Season Four encountered the Essaray as the cause of the Barren Worlds, building to a season finale in which the Siblings faced almost certain destruction.
Season Five continues the interaction with the Essaray and ultimately divines their secret.
The travellermap references came from pg 417 of the Traveller 5 hardback book. The note at the bottom indicates the map is in the "Secret Appendix" of the IISS Second Survey. This appendix has been suppressed by the Scouts as the "threats were more dangerous than the opportunites".
This is not in the 5.09 pdf. As a bad joke, I guess the IISS did a good job. Or Naval Intelligence...
:rofl:
Note that MgT2 has apparently misspelled the name: according to T5, they are the Essaray, not Esseray. And I am not saying this simply to nit-pick, but I believe it is important in order to interpret who they are supposed to be.
As noted, on the T5.00 CD (p. 417) there is the IISS "Secret Map" from the time of the IISS Second Survey (ca 1065), which noted the "Essaray", along with a number of other populated regions about the galaxy with accompanying "redacted" text. On the original T5 CD, there is an earlier version of this map that labelled this area "SRAL". "Essaray" is fairly clearly a "spelled out" version of "S-R-A-L" (the "L" having been dropped in the final version).
So what is SRA(L)? I have pored over the redacted parts of the Secret Second Survey text for quite sometime after T5's publication, and have been able to reconstruct about 35% of it with a fairly high degree of confidence level. I did this by looking closely at those parts of the letters that rise above and fall below the strike-thru, and logically deducing from the grammar and logic flow of the sentence (and a bit of intuition) what certain words most likely were, which often in turn suggested further words surrounding those that fit the parts of letters in accompanying text.
My reading of the part about the Essaray and the Barren Arm is as follows ("recovered" text is in bluebold italics):
ESSARAY: Explorers have seen evidence of Self-Replicating _________________________________ worlds and sending missions to ____________ ________ Level 29 Threat.
THE BARREN ARM: For reasons which are unclear, the occurrence of intelligent life on worlds of the Scotum Crux Arm is at least an order of magnitude lower than in other Arms.
S = Self R = Replicating A = Artificial (?) / Android (?) L = (Life) (?)
I did all of this prior to the publication of AotI. The information we get from MgT2 Starter Set about the Esseray [sic] merely serves to confirm it for me.
The Essaray are the "androids" in AotI that were constructing the vessel on Dathsuts/Vland 1703.
What intrigues me is the note about being a "Level-29 threat". IIRC, an Agent was activated by Imperial Standing Orders at about a Level-8 threat, and I think the highest level threat noted in AotI was about Level-14 (?).
Note that MgT2 has apparently misspelled the name: according to T5, they are the Essaray, not Esseray. And I am not saying this simply to nit-pick, but I believe it is important to interpret who they are supposed to be.
Simply masterful analysis. Thank you very much for all of this Wayne. It not only does it slake my curiosity regrading Essaray and other issues, it also makes me want to learn more!
One extremely small nit because I am the board's Official Human Hemorrhoid...
... the android "infestation" Bland scrubs is on Dathsuts/Vland and not Beauniture/Caes. Beauniture is where Bland awakes aboard a long range IISS scout cruiser and witnesses the results of the Empress Wave.
Having even a minor Essaray incursion in the Vland Sector might make raise that threat level past 29...
One extremely small nit because I am the board's Official Human Hemorrhoid...
... the android "infestation" Bland scrubs is on Dathsuts/Vland and not Beauniture/Caes. Beauniture is where Bland awakes aboard a long range IISS scout cruiser and witnesses the results of the Empress Wave.
Having even a minor Essaray incursion in the Vland Sector might make raise that threat level past 29...
Another thing that stands out to me is the potential "scope" of their influence. If you look at the map (either in T5 or on TravellerMap at galaxy-scale), the Essaray are (as Mike pointed out) in the "Northeast". Yet the Galaxiad intro mentions that the Essaray were eventually found to be responsible for the "Barren Arm" in the "Southeast". Those two regional-notations span at least a full quadrant of the Galaxy when combined.
Compare that to the tiny little dot/circle that represents Charted Space.
What intrigues me is the note about being a "Level-29 threat". IIRC, an Agent was activated by Imperial Standing Orders at about a Level-8 threat, and I think the highest level threat noted in AotI was about Level-14 (?).
Another thing that stands out to me is the potential "scope" of their influence. If you look at the map (either in T5 or on TravellerMap at galaxy-scale), the Essaray are (as Mike pointed out) in the "Northeast". Yet the Galaxiad intro mentions that the Essaray were eventually found to be responsible for the "Barren Arm" in the "Southeast". Those two regional-notations span at least a full quadrant of the Galaxy when combined.
Compare that to the tiny little dot/circle that represents Charted Space.
Other than omniscience of the narrator nobody would know. Civilizations in charted space would never have any contact with anything that far away. It would take a year at J6 to cross charted space, decades to reach the margins of the area labeled "Barren Arm."
Coldsleep rotation lets crews live that long. Still, not much time to survey more than a smattering of systems. They wouldn't even know that the area is "barren" of intelligent life (other than to note a lack of radio-band communications noise expected).
"Our 120 year mission report: We collected some rocks and bugs, and took pictures. Didn't meet anybody. I believe we have some back pay coming."
Other than omniscience of the narrator nobody would know. Civilizations in charted space would never have any contact with anything that far away. It would take a year at J6 to cross charted space, decades to reach the margins of the area labeled "Barren Arm."
The Wave of Craziness chapter shows that the Imperium will try.
The Scout mission was 8 years out on 20 year mission.
Being in year 434 they made it to Beauniture on J-4 or less. J-5 is not invented until later.
They are 800 parsecs out from the Imperial border in 8 years.
Which means an "exploration speed" about 100 parsecs a year. You could do it with about 25 jumps a year at J-4. 1 week to jump, 1 week to refuel/explore. If the rate of exploration is constant, at the 10 year mark you will have gone another 200 parsecs out, depending on the durations of side trips like Beauniture. For a total of 1000 parsecs out. Then turn around and spend the same rate exploring and going home.
1 week to jump, 1 week to refuel/explore 25 jumps a year x 4 parsecs per jump x 10 years = 1000 parsecs.
Second Survey takes place after J-5 is invented, so a new scouting expedition would go 25% further out.
1 week to jump, 1 week to refuel/explore 25 jumps a year x 5 parsecs per jump x 10 years = 1250 parsecs.
A J-6 is possible depending on the ship design system you use. If you accept the current Mongoose High Guard System with its options to reduce component volume, then yes. If you use a more standard system maybe not. I always get xBoats with J-6/0-G in my head.
1 week to jump, 1 week to refuel/explore 25 jumps a year x 6 parsecs per x 10 years = 1500 parsecs.
This does not change the calculations much other than it would take 20 jumps in a straight line of J-5 + a few more if you are zig-zagging As long as you can cross the average of 100 parsecs per year...
