Where are the Frontiers

[Timerover51]

One thing about the Official Traveller Universe that has bothered me for quite a while is the lack of any Frontiers. The unexplored regions where an intrepid crew could strike out and maybe hit the jackpot, or die with no one knowing their fate.

Looking at the Traveller Map, the Imperium is surrounded by the Zhodani, the Vargr, the K'kree, the Hivers, the Solomani sphere, the Aslan, and the Great Rift. There are no Frontiers. If someone wants to check out a subsector, the Traveller Map gives them all of the current data. If you want to work outside of the Imperium, you run into the Zhodani Though Police, the Vargr corsairs, the carnivore-exterminating K'kree, the manipulative Hivers, the anti-Imperial Solomani, and the carnivore Aslan. None of those appear to be terribly conducive to a long and happy existent.

 

[GypsyComet]

All of those qualify as "frontiers", though. "Here be dragons" territory is a bit farther out, unless you write your own Foreven that way, or make use of the many non-aligned systems in Gateway.

Space, as the saying goes, is big. Really big.*

While your fate probably won't go unknown for long if you are within ten or fifteen parsecs of a major homeworld or capital, outside of those areas the permanent populations often amount to a small town every six light years, and sometimes fewer people than that. Several of the Imperial subsectors in the Marches have fewer people than the one planet we now live on, and between those small points of light it can get very dark indeed.


----
* Thank you, Douglas Adams

 

[salochin999]

Some alternatives

1) go up

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5108/5596777686_112b5bee23_z.jpg

secret prototype ship with both a vertical aligned and horizontal aligned jump drive sent on a five year mission...

(the five year bit could be literal if the vertically aligned drive will only work when the orbits of two planets on two vertically aligned systems on two different planes are aligned)

2) go back in time to the early days of the Vilani and start on Vland during the earliest days of their expansion

3) ignore the 3I, start on Terra and have humans be the first to space (or keep the Ancients but say they never reached as far as Earth and the first Ancients sites are discovered some distance from Terra

4) not really frontier exactly but wild west enough for me, shrink the 3I internally to the important systems and the trade routes between them and have dragons in the gaps

 

[rancke]

One thing about the Official Traveller Universe that has bothered me for quite a while is the lack of any Frontiers. The unexplored regions where an intrepid crew could strike out and maybe hit the jackpot, or die with no one knowing their fate.

Looking at the Traveller Map, the Imperium is surrounded by the Zhodani, the Vargr, the K'kree, the Hivers, the Solomani sphere, the Aslan, and the Great Rift. There are no Frontiers. If someone wants to check out a subsector, the Traveller Map gives them all of the current data. If you want to work outside of the Imperium, you run into the Zhodani Though Police, the Vargr corsairs, the carnivore-exterminating K'kree, the manipulative Hivers, the anti-Imperial Solomani, and the carnivore Aslan. None of those appear to be terribly conducive to a long and happy existent.

The Imperium has no genuine frontiers. It's long been considered one of the weaknesses of the setting, a big mistake on the part of GDW.

Frontiers are all around Charted Space. You just have to get outside the regions that surround the Imperium, to the far sides of the Confederation, Consulate, Extents, Hierate, 2000 Worlds, and Federation. There is no dearth of places to put an explorer campaign. The only real problem is that you'll have to create 99+% of the campaign setting yourself.


Hans

 

[Enoff]

Yes, I think this has been touched on in some other threads, the zealousness of people wanting to fill out every detail of the Imperium has left nothing unknown. I suppose you could go up or down, that would give you a lot to explore.

I've been having fun looking at the GURPS Space Atlases, they are independent sub sectors with no specific location but give lots of details and planetary maps. I think maybe the same you could do with creating something similar with the Traveller rules. Maybe they don't have to fit in any specific location in the Imperium, just give some vague references.

Much like how Andre Norton describes her Space Universe, there are references to certain specific systems but not a detail reference to exactly where they are.

 

[rancke]

Yes, I think this has been touched on in some other threads, the zealousness of people wanting to fill out every detail of the Imperium has left nothing unknown. I suppose you could go up or down, that would give you a lot to explore.

No, that's not it. There are plenty of blank spaces throughout the Imperium, let alone Charted Space. The difference is that with a true frontier, if a player asks, "What's in that star system there?", the answer is "Nobody knows." But for a place like, for example, the Trojan Reach, if a player asks "What's in that star system there?", the answer is "I don't know. No one has detailed it yet. However, merchants and scouts and explorers have been criss-crossing the Trojan Reach for 700 years, so the knowledge is readiliy available in any decent set of library data. I'll figure something out and let you know next session."


Hans

 

[atpollard]

While not a really big fan of the Rebellion as a plot, I very much liked the results from Hard Times where you create pockets of safe space, surrounded by frontiers surrounded by the wilds.

