Why didn't Vland expand coreward or spinward?

[McPerth]

I was reviewing MT:V&V and in page 11 there's a map of what was the first Imperium.

It calls my attention that the expansion from Vland can be hardly seen as radial, as they expanded rimward and trailing quite farther than Coreward or spinward. While they stopped short of Terra (so about 4 Imperial sectors) in their Riward expansion, they just expanded a single sector Coreward. Similarly, while they expanded about 3 sectors trailing, they nearly didn't expand spinward.

Of course, the Windhorn Rift precluded them to expand on the core-spinward direction, but they could well border it, and expand through Corridor (where they seem not having even probed) and Meshan (whose rimward half they colonized) to Gzaefueg Sectors...

Not having real barriers (as they did in the Great Rift), nor any opposition, it would be expected (at least IMHO) for them to expand in a more radial way to every posible direction.

After all, if they had reached coreward as far as they did spinward they'd reached even farther, and spinward they'd reached up to Foreven (and they would have engulfed even Lair, probably preventing Vargr from becoming a major race).

Is there any given explanation for this greater expansion rimward an trailing that they did coreward or spinward (where they could have easily go thorugh Corridor)?

 

[GypsyComet]

While pre-Consolidation Wars borders are not available (and are non trivial to derive from existing data), the Consolidation Wars have been described as the Vilani chasing down every race or polity with jump drive and absorbing them. When they ran out of competition in every direction, they stopped. The borders would not change again until the Terrans came along much later.

That didn't stop the local Vilani on the borders, as the GT tale of the Yileans illustrates, but even then the Vilani were only J2 capable. The Corridor between the Great Rift and the Windhorn Rift is a tenuous one for J2 at best.

 

[Murph]

Also could it be as a result of Mains since they only had Jump 2?

 

[JBRocky]

Also could it be as a result of Mains since they only had Jump 2?

Was going roughly the same thing. The Vilani just followed the mains at first and went there they took them. Decent link with a lot, including the Vilani main is here http://wiki.travellerrpg.com/Main.

 

[Timerover51]

Might in not also be a straightforward plot device for the game, so as to include Terra?

 

[savage]

I was reviewing MT:V&V and in page 11 there's a map of what was the first Imperium.

It calls my attention that the expansion from Vland can be hardly seen as radial, as they expanded rimward and trailing quite farther than Coreward or spinward. While they stopped short of Terra (so about 4 Imperial sectors) in their Riward expansion, they just expanded a single sector Coreward. Similarly, while they expanded about 3 sectors trailing, they nearly didn't expand spinward.

Odd course, the Windhorn Rift precluded them to expand on the core-spinward direction, but they could well border it, and expand through Corridor (where they seem not having even probed) and Meshan (whose rimward half they colonized) to Gzaefueg Sectors...

Not having real barriers (as they did in the Great Rift), nor any opposition, it would be expected (at least IMHO) for them to expand in a more radial way to every posible direction.

After all, if they had reached coreward as far as they did spinward they'd reached even farther, and spinward they'd reached up to Foreven (and they would have engulfed even Lair, probably preventing Vargr from becoming a major race).

Is there any given explanation for this greater expansion rimward an trailing that they did coreward or spinward (where they could have easily go thorugh Corridor)?

None that I'm aware of but I've always wondered the same thing. The only answer I could come up with is the Vargr.

 

[mike wightman]

The Vilani explored with jump 1 - there is practically no limit to how far you can go with a jump 1 drive and 50% of your hull given over to jump fuel.
But - once you jump into the unknown there are no starports, no spare parts, so 'safe' worlds. Every jump takes you one week away from such amenities, so how far to you risk exploring? One month, six months?
Do you build dedicated self sufficient exploration fleets? Who pays for them and why?

The Vilani built their Imperium slowly, the consolidation wars to establish its ultimate authority lasted over a thousand years. There is a good chance they printed 'here there be dragons' or the Vilani equivalent on their star charts to stop exploration much beyond the safe borders they established.

The next question could be why none of the lesser races had any interest in exploration beyond the ZS...

