If there's a way to refuel there is no need to 'visit' any of these worlds.
Why have a trans-rift route?
- Thread starter GLΩAMING
- Start date
The system may be under Red/Amber, not just the planet. You can have a Red system notorious for being unkind to intruders, and firing on everything that pops out of jump, much less approaches the planet or gas giants in the system.
Yes, you are technically correct. You COULD travel to any system without ever visiting the main world. Clandestinely suck up the water or methane or what have you, process it into that hydrogen and be on your merry. No one is the wiser you hope (yea right)....
HOWEVER (Muawhahaha)
Zones exist for a reason. Each warns of problems the average traveller may encounter going to that system, not necessarily just the mainworld. Also who zones it and why makes a difference. Also this varies based on the version of Traveller. The Mongoose version is EXACTLY this:
- Amber Zones in the Third Imperium are established by the Travellers' Aid Society. They are not legally binding by Imperial law necessarily, but they tell you that TAS thinks you are disregarding your personal safety. TAS declares a blanket defacto that ALL worlds outside the 3I are Amber Zones.
- Red Zones in the Third Imperium are declared and enforced by the Imperial Navy. Even it is the Scout Service that asks for it, the Navy enforces it. It does not matter who is being protected, the Third Imperium from the natives or the reverse. Marc's novel Agent of the Imperium gives examples of each. This enforcement includes patrolling the gas giants. If you or your ship are identified in a Red Zoned system, you have violated the Emperor's Law and his authorized agents. Be prepared for "Imperial Entanglements".
Outside the Third Imperium you have the others: Client States, Non-Aligned Worlds, other minor empires and the other Major Races. Some assumptions may be safe to make:
- The other Major Races use their own standards and are detailed in their Alien Modules.
- The Client States are kinda sorta trying to be in the Imperium and may be following Imperial standards but who originates the Zone is questionable and you don't necessarily know whose naval assets are enforcing a Red Zone.
- Minor empires are protecting their interests using their standards for Zoning and may enforce using their own ships....
- Non-Aligned Worlds - Who knows ?
Even if the Imperial Navy is not the agency enforcing a Red Zone, one may make some safe assumptions about Red Zones:
If there is no gas giant present, why are you even stopping there for secret refueling?
If the planet is listed as TL 5+, you may be detected by the locals or their "protectors".
If it is TL 7+, they may have rudimentary "modern" spacecraft. At higher TL, they may have increasingly sophisticated ships and weaponry...
Ultimately, you may find your quick safe passage. It is not "Impossible", but it will be the extremely rare exception rather than the rule. A campaign idea in itself even. As previous posters stated, it is valuable as long as the secret is kept. After all, you have found something new that hundreds of years of Scout Service and thousands of years other explorers have not found. And perhaps suppressed....
Those imperial entanglements can include shoot-on-fails-to-immediately-surrender, or even, if you've damaged Imperial assets, say, with a battlefield meson gun, go straight to execute on capture, destroy on sight.
Or, potentially worse, capture, freeze, and relocate orders... when you wake up, it's 5 years later, you're 80+ parsecs from where you were, and your gear isn't with you, just a jumpsuit, a sleeping bag, a pup tent, and new ID card with a number, no name.... and no cash, but that id allows you to get pablum from any imperial base...
Or captured, resuscitated, and relocated to a prison planet. Noting that resuscitation may be "braindumped and loaded into a clone."
Or, potentially worse, capture, freeze, and relocate orders... when you wake up, it's 5 years later, you're 80+ parsecs from where you were, and your gear isn't with you, just a jumpsuit, a sleeping bag, a pup tent, and new ID card with a number, no name.... and no cash, but that id allows you to get pablum from any imperial base...
Or captured, resuscitated, and relocated to a prison planet. Noting that resuscitation may be "braindumped and loaded into a clone."
as for the brain programming, it's been around since CT A06... Expedition to Zhodane. As has cloning as it's in core (TTB 87) at TL 13. (Ironically, the breakpoints on the 86-87 table have us still very emphatically missing almost all the TL 8 elements except Autocannons and Vacc Suits are still beyond us... «snark»and we still can't build a model 1 (because we don't know what it takes to calculate a jump...)«/snark»
It's more recently been retconned that the ability to braintape and encode into a chip has been around since about TL13... perhaps even TL12... see Agent of the Imperium.
And people wonder why I'm so partial to TL-13.
(Narrator: no they don't -- they don't even notice, let alone care.)
Spinward Flow
SOC-14 5K
And here I am mucking around in TL=9-12 for the "challenge" of it.And people wonder why I'm so partial to TL-13.
Yep. Rules-as-written, it's what you've got, most places.And here I am mucking around in TL=9-12 for the "challenge" of it.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
The Imperium has had a TL15 civilian industrial base for over one hundred years by 1105, their military were TL15 in jump technology four hundred years ago.
The Real Challenge is having TL 8- Travellers Travelling in a TL 9+ Campaign.And here I am mucking around in TL=9-12 for the "challenge" of it.
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