When it came to creating a CT PbP game here (on COTI), I selected three high population worlds from the Traveller map, linked them by a J1 main of member worlds, made everything within J2 'frontier' and everything beyond that ... well, the Traveller map is a just Referee suggestion only, if you want to know for sure, then go explore it.

 

[CosmicGamer]

One thing about the Official Traveller Universe that has bothered me for quite a while is the lack of any Frontiers. The unexplored regions where an intrepid crew could strike out and maybe hit the jackpot, or die with no one knowing their fate.

Looking at the Traveller Map, the Imperium

What is your definition of frontier?

Some dictionary definitions are:
1) a border between two countries
- have that with the Imperium
2) a region that forms the margin of settled or developed territory
- you have this with the 3I setting. I'm sure you can find a moon or asteroid or even a planet that is undeveloped even within the Imperium. You certainly could travel out, or already live on the far edges of mapped space and go exploring.

Considering just the Imperium and it's borders with the Aslan and Vargr could perhaps be like looking at just one country, like France and saying they have no frontier because there is Spain, England and other countries on their borders. The "frontier" is out there, just not on your doorstep.

Often the "frontier" was seen by most people through history as the border of ones own culture and boundaries and learning. A frontier was something to be conquered as there were people already living there. Due to writing, books, and modern technology, it became easier for people to document and share their information. Thus making the "frontier" less unknown.

Perhaps trying to start a human settlement in dangerous and unfamiliar Aslan space not unlike going west during early America times and settling America amongst the Native Americans.

I don't know my canon, but just because information is available in game materials for the GM, on the map and in setting books, does the Imperium know it? Is this information acquired from actual scout missions to every single system of what is often an enemies territory? Was it gathering via espionage? In times of peace from the race you've encountered? Is it accurate? Does someone from the Imperium need to go check?

For the real unknown frontier, places no known intelligent species has explored, you have to keep in mind that jump ships are common transportation in this setting. It would be like in our current day saying lets get in a plane and go explore the frontier.

To explore further one likely needs to be a government or corporately backed exploration operation and not as likely the intrepid crew on a retired scouts ship. A long, dangerous trip to the totally unknown frontier likely takes a bit of planning and building specialized ships and uses well trained crew.

But when you reach this new location, low and behold, you very well may meet your native American, Eskimo, or Asian parody. A newly encountered intelligent species or even other mankind that have already explored vast areas and they have contact and shared information with others that live well within your peoples "frontier". Instantly a vast track of the "frontier" the size of all currently known space could be gone.

 

[creativehum]

One thing about the Official Traveller Universe that has bothered me for quite a while is the lack of any Frontiers. The unexplored regions where an intrepid crew could strike out and maybe hit the jackpot, or die with no one knowing their fate.

Looking at the Traveller Map, the Imperium is surrounded by the Zhodani, the Vargr, the K'kree, the Hivers, the Solomani sphere, the Aslan, and the Great Rift. There are no Frontiers. If someone wants to check out a subsector, the Traveller Map gives them all of the current data. If you want to work outside of the Imperium, you run into the Zhodani Though Police, the Vargr corsairs, the carnivore-exterminating K'kree, the manipulative Hivers, the anti-Imperial Solomani, and the carnivore Aslan. None of those appear to be terribly conducive to a long and happy existent.

Folks,

If one reads the words of timerover's post it isn't terribly difficult to determine what he means.

1) Outside the boundaries of the default setting of play (in this case The Third Imperium.)
2) Unexplored by citizens of the Imperium
3) The subsectors might be populated, but not with civilizations on par with the Interstellar community. Thus, no J-Drives or already established interstellar community. Thus, they are "wild" in some way.

It is true many people who explored new lands in the past did so by bumping into people who were already there. But the regions were new, unexplored, novel, and uncertain to the point-of-view of those who did the exploring.

With all the alien/foreign civilizations surrounding the Imperium, trade talks have already occurred, wars have already occurred, and so on.

I think timerover is asking: What about the explorations of Lief Erikson, Sir Captain Richard Burton, Marco Polo? Or, as fictional example, Blackthorne from Shogun.

Again: Alien, new, novel, and unknown from the point-of-view of the explorer and his or her culture. Stuff that isn't and can't be contained in Library Data, since no one has yet had the opportunity to encounter it, let alone write it up.

 

[tzunder]

Maybe try the Outer Veil setting from SPICA which is very definitely a frontier rich setting in all respects.

But I challenge your view of frontier. On Earth all frontiers were between known peoples, and there are vast spaces between the polities in the Imperium and plenty of space to add new systems.