 

[savage]

The Vilani explored with jump 1 - there is practically no limit to how far you can ...The next question could be why none of the lesser races had any interest in exploration beyond the ZS...

Well. Could be they we're compelled not too or the Vilani did not respect their scouting activities.

 

[McPerth]

Also could it be as a result of Mains since they only had Jump 2?

But, according to the same map, they expanded into The Narrows, Corridor by crossing several J2 gaps, and there they stopped short of another main. They did not have this problems when expanding rimward/trailing...

Might in not also be a straightforward plot device for the game, so as to include Terra?

Sure, but that's a true metagaming explanation, not one that makes too much sense in OTU history sense.

None that I'm aware of but I've always wondered the same thing. The only answer I could come up with is the Vargr.

According the timetable in the same book (pages 60-61), the Vargr discovered jump drive in -3810, while consolidation wars began in -5420 and the First Imeprium was established in -4045. So, the Vargr could not be the cause, as they were still not a starfaring race (and have they been so, they will be attacked in the consolidation wars policy by the Vilani).

 

[savage]

According the timetable in the same book (pages 60-61), the Vargr discovered jump drive in -3810, while consolidation wars began in -5420 and the First Imeprium was established in -4045. So, the Vargr could not be the cause, as they were still not a starfaring race (and have they been so, they will be attacked in the consolidatio nwars policy by the Vilani).

Good point. I was not thinking of corsair forces and i did not check MT:Vilani and Vargr.
Canon could be weak on this. We don't know that they did not encounter Vargr offshoots. We have numerous human offshoots in charted space. Vargr offshoots have never been that clearly defined in the concave or closer to 1I. Starfaring and spacefaring are two different things.

It seems unlikely that the Ancients only tried one variation of the Vargr.

This is just an alternative thought. Vland may have wanted to fill in the "inner sphere" prior to expansion. They are planners. Using J1 routes is fine but J2 also go through Corridor sector. Perhaps the initial subsector worlds were not as rich as their rimward discoveries.

 

[mike wightman]

The Ancients had a couple of Vargr experiments - there is a rather good DGP adventure...

 

[GypsyComet]

It seems unlikely that the Ancients only tried one variation of the Vargr.

This is just an alternative thought. Vland may have wanted to fill in the "inner sphere" prior to expansion. They are planners. Using J1 routes is fine but J2 also go through Corridor sector. Perhaps the initial subsector worlds were not as rich as their rimward discoveries.

The Vargr preying on their Yilean allies and appearing in Corridor have been characterized by the Vilani as mysterious, suggesting that it there were other surviving branches of the Vargr, the Vilani hadn't run across them.

One thing to remember is that the Ziru Sirka is already so big that it is essentially three states, each run by one of the Bureaux. At J2 even those take a long time to get across and need a vast bureaucracy to run to the Vilani taste. There is no telling how conquered the member races stayed, either. That period's history is written by the Vilani, so any unrest would have been swept under the rug.

As such, the answer may well be that the Vilani had their hands full with what they had and didn't *want* more. The Yileans were given jump drive and culturally and genetically drowned by the Vilani, but never absorbed. That suggests that post-Consolidation Wars the Vilani were more willing to return to their old patterns of cultural Darwinism without the pesky need to administrate their new friends.

At least in that direction. Individual traders certainly explored beyond the borders, and occasionally got lost. There's a lost colony in Deneb, for example.

 

[savage]

Mike, Gypsy you've both pointed our very important details.
Thanks for checking.

So, how well did the Viliani do against the Terrans? Any confrontation with a major race seems to be a problem for them. What if they saw signs of Vargr
on several worlds and stopped. Perhaps scouts we're instructed not to allow the drives to be captured. 1000 years is a long time for all we know the Vargr had sent our generation ships at some point.

I don't go for the Scorched World hand wave. An outnumbered Vilani finding hostile Vargr spacerace worlds may have chose to avoid contamination by accidentally providing Jump drive.

