yes? Well, how about if your government is involved in (or recovering from) several Interstellar Wars or some such? An Alligence code implies that so-aligned worlds are part of a network. A network that could be disturbed by events, radiating outward from the disturbance point.

*and who makes out better overall?

 

[Klaus]

We know there were interstellar polities during the long night. How about a very successful colony, that after 500 years or so is able to set up colonies of its own. So the Hivers enter the sector during the long night and discover a thriving polity on the central main. Perhaps not wanting to show their hand(pseudopod) to the obviously adept Humaniti it decided not to develop into Spica at that time, not being able to take on an established entity (the single J2 route back into their space may have been a factor). So the Hivers concentrated on other parts of their domain.
Some time after this some kind of catastrophe occurs and knocks the mother colony back to pre-jump drive tech. The colonies it set up either die off or struggle on in isolation.
By the time Hivers pay attention to Spica the rest of the Sollies are in the sector. They have tried to take over the central main but the remnant civilisations resist being incorporated into the Sol Sphere, later confed. The indigents on the main worlds of the main are reluctant to join a larger polity where they would be swamped by whats seen as a foreign and alien culture, and perhaps even turn to the Hivers for help. So you'd end up with a difficult region to control, with heavy handed Sollies attempting invasions, blockades, sanctions, coup d'etats, and the Hivers promoting and manipulating indepedendence movements, tampering with trade routes and downright corporate bribery. Neither side can afford to let the other gain a foothold, so an aggressive stalemate would occur.

I think everyone is right; this main is the most important part of the sector, and defining what goes on here will be the key to this project.

 

[Shadowdancer]

As for a name, I was looking through my CT Aliens book on Hivers last night for some inspiration and found something interesting.

Back on the Hiver homeworld there is a burrowing beast called a snohl. The proto-Hivers developed a symbiotic relationship with the snohl, living in their burrows and sharing food with them.

So let's say when the Hivers finally made it into space and developed jump drives, a particularly romantic or poetic Hiver decided the J-1 mains the Hivers encountered winding through space reminded it of the snohl burrows winding through the soil of Guaran. So the Hivers started calling mains snohl, or at least used the same/a very similar ideograph.

When humans encountered Hivers in Spica, it wouldn't be too difficult to imagine a "conversation" something like this:

Human: What do you call this big, long string of J-1 systems running through the middle of the sector?

Hiver (through ideographic translator): Snohl.

Human: The Snohl Main. Has a distinctive sound to it. We'll just put that on our maps.

Hiver (to itself): Ignorant, child-like barbarian.

 

[LcKedovan]

Originally posted by Paraquat Johnson:
As for a name, I was looking through my CT Aliens book on Hivers last night for some inspiration and found something interesting.

Back on the Hiver homeworld there is a burrowing beast called a snohl. The proto-Hivers developed a symbiotic relationship with the snohl, living in their burrows and sharing food with them.

So let's say when the Hivers finally made it into space and developed jump drives, a particularly romantic or poetic Hiver decided the J-1 mains the Hivers encountered winding through space reminded it of the snohl burrows winding through the soil of Guaran. So the Hivers started calling mains snohl, or at least used the same/a very similar ideograph.

When humans encountered Hivers in Spica, it wouldn't be too difficult to imagine a "conversation" something like this:

Human: What do you call this big, long string of J-1 systems running through the middle of the sector?

Hiver (through ideographic translator): Snohl.

Human: The Snohl Main. Has a distinctive sound to it. We'll just put that on our maps.

Hiver (to itself): Ignorant, child-like barbarian.

I like this idea. Not much more to say, I like it when things have "reasons" behind it. It definately has my vote.

-W.