 

[whulorigan]

Again: Alien, new, novel, and unknown from the point-of-view of the explorer and his or her culture. Stuff that isn't and can't be contained in Library Data, since no one has yet had the opportunity to encounter it, let alone write it up.

Let's look at it from this standpoint: Just because there is data on TravellerMap (or said data was taken from a published supplement, canonical or otherwise), does that mean the region necessarily has to be well known to Imperial citizens via Library Data? Could one look at it from the standpoint that the data is there, but the farther you move from Imperial borders, the less certain the data is (or perhaps only the physical data is actually known - the sociological data is what the PCs will find if they go there).

Once you move out thru the Outrim Void in Trojan Reach, how well is the information known to average citizens (or how up to date is the IISS Library Data)?

Is it reasonable/workable that the Trojan Reach, The Beyond, and the Vanguard Reaches are really the outlying frontiers of knowledge (and Touchstone is sporadic Aslan territory). Are Iphigenaia, Theron, and Theta Borealis, to name a few, really known quantities, or are they merely rumor based on old data? Or is the TravellerMap data accurate, but unknown to PCs & current Library Data?

Just because the data is on TravellerMap or in a Supplement, does not necessarily mean that it is well established current IISS Library Data from the standpoint of PCs or Imperial Trade.

 

[Vargas]

I guess when people say "frontier" they tend to mean "un/underexplored space".

That's the problem with frontiers, they're so far away . . .

 

[McPerth]

While not a really big fan of the Rebellion as a plot, I very much liked the results from Hard Times where you create pockets of safe space, surrounded by frontiers surrounded by the wilds.

When it came to creating a CT PbP game here (on COTI), I selected three high population worlds from the Traveller map, linked them by a J1 main of member worlds, made everything within J2 'frontier' and everything beyond that ... well, the Traveller map is a just Referee suggestion only, if you want to know for sure, then go explore it.

Also Millieu 0 has many frontiers to explore. There may be records of systems' physical layout, but from the social POV, it's a true frontier.

 

[GypsyComet]

As has already been pointed out, Jump Drive has been common for some ten thousand years. That's a feature, not a bug.

Charted Space is structured with a large state (the Imperium) in the center, surrounded by its neighbors and competitors. Traveller's oldest offspring, the Battletech universe, has five states that all radiate outward from Earth. 2300AD does something similar. In each case this is a feature, not a bug.

The Imperium and those neighbors given to exploration do so as a state function in most cases. The Vargr and Aslan are the notable exceptions, but benefit from having wild frontiers of their own.

One subsector beyond the Imperial border is farther than the vast majority of Imperials will ever go or care about. One sector beyond the Imperial border is farther than they will have heard about. Two sectors beyond the Imperial border is farther than even the Survey has gone in some directions. By four sectors you're out beyond the casual reach of the Vargr, well past the Spinward Clients, and out in the Barrens beyond the Solomani, though still in the back country of the Aslan, Hiver, and K'kree territories. By six or seven sectors you are beyond them all, and approaching the estimated limit of Grandfather's realm. This region has UWP coverage mostly as a game artifact. Explorers will be hard-pressed to cover much beyond isolated chains or clusters.

Only two documented exceptions exist. The Zhodani Core Expeditions to coreward are mapped, while the Solomani Orion Expedition to rimward is not. The reasons are simple. The Zhodani have followed their road many times and keep records, while the single Solomani expedition has not returned.

 

[creativehum]

As has already been pointed out, Jump Drive has been common for some ten thousand years. That's a feature, not a bug.

Absolutely. The geographical implications of the setting are determined by the kind of setting GDW created. And what GDW created is a massive beast focused on the geopolitical scale of, say, a EUROPA-like board game. Exploration wasn't a focus. The machinations (political, military) of running a big empire with enemies pressing in around you was the focus.

The Imperium can't be all things to all people for all kinds of stories -- because it is this thing, well built as that thing, with all the specific implications that underly the history and structure of the Third Imperium.

And, as several have pointed out in this thread, the unexplored regions beyond the frontiers are there. By definition there are star systems beyond what has been mapped.

A Referee and a group of players can easily agree to set up a situation that begins, "You've traveled this far, after years of work, close-calls, adventure, secrecy, and skullduggery, and now are fitting a ship for travel beyond the borders of known space."

The PCs could still be from the Imperium. They will have traveled through the terrain of other known civilizations to get there, but they are now beyond even those world, a last outpost beyond the borders of the Vargr Extents or the Solomani Sphere, for example, that most people would not even know about, let alone believe exists.

The citizens of this outpost think that they are at the end of all civilization, as wilderness as it gets. And they watch in awe as the PCs prepare a ship to go into space unknown even beyond what they know.

It all can be done. The Referee simply has to want to do the work of sorting out what is out there...