 

[McPerth]

What if they saw signs of Vargr on several worlds and stopped. Perhaps scouts we're instructed not to allow the drives to be captured. 1000 years is a long time for all we know the Vargr had sent our generation ships at some point.

I don't go for the Scorched World hand wave. An outnumbered Vilani finding hostile Vargr spacerace worlds may have chose to avoid contamination by accidentally providing Jump drive.

Again according V&V timeline, Vilani discover jump drive in -9235. By this time Vargr are just primitives at most (they reach TL1 in -8100).

So, should they have reached Lair in the first millenium of expansion, they would have been another low tech subjugated race, and should Vlad have been aware of them by the time of consolidation wars (-5420), even while Lair has not even reached TL5 (it was in -4200), they shure had recoginzed Varg as a potential thread and subjugated them. So I guess they had not reached Lair.

So I'd discard the Vargr as the reason for it.

Without any natural barrier nor powerful neighbours to stop you, the logical expansion by the Vilani would have been in all possible directions (avoiding rifts, off course). But we find that they expanded over 150 parsecs rimward and about 100 trailing, but only about 30 in the coreward-spinward direction. This represents expanding about 5 times more in one direction than the opposite one, and that's a big anomaly, to say the least.

See that this made the core-spinward border acceptably close to their capital, while the rimward one was over a year communications away, even at J2.

Of course it may be that in the initial expansion they only reached those about 30 parsecs, and they only found threatening races to subjugate in the Consolidation Campaigns in the rimward-trailing direction, so devoting there their efforts, but I see that unlikely.

 

[Condottiere]

Chinese history might be more relevant than Roman one.

 

[savage]

I'm not even mentioning Lair. Or a starfaring Vargr race. :rofl:

Perhaps the Zulu Wars is another example of a superior technology getting stopped by "not so weak" primitives.

 

[aramis]

Remember... the vilani didn't jump to empty hexes until aftee the Interstellar wars.

 

[McPerth]

Remember... the vilani didn't jump to empty hexes until aftee the Interstellar wars.

So they were limited to the Vilani Main until they reached J2?

And yet the Vilani timeline in pages 18-19 of MT:V&V says Vilani economic sphere reached 60 parsecs (not clear if radius or diameter) in -6000, and they didn't discover J2 until -5420.

So they did expand up to 60 parsecs (and not only as exploration) with J1, and I don't see it easy unless some stoping in empty spaces is done...

 

[mike wightman]

The Vilani first began exploration and colonisation with STL ships.

With the high fractional c drives of the jump era they could use STL to establish bases in empty hexes by moving stuff through normal space - it may take a decade or two to establish the calibration base but if it joined up mains it may have been worth doing.

 

[GypsyComet]

Remember... the vilani didn't jump to empty hexes until aftee the Interstellar wars.

The map and timeline make it clear that this was not the case.

The Vilani clearly had the ability to bridge j2 gaps or the contacts that led to the consolidation wars would never have happened in the first place. The Vilani Main goes nowhere near their two primary competitors, the Suerrat and Geonee.

What they weren't doing was jumping into empty space. There is a difference.

Painstakingly located rogue worlds, icy bodies, and brown dwarf stars would have provided the bridges. The VIlani maintained or, when necessary, switched to new bridges over thousands of years, but kept them secret when they could. This didn't stop those who had bought their jump drives, though. Some would find their own bridges or discover the Vilani paths. Second and third generation customers might have been well beyond the Vilani nav charts, and we know how far they got by the shape of the First Imperium.

Then came Jump-2. The Vilani used that strategic advantage to defeat and absorb every other race and polity that had Jump Drive that they could find; either Vilani or Geonee. The Zhodani, K'kree, and Hivers were too far away to find. The conditions of Consolidation included limited trade and travel, and the removal of those deep space bridges from most navigational databases. The Vilani no longer needed them, and missing them kept the client races localized. No extensive database of old bridges existed for the rimward edge of Vilani space because they hadn't set foot in the region until after developing J2, and the Vegans hadn't gotten very far.

Then along came the Terrans, with their strong tradition of observational astronomy and navigation by the stars...