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The Dark Nebula Sector maps

plop101

Absent Friend
A topic of some discussion elsewhere; thought I would throw it out
here and see what kind of reaction I would get.

The Dark Nebula maps cause some confusion for those wanting to use the
game as a back drop for Traveller. Two issues come to mind, one is that,
in the game, the players are allowed to change the alighnment of the
maps from game to game. The second issue is the DGP map of the Dark
Nebula sector.

As for the first issue, I'd dispense with the random alighnment of the
maps. Each map has coordinates on it, starting from Vecinos map(0101)
and ending with the Rift Routes map(3220). If you place these
coordinates in their proper order, you should have your maps set up as
follows:

Vecinos Dark Nebula Moralon Aslan Heirate
Solomani Quadrant The Fastnesses Bright Star Rift Routes

While this gives you a map, it does cause other problems. First,
assuming that the galactic directions are being used correctly, that is to
say the top of the map being coreward, the bottom rimward, the left side
spinward and the right side trailing, then the Rift Routes, Aslan Heirate,
and Solomani Quadrant maps all seem to be in the wrong
place. One could rectify by handwaving: boundry lines of the Aslan
Hierate and Solomani Confederation are listed somewhere[IIRC, in
Supplement 8, Library Data A-M] as being indeterminate. One could
concievably assume the Solomani being behind "spinward" of the core
subsector of the Hierate. Dgp's Rats and Cats have the Zodiac colonies
beyond the Hierate Core, why not have other Solomani Quadrant out there
as well? As for the Rift Routes map, the hand wave is easy enough; these
are routes across a rift, but not THE Great Rift. In affect, this would
be Dark Nebula's Lanth subsector.

Since we mentioned Dgp's Rats and Cats, we should mention that that book
had a full sector map with worlds and everything. However, most of the
systems in the Dgp map have absolutely no coordination with systems in
Dark Nebula. Nothing matches; IIRC only Kuzu and Osa are on the Dgp map,
and Osa is in the wrong position relative to Kuzu. My own inclination is
to favor the Dark Nebula game [DNG] maps over the Dgp map, since the DNG
map IS a part of Canon, while the Dgp material is, I guess, in some kind
of limbo like state.

Andy Slack has done a bit using the DNG maps:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andyslack/html/dn.htm

I'm looking at his map, which seems to be inverted 180% from the hand
wave Dark Nebula map. GT campaign, hmmm. I see he has each world
starport level based on the number of jump routes leading to it. I dunno
about that, I'll have to cogitate on it a little while. Otherwise looks
interesting.
omega.gif
 
Originally posted by plop101:
Since we mentioned Dgp's Rats and Cats, we should mention that that book
had a full sector map with worlds and everything. However, most of the
systems in the Dgp map have absolutely no coordination with systems in
Dark Nebula. Nothing matches; IIRC only Kuzu and Osa are on the Dgp map,
and Osa is in the wrong position relative to Kuzu. My own inclination is
to favor the Dark Nebula game [DNG] maps over the Dgp map, since the DNG
map IS a part of Canon, while the Dgp material is, I guess, in some kind
of limbo like state.
Atlas of the Imperium also includes a map of DN sector, and I highly suspect that map (which IS 99.44% canonical) matches Rats & Cats rather than the boardgame (though I've never actually bothered to check). However, since only HiPop worlds are named in AotI you might have some extra wiggle-room there. I'll take a look when I get home tonight...
 
I took a look at these sources (Dark Nebula, AotI, Rats & Cats) last night, and am afraid the maps are so incompatible that there's no possible way to reconcile them. However, we don't really need to: the DNG maps in "The Classic Games" reprint (FFE005) are captioned saying something to the effect of (I'm at work so I'm paraphrasing) 'these maps depict the area around the Aslan homeworld of Kuzu. This mapping was later superceded by Atlas of the Imperium.' So, while you or Andy Slack or anybody else can keep using the boardgame maps IYTU, Official word favors the AotI map (which is also identical to Rats & Cats, btw).
 
Originally posted by plop101:
Since we mentioned Dgp's Rats and Cats, we should mention that that book had a full sector map with worlds and everything. However, most of the systems in the Dgp map have absolutely no coordination with systems in Dark Nebula. Nothing matches; IIRC only Kuzu and Osa are on the Dgp map, and Osa is in the wrong position relative to Kuzu.
Come to that, Kuzu has been in the wrong position relative to Kuzu since Atlas... ;) (Short version: Kuzu is in a different subsector than the one shown in Aslan and far too close to the Hierate border to fit the canon history).

Hans
 
T.Foster writes:
I took a look at these sources (Dark Nebula, AotI, Rats & Cats) last night,
and am afraid the maps are so incompatible that there's no possible way
to reconcile them. However, we don't really need to: the DNG maps in
"The Classic Games" reprint (FFE005) are captioned saying something to
the effect of (I'm at work so I'm paraphrasing) 'these maps depict the
area around the Aslan homeworld of Kuzu. This mapping was later
superceded by Atlas of the Imperium.' So, while you or Andy Slack or
anybody else can keep using the boardgame maps IYTU, Official word
favors the AotI map (which is also identical to Rats & Cats, btw).
So now we have two seperate canon maps? The Book reprints has Dark Nebula as canon.
The Games reprints has Atlas of the Imperium as canon. A rules lawyer could have fun with this.
 
if one of them didn't *specifically* say it had been replaced by the other, sure. Don't loose sleep over it, or let anyone else, either...
 
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