And then the ship takes off, the Referee establishes how long it take before something interesting happens (a threat of some kind, an opportunity of some kind)...

And play begins.

 

[WistfulD]

Overall, I agree. GDW fell victim to the temptation to put something, vague or explained, around the edge of known space. That's not entirely silly for a 10,000 year-old starfaring civilization.

For me: Similar to "going up," I view the 2-D map we have as being an attempt to squash a 3-D universe onto a 2-D representation, which clearly skews data. It gives a good represenation of the distance between things, but not relative position. That means that there are at least two surfaces to the imperium that are undefined.

 

[Shonner]

One thing about the Official Traveller Universe that has bothered me for quite a while is the lack of any Frontiers. The unexplored regions where an intrepid crew could strike out and maybe hit the jackpot, or die with no one knowing their fate.

Not every planet is well known/explored. And there are earlier Imperiums to use as setting.

 

[shadowcat20]

Until recently J5 was top except for a few planets.

For an idea take a J6 scout with drop tanks and very long range scanners and prowl the edges of rift space looking for planets J6 or 7 away. Spot a system, refine data, fill tanks, and jump into the unknown. Ship will have to be a flying fuel tank and have made sure of refueling point at destination...but....there is a chance for lost systems or systems too far out to visit until now. Even a J4 drive with 2 loads of fuel are all that is needed. Smaller drive means smaller power plant and less tonnage.

 

[Blue Ghost]

One thing about the Official Traveller Universe that has bothered me for quite a while is the lack of any Frontiers. The unexplored regions where an intrepid crew could strike out and maybe hit the jackpot, or die with no one knowing their fate.

Looking at the Traveller Map, the Imperium is surrounded by the Zhodani, the Vargr, the K'kree, the Hivers, the Solomani sphere, the Aslan, and the Great Rift. There are no Frontiers. If someone wants to check out a subsector, the Traveller Map gives them all of the current data. If you want to work outside of the Imperium, you run into the Zhodani Though Police, the Vargr corsairs, the carnivore-exterminating K'kree, the manipulative Hivers, the anti-Imperial Solomani, and the carnivore Aslan. None of those appear to be terribly conducive to a long and happy existent.

Imperial frontiers tend to be rare, but they exist. If you check Travellermap.com There're two "desert" regions between the Imperium and two of her neighbors. One is between the Imperium and Aslan space, the other is Coreward and Trailing of the Imperium "east" of the Vargr enclaves. There are also the plethora of client states trailing the Imperium between them, K'Kree and Hiver space.

I wrote some fighter pilot Traveller fiction for the Vanguard Reaches. To me that area and beyond are huge frontiers.

The Imperium itself is mostly land-locked, but not quite. You just need to use a little imagination.

 

[flykiller]

mora. year 465 imperial.

"well? what do we do?"

three admirals sat at the table. the holodisplay was blank, the senior scout having finished his presentation and being now in the next room. he'd given the presentation like any other, as if he were describing just another world to be added to the thousands the imperium already ruled. dry sense of humor for a scout.

"well?"

"if we gather the fleet and assault it ..."

an admiral gestured at the blank display. "assault that? we'd be destroyed and there's no telling what it would do if we woke it up!"

silence.

"send a delegation to the darrians, see if they really do have the technology to force a star to go nova. that would clear the problem."

"the star trigger is a myth, and even if it works it would kill the entire region."

"might be the best answer, nova's only affect their local area."

local area. six subsectors, sterilized. god have mercy.

"no. I won't be responsible for that, and if the technology might exist and might be intercepted then I won't be responsible for that either. we have to contain it."

"what, redzone the star system? that won't work, we'll have every harebrained adventurer and desperate trader jumping in-system just to see what we're hiding."

"we take it off the list before we submit the master survey." bright, happy smile.

"that's ... that's crazy! you can't hide a star system, it's right there for everyone to see!"

the senior admiral stirred. "after the master survey charts are submitted, does anyone look at anything but the navigation data?"

"sir, we can't just erase a chart entry and hope nobody finds it!"

"can we do anything else?"

no answer.

he looks at the door behind which the scout is waiting. "have to erase more than a chart." he looks at the other two. "handle it personally, bob."

"yes sir."



extolay. year 1095 imperial.

"and the next one, son?"

the boy carefully adjusted his telescope, manually training it on his target as his planet rotated and swung his view across the stars.

"victoria, synthart, ghandi, all adjacent systems or nearly so." he looked up. "they're all interedicted. that's unusual, isn't it?"

"ghandi isn't but it should be. I transited through there once, a terrible place. if you pass your scout service navigation exams you'll transit through it too someday. now. what are the systems beyond those?"

"wait." the boy looks from his scope to his charts and back again. "there's another star there in that group. it's not on the chart. what system is